The ontology of the Muslim male offender: a critical realist framework

This article proposes a theoretical framework for thinking systematically about Muslim males' involvement in criminality, derived from the philosophy of critical realism. This theoretical framework is deployed to explore primary data from life story interviews with 17 Muslim male offenders in a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of critical realism 2020-10, Vol.19 (5), p.481-499
Main Authors: Irfan, Lamia, Wilkinson, Matthew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crime
Criminality
Critical realism
Cultural factors
Life history
male
Males
Marginality
Muslim
Offenders
Offending
Ontology
Religion
Role models
Socioeconomic factors
Young men
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Summary:This article proposes a theoretical framework for thinking systematically about Muslim males' involvement in criminality, derived from the philosophy of critical realism. This theoretical framework is deployed to explore primary data from life story interviews with 17 Muslim male offenders in a way that explains the role of structural and cultural factors, as well as individual agency, in participants' involvement in crime at a range of 'emergent' ontological levels. As well as factors in common with offending by young males generally, such as absent role models at home, experiences of socio-economic marginalization, the presence of hypermasculine hegemonic masculinities on the street and an inadequate experience of school, 'unserious' religion and 'religious' justifications for involvement in crime are factored into the ontology of the male Muslim offender as rendering some young Muslim males particularly vulnerable to offending.
ISSN:1476-7430
1572-5138
DOI:10.1080/14767430.2020.1827346