chambliss

What two topics does Chambliss yap about?

• Purpose of the law

• Selective enforcement

What does Chambliss say the purpose of the law is?

• Laws are designed to protect property and wealth of capitalists

What’s an example of the law being used to benefit capitalists wealth?

• Tough penalties for theft or vandalism but corporate crimes go mostly unpunished

What’s a historic example of the law being used to benefit capitalism?

• Vagrancy laws

• Landowning elite after Black Death wanted low wages so used Vagrancy laws 2 criminalise employment and mobility

• These laws force peasants to work for landowners at whatever wages

• (Refusing work = vagrant = imprisonment)

What did Chambliss say about selective enforcement?

• Law is more likely to be enforced on the least powerful groups of society

• Even though all social classes commit crimes (Bonger)

What did the Social Exclusion Unit report find relating to selective enforcement?

• Over ¼ of prison inmates had been in care

• Half had no qualifications