NCJ Number
233337
Journal
Crime Prevention and Community Safety Volume: 13 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2011 Pages: 34-52
Date Published
February 2011
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Drawing attention to the significance and relevance of emotions, this article outlines several ways in which emotion and affect connect to criminology, criminal justice, and community safety policy issues.
Abstract
This article focuses on the affective dimensions of crime and victimization. Presupposing that human emotion is important generally in understanding social relations, it operates at two levels. At one level, it explores potentially complementary approaches to the study of human emotion in criminological, victimological, and community safety research and theory. Flowing from these ideas, the author suggests that the subjective, embodied and experiential aspects of doing crime and surviving victimization are crucial in the search for secure and compassionate communities. Examples of emotions that have the potential to stimulate both negative and positive motivations and actions are considered. At this level the article considers human emotion and feeling as a prominent policy concern. While acknowledging the difficulties in the struggle to establish compassionate communities, the importance of cultivating emotions that are likely to enhance safety and promote security, emotions based on empathy and compassion for others are explored. Arguing that gender-sensitive emotions particularly matter to crime prevention and community safety endeavors, this article contributes to a more developed criminological sociology of emotions. (Published Abstract) References