Ch. 10 - Critical and Postmodern Criminology

Critical Criminology & Two Approaches (S/PM)

Goal is to expose the nature of the underlying power relations that shape how different groups are treated in and by the criminal justice system. Direct involvement in interventions in various law-and-order and criminal justice debates (strategies and action).

Deep concern with issues of oppression and injustice, is what the differing theories under this umbrella have in common.

• Structures of power are institutionalized in ways and to reflect social interests that oppress specific categories of people.

  • Power is unfair, biased and operates in ways that advantage certain groups or classes above others.

  • Main focus is structural inequality, racism and discrimination as it relates to crime.

• Includes two general approaches:

  • Structuralist Criminology

  • Postmodern Criminology

Structural Inequalities

A condition where one category of people are attributed an unequal status in relation to other categories of people. This is a heavy focus within the critical criminology field.

• The work of critical criminologists has been instrumental in exposing a wide range of issues pertaining to the less powerful groups in society.

• The victimization and empowerment of Indigenous peoples, immigrant communities, refugees, gay men and lesbians, working-class young people, has been the subject of probing analysis and insightful discussion.

Feminist Jurisprudence

Argues that laws are not neutral. Even if they look fair on the surface, they are often shaped by a society where men have historically held more power. Because of that, laws can unintentionally (or sometimes intentionally) disadvantage women.

• Concerned with the law and the principles that lead courts to make the decisions they do.

Structural Critical Criminology Approach

Structuralist

A critical approach that focuses on power as something that is ingrained in social structures and that manifests itself in the actions of institutions and the activities of sectional interest groups. Focus on crimes of the powerful and crimes of the less powerful.

• Number of different strands, that focus on crime defined as oppression.

• Working class people, women, ethnic minority groups, and Indigenous peoples are most likely to experience oppressive social relations based on class division, sexism and racism.

Postmodern Approach

Power is related to language and the ways that knowledge shapes human experience. Examines how meaning and sense are constructed in everyday language (e.g. those acting within the system are likely to use the language within that system - police officers, lawyers, judges).

• Every association between subject (you) and object (the world around you), is entirely an artifact of language (signs and symbols), and language, in turn, is relative to and determined by your particular perspective.

• Rejection of an overarching “grand narrative.” There is many truths for many different people.

• Emphasis on social inclusiveness, diverse modes of communication and a pluralistic culture.

Structural Critical Criminology Approach Elements

Structuralist

• Embedded forms of oppression (class, gender, race).

• Focus on crimes of the powerful (the state, etc.), crimes of the less powerful (specific class, etc.).

• Marginalization, criminalization (e.g., racialization of crime) are the cause of crime.

• Society and the system shape who is seen as a criminal.

• Social empowerment, redistribution of social resources, participatory democracy as response to crime.

• Anti-racist campaigns, human rights emphasis, public ownership under community control as crime prevention.

• Emphasis on restorative justice, self-determination at the community level, employment orientation, open and public accountability of state officials related to the operation of the criminal justice system.

Crimes of Powerful and Less Powerful

Structuralist

Crimes of the powerful: Issues relating to ideology, and capitalism (e.g., the nature of “law-and-order” politics):

• Political economy (e.g., social impacts of privatization)

• The state (e.g., managerial rather than democratic modes of rule).

• The structural context of crime vis-à-vis capitalist development and institutional pressures is viewed as central to any explanation of crimes of the powerful.

Crimes of less powerful: Specific experiences of particular sections of the population. Different experiences for those living urban and rural. Two factors are considered:

• Specificity of the crime and criminal involvement (e.g. specific groups, specific kinds of activities).

• Generalist features that unite the disparate groups (e.g. shared economic, social and political circumstances).

Structuralist Solutions to Crime

Structuralism

• Built on a strategy of empowerment.

  • Involving people directly in decisions about their future through direct participatory democracy.

• Redistribution of social resources to communities on a needs basis.

• Open and public accountability of all state officials.

• Transfer of wealth from private hands to public ownership under community control.

• Model of restorative justice rather than retribution and punishment.

  • Unless to redistribute community resources from the advantaged sectors to the population of the less advantaged.

