‘It’s what you have to do!’: Exploring the role of high-risk edgework and advanced marginality in a young man’s motivation for crime

Abstract

By focusing on one young man’s self-presentations in a secure care unit for young offenders in Denmark, this article explores how his contradictory and incoherent self-presentations can be analysed as meaningful. Drawing on Stephen Lyng’s theory of high-risk edgework and Loïc Wacquant’s theory of advanced marginalization, it is argued that this young man’s engagement in youth crime cannot be fully understood by focusing only on the criminal experience itself. Also, specific social and symbolic relations must be integrated into the analysis to understand his engagement in crime. The article argues that although edgework theory is compelling, it needs further development if it is to capture the full complexity of young people’s motivation for crime.