Positivist criminology, instead sought to find hidden factors and group factors that went beyond individual agency, in early 20th century defeated classical criminology, crime was no longer punished as punitively and now biological and or social factors were blamed for the actions of the individuals and groups. Increasingly positivism made use of statistical techniques, imitating the techniques of natural sciences like physics, chemistry and biology.

Through the influence of the Chicago School of Criminology (Jeffery and Vold, 1958) we see that that use of ethnography is crucial to understand society or groups of people who share certain characteristics. Crime and crime control are being seen now as the means assigned by culture. CC has developed in reaction to certain strands of positivist and classical criminology that focused on quantification and “hard” empiricism and crime control. Max Weber’s theories also greatly contribute to our understanding of Antifa. His main focus on society was the understanding of rationalisation, modernity and disenchantment. (Kauffmann, 2009) Weber has identified enchantment and disenchantment in the era of modernity and post modernity. Weber can be linked to CC if crime is viewed as a way to seek thrills (Berger, 2016), and an attempt to rediscover “magic” in a world of cold rationality and “disenchantment”. Technological advances and increasing knowledge have both been a blessing and a curse on modern society.

Literature Review

Crime can be seen as culture, or culture can be seen as a creator of crime through the lenses of CC. Crime as culture can be observed among subcultures, where crime is a group activity which is caused by the identity of the group. Within criminal subcultures there is a certain set of values, norms, language and appearance that members have to adopt and the crimes that come along with it. (Ferrell and Sanders, 1995)

Criminal subcultures can be shaped by gender, class and various other inequalities. Other things we need to take into account are the authorities who label these subcultures as criminal. Media is responsible for building up the image, the constructions in CC and what perceptions the general public has on certain groups.

Media also plays a huge role in antagonising groups, by looking back at the 50’s and 60’s we can see how moral panic was caused and social problems were blamed on “evil” groups. The media reported violence committed by Hell’s Angels in America whose equivalents were the mods and the rockers in the UK (O’Malley