Class, Power and Crime Flashcards
What do Marxists think of crime
Official Stats cant be taken at face value.
Criminal Justice System enforced unfairly to WC
Criminogenic Crime
Crime inevitable in capitalist society
Crime only way for some people to survive in cut-throat society (underpaid / in poverty)
Crime only way to obtain consumeristic goods from capitalist advertising. (utilitarian)
Crime only way to relieve frustration from alienation and lack of control in work-life (non-utilitarian)
Criminogenic Crime in the rest of society?
Capitalism causes a dog-eat-dog system that encourages greed and self-interest. Need to win otherwise company goes out of business. Gordon - crime = rational response to capitalist society in all social classes
State and Law Making
Chambliss- laws made by Government only serve interest of ruling class to protect and maintain capitalist system.
In African Colonies, British introduced tax only payable in cash and only way to earn cash at time was to work for British plantations. Example of how law only served economic interests of capitalist owners.
Ideological functions of crime and law?
Pearce- Laws that seem to care for proletariat only benefit ruling class by creating false consciousness because laws not rigorously enforced. For example, corporate homicide banned in 2007 but across 8 years only 1 case prosecuted.
Media and Criminologists
Portray criminals as disturbed individuals distracting people from capitalism but to blame criminals in midst of their problems.
Evaluation
Doesn’t consider ethnic and gender factors.
Deterministic and over-estimates number of crimes committed by poor
Not all capitalist societies have high crime rates (swiss)
Ignore intra-class crimes
Neo-Marxism and critical criminology
Believe crime is a conscious decision made by an offender and is voluntaristic, deliberately striving to change society.
Fully-Social Theory of Deviance
TAYLOR ET AL Comprehensive understanding of crime 1. Wider origin of crime 2. Immediate origin of crime 3. Crime 4. Immediate origin of societal reactions 5. Wider origins of societal reactions 6. Effects of labelling.
Evaluation
Feminists argue it is male-focused and ignores female crime
Romanticiszes WC crime as “robin hoods” by redistributing wealth from rich to the poor but rlly most crime is poor against poor
Burke- too general to explain crimes and too idealistic to tackle crime
Corporate Crime
Sutherland - Crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation
Occupational crime
crime employees commit for personal gain ie stealing from the company
Corporate Crime
Crime employees commit for their organisation in pursuit of goals ie tax evasion
The scale of corporate Crime
Cost of white-collar crime 10x more than ordinary crime
Types of Corporate crime
- Financial Crime- tax evasion, bribery, money laundering
- Crimes against consumers - false labelling and selling of unfit goods
- Crimes against employees - sexual, racial discrimination and wage exploitations
- Crimes against the Environment - illegal dumping
- State-corporate Crime-
Abuse of Trust
People of respectable status abuse trust of victims
Harold Shipman prosecuted for murders of 15 of his patients (in reality prob 220 more)
The invisibility of Corporate Crime
Media - limited coverage, sanitised language to describe crime. The stereotypes that crime is WC only continues.
Lack of Political Will- only focused on tackling street crime
Crimes are often complex- lack of resources and technical expertise to investigate complex crimes
Delabelling- crimes described as civil not criminal, fines rather than jail sentences
Under-reporting - Victim is society, do not realise they are victims and when they do, feel powerless against big organisations.
Explanations of Corporate Crime
Strain Theory - Box
Differential Association- Sutherland & Geis & Skyes and Matza
Labelling Theory - Nelken
Marxism - Box
Strain Theory
Box argues…
If companies cannot achieve legitimately to maximise profits, employ illegal methods to maximise profit.
Differential Association
Sutherland argues…
More we associate with people of criminal attitudes, more likely we are to become deviant
Differential Association
Geis argues…
Those who joined companies where illegal activity encouraged become involved in activity as part of socialisation as way to integrate into (subculture’s) norms and values of company.
Differential Association
Skyes and Matza argue..
Individuals deviate easily when everyone around them is doing it, normalising deviance “everyone’s doing it”. Learn techniques to blame the victims instead (should have read small print.)
