Persistence and career criminality: Enjoying crime!

<jats:p>Despite its existence as a common-sense category and criminological analytic, the notion of the ‘persistent criminal’ remains theoretically underdeveloped. While there is a notion that particular individuals ‘commit’ to a life of crime, criminology is yet to properly articulate why this is and how it comes to be. Drawing on psychoanalytically inflected discourse theory, this article demonstrates that the clinical categories of psychoanalysis such as subject, lack, identification and jouissance (enjoyment) are useful in understanding persistence and career criminality. The imagined possibility of inhabiting a ‘fantasmatic’ lifestyle becomes unconsciously reinforced by the joyful sensations that accompany aspects of their criminal lifestyle: criminal cultural consumerism, peer group respect and appearing attractive to women. Without being conscious and rationalistic, these processes nevertheless inform self-perception and behaviour at a deep level of being. This article provides a novel explanation for why persistent criminals remain dedicated to their illicit lifestyles.</jats:p>