Criminological Cinema

The purpose of this chapter is to explain the relationship between pedagogic and aetiological value within the criminology of narrative fiction. The chapter’ focus is on criminological cinema – Hollywood feature films that take crime or social harm or the control of crime or social harm as their subject – on the basis of the relevance of audience size to pedagogic value. Pedagogic value is a function of accessible communication and audience engagement and both of these features are enhanced by the characteristic realism of the cinematic mode of representation and the mythic storytelling characteristic of the Hollywood film industry. The chapter concludes with a demonstration of pedagogic value that employs Martin Brest’s Beverly Hills Cop (1984) as a case study.