Sociology-Crime and Deviance-Marxist Theories

Traditional Marxism-Criminogenic Capitalism (Gordon)

Crime is inevitable because capitalism itself is criminogenic (causes crime by its own nature)-WC exploited

Crime is a rational response to the capitalist system-found in all social classes despite official stats making it crime look like a WC phenomenon

Crime is not confined to WC-Capitalism is a ‘dog eat dog’ system of competition and encourages greed and self-interest-This encourages white collar crime

Poverty means utilitarian crime is only way WC may survive

Crime may be only way to gain consumer goods advertised by capitalists

Alienation and lack of control over lives leads to frustration resulting in non-utilitarian crimes

Traditional Marxism-The state and Law Making (Chambliss)

Law enforcement only serves interest of capitalist class

Law exists to protect private property and are cornerstone of capitalist economy-They favour MC as they have more resources

Law is full of loopholes for rich-e.g tax fraud

Snider-Capitalist state reluctant to pass laws that regulate businesses/reduce profitability

Selective Enforcement:

Although all classes commit crime-crimes of the powerful ignored and WC+Ethnic minorities punished more as are a powerless group

Traditional Marxism-Ideological Functions (Pearce)

Laws such as health and safety laws make it look like it is for welfare of WC-but is for ruling class so workers are still ‘fit for work’

E.g new law against corporate homicide passed in 2007 but only one successful prosecution in 8 years

Selective Enforcement-makes crime appear like a WC phenomenon-encourages WC to blame criminals rather than capitalism-media also blame criminals

E.g Bhopal Disaster-liability laws-people got compensation but wasn't nearly enough-company went to India as safety laws lesser there, more profitable

Convince WC to blame criminals instead of capitalism-appears as a WC phenomenon

Critiques of Traditional Marxism

Feminism-ignores gender inequalities in crime and deviance-too focused on male crime

Functionalism-crime is positive-reaffirms boundaries and brings change

Not all capitalist countries have high crime rates-e.g Japan and Switzerland

CJS has acted against RC before

Too deterministic-not all poor people commit crime

Neo Marxism-Criticial Criminology-(Taylor, Walton, Young) Similarities between Neo and Traditional Marxism

-Both believe capitalist society based on exploitation of WC due to inequalities in wealth and power

-Both want to replace capitalism into a classless society

-Both say state makes and enforces laws in interest of RC and criminalises WC

Neo Marxism-Criticial Criminology-(Taylor, Walton, Young) Differences between Neo and Traditional Marxism

-Reject idea that criminals commit crime because of economic necessity

-Take a more voluntaristic view and believe individuals have free will

-People choose whether to commit crime or not-it is a meaningful action

Neo Marxism-Anti-determinism

Reject that people commit crime out of economic necessity

Take a voluntaristic approach-people have free will-crime is a meaningful action and conscious choice

Criminals are not passive puppets-they are deliberately striving to change society

Neo Marxism-Six Apsects of Taylor et al’s theory of deviance

1.The Wider origins of the deviant act-unequal distribution of power

2.The immediate origins of the act-context in which the individual commits crime

3.The act itself and the meaning for the actor

4.The immediate origins of the social reaction-reaction of police, family and community

5.The wider origins of social reaction-the structure of capitalist society-who has power to decide what is deviant

6.The effects of the labelling-the deviants future actions

Eval to Critical Criminology

Feminists-Approach is ‘gender blind‘-focuses too much on male crime

Burke-critical Criminology is too general and idealistic to be useful in tackling crime

Left Realists-Critical Criminology romanticises WC criminals as Robin hoods who steal from rich and give to poor, reality is that they mostly prey on the poor

Crimes of the Powerful (Reiman and Leighton)

More likely a crime is to be committed by a higher class individual the less likely it is to be treated as an offence

Reason-unequal power distribution

Have better lawyers, resources and wealth

Sutherland-Definition of White Collar crime

A crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in his occupation

Eval to Sutherlands definition of white collar crime

Fails to consider occupational and corporate crime

Occupational crime-committed by employees for personal gain, often against organisation

Corporate crimes-committed by employees for the organisation they work for to match companies goals

Examples of occupational crime

Mp expenses scandal-many put holiday homes as part of their expenses

Enron Company-senior executives did false accounting to exaggerate profit and inflate shares-made tens of millions eacb

Examples of corporate crime

Consumer CRIES-PIP Scandal-breast implants made of poor materials and exploded inside women-company knew they were poorly made and still sold them

Bhopal Disaster-company didnt take responsibility for pollution into water killing People-poorly compensated people

Outreach and Impact of White Collar Crime

White collar and corporate crime more harmful than street crime-costs more an do more harm to people

Tombs-corporate crime has enormous costs-physical (death, illness) environmental (pollution) economic (consumers, workers, taxpayers)

Corporate is widespread, routine and pervasive

List of corporate crimes

Financial-tax evasion, money laundering, illegal accounting

Crimes against consumers-false labelling and selling unfit goods-e.g PIP

Crimes against employees-sexual and racial discrimination, violation of wage laws, denying rights to join a union, violating safety laws

Crimes against the environment-illegal pollution of air, water and land-e.g toxic waste dumping-e.g Volkswagen scandal (installed software so vehicles could pass EPA emissions test)

State corporate crimes-harms committed when government institutions and businesses cooperate to pursue their goals

Invisibility of Corporate crime Intro

Pearson+Box-corporate crime is more damaging as politicians ignore them

Conklin-US business crime causes greater financial loss than theft

Box-Britain has more deaths and injuries from law breaching of businesses than of conventional murder

Four factors that cause corporate crime to seem invisible (Hughes and Langan)

Low visibility-street crimes highly visible in person and in media vs white collar crimes are mainly in offices and largely hidden from public gaze

Complexity-often complex as hard to unravel and allocate blame-e.g fraud-can take years to figure out-may involve different parties and departments

Diffusion of Responsibility-difficult to appportion blame-e.g Thalidomide Scandal-many diff people involved-hard to blame one person

Diffusion of victimisation-refers to victimless crimes-no obvious victims-less likely individuals will pursue claims

Other reasons corporate crime is ignored

Media give little coverage-reinforcing stereotype that crime is WC phenomenon-describe corporate crime in sanitised language

Lack of political will to tackle corporate crime-discuss being ‘tough on crime’ but relates only to street crime

De-labelling-corporate is often filtered out from the process of criminalisation-offences often defined as civil not criminal-penalties are often fines rather than jail

Explanations to corporate crime-Strain Theory

Strain Theory-Goal of businesses is to maximise profitability-may employ illegal means

Law violations by large companies increase as financial performance deteriorates-showed willingness to innovate to achieve goals

Explanations to corporate crime-Differential association

Behavior is learned from others in a social context

More association with people with criminal attitudes=more likely we are to become deviant ourselves

If company culture justifies criminal acts to achieve corporate goals, employees become socialised into criminality

Explanations to corporate crime-Labelling Theory

Professionals have power to avoid labelling, they can afford expensive lawyers to help avoid being labelled as criminals or to get charges reduced

CJS is reluctant to investigate/prosecute white collar crime

Explanations of Corporate crime-Marxism

Capitalism has spread the idea that corporate crime is less widespread or harmful than WC crime

The state avoid making or enforcing laws that conflict with its interests

Some corporate crime is prosecuted-this is only the tip of the iceberg