Risk Society

Structuralism

The term is not intended to imply an increase of risk in society, but rather a society that is organized in response to risks. It is a society increasingly preoccupied with the future (and also with safety), which generates the notion of risk.

• New risks are emerging with increased globalization of economic, political and social relationships (e.g. pollution, global warming, crime, war, etc.).

• These potential feeling of uncertainty, of individualization, and of risk management have created considerable interest and application in the specific area of crime and crime control for governments.

Ontological Insecurity & Individualization

Structuralism

Describes the feeling of being physically and psychologically at risk in an unstable and rapidly changing world. The direct result of the collapse of traditional social structures, and the limitations of those that are meant to provide security and predictability (such as the family, school, or work), result in a process of individualization.

• Individualization: The process whereby individuals are institutionally made more responsible for their well-being and less reliant on state or collective support; the cultural and ideological prominence given to self-managing one’s choices and actions.

Differences Between Postmodern and Structuralist Approaches

Structuralism: Meaning comes from stable systems/structures. Relies on order and patterns.

Postmodernism: Meaning is fluid, subjective, no fixed truth. Relies on uncertainty, word, symbolism and multiple meanings to different people.

• Crime is not just an objective act, it is defined by how language describes it and who has the power to define it.

• How the powerless are labelled (through language), and how they resist that label.

• Analyzing the languages that construct social relationships in a specific way (advantage to some and disadvantage to others).

Pluralistic Culture

A society where many different groups (cultures, beliefs, values, identities) coexist and are respected and allowed to maintain their differences, rather than being forced to blend into one dominant culture. Canada is an example through the usage of the mosaic.

• Diversity is encouraged, not erased.

• No single culture dominates completely.

• People can practice their own traditions, languages, and beliefs.

• There is an emphasis on tolerance and inclusion.

Postmodern Elements

• Definition of crime: Not absolute, continuous struggle over control of linguistic production.

• Focus of analysis: Human subject, and conflicts over “existence” or “reality” as expressed in and through language.

• Cause of crime: Hegemony of dominant discourse, and suppression of alternatives.

• Nature of offender: Discursively constituted through dominant discourses, and relationships of resistance/power.

• Response to crime: Focus on shifting narratives (replacement discourses) and sometimes choosing not to act, highlighting that crime is socially constructed and complex rather than just something to punish.

• Crime prevention: Shaped by debates over meaning, inclusion of new perspectives and inaction.

• Operation of criminal justice system: The criminal justice system varies by context, includes multiple perspectives, is open to critique, and recognizes that people experience crime in many different ways.

Michel Foucault

He was a French thinker who studied power, control, and society, related to both critical and postmodern criminology. Writings were translated into English in the 1970s. Focused on discipline and punishment, specifically micro-processes of authority and the exercise of power.

Concept of power, and the notion of resistance is central to his work.

• He argued that prisons aren’t just for punishment, they are used to control and shape people’s behavior.

• He showed how modern systems (like prisons, schools, hospitals) train people to be obedient and “well-behaved.”

• He believed power works through constant surveillance, rules, and discipline, not just force.

• He believed that these are tools of social control that shape people’s behavior and maintain power structures, often invisibly.

Rational Power-Knowledge Mechanism

It’s a system where knowledge, labels, and institutions are used to control people and maintain social inequality. Related to Michel Foucault’s idea.

• Power works through knowledge and systems, not just force.

• Prisons use labels, language, and “expert knowledge” (like psychology) to define who is normal vs deviant.

• This shapes how inmates think, act, and see themselves.

• It helps the powerful (upper class) keep control over the less powerful (lower class).

• Offenders get labeled and controlled, becoming scapegoats, which distracts from crimes by powerful people.

Michel Foucault on Power

Power is insidious, invasive, and well-planned, and it operates from the bottom up as well as the top down.

• Power is not located in social institutions but instead in the micro-practices of everyday life.

  • To understand what’s “normal,” you have to study what’s “abnormal” (like madness or crime).

  • Society uses institutions (prisons, schools, military) to control and shape people’s bodies and behavior.

