Class Power and Crime

Question 1

Marxism Theories of Crime

Answer 1

CRIMINOGENIC CAPITALISM
THE STATE AND LAW MAKING
IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF CRIME AND LAW

Question 2

Capitalist society is criminogenic

Answer 2

CAPITALIST society emphasises economic SELF-INTEREST, PROFIT and GAIN
Crime is an ‘IN-BUILT’ and ‘natural’ result of the greed for personal gain
CRIMINOGENIC means that capitalism CREATES crime

Question 3

David Gordon

Answer 3

CAPITALISM is characterised by CLASS INEQUALITIES in the distribution of things such as; WEALTH, income, poverty, UNEMPLOYMENT and homelessness
He suggests that most WORKING-CLASS crime is a REALISTIC and RATIONAL response to these inequalities

Question 4

Marxists argue most crime is a LOGICAL response to economic DEPRIVATION
and feelings of HOSTILITY
and envy towards the
wealthy.

Answer 4

POVERTY may mean that CRIME is the only way
the working class can SURVIVE.
Crime may be the only way they can obtain the CONSUMER GOODS they are encouraged by advertising to buy, resulting in utilitarian crimes such as THEFT.

ALIENATION and lack of CONTROL over their lives may lead to FRUSTRATION and aggression, resulting in non-utilitarian crimes such as VIOLENCE and
vandalism.

Question 5

Capitalist society is criminogenic for the middle class aswell….

Answer 5

The need to WIN at all costs, or go out of business, along with the desire for SELF-ENRICHMENT, encourages the middle class to engage in crime such as TAX EVASION and breaches of HEALTH AND SAFETY laws

Question 6

The state (government) and law making

Answer 6

Marxists argue that most (but not all) laws
are made by the state to benefit the ruling class.

The bourgeoisie is able to keep its power partly through its ability to use the law to criminalise working class activities

Whereas, actions of the ruling class like environmental damage caused by pollution and oil spills, underpaying workers or threatening health and safety of workers are seen as less serious and have fewer laws controlling them, even though they cause more damage!

Question 7

Box (1983)

Answer 7

argues that what is defined as serious crime are offences that are more commonly committed by members of the working class such as property crime and violence

Question 8

Snider (1993)

Answer 8

points out that the cost of White Collar Crime and Corporate Crime to the economy far outweighs the cost of street crime by ‘typical’ criminals.

Question 9

Case study: Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act (2007)
Grenfell Fire: June 2017

Answer 9

Introduced to make companies culpable if their negligent actions have caused or contributed to human death
There have only been 30 convictions to date
Most convictions have been against small businesses, because it is easier to determine whether the senior management have been negligent due to a smaller number of senior managers
Cases against larger (richer) corporations have failed due to it being harder to pinpoint responsibility among a much larger senior management who may have each played a smaller part
No individual is convicted or goes to prison. The penalty for a guilty verdict is a fine.
These ‘crimes’/ causes of deaths impact the proletariat the most

Question 10

The Phillips Report

Answer 10

The Phillips Report on the government’s handling into BSE — also known as ‘mad cow disease’ showed the Government consistently misled the public as to the risks of eating contaminated beef. This was done to protect the profitability of the beef industry, and consumer interests were ignored.

Question 11

Chambliss (1975)

Answer 11

argues that laws to protect private property are the cornerstone of the capitalist economy - they protect capitalist economy

Question 12

Snider (1993):

Answer 12

The capitalist state is reluctant to pass laws that regulate the activities of businesses or threaten their profitability, such as legislation against pollution, worker’s pay, and health and safety issues.

Question 13

law is selectivley enforced

Answer 13

Crime control is focused on the working class (and minority ethnic groups, who are most likely to be prosecuted for crime e.g. police focus on ‘street crimes’.
Those of higher social classes are less likely to be prosecuted for offences such as fraud, and if they are, they are generally treated more leniently.

As a consequence of selective enforcement, the working-class is over-represented in criminal statistics (especially black people) while white-collar crime is under-represented, making crime appear a WC issue.

Question 14

Sarah Moulds

Answer 14

Sarah Moulds, 39, was found not guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, her grey pony named Bruce Almighty. She was filmed by a hunt saboteur group striking the animal in Gunby, Lincolnshire, on 6 November 2021 and lost her job as a primary school teacher a month later.

What is shocking is that 10/11 jurors found her guilty, but the judge overturned the decision.

