Topic 2 - Marxism, class and crimes of the powerful

marxism - criminogenic capitalism

• capitalism causes crime – inevitable

• poverty means it’s the only way to survive

• only way to obtain consumer goods in advertising results in utilitarian crimes

• ‘dog eat dog’ system encourages greed and self interest and so white collar crime

• Gordon = crime is a rational response so is in all classes

marxism - state and law making

• Chambliss = laws exist to protect private property

• biased to mc e.g. restrict working class ability to strike but there are loopholes for middle class to not pay tax

• Snider = reluctant to pass