  • The goal is to create a “docile body” someone who is obedient, productive, and easy to control.

  • This was especially important for modern society, where people needed to fit into factories, classrooms, and armies.

Historical Emergence of Critical Criminology

Emerged in the 1960s–1970s as a response to inequality and traditional theories, combining Marxist and feminist ideas with labelling theory to focus on power, social conflict, and justice.

• Emerged during a time of major social and political movements (civil rights, feminism, anti-war).

• Developed as a reaction against traditional criminology, which focused only on individual offenders.

• Heavily influenced by Marxism (class inequality) and Feminism (gender inequality).

• A key turning point was labelling theory, which shifted focus to how society and institutions create crime through labels and reactions.

• It became part of a broader push for social justice and challenging unequal power structures.

Left Realist Approach

Focuses on the social causes of crime and interaction between agencies of social control, the offender, the victim, and the public. Argue that inequality and lack of opportunity create street cultures that increase crime, and this crime is a real, serious problem.

• It draws strongly on the concepts of relative deprivation and countercultures.

• Says crime happens because some groups can’t achieve the success society promises (money, status).

  • Similar to Strain Theory.

Britain Riots 1981 (Brixton Riots)

The 1981 Brixton riots were part of a wave of riots across Britain in 1981. They happened because many people, especially young, Black, and working-class communities felt treated unfairly by police and faced poverty and unemployment.

• Tensions built up over things like stop-and-search policing, which many saw as discriminatory.

• This led to protests that turned into violent clashes with police, including fires, looting, and street battles.

Left Realist Response to Riots (3 Factors)

CPM

Argued that the riots had their genesis in three factors:

• Counterculture (West Indian): Emergence of a counterculture that was competitive, disorganized and anti social. They were alienated from the dominate UK culture.

• Political marginalization of the inner city: People lacked resources and a voice within the political system, added to the counterculture. No access to power, such as capital or trade unions, they were locked out of the economy.

  • Economic marginalization made political marginalization worse.

  • Riots were the only political resource community members has access to.

• Methods (police) of dealing with people who lived in deprived neighborhoods: In marginalized neighborhoods police shifted away from community policing to military tactics (stop and search).

Marxist and Left Realist Disagreement

They disagreed because Marxists minimized street crime, while Left Realists insisted it is a real and serious problem, especially for the poor.

• Marxist criminology: Focuses on how powerful elites control society and often downplays street crime, seeing it as less important than crimes of the powerful. Focus is only on inequality and crimes of the powerful.

  • Main focus is the powerful ruling / upper class (corporations, governments).

• Left Realism: Argues that street crime is real, serious, and affects working-class people the most, so it should not be ignored. Agrees, yes but street crime is still a real harm and needs attention too.

  • Street crime occurring in inner-city neighborhoods should be the main focus of criminology.

Counterculture

A set of cultural ideas different from and in conflict with the common culture of a society. Similar to a subculture, except counterculture stresses the notion of active and open opposition to dominant cultural values.

• Can develop through oppression of the main group, and societal strain.

White Collar Crime & Scholar

Crimes committed by powerful people, like business executives or corporations, for financial gain. Focuses on how capitalism creates opportunities for these crimes (e.g., fraud, exploitation). It argues the system often protects or ignores these crimes because they benefit the powerful. So, these crimes are under-policed and under-punished compared to street crime.

• Term coined by Edwin Sutherland in 1939.

• Saw a need to address the inequalities in treatment of people who engaged in harmful behaviour between those with power and those without power.

Differential Association Theory & Scholar

A theory created by Edwin Sutherland that argues criminality, like any other form of behaviour, is learned through a process of association with others who communicate criminal values.

• If you spend time with people who support or commit crime, you’re more likely to learn and do it too.

• This includes learning: Techniques (how to commit crime), and motives and attitudes (why it’s okay).

Unique Elements of Critical Criminology

Actively challenges and tries to reform the justice system by exposing inequality and injustice. It is more political and action-oriented than other theories.

• One of the few perspectives to focus specifically on issues of racism and crime.

  • Goal is to make the criminal justice processes and procedures as fair and unbiased as possible.

