class, power and crime Flashcards
Criminogenic capitalism
Capitalism is criminogenic-by it’s nature it causes crime
How may there be a rise to crime for the working class
Poverty may mean that crime is the only chance of survival
Only way of obtaining consumer goods
Alienation leads to frustration
Gordon
Crime is a rational response to the capitalist system and found in all cases
Chambliss
Agree with labelling theorists that crimes of the powerful are ignored
Ideological function of crime and law
laws posted that appear to benefit WC eg workplace health but benefit the ruling class too eg keeping workers fir for work
Evaluation of Marxism of crime
Too deterministic and over predicts amount of WC crime
Not all capitalist societies have high crime rates eg japan
Criminal justice system does sometimes
Neomarxist
Practical solutions
Taylor
Conflict is caused by extreme inequalist of wealth;
state enforced laws to benefit capitalist classes;
capitalism should be replaced by classes societies
What does Taylor say about Marxism
Deterministic. Take voluntaristic view. They argue that crime often has a political motive
What six aspects do Marxist argue need to unite the complete their of deviance
Wider origins of the deviant act (unequal distribution of wealth)
Immediate origins of deviant act (context)
act itself (meaning)
Immediate origins of social reaction (eg community)
Wider origins of social reaction (power to define defiancy)
Effects of labelling (deviancy amplification
Evaluation of critical criminology
Feminists would argue they are “gender blind”
She
Romantises WC criminal Robin Hood
Too idealistic to tackle crime
White collar crime
Crimes by people who are respectable and high social status (Sutherland)
Sunderland
His definition fails to distinguish between two different types of crime
Occupational crime committed by employees for personal gain
Corporate crime committed by employees for their organisation
Tombs
Any illegal act or omission that is the result of deliberate decisions/ neoiligence by a legitimate business intended to benefit them
Financial crime
Tax, bribery etc
Crime against consumers
Unfit goods
Crimes against employees
Sexual/discrimination
Health and safety
Crimes against the environment
Illegal pollution
State-corporate crime
Government and businesses work together to pursue goals and cause harms
Abuse trust
Position and status give opportunities to abuse trust
Accountants and lawyers can be employed by criminal organisations
Health professionals also afford scope for criminals activity eg fraudulent claims
The invisibility of corporate crime
The crimes of the powerful are relatively invisibility; and even when visible, they are often not seen as real crime at all. There are several reasons for this
Reasons for invisibility of corporate crime crime
The media Lack of political will The crimes are often complex De-labelling Under reporting Partial visibility
The media
Gave very little coverage to corporate crime thus reinforcing the stereotypes that crime is a WC. Phenomenon
Lack of political will
To tackle corporate crime
Politicians rhetoric of being “tough on crime” is focused instead on street crime for example while the home offices uses crime surveys to discover the true extent of “ordinary crime” it does not do so for corporate crime
The crimes are often complex
And law enforced are often under staffed, u see resourced and lacking technical expertise to investigate effectively the
De labelling
At the level of laws and legal regulation, corporate crime is consistently fitted from the process of criminalisation
Under reporting
Often the victim is society at large or environment rather than an indentifiable individual
Wilson and Herrnstein (1985)
traits such as aggressiveness, extroversion, and low intelligence makes some people predisposed to commit crime.
Clarke
decisions to commit crime is choice based on rational calculation.
young
zero tolerance is a myth peddled by politicians to take the credit for failing crime.
Fully Social theory of crime
A comprehensive understand to help charge society for the better
