Crime & Deviance: Class, power & crime

Question 1

Marxism overview

Answer 1

-Agree with labelling theorists that law is enforced disproportionately against W/C.
-BUT, they criticise labelling theories at s for ignoring the wider structure of capitalism which makes this happen.
-Capitalist society is divided into 2 classes: bourgeoisie & proletariat.
-Marxism is a structural theory.

For Marxists, structure of capitalist society explains crime in 3 elements:
-Criminogenic capitalism
-The state and law making
-Ideological functions of crime & law

Question 2

1. Criminogenic capitalism

Answer 2

-Crime is inevitable because it’s criminogenic (by its very nature it causes crime).
-Due to capitalism exploiting the W/C, this causes blue collar crime (W/C crime).

Because:
-Poverty meaning crime for survival.
-Obtaining consumer goods encouraged by capitalist advertising leads to utilitarian crimes.
-Alienation leads to frustration resulting in non-utilitarian crimes.

However, not just W/C who commit crimes.
-Capitalism is a ‘dog eat dog’ system of competition among capitalists where there’s a profit motive.
-Leads to white collar crimes (tax evasion, breaches of safety laws).
-Gordon argued crime is a rational response to capitalism and is found in ALL classes.

Question 3

2. The state & law making

Answer 3

Marxists see law making as serving capitalist interests & Chambliss 1975 argues that laws to protect private property are the cornerstone of capitalist economy.
-Chambliss says that British forces African population to work for them & introduced a tax payable in cash & non-payment was criminalised. So the cash to pay was earned through working in plantations serving capitalist interests.
-Ruling class can prevent laws threatening their interests. Snider argues capitalist state won’t pass laws threatening their profitability by regulating activities of businesses.
-Marxists agree that there is selective enforcement where powerless groups are criminalised, and crimes of the powerful are ignored.

Question 4

Ideological functions of crime & law

Answer 4

Laws are passed that appear to benefit W/C (health/safety).
-Pearce argue these benefit ruling class too (ie. keeping workers fit for work).
-Capitalism is given a ‘caring face’ & these laws create a false class consciousness.
-Jenabi argues these laws aren’t rigorously enforced - (ie. In its first 8 years, only 1 successful prosecution of a UK company, despite large no. of deaths estimated to be caused by employers’ negligence.
-Box argued what’s defined as a serious crime is ideologically constructed to benefit capitalism.
-State enforced law selectively & divided W/C by making crime appear as a W/C phenomenon where workers blame criminals and not capitalism.

Selective enforcement (application) is when laws are only applied to a certain group of people & they’re labelled and prosecuted.
Ideological function (creating) is when laws that are seen to benefit W/C benefit capitalism.

Question 5

Evaluating Marxist views of crime

Answer 5

:( Ignores gender & ethnicity.
:( Overly deterministic & over-predicts WC crime.
:( Not all capitalist societies gave high crime rates (ie. Homicide rates in Japan is 1/5th of that in the USA).
:( Ignores victims
:( Male stream

Question 6

Neo-Marxism: Critical criminology - The New criminology (Taylor, Walton & Young)

Answer 6

Taylor agrees with Marxists that:
-Capitalism is based on exploitation and class conflict & shown through inequality.
-State makes & enforces laws in interest of ruling class & criminalises W/C.
-Capitalism should be replaced with a classless society.

Question 7

Critical criminology - Anti-determinism (Taylor et al)

Answer 7

Argue Marxism is deterministic.
-They reject this as well as theories of crime being committed due to external factors (labelling, anomie etc).
-They take a more voluntaristic view (idea of free will) & see crime as a conscious choice.
-Argue crime often has a political motive. E.g. redistribution of wealth from rich to poor.
-Argue criminals are active agents striving deliberately to change society.

Question 8

A fully social theory of deviance

Answer 8

Comprehensive understanding of crime helping society to change for the better through 2 main sources:
-Marxist ideas about the unequal distribution of wealth & who has the power to make & enforce law.
-Ideas from interactionist & labelling theory about meaning of deviant act for the actor, societal reactions & the effects of the deviant label.

Question 9

Complete theory of deviance: 6 aspects

Answer 9

1. Wider origins of deviant act in the unequal distribution of wealth & power in capitalist society.
2. The immediate origins of the deviant act and context in which the crime was committed.
3. Act itself and meaning.
4. The immediate origins of societal reaction.
5. The wider origins of social reaction.
6. Effects of labelling.

Question 10

Evaluation of critical criminology

Answer 10

:( Feminists criticise it for being ‘gender blind’ focussing excessively on male criminality.

:( Left realist critiques:
-Romanticises W/C criminals as ‘Robin Hoods’ who are fighting capitalism by redistributing wealth from rich to poor. But most these criminals prey on the poor.
-Ignore effects on W/C victims.

:( Burke argues critical criminology is too general to explain crime and too idealistic to tackle crime

:) However, Walton & Young defend some aspects of the book’s approach:
-In calling for greater tolerance of diversity in behaviour, the book combated the ‘correctionalist bias’ (assumption that sociology’s role is simply to find ways of correcting deviant behaviour.
-Book laid foundations for later radical approaches (left realism & feminism).

Question 11

Crimes of the powerful

Answer 11

Reiman & Leighton’s book, shows that the more likely a crime is to be committed by higher class people, the less likely it is to be treated like an offence.
More higher prosecution rates for ‘street’ crimes that poor people commit (ie. burglary).

