Social dysfunction, as discussed in chapter 3, may, through interactive analysis, reveal the interconnections of crime and context. More than this, the understanding of crime as choice, where contexts evolve out of dysfunction and subsequent marginalisation, presents possibilities for such an analysis beyond causal and functional models for explaining crime. Through this analysis our understanding of crime need not be driven by preconceptions of crime as dysfunctional, or of human nature as pathologically susceptible to it.

Crime in contexts of social dysfunction seems never far away from situations of marginalisation and situations of constrained opportunity. The dynamics of crime as choice become more apparent in response to marginalisation. Crime relationships can be viewed as a restorative reaction to the contracted opportunities which characterise situations and states of marginalisation. Yet rather than its traditional representation as an indicator of social dysfunction or individual marginalisation, seeing crime as choice, and as relationships generated through choice, reshapes contextual analysis so that the integrative and functional directions of crime are appreciated.

This chapter will begin by exploring the social connections towards crime choices through marginalisation. Although some of the features of dysfunction touched upon in previous chapters will be revisited, we do so in order to identify their interconnection, interaction and dynamics within the context of marginalisation. From this it is both obvious and logical to imagine crime as an essential and explicatory response to marginalisation.