Conclusion: Criminology of Narrative Fiction

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to reflect on the development of the argument for a theory of criminological fiction in the previous six chapters. The chapter opens with an extended example, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006), which demonstrates the way in which the three aetiological values – phenomenological, counterfactual, and mimetic – typically interact in a single narrative fiction. The chapter then summarises my literature review (chapters two and three), my argument for the aetiological values of narrative fiction (chapters four, five, and six), and my exploration of the pedagogic value of narrative fiction (chapter seven). The chapter concludes with an account of the omission of videogame narratives from the criminology of narrative fiction, which is identified as an area for further research.