Postmodernism In Relation to Crime And Deviance!

Postmodernism In Relation to Crime And Deviance!

1. No point in trying to explain crime using meta-narratives (grand theories) such as Marxism, Functionalism or Feminism. Treat each criminal act as a unique one off event and describe it in detail. Crime is part of an individuals lifestyle choice, self expression and creativity, available to all of us in a postmodern age. (You may choose an identity as a drug addict, bank robber or prostitute)!

2. Postmodernist argue that we have moved away from the modernist theories associated with the enlightenment towards an era of social and political thought that might be described as chaotic. The notion of 'truth' is problematic. LYOTARD ~ Speaks of the postmodern condition. This is the notion that metanarratives (big theories to explain social reality) have collapsed. We have moved through narratives to metanarratives, and now onto seeing society run and ordered through discourse!

3. FOUCAULT ~ Develops this further and explain how institutionalised 'knowledge' in the instrument of power that pathologies the 'mad' 'criminal' and 'sexually abnormal'. Institutions, but particularly those associated with politics, develop a dominant discourse through which everything is seen and understood. Knowledge is power. BAUDRILLARD ~ Explains how society has moved from reality to hyper-reality in which there is simulacrums. Such Simulacrums make it difficult, or in some cases impossible to tell what is real and what is not!