Class , Power And Crime

Question 1

How do Marxists and the labelling theory have similar ideas about official crime statistics ?

Answer 1

Marxists and the labelling theory believe that the law is enforced against the working class and therefore official crime statistics cannot be taken at face value

Question 2

How do Marxists criticise the labelling theory in terms of the amount of recorded working class crime ?

Answer 2

Marxists criticise the labelling theory for failing to examine the wider structures of capitalism within which law making ,law enforcement , and offending take place

Question 3

What do Marxists believe are the 2 classes in a capitalist society ?

Answer 3

-the ruling class / bourgeoisie- who own the means of production
-working class / proletariat- who exploit the bourgeoisie through their labour

Question 4

What are the 3 main elements of crime for Marxists in a capitalist society ?

Answer 4

-criminogenic capitalism
-the state and law making
-ideological functions of crime and law

Question 5

What is meant by criminogenic capitalism ?

Answer 5

Criminogenic capitalism - the nature of capitalism causes crime

Question 6

Criminogenic capitalism - what are the 3 reasons why is there a rise in crime in a capitalist society ?

Answer 6

-Poverty may mean that crime is the only way that the working class can survive
-crime may be the only way that working class can obtain the consumer goods that are encouraged by capitalist advertising 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 such as violence and vandalism

Question 7

What do Marxists see law making and law enforcement as serving the interests of ?

Answer 7

Marxists see law making and law enforcement as serving the interest of the capitalist class ,

Question 8

What do ruling class have the power for law making ?

Answer 8

The ruling class have the power to prevent the introduction of laws that would threaten their interests. For example , there are a few rules that challenge the unequal distribution of wealth

Question 9

What did Snider argue about ruling class law making ?

Answer 9

Snider argues that the capitalist state is reluctant to pass laws that regulate the activities of businesses or threaten business profitability

Question 10

What do Marxists mean by selective enforcement within the criminal justice system when different groups commit crimes ?

Answer 10

Marxists believe there is selective enforcement within the Criminal justice system.
While powerless groups such as the working class and ethnic minorities are criminalised , the police and courts tend to ignore the crimes of the powerful

Question 11

What is an ideological function of crime and the law in favour of capitalism ?

Answer 11

An ideological function for capitalism is that laws are occasionally passed that appear to be of benefit to the working class rather than capitalism such as workplace health and safety laws

Question 12

How does Pearce argue that that health and safety laws often benefit the ruling class too ?

Answer 12

Pearce argues that some laws often benefit the ruling class too for example , by keeping its workers fit for work , gives capitalism a caring face but such laws create a false class consciousness among the workers

Question 13

What is an ideological function of crime including how the state enforce laws ?

Answer 13

State enforces the law selectively so crime appears to be a largely working class phenomenon so this divides the working class by encouraging workers to blame the criminals rather than capitalism

Question 14

How is Marxism criticised ?

Answer 14

-largely ignores the relationship between crime and non class inequalities such as ethnicity and gender
-its to deterministic and over predicts the amount of working class crime , not all poor people commit crime despite the pressure of poverty
-not all capitalist societies have high crime rates
-the criminal justice system does sometimes act against the interests of the capitalists class , eg prosecutions for corporate crime do occur
-left realists argue that Marxism ignores intra-class crimes where both the criminals and victims are working class such as mugging and burglary which causes great harm to victims

Question 15

What are neo Marxists , whose ideas do they combine ?

Answer 15

Neo Marxists are influenced by the ideas put forward by Marxism but combine ideas with the labelling theory

Question 16

Neo Marxists - Taylor et al what are the 3 ways they agree with Marxists ?

Answer 16

-capitalist society is based on exploitation and class conflict by extreme inequalities of wealth and power , understanding this is key to understanding crime
-the state makes and enforces laws in the interest of capitalist class and criminalises members of the working class
-capitalism should be replaced by a classless society , this would greatly reduce the extent of crime or even rid society of crime entirely

Question 17

What do Neo Marxists Taylor et al describe their approach as ?

Answer 17

Critical criminology

Question 18

How do Taylor et al see Marxism as being deterministic ?

Answer 18

Taylor et al argue that Marxism is deterministic , for example it sees workers as driven to commit crime out of economic necessity which they reject

Question 19

Taylor et al take a voluntaristic view , what is meant by this ?

Answer 19

Voluntarism is the idea that we have free will - opposite of determinism
They see crime as a meaningful action and a conscious choice by the actor
In particular they argue that crime has a political motive eg Robin Hood criminals can redistribute wealth from rich to poor
Criminals are not passive puppets whose behaviour is shaped by capitalism but they are deliberately striving to change society

Question 20

What do Taylor Et al aim to create and what will this do ?

