Neo-Marxist explanations of crime and deviance

Question 1

What theories does neo-marxism consist of?

Answer 1

• Interactionism
• Marxism

Question 2

What does Chambliss say about crime and deviance?

Answer 2

• The Saints= 8 young men, white upper-middle class families. Involved in deviant behaviours (e.g: truancy, drinking, vandalism)- none arrested
• The Roughnecks= 6 boys, working class backgrounds, constant police trouble, despite similar rates of delinquency to the saints
• Saints utilised status and ‘good’ reputation, roughnecks perceived as typical gang members, subject to community vigilance

Question 3

What do neo-marxists think about the marxist view that the w/c are driven to crime by external factors?

Answer 3

• Criminality is a deliberate choice
• Justice is interpreted under the capitalist society and acts

Question 4

What do Taylor, Walton and Young say about crime and deviance?

Answer 4

• The action that derives from this interpretation is a potential act
• Theft, burglary, robbery= attempt to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor
• Vandalism= symbolic attack on capitalism’s obsession with property
• Drug taking= contempt for material values of capitalism

Question 5

How do radical criminiologists see crime/criminals?

Answer 5

• Criminals= revolutionaires, seeking to alter capitalist society for the better
• Ruling class are aware of this threat, so introduce laws to control the troublesome w/c and minority ethnic population
• Intensively policing w/c areas= police resemble an army of occupation
• Media creates moral panics, to divide and rule w/c by convincing white w/c that they have more to fear from: immigrants, asylum seekers, muslims, black people

Question 6

What does Gilroy say about crime and deviance?

Answer 6

• Took radical criminologist approach in relation to young black males committing crime
• Crime seen as a resistance to white, racist society

Question 7

What does Hall say about crime and deviance?

Answer 7

• Recounts moral panics about mugging- media associated mugging with black males
• 1970s= economic crisis which created unrest to society
• Ruling class needed to use force to control this crisis
• Racial tensions and rise in crime created the moral panic