Marxism

Question 1

Why does crime/deviance happen?
- Criminogenic Capitalism

Answer 1

• capitalism is crimongenic, based on the exploitation of wc
• WC commit crime to survive and escape poverty, get consumer goods that capitalism promotes
• GAP crime
  G - greed
  A - alienation
  P - poverty
  Ruling class - notion of American Dream, crime, get richer
• e.g. tax evasion
• Gordon (1976) response to capitalism and hence it is found it all social classes

Question 2

Why does crime/deviance happen?
- The State and Law Making

Answer 2

Chambliss (1975) - laws to protect private property are the cornerstone of the capitalist economy
- RC has power to prevent laws that harm their interests and pass laws that support them
Introduction of English law into Britain’s East African colonies
- tea and coffee plantation needed worker. African population reluctant to work so British enforced a taxation that must be paid in cash.
Non-payment = criminal offence
Only way to pay this tax would be through working on the plantations - so the law served economic interests of the capitalist plantation workers

Question 3

Evaluation of Criminogenic Capitalism

Answer 3

• Marxism is deterministic
• Strain Theory ( Functionalism )

Question 4

Evaluation of State and Law making

Answer 4

• CJS does sometimes implement laws/policies to benefit society e.g. NHS/health & safety laws

Question 5

Selective Enforcement

Answer 5

CJS chooses which crimes to prosecute and which to ‘turn a blind eye to’.
- Powerless groups like WC and EMs are criminalised whilst crimes of powerful ignored.
Riemann (2001) - disproportionately high rate of prosecutions for street crimes that poor people commit, such as assault. Yet with crimes committed by higher classes, like health and safety violations, CJS takes a more forgiving view
Chambliss argues CJS focuses on ‘crimes of the streets’, ignoring ‘crimes of the suites’
- CJS occasionally punishes crimes of powerful, merely a smokescreen

Question 6

Evaluation of Selective Enforcement

Answer 6

Carson - samples of 200 firms that had broken health and safety laws, only 1.5% prosecuted.
Bernard Madoff - stockholder stole $18billion between 1990-2000, jailed in 2009 for 150+years

Question 7

Ideological Functions of Crime and Law

Answer 7

Spread ideas that help to keep workers passive
- some laws benefit workers, e.g. H&S laws
**Pearce (1976) gives capitalism a caring face by promoting a false class consciousness

Gordon - direct a part of WC frustration produced by inequalities in capitalism onto the criminals in their own social class.
- provides a safety valve that releases aggression, which might otherwise be directed towards RC.

Question 8

Evaluation for Ideological Function of Crime and Law

Answer 8

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