“I Will be a King There”: Lies, Omissions, and the Maintenance of a Violent Criminal Identity

Understanding prolonged violent criminality necessitates consideration of a person’s cultivated life story, as well as motivations that may not be consciously accessible or explicitly articulated. Crucially, both are shaped within specific sociocultural contexts that impose constraints and provide resources for identity construction. We analyze the life story of “Abdullah,” a former child soldier of the Bosnian war (1992–1995) and a chronic violent persister. We examine the manifest text of Abdullah’s self-narrative—including the distortions, lies, and hyperbolic statements he uses to construct his identity and justify his crimes—and what we interpret as latent meaning in his omissions and points of contradiction. We show that Abdullah draws from culturally available narratives involving masculinity and heroism, and argue that such narratives are also defenses against his anxiety. This work contributes to scholarship on how broader sociocultural narratives and underlying emotional dynamics sustain chronic violent criminality across the life course.