Answer 20

Taylor et a aim to create a fully social theory of deviance
Which helps to get an understanding of crime and deviance that will help change society for the better

Question 21

What are the 2 main sources of Taylor et al’s fully social theory of deviance which aims to help change society for the better ?

Answer 21

-Marxist ideas about the unequal distribution of wealth and who has power to make and enforce the law
-ideas from interactionism and labelling theory about the meaning of the deviant act from the actor , societal reaction to it and the effects of the deviant label on the individual

Question 22

What are the 6 aspects of Taylor et al’s fully social theory of deviance needs to unite ?

Answer 22

1.the wider origins of the deviant act
2.the immediate origins of the deviant act
3.the act itself
4.the immediate origins of the societal reaction
5.the wider origins of societal reaction
6.the effects of labelling

Question 23

How do feminists criticise critical criminology ?

Answer 23

Feminists criticise it for being gender blind , focusing on male criminality at the expense of female criminality

Question 24

How do left realists criticise critical criminology ?

Answer 24

-critical criminology romanticise working class crime as Robin hoods who are fighting capitalism by redistributing wealth from rich to the poor but in reality these criminals mostly prey on the poor
-Taylor et al do not take crime seriously and they ignore the effects on the working class victims

Question 25

How does Burke criticise critical criminology ?

Answer 25

Burke argues that critical criminology is both too general to explain crime and too idealistic to be useful in tackling crime

Question 26

What does Sutherland define white collar crime as ?

Answer 26

Sutherland defines white collar crime as
A crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation

Question 27

What is occupational crime ?

Answer 27

Occupational crime - committed by employees simply for their own personal gain , often against the organisation for which they work eg stealing from the company or its customer

Question 28

What is corporate crime ?

Answer 28

Corporate crime is committed by employees for their organisation in pursuit of its goals eg deliberately misspelling products to increase company profits

Question 29

What is the different between occupational and corporate crime ?

Answer 29

Occupational is committed by employees for their own gain
Corporate is committed by employees for the organisation

Question 30

What do Pearce and Tombs define corporate crime as ?

Answer 30

Pearce and Tomb define corporate crime as
Any illegal act or omission that is the result of deliberate decisions or culpable negligence by a legitimate business organisation and is intended to benefit the business

Question 31

What type of crime is believed to do the most harm ?

Answer 31

White collar and corporate crime do farm more damage than ordinary or street crimes such as theft and burglary

Question 32

What are the 5 types of crimes that corporate crime covers ?

Answer 32

1.financial crime
2.crimes against consumers
3.crimes against employees
4.crimes against the environment
5.state corporate crimes

Question 33

Corporate crimes - what are examples financial crimes ?

Answer 33

Financial crimes such as tax evasion , bribery and money laundering

Question 34

Corporate crimes - crimes against consumers , give an example ?

Answer 34

Such as false labelling and selling unfit goods
In 2011, the french government recommended that women with breast implants from a certain manufacturer had them removed because they were filled with dangerous industrial silicone rather than more expensive medical silicone. Some 300,000 implants had been sold in 65 countries

Question 35

Corporate crime - crimes against employees , give examples ?

Answer 35

Such as sexual and racial discrimination , violation of wage laws , rights to join a union and of health and safety laws

Question 36

Corporate crime - crimes against employees simply- Tombs ?

Answer 36

Tombs calculates that 1,100 work related deaths a year involve employers breaking the law

Question 37

Corporate crimes - crimes against employees - Palmer ?

Answer 37

Palmer estimates that occupation diseases cause 50,000 deaths a year in the UK

Question 38

Corporate crime - crimes against the environment - examples including Volkswagen?

Answer 38

illegal pollution of air ,water and land such as toxic waste dumping
Volkswagen admitted to installing software in 11 million of its diesel vehicles globally . The software could detect when the engines were being stated and disguised the emission levels that were 40 times above the US legal limit

Question 39

Corporate crimes - state corporate crime - what do Kramer and michalowski believe state corporate crime is ?

Answer 39

Refers to harms committed when government institutions and businesses cooperate to pursue their goals

Question 40

What is meant by the abuse of trust ?

Answer 40

High status professionals occupy positions of trust and respectability so we trust them with our finances , health , security and personal information so their position and status gives them the opportunity to abuse this trust

Question 41

How can the abuse of trust be applied to accountants and lawyers ?

