Conclusion: Toward a Literary Criminology

Abstract

It has been in part the objective of this book to return criminology to its narrative origins—a discipline more naturally paired with literature than as a corollary of sociology as its self-proclaimed father. Literary criminology is not a “school” of criminology per se, like the Positivist School, Chicago School, and others discussed in this book, but instead marks a new paradigm for the study of the criminal mind, criminal investigation, and the confluence of criminal, victims, and the criminal justice system that builds on—rather than rejects—other schools their respective methodologies. In recent years, the shift away from what have traditionally been pedantic, statistically based studies of crime, and the development of increasingly interdisciplinary programs of study at universities—criminology being paired with departments such as anthropology, history, and gender studies in many cases—reflects an overdue appreciation of what Arntfield and Danesi (2016) have coined the criminal humanities.