Building your own lifeboat: Working-class male offenders talk about economic crime

This study examines the ways in which a group of working-class men serving custodial sentences and probation orders for money-related crimes talk abou t criminal activity and the implications of this talk for their gender iden tity. Using a critical social-psychological approach, we carried out nine s emi-structured group discussions in probation centres and one open prison a nd then analyzed the transcripts using a combination of grounded theory and discourse analytic methods. The men critiqued dominant constructions of cr ime and argued that their criminal activity was justified in two related wa ys. First, they drew on a discourse of male breadwinning to argue that they were expected to provide for their families. Second, they argued that thos e now suffering under the broken promises made by the State should not be e xpected to conform to its rules. For the majority of men, earning through c rime was talked about as a last resort and the parameters of 'what they did to whom' were informed by a Robin Hood-type cultural narrative. Finally, t he study contextualizes and critically explores these patterns of discourse and their rhetorical use from a historical and structural perspective.