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ABSTRACT
Based on interviews with convicted armed robbers, this article presents their self-reported motivations. Aside from anticipated monetary reward, some of the distinctive foreground qualities of armed robbery, including hedonic thrills, fear arousal and control are revealed. The concept of “crime as defibrillation” is introduced to account for the sensory surge craved by these men to counter a life of systematic structural exclusion, dysphoria, and lack of prospect. Suffering from sensory asystole, it is only the most extreme and risky behavior, in the form of serious violent crime, that can revive a life otherwise flatlining and out of control.
Notes
1 Participants had been asked not to reveal the specific details (times, names, locations) of offenses they had committed but had not been convicted of. Researchers are obligated under section 316 (4) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) to report any crimes an offender confesses to but has not been convicted of should sufficient detail be provided.
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Notes on contributors
Emmeline Taylor
EMMELINE TAYLOR is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Sociology at the Australian National University. She is a criminologist specializing in a number of areas, including armed robbery, residential burglary, and school security. Dr. Taylor has published extensively in these areas including a monograph Surveillance Schools; Security, Discipline and Control in Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and (with Tonya Rooney) Surveillance Futures: Social and Ethical Implications of New Technologies for Children and Young People (Routledge, 2017).