studies, critical theory and ethnographic methodologies. CC was developed by Ferrell & Sanders (1995) and employed as well by Redhead and Kane in the late 90’s. Three decades before Ferrell & Sanders gave more attention to the role of culture in crime, Cohen in 1971 wrote of subjective meaning in culturally informed criminological issues (Cohen, 1971). CC expands the agenda that Cohen wrote about by including and exploring complex attributions and the importance between media, political affiliations, subcultures, etc. Generally the field takes into account factors that give identity and meaning to groups. Theorists also argue that culture is the result of social factors like class and ethnicity. (Ferrell, Hayward and Young, 2008, p2) CC acknowledges the importance of popular culture constructions and the portrayal of cultures in the mainstream media. Cultural Criminology also takes account of the development of globalisation and modernity in society, which leads to uncertainty and diversity in society, ultimately leading to the phenomenon explained as Drift and Vertigo by Jeff Ferrell.
There are a number of influences on the development of Cultural Criminology. CC as a school of thought was heavily influenced by the Chicago School of Criminology. Chicago was a rapidly evolving and growing city due to globalisation and immigration. Many European refugees fled the World Wars and moved to the United States, and many of them to Chicago. The rise in population and in crime has oriented the students of Chicago University to study society and find the common ground for crime. The students used ethnography to study people in their natural setting, without being interrupted, and have studied the way groups behave. The study of the context of crime and also the use of ethnography were key factors in the Chicago School that influenced CC.
Another big factor leading to the development of CC was a reaction against the kind of pragmatic, positivist criminology that arose in the late twentieth century. The larger history of criminology helps us to understand this.
In the late 20th century a variety of criminological styles had influenced the study of crime. We had criminology focusing on the individual, in late 19th century and early 20th century we had Cesare Lombroso write about the Criminal Man (Lombroso and Lombroso, 1972)and Criminal Woman (Lombroso et al., 2004) and almost every question that Lombroso raised about mental illness and crime are questions that we still ask ourselves today.
Another style of Criminology in the 19th and the early 20th century was Classic