Question 15

Ideological function

Answer 15

Althusser said the laws created by the ruling class are:

enforced by the Repressive State Apparatus (police, courts, prisons) and
legitimated (made to seem fair) by the Ideological State Apparatus (media, religion, education, family etc)
In other words, the institutions in the ISA are used to brainwash the public into believing that crime is a WC problem, that WC crimes are more serious and that they should be treated harshly
This makes sure that the WC are ‘on board’ and do not rebel against over policing of certain crimes or groups in society or harsh punishments because this seen as ‘the right thing to do’

Question 16

Example of the ideological function

Answer 16

the media reports knife crime as a far more serious issue than breaches of health and safety laws, leading the proletariat to believe that it is more serious and deserves the police attention - it legitimates the police’s actions

Question 17

Gorden (1976)

Answer 17

argues that the selective enforcement of the law helps to maintain ruling class power and reinforce ruling class ideology
It gives the impression that criminals are located mainly in the working class
This divides the working class by encouraging workers to blame the criminals, rather than the real cause of crime: capitalism, preventing the WC from uniting and causing a revolution

Question 18

Pearce (1976)

Answer 18

argues many laws which appear to benefit only the working class in reality also benefit the ruling class.
Legislation protecting the health and safety of workers also benefits capitalists by keeping workers fit for their work, so ensuring profitability.
By giving capitalism a ‘caring’ face, such laws also create false consciousness among the workers, making them more loyal towards their employers.
In any case, such laws are not rigorously enforced.

Question 19

Evaluation: Crime in Communist countires

Answer 19

marxists falsey assume communism will eradicate crime. before the Solveut Union ended crime was alive

Question 20

Evaluation: capitalism will low crime rates

Answer 20

Jones 1998
capitalism does not always produce high crime rates. In switzerland the crime rate is very low and often much lower than communist countries, this suggests capitalism may not be the cause of crime and devaince.

Question 21

Evaluation: Too reduactionistic

Answer 21

the idea that causes of crime can be reduced to econimoic inequality is a simplistic view, it ignores other possible social and physcoloigical factors such as ethnic differnces, religion, geogrphical location as well as physcological factors like depression

Question 22

Extra Evaluation for marxist theories of crime

Answer 22

New criminologists (Neo-Marxists) criticise Marxists for being ‘economically deterministic’. They argue the working classes are not as passive as Marxists suggest

Stuart Hall - Traditional Marxist views ignore the role of race and racism in crime

Functionalists would argue that most people conform suggesting value consensus and collective consciousness

Question 23

NEO-MARXISM

Answer 23

Neo Marxism is a newer marxist sub-approach, who attempt to develop a more sophisticated approach to crime rather than the crude traditional marxist view that law and the law enforcement are simply aspects of ruling class power and control of the working class.

It blends together some of the original Marxist approach, with aspects of the labeling theory.

Question 24

‘Critical Criminology’ is a neo-Marxist approach developed by Taylor et al (1973).

Answer 24

They state that the original Marxist theory is too deterministic, which states that people are driven to commit crime out of economic necessity.

They reject this along with other theories that claim crime is caused by external factors like anomie, subcultures, or even biological factors

Taylor states that crime is a voluntary, meaningful and conscious choice by people who have free will

Question 25

TAYLOR ET AL (1973) – “CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY”

Answer 25

Crime often has a political motive. It is often a form of rebellion against the capitalist class, in an attempt to ‘equal things out’ e.g. Redistributing wealth from rich to poor.
Criminals are not passive puppets of capitalism, their actions are a deliberate choice striving for change.

CRIME IS THE WORKING CLASS PEOPLE FIGHTING BACK!!
Even non-utilitarian crime may act as working class fighting back – and they call this symbolic violence.
These are symbolic gestures that are indirectly fighting back against a capitalist society - e.g. not paying for a train fair, petty theft from shops
The oppressed do not always have to challenge the powerful in an ‘obvious way’.

Question 26

In Neo-Marxist view, a complete theory of crime and deviance needs to look at six aspects.

Answer 26

1. ‘The wider social origins of the deviant act’: The wider context of crime E.g. The unequal distribution of wealth class in capitalist society or period of political / economic crisis.
2. ‘Immediate origins of the deviant act’: The specific situation in which an individual decides to commit the act e.g. police racism, being made unemployed?
3. ‘The actual act and what it means to the deviant’: What are the actual subjective meanings of the act to the individual e.g. was is rebellion against capitalism or police racism? Was it to fund a drug habit? etc
4. ‘The immediate origins of social reaction’: How do others directly around the deviant (family, peers, police, community, victim etc.) respond to the act of deviance?
5. Wider origins of societal reaction: How does the wider society react to the deviance e.g. those who hold power to define actions as deviant and label others or decide how the act should be treated e.g. police, media
   6.’Effects of the societal reaction on the deviant’s further action’ - What happens to deviants once they’ve been labelled? e.g. does it lead to the SFP and further deviance (deviant career) or prevent them from reoffending?

All six aspects are interrelated and need to be understood together as part of a single theory

Question 27

support for neo marxism: Hall et al (1978) –
Policing the crisis - the reaction to the black ‘mugger’

Answer 27

Stuart Hall’s ‘Policing the Crisis’ is a study of a moral panic over ‘mugging’ in the 1970s
In the 1970s a moral panic over mugging happened in Britain
Mugging is a concept which was imported from the US in the 1970s and tended to refer to being robbed by black men
During the 1970s several newspapers repeatedly reported incidents of mugging

This moral panic was built upon the idea of a collective fear of an ‘enemy within’
Stuart Hall’s ‘full social theory of deviance’ looked at the idea of the Black mugger as a scapegoat for other social ills of the period
Wave after wave of strike action brought about civil unrest and the subsequent challenge to social order and the power of the state
Stuart Hall’s point is by making the Black mugger someone to fear, it solidified a fractured UK society around the state
Subsequently society allowed the state to randomly stop and search Black youths
This labelling of Black youths led to a process of deviancy amplification

Question 28

EVALUATIONS OF NEO-MARXISM

Answer 28

Most of its research was focused only on male criminality, so it is criticised by feminists.
It is argued that this theory romanticises crime, making it appear like ‘robin hood’. However, most victims of crime are working class and not the rich.
Taylor et al do not take crime seriously and ignore the very real effects on working class victims
Burke (2005) argues that this approach is too general to explain crime, and too idealistic to be used to tackle crime.
On a positive, it laid the foundations for later radical approaches that seek to establish a more just society, such as left realism and feminism

Question 29

CRIMES OF THE POWERFUL: SUTHERLAND (1983)

Answer 29

crime was not simply a working class phenomenon, but was widespread through all sections of society.

Question 30

Tombs (2013)

Answer 30

Tombs highlights that white collar crime is in fact more dangerous and detrimental to society, than crimes such as theft and burglary
Tombs estimated that white collar crime has ten times the impact in comparison to ‘ordinary’ crimes
It is important to note that white collar crime is not few and far between- according to Tombs, it is ‘widespread and routine’

Question 31

example of white collor crime NHS

Answer 31

Crimes against the NHS committed by doctors and pharmacists and dentists who falsify prescriptions and patient records to claim millions of pounds more than that which they are entitled including one GP who made £700,000 over five years writing fake prescriptions

Question 32

Manufacturing Offences

Answer 32

These involve offences such as incorrect labelling, or misrepresentation of products, false advertising, or producing safe or dangerous goods. These are mainly offences against consumers such as ignoring or failing to correct or recall unsafe or dangerous products.
For example, inadequate testing of the morning sickness drug Thalidomide in the late 50’s and early 60’s led to the birth defects of thousands of toddlers.

Question 33

Carrabine et al (2014)

Answer 33

Major firms and powerful institutions gain trust of consumers/ customers through their reputation
However, these major firms are responsible for large amounts of money and assets
Therefore, if there is an issue/ scandal surrounding a major firm within a particular industry, there is a sense of abuse of trust

Question 34

Under-representation of white collar crime in official statistics:
They are hidden from view and hard to detect:

Answer 34

Clarke (1990) and Croall (2001) point out that these offences are relatively invisible as they take place in the workplace and offenders simply appear to be doing their normal jobs this means and are quite justified in being present at the scene.
Corporate cover-ups mean that some corporate offences may never actually be discovered, or discovered much later once the damage has been done e.g. thalidomide drug that caused birth defects

Question 35

Under-representation of white collar crime in official statistics:
They are often without personal or individual victims:

Answer 35

Croall (2007) - there is less obvious personal harm - or ‘blood on the streets’ - and victims appear impersonal like a company, the government ,the taxpayer or the public at large, rather than the individual
Therefore, if there is no individual victim, they are less likely to be reported - they are ‘complainantless’

Question 36

Under-representation of white collar crime in official statistics:
There is often a lack of awareness that a crime has been committed and therefore it is not reported:

Answer 36

Croall (2007) - victims may lack the expertise to know whether they are being misled mis-sold a product and may be unaware of any harm to them
Eamples: food adulteration (adding or replacing the food substances with undeclared alternative) - in 2013, horsemeat being found in burgers in UK supermarkets, false descriptions of consumer goods, internet scams and financial frauds
Victims may also blame themselves or be embarrassed for making risky investments or being gullible

Question 37

Under-representation of white collar crime in official statistics:
Even if reported and prosecuted offenders have a better chance of being found not guilty:

Answer 37

Most juries hold the stereotype that crime is mainly a working class phenomenon rather than committed by affluent, well educated, middle-class people
Defendants are also of the same background to judges and magistrates and appear more honest and respectable to juries
Therefore they may be less likely to be found guilty or are more likely to have their offences seen is temporary lapses in otherwise good behaviour.
They are also more likely to receive more lenient sentences than working class offenders