‘Knowing the dance’: the advantages and downfalls of a ‘criminal biography’ in teaching criminology in higher education

Abstract

Abstract This paper argues that the most effective learning of criminological knowledge is through honest and subjective engagements with the discipline. The author explores the dilemmas he has faced as a lecturer when drawing on his own criminal autobiography. His familiarity with criminal culture, combined with an understanding of research ethics, has guided his practice and brings a unique insight to ethnographic criminological research. Perspectives provided by his past are invaluable in engaging students in criminological knowledge and in encouraging them to reveal their own experiences of crime. This practice is risky, however: institutional resistance may be encountered and personal costs can be high.