1.3 MARXIST AND CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGIES

Question 1

What is ruling class ideology?

Answer 1

Ruling class ideology is a set of distorted beliefs that benefit the economically dominant class in society by portraying capitalist society as fair and based on equality of opportunity. Problems in society are depicted as being created by individuals or outside forces and not by the capitalist system and the inequality and injustice that Marxists believe it creates.

Question 2

How many people were killed in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010?

Answer 2

11

Question 3

Why are white-collar crimes often not prosecuted?

Answer 3

Many are complex and hard to detect

Question 4

Why is pressure on the poor to commit crime particularly strong?

Answer 4

Their income might be insufficient to meet basic needs

Question 5

According to the sociologist David Gordon 1976, what can crime be necessary for?

Answer 5

Survival

Question 6

What does Jeffrey Reiman (2009) claim that crime is a result of?

Answer 6

‘Individual moral failing’

Question 7

What does the traditional Marxist approach not assume?

Answer 7

That laws benefit all members of society or reflect a consensus about values

Question 8

According to The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, how does capitalism maintain control over the majority of the population?

Answer 8

• Ideological dominance through the media; and

- Economic pressures - people want to keep their jobs and pay their mortgages.

Question 9

What did Cohen argue that Skinhead subcultures represent?

Answer 9

A ‘magical recreation of working-class culture’