Question 12

White collar & corporate crime (Sutherland 1949)

Answer 12

WCC: a crime committed by a person of respectability & high social status in the course of their occupation.

2 types of crime:
Occupational committed my employees for personal gain, often against the organisation (ie. stealing from company or its customers).
Corporate committed by employers for their organisation in pursuit of its goals (ie. mis-selling products for profit).

Tombs & Pearce said that some harm caused by powerful do not break the criminal law, so corporate crime is an illegal act that is the result of deliberate decisions & intended to benefit the business.
-Included breaches of civil & administrative law, not just criminal.
-Tombs argued the difference between these offences is more about who has the power to define an act a crime, than about how harmful the act is.

Question 13

The scale & types of corporate crime

Answer 13

-WCC crime does more damage than ordinary crime. E.g. cost of a WCC in USA, is over 10x that of ordinary crimes.

Corporate crime covers many acts:
-Financial: tax evasion, bribery, money laundering. Victims can be companies, govts.
-Against consumers: false labelling & selling unfit goods. 2011, French govt recommended that women with breast implants from Poly Implant Prothese should have them removed due to dangerous silicone.
-Against employees: sexual, racial, wage violation. Tombs found up to 1, 100 deaths a year involve employers breaking the law.
-State corporate crime: refers to harms when govt institutions & businesses co-operate to pursue their goals. E.g. private companies contracted to US military have been accused of involvement in torturing detainees during American occupation of Iraq.

Question 14

The abuse of trust (Carrabine et al)

Answer 14

We entrust professionals with finances, health, security & their position gives them power to abuse the trust.
-E.g. accountants and lawyers can be employed by criminal organisations like to launder criminal funds into legitimate businesses.
-E.g. UK dentists have claimed payments from the NHS for treatments they have not carried out.
-GP Shipman convicted of murder of 15 of his patients & 100 more predicted but only received a warning and continued practising as a GP.
-WCC is therefore worse since it promotes cynicism & distrust of basic social institutions.

Question 15

The invisibility of corporate crime

Answer 15

-The media: give very limited coverage to corporate crime reinforcing stereotype that crime is a W/C phenomenon.
-Lack of political will: to tackle corporate crime, politicians idea of being ‘tough on crime’ instead on street crime.
-Complex crime: & law enforcers are often understaffed & under resourced.
-De-labelling: corporate crime is filtered out from process of criminalisation.
-Under-reporting: individuals may be unaware they’ve been a victim of a crime or may feel powerless against big organisations.

Question 16

The invisibility of corporate crime: Partial visibility?

Answer 16

-However, since the financial crisis of 2008, the activities of a range of diff people may have made corporate crime more visible: includes campaigns against corporate tax avoidance such as Occupy.
-Similarly, neoliberal policies such as the marketisation & privatisation of public services mean that large corporations are more involved in people’s lives and exposed to scrutiny.

Question 17

Explanations of corporate crime: Strain theory

Answer 17

Merton’s theory argues deviance resukts from the inability to achieve goals through legitimate means.
-Merton applied his concept of innovation to explain W/C crime but others use it to explain corporate crime.
-Box argued if a company can’t achieve its goal of maximising profit legally, it’ll do it illegally.
-Companies may be tempted to break the law.
-Clinard & Yeager found law violations by large companies increased as their performance decreased.

Question 18

Explanations of corporate crime: Differential association (Sutherland)

Answer 18

Sees crime as a learned behaviour from others in a social context.
-The less we associate with people who hold attitudes favourable to the law & more with criminal attitudes, we are likelier to become deviant ourselves.
-If a company’s culture justified crime committing, employees will be socialised into this criminality. Geis found individuals joining companies where illegal price-fixing was practised became involved in it as part of their socialisation.

Links to 2 concepts:
-Deviant subcultures: groups who share a set of norms at odds with those of wider society & offer deviant solutions to members hated problems.
-Techniques of neutralisation: Sykes & Matza argue individuals can deviate more easily if they can produce justifications to neutralise moral objections to their misbehaviour (ie. victim blaming or ‘everyone’s doing it’).

Question 19

Explanations of corporate crime: Labelling theory

Answer 19

Cicourel shows that middle class are more able to negotiate non-criminal labels for their misbehaviours.
-Businesses have the power to avoid labelling - de-labelling.
-E.g. expensive lawyers can help with charge reduction.
-& reluctance of law enforcement agencies to investigate & prosecute reduced no. of offences recorded.

Mean sociologists will underestimate the extent of these stats.

Question 20

Explanations of corporate crime: Marxism

Answer 20

Capitalism’s goal is to maximise profits, so it inevitably causes harm, such as deaths and injuries among employees and consumers.
-Capitalism has created what Box calls mystification which is the ideology that corporate crime is less widespread or harmful than W/C crime.
-Pearce argues only some corporate crime is prosecute to sustain the illusion that it’s the exception feather than the norm.

Question 21

Evaluation of Strain theory & Marxism

Answer 21

-Over predict amount of business crime. Nelken argued its unrealistic to assume all businesses would offend were it not for the risk of punishment.
-Doesn’t explain crime in non-profit making stage agencies such as police, army.
-Law abiding may also be more profitable than law breaking. Braithwaite found that US pharmaceutical companies that complied with Federal drug administration regulations to obtain licences for their products in America were then able to access lucrative markets in poorer countries.