marxist explanation for crime

Question 1

4 key areas

Answer 1

1. Capitalism is criminogenic
2. Crime and ideological control
3. Law creation and selective law enforcement
4. Corporate crime and Globalisation

Question 2

Capitalism is criminogenic

Answer 2

• the very fabric of capitalist society is based on exploitation of the w/c - both ends cause crime

working class crimes may involve:

• Poverty - victims of capitalism and crime is the only way to survive
• Utilitarian crime- theft - only way to obtain consumer goods encouraged in a C society (false needs - Marcuse )

ruling class crime:

• Non-utilitarian crime - violence - growth of alienation and a lack of control can lead to an increase in frustration and aggression - violence e.g football hooliganism e.g Hillsborough

white collar crime due to competition e.g tax evasion

Bonger - capitalism is based on competition and greed which causes r/c to internalise these values and put themselves first at the expense of others

• Gordon - crime is a rational response to capitalism (found in all social classes) , Official Stats don’t represent this and only show w/c crime

Question 3

Capitalism is criminogenic eval

Answer 3

Jones - capitalism does not always produce high crime rates, e.g Switzerland is capitalist with low crime rates

Theory is deterministic - Economically (reduces crime to economic factors and ignores gender etc)

Deterministic (interactionists) - sees the working class as passive victims of capitalism, people may commit crime for all types of reasons not just because of poverty

Question 4

Crime is an ideological control mechanism

Answer 4

Snider - r/c can prevent laws that may limit their power and they can be manipulated to maintain a smokescreen of fairness if a member of the r/c is arrested

Pearce - health and safety laws actually benefit the ruling class as they present a ‘caring face’ (FFC) when in fact they just want to maintain the fitness of their workers to create more expolitation

Jenabi - only once case on corporate homicide was successfully prosecuted despite large numbers of deaths since the law against corp homicide was passed in 2007 (said to be employer negligence)

The state practices selective law enforcement = conveys impression working class are criminals = dividing the w/c as the w/c blames the w/c

The media and superstructure propagate this view further by relating w/c as ‘disturbed’ criminals e.g BBC crime watch

Question 5

Law creation and selective law enforcement

Answer 5

• laws are created by the r/c to protect their own interests - they decide what is criminals and use agents of social control to enforce this / superstructure to teach e.g respect for privacy. property

Chambliss - laws to protect priv property are the cornerstone of the capitalist economy - Br exploitation of tea and coffee in East African colonies and enforced a tax only payable in cash which they could only earn on plantations - if they didn’t pay this was a criminal offence

Chambliss ‘ there is one law for the rich and another for the poor’ - corp crimes ‘invisible’/unpunished

law is enforced disproportionately against the w/c - we cannot take official stats at face value - this is all part of a wider structure of capitalism (labelling theory disagree)

Chambliss vagrancy laws - Post Black Death = small labour force - people who survived asked for higher wages - to combat this the r/c introduced vagrancy laws - these enforced any able bodied man to accept work at a low, fixed rate = low paid labour force lasting for over 200 years

demonstrated a clear sense of protecting the power of the r/c

Question 6

Law creation and selective law enforcement eval

Answer 6

There are many infleunces in law making - saying crimes are created to benefit the r/c is too simplistic
Functionalists - there are many laws the protect all people e.g traffic laws and consumer protection laws

feminists - Marxists fail to discuss the role of the patriarchy in how the CJS works

CJS doesn’t always work in the interests of the ruling class and can actually go against the interest of the capitalist class - e.g strict tax evasion laws

Question 7

Corporate crime and globalisation

Answer 7

Slapper and Tombs - corp crime is under-policed and under-punished

Hazel Croal - the combined cost of corporate crime and white collar crimes out strip the overall combines cost of street crime

Snider - corp crime does more harm to society than street crime in terms of both money and lives - street crime per year accounts for $4 billion - yet this figure is x20 higher for corp

Why does corporate crime go unnoticed and not seen as a problem

1. Invisible to the public eye
2. very complex crime which need advanced technical knowledge to identify
3. Victimisation is indirect
4. regulatory bodies that control the activities of the corp business warns offender rather than punishing and they are rarely taken to court

Question 8

Corporate crime and globalisation eval

Answer 8

Left realists argue marxists put too much emphasis on corp crime at the expense of other types of crime such as robber ec - these crimes have a big impact on society

Question 9

Overall evaluations

Answer 9

• fails to investigate non-social class inequalities such as ethnicity or gender
• it is too deterministic
• not all capitalist societies have high crime rates
• the CJS does not always act in the interest of the r/c