Offender Subjectivity and Moral Liminality in the Aftermath of Crime

Justice processes have often been analysed as ritualised means of restoring moral order and transforming offenders into morally legible subjects. Less attention has been paid to how such processes are experienced by the people proceeded against. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among criminalised people participating in victim-offender mediation in Denmark, this article examines experiences of the suspended period following criminal suspicion. I argue that the aftermath of crime entails a distinct subjectivity, conceptualised as non-linear moral liminality. Rather than moving linearly between moral statuses, my interlocutors embody a condition of prolonged moral ambiguity, shaped in relation to justice institutions. Among my interlocutors, moral liminality is constituted by their (1) marginal position in society, (2) self-perception as not-quite criminal, and (3) indeterminate legal status. By theorising moral liminality as non-linear and enduring, the article explores experiential dimensions of criminalisation and expands anthropological discussions of morality, liminality, and criminality.