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Abstract: Creativity and crime may seem like worlds apart, but they have much more in common than intuition may suggest. Criminal and juvenile legal scholars have largely overlooked the connections that exist between the two. This Article brings them to the forefront and considers the legal implications of their overlap in spaces where creativity and crime collide.
In many instances, the line that separates creative acts from criminal ones is thin and arbitrarily drawn, shaped by the discretion and biases of various decision-makers, including police, prosecutors, and juries. Creative acts are mischaracterized as criminal ones. Creative expressions are used as evidence of one’s criminality or dangerousness. These misconstructions are generally harmful, but they cause distinct harm when implemented against adolescents and emerging adults. These young people have developmental traits that naturally heighten their associations with creativity and crime, and also have a developmental need to engage in creativity. That young people, and particularly young people of color, have their creativity criminalized or limited imposes an additional and distinctive developmental harm.
These considerations invite the application of an increasingly influential legal framework for young people called the developmental framework. Implementing this framework in a manner that protects and prioritizes young people’s creativity requires changes in the prosecution and punishment of crime, continued dismantling of the school-to-prison pipeline, and increased opportunities for creativity. Making such changes will not only further young people’s well-being but also help pave the way for systemic changes for all.
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