“Going straight”– challenging the straightness of criminological orientations

• In Event: Emergent Research in Queer Criminology

Abstract

In criminological literature, the notion “going straight” is commonly used and refers to the process of desisting from crime. To go straight is to come clean and to make good. Criminology has devoted a lot of time and energy to come up with better understanding of what it is that makes people go straight. Criminology has a passion for straight life, as, undoubtedly, have the rest of society and its institutions. The notion of going straight has double meaning, although this ambiguity has not been explicitly recognized within criminology. This double meaning is implicitly present in criminological research, where steady, monogamous and heterosexual (straight) relationships are viewed as a central turning point. This paper explores how queer phenomenology (developed by Sarah Ahmed) with its focus on queer and straight orientations can challenge the passion for straightness within criminology.

Author

• Emy Backlin, Stockholm University