Class and crime

Question 1

Karl Marx

Question 2

Chambliss

Answer 2

“Crime is not a by-product of an otherwise effectively working political economy: it is a main product of that political economy […] The logic of capitalism is a logic within which the emergence of crime networks is inevitable”

Question 3

Box

Answer 3

Class and Offending
economic conditions and crime - In one of the earliest reviews, Box (1987) examined 50 major econometric studies of the relationship between economic conditions and crime. He found that slightly under two thirds appeared to show a positive relationship between rising unemployment and crime, the remainder showing the reverse.

Question 4

Chiricos (1987)

Answer 4

Class and offending
a ‘consensus of doubt’ - There remains what Chiricos (1987) a ‘consensus of doubt’ about the relationship between unemployment and crime. Whilst there have been some interesting studies focusing on more particular economic measures such as consumption, this is a general field in which clear relationships remain hard to detect.

Question 5

Reiman, 1979

Answer 5

Class and punishment
The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison.

Question 6

Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010

Answer 6

Class and punishment
Quite a clear positive relationship between incarceration levels and income inequality across the developed world

Question 7

Wohlfarth et al. (2001

Answer 7

Class and Victimisation

found ‘a clear relationship between social class and victimisation, with the unemployed showing a higher rate (11%) compared to all other classes combined (6%).’

Question 8

Chesney-Lind and Morash (2013)

Answer 8

She contended that girls’ criminal behavior is different from that of males and that the treatment of females by the criminal justice system is also different.

Question 9

Carlen.

Answer 9

She concluded that working-class women made a class deal and a gender deal that generally kept them under control. The class deal was that they would work hard in exchange for pay which they could then use to pay for consumer goods. The gender deal was that they should do domestic labour and give love and companionship to their husbands, in exchange for love and financial support. Both these deals keep working-class women respectable.
working class women more likely to commit crime when deals were broken
deals as exploitative

Question 10

Bakken

Answer 10

“There are lies, damned lies, and Chinese crime statistics.”
Crime disappears under communism

Question 11

Taylor et al. 1973)

Answer 11

Working class as passive?

Question 12

Sparks, 1980: 159)

Answer 12

“the relations between social structures and economic systems and the criminalization of certain types of behaviour”