Perverse criminologies: The closet of doctor Lombroso

Abstract

This article argues for the importance of (homo)sexuality to the criminological enterprise. It traces a course of criminological engagement with homosexuality from the works of Lombroso and the early sexologists, through the 'nuts, sluts and perverts' period of interactionism to gay activism and polemic against homophobic violence and discrimination. Criminology is seen to have lumped both the 'criminal' and the 'homosexual' together in its early manifestation before ceding its interest to medicine and the law. In criminology's mid-period, homosexuality is taken up again as part of the interactionist 'sociology of deviance' project before it is dropped again by radicals more interested in the politics of class and race. Currently in criminology sexuality is slowly being granted to women (the young and black were - sometimes jealously? - assumed to have it already) and homosexuality is increasingly admitted to the list of victims of crime. What might be the scope within criminology for gay empiricism, standpointism or 'queer theory'? Moreover, what might this mean for the 'masculinity' turn in some recent criminology?