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9 Theoretical Criminology 5 (2005)

handle is hein.journals/thcr9 and id is 1 raw text is: ARTICLES Theoretical Criminology Q 2005 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi. www.sagepublications.com Vol. 9(1): 5-33; 1362-4806 DOI: 10.1177/1362480605046658 Contesting criminality Illegal immigration and the spatialization of legality SUSAN BIBLER COUTIN University of California, USA Abstract As a field, criminology has paid insufficient attention to societal processes that obscure the distinction between legality and illegality, decriminalize formerly objectionable behavior or redefine law-breakers as deserving members of society. An analysis of undocumented immigrants' efforts to redefine themselves as legal residents highlights ways that the category of the criminal is rendered unstable, suggests that logics of social control create opportunities to challenge exclusion and shows how law and illegality are entangled. For instance, individuals who are deemed socially dangerous can argue that they are low risk, or can redefine risk, highlighting the social costs of situating offenders exclusively in a domain of illegitimacy. Through such arguments, the licit can seep into and reconstitute the illegal, and vice versa. Key Words contestation * criminality * illegality * immigration * Salvadorans * space Distinguishing offenders from non-offenders has been central to the crimi- nological enterprise since the discipline's founding. Whether identifying characteristics that predispose individuals to commit crimes, calculating crime rates or evaluating the accuracy of the criminal justice system's 5

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