“If You Want to Get Paid, You’ve Got to Do It”: A Qualitative Study on the Morality of Crime

Although many criminological studies do not make explicit references to morality, judgements around “right and wrong” are implicitly part of criminality. This article seeks to articulate the moral justifications offered by offenders, and to contrast these to the behavioral codes of wider society. Offenders (n = 75) involved in serious organized crime were interviewed in two regions (Glasgow and a county in the North of England), and findings indicate that offenders shared consensus around (a) the “morality of robbing,” where some individuals are deserving of victimization, (b) violence against women and children, which offenders believe as morally wrong, and (c) race-based offences.