Theories Flashcards
Cultural Conflict Theory
(Sellin): Crime occurs when individuals act on the conduct norms of their own group are in violation of the conduct norms that the dominant group has enacted into law
- Culturally heterogenous/homogenous
- Conflict in legal sphere
Group Conflict Theory
(Vold, Quinney): Interest Groups (Vold) or Social Groupings (Quinney) attempt to protect their own interests by influencing the creation and enforcement of criminal law.
- Vold focuses on crime as conflict between groups, assumes humans are group-involved, take collective action
- Conflict between groups is a normal social process
- Minority group behaviour or Conflict between competing interest groups as a source of crime
- Relatively stable equilibrium of opposing interests
- Quinney focuses on segments of society, criminality is the result of conflict
- Emphasizes unequal distribution of power
Instrumental Marxism
(Quinney): State and legal system are instruments that can be directly manipulated by the capitalist class. Capitalist Class thus influences law and law formation.
- Economic structure as base
- Law is equated with class rule
Structural Marxism
(Althusser, Poulantzas): The relative autonomy of the state functions to preserve the long term interests of the capitalist system. This helps explain why many laws are enacted that do no represent the interests of the capital class.
- Equality before law - consent
Socialist Feminist
(Eisenstein, Comack, Snider, Ursel): Draws upon Radical Feminism and Marxist Categories of analysis to explore the relationship between Capitalism and Patriarchy. Violence against women is a major issue.
- Intersectionality
Left Realism
(Young, Maclean, DeKeseredy): Argues crime is really a problem for the working class and must be taken seriously. Most working class crime is intra class. Major methodological tool is the victimization survey. Argues for a concrete crime control program, endorses crime control policies that are not repressive.
- Instrumentalist & Structuralist Marxism
- Many crimes are intra-class
- Square of Crime
- Working Class Criminology
Crimes of the Powerless: Spitzer
The criminalization of much behaviour is directed at the “surplus population,” who are surplus to the labour market. These populations are created in 2 ways:
- Directly through the contradictions in the capitalist mode of production: new technologies replace labour or production is outsourced - those who have graduated not being able to find jobs is relatively new, lots of jobs being done by machines
- Indirectly, through contradictions in the institutions that help reproduce capitalism, such as the schools eg: while mass education provides a means for training future wage labourers
Crimes of the Powerless: Greenberg
- Argues that juveniles have a class of their own because they share a common relationship with the means of production
- Young people are excluded from economically productive activity in a capitalist society but are required to undergo training for their future productive role in it
- They can be considered part of the “surplus population” because they are excluded from lawful sources of income
- Parents may be unable or willing to meet their needs – if they’re old enough to have their own job, this is also a source of juvenile delinquency among youth as they must find alternative ways to finance their leisure activities and purchasing of material goods
- Adolescent theft occurs because of a conflict between desire to participate in activities valued by peer culture and the lack of legitimate resources to fund these activities
- A class in and of itself and for itself is conscious and aware of it’s independence and relationship to the means of production and takes action to improve condition
Crimes of the Powerful
Marxist scholars argue that the structure of capitalist economies and need to maximise profit create motivation for corporations to break the law
- Also looks at the contradictory role of the state in capitalist economies: State must create laws and regulate the criminal activities of corporations but also must protect the overall interests of the capitalist economy by reproducing the conditions necessary for capitalism to continue
Lifestyle/Exposure Theory
(Hindelang): People’s routine activities and lifestyles put them at higher or lower risk of being victimized
- People who spend a lot of time in public at night are at higher risk for ex.
- Members of organized crime gangs are at higher risk because of the lifestyle they chose
In addition if victimization is more likely among those with risky lifestyles, we would expect those who have been victimized will have a higher probability of being victimized again
Deterrence Theories:
- Beccaria: punishments should be severe enough to deter people from breaking the law but should also be proportionate to the nature of the crime
- How effective is the law as a deterrent?
- Certainty of punishment is more important than severity of punishment –> Caller ID in reducing telephone harassment
US imposed 500% increase in rates of imprisonment, much for drug offenders, however there is no evidence that this has effected the sale and usage of illegal drugs
Rational Choice Theory
- Claims that crime is the result of deliberate choices made by offenders based on their calculation of the risks and rewards of these choices
Criminal Behaviour is goal oriented but there is little planning involved and little consideration of the benefits and costs of their behaviour - Not all crime results from same social process
- Offenders behaviour more based on short-term than long term
Routine Activities
• Developed from lifestyle/exposure theory by Cohen and Felson
- Acknowledges that not everyone has the same lifestyle and that some lifestyles expose people to more risks than others do
Developed from research on patterns of crime: when and where it occurs, immediate circumstances, relationship between victims and offenders and why some are more likely to be victimized
