This book provides a clear and concise introduction to the work of French cultural icon Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) for criminologists, sociologists, and social theorists. The authors approach Lacan as a structuralist rather than a psychoanalyst or psychiatrist, exploring his perspective on the relationships among being, agency, meaning, and structure; his construction of subjectivity; and his register theory, constituted by the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic.

The book begins with an analysis and evaluation of the only substantive criminological deployment of Lacan’s philosophy to date, in the ultra-realist framework developed by Steve Hall, Simon Winlow, and Thomas Raymen. The strengths of this framework suggest that Lacan’s work has even more relevance to crime and harm in the digital age than it did in the 20th century. Lacan for Criminologists picks up where ultra-realism leaves off, engaging directly with Lacan’s Écrits and seminars to demonstrate their value to a critical criminology that is theory-led, evidence-based, and zemiologically-focused.

This book will be fascinating reading for cultural, critical, and ultra-realist criminologists, as well as students and scholars of sociology, cultural studies, and social theory.