  • Discrimination leads to high incarceration rates.

• It gets involved in real-world debates about law, prisons, and justice.

• It aims to expose injustice and abuse, especially in institutions like prisons.

• It brings attention to issues like prison conditions and privatization of punishment.

Victimology

Focuses on the idea that researchers must consider the voices and experiences of those oppressed through their experiences with the criminal justice system.

• Argues that understanding the voices and experiences of those incarcerated has been absent but must not continue to be overlooked.

• Emerged in the 1960s and 1970s.

• Subdiscipline of criminology.

Convict Criminology

A relatively new and controversial perspective that challenges the way crime and correctional problems are represented in the fields of corrections and criminology.

• Represents the work of convicts, ex-convicts, or enlightened academics and practitioners who explore issues surrounding the experiences of prisoners and ex-cons to combat the misrepresentations of scholars, the media, and government.

• Convict criminologists also propose new and less costly strategies that are more humane and effective.

• Points out that in recent years, significant attention has been brought to the failure of prisons to rehabilitate incarcerated individuals and to reduce rates of recidivism.

Critical Race Theory

A way of thinking about society and law that focuses on how race and racism are built into systems, not just individual attitudes. That race is a social construct and that the law and legal institutions are inherently racist. Formed by civil rights activists and US Scholars.

• Emerged in the 1970s, among scholars that were studying why civil rights laws hadn’t fully eliminated inequality.

• This theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

• Examples of this include racial profiling people of a certain race, police violence against a certain race.

Three Fundamental Understandings (and New Fourth Development)

Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory says racism is built into everyday society, helps maintain power for some groups, and that race itself is a social idea that changes over time.

1. Racism is normal (not rare): Racism isn’t just occasional or extreme—it’s a regular, everyday part of how society works for many people of colour.

2. Racism benefits those in power: It often helps the dominant (usually white) group keep advantages—like power, wealth, or status.

3. Race is socially created (social constructs): Race isn’t a biological fact, it is something society made up and shaped over time based on ideas, beliefs, and relationships.

4. Different groups are treated differently at different times: This is called differential racialization. It means society stereotypes or treats different minority groups in different ways depending on the time, situation, or what benefits those in power.

Postcolonial Theory

It looks at how the effects of colonialism (when powerful countries controlled others) still influence crime, law, and justice today. Explore the social and political power relations that created and sustain the exploitation and marginalization of Indigenous peoples through the lens of social, political, legal, and cultural impacts.

• Emerged in the 1980s, in part as a response to radical feminism and critical race theory.

Supranational Criminology

An interdisciplinary research area with a focus on international crimes. Include defining and mapping international crimes, investigating and analyzing the causes, developing and disseminating preventive strategies, understanding how to react to international crimes, and investigating issues of international criminal justice.

• The focus also includes the study of people who are involved in the crimes: the perpetrators, the victims, and the bystanders.

Terrorism & Two Elements

One of the foremost experts on terrorism, identifies two key characteristics shared among almost all definitions:

1. There is a victim, someone (or some group) that is being terrorized or targeted.

2. The meaning of terrorism itself is derived from those targets or victims.

Environmental Criminology

A perspective that focuses on environmental or context factors that can influence criminal activity. These factors include space (geography), time, law, offenders, and targets or victims.

• Much of this work has been directed at exposing different instances of substantive environmental injustice and ecological injustice.

• It has also involved critique of the actions of nation-states and transnational corporations for fostering particular types of harm and for failing to adequately address or regulate harmful activity.

Critique of Critical Criminology

Critiques for this theory are similar to the Marxist theory.

• Definition of crime is too broad: Crime is defined as any oppression or harm, not just illegal acts.

• View of power is too simple: Often divides power, which can be much more complex in real life.

• Too focused on capitalism: It does not explain how capitalism creates crime.

• Postmodern ideas make things confusing: Power is everywhere, and the truth depends on the person (language and perspective).

  • Too much theory, not enough action: Analyze ideas, that may rather have a simple solution (e.g. postmodern).

• Research methods can be limited: Some approaches rely on personal stories instead of data.