Answer 41

Accountants and lawyers can be employed by criminal organisations for example to launder criminal funds into legitimate businesses which shows the abuse of trust.
They can also act corruptly by inflating fees , committing forgery , illegally diverting clients’ money etc

Question 42

Example of abuse of trust - GP Harold Shipman ?

Answer 42

GP Harold shipman in 2000 was convicted of the murder of 15 of his patients , but over the course of the previous years , he is believed to have murdered at least another 200
In 1976, shipman had been convicted of obtaining the powerful opiate pethidine by forgery and deception and in the same year obtained (in the name of a dying patient ) enough morphine to kill 360 people
Yet he received only a warning from the general medical council and was allowed to continue practicing as a GP

Question 43

What are the 5 reasons for the invisibility of corporate crime ?

Answer 43

1.the media
2.lack of political will
3.the crimes are too complex
4.de labelling
5.under reporting

Question 44

How does the media lead to the invisibility of corporate crime ?

Answer 44

The media gives very limited coverage to corporate crime thus reinforcing the stereotype that crime is a working class phenomenon

Question 45

How does lack of political will lead to the invisibility of corporate crime ?

Answer 45

Lack of political will to tackle corporate crime is due to politicians being tough on crime but focuses on street crime

Question 46

How does crimes being complex lead to the invisibility of corporate crime ?

Answer 46

Corporate crimes are often complex and law enforcers are understaffed , under resourced and lacking technical expertise to investigate effectively

Question 47

How does de labelling lead to the invisibility of corporate crime ?

Answer 47

Corporate crime is consistently filtered out from the process of criminalisation . For example the offences are normally fines rather than prison sentences . Investigation and prosecution are also limited

Question 48

How does under reporting lead to the invisibility of corporate crime ?

Answer 48

Often the victim of corporate crimes are society at large or the environment rather than an individual so individuals may be unaware that they have been victimised or even when you are aware you have been victimised they may not regard it as a real crime . Equally , they may feel powerless against a big organisation and so never report the offence to the authorities

Question 49

What are some ways that corporate crime is becoming more visible in society ?

Answer 49

Investigative journalists ,
Whistle blowers inside companies
Media eg through adverts for compensation claims over pension mis-selling

Question 50

How did Box use Morton’s a concept of innovation to explain corporate crime?

Answer 50

Box argues that if a company cannot achieve its goal of maximising profits by legal means then it may employ illegal ones instead of. Thus when business conditions become more difficult and profitability is squeezed , companies may be tempted to break the law

Question 51

What is differential association by Sutherland ?

Answer 51

Sutherland sees differential association as behaviour learned from others in a social context . The less we associate with people who hold attitudes favourable to the law and the more we associate with people with criminal attitudes then the more likely we are to become deviant ourselves
Thus if a company’s culture justifies committing crimes to achieve corporate goals , employees will be socialised into this criminality

Question 52

What did Geis find as an example of differential association ?

Answer 52

Geis found that individuals joining companies where illegal price fixing was practised then this became part of their socialisation

Question 53

How can differential association be linked to techniques of neutralisation (Skye’s and Matza) ?

Answer 53

Skyes and matza argue that individuals can deviate more easily if they can produce justifications to neutralise moral objections to their misbehaviour
For example , white collar criminals may say they were carrying out orders from above , blame the victim , or normalise their deviance by claiming everyone is doing it

Question 54

How can differential association be linked to deviant subcultures?

Answer 54

Individuals within the subculture associate with people who hold laws less favourably to he law so are more likely to become deviant themselves

Question 55

What are the 4 explanations for corporate crime ?

Answer 55

1.strain theory
2.differential association
3.labelling theory
4.marxism

Question 56

Labelling theory - what does Nelken say about de labelling and how its used in white and corporate crime ?

Answer 56

Nelken applies de labelling to white collar crime and corporate crime , unlike the poor , businesses and professionals have the power to avoid labelling . For example , they can afford expensive lawyers and accountants to help them avoid activities they are involved in such as tax avoidance , being labelled as criminal and getting their charges reduced

Question 57

Marxism explanation of corporate crime using what box calls a mystification ?

Answer 57

Box believes that capitasim has created a mystification . Meaning it has spread the ideology that corporate crime is less widespread or harmful than working class crime

Question 58

How did Box combine Marxist ideas with the strain theory when explaining corporate crime ?

Answer 58

Box sees corporations as criminogenic because if they find legitimate opportunities for profit are blocked they will resort to illegal techniques

Question 59

Evaluation of corporate crime explanations ?

Answer 59

-strain theory and Marxism seem to over predict the Amount of corporate crime using
-fail to explain crime in non profit making organisations such as the police , army and civil service