We are inclined to consider “criminal events” as exceptional, events which differ to an important extent from other events which are not defined as criminal. In the conventional view, criminal conduct is considered to be the most important cause of these events. Criminals are — in this view — a special category of people, and the exceptional nature of criminal conduct, and/or the criminal, justify the special nature of the reaction against it.
People who are involved in “criminal” events, however, do not in themselves appear to form a special category. Those who are officially recorded as “criminal” constitute only a small part of those involved in events that legally permit criminalisation. Among them, young men from the most disadvantaged sections of the population are heavily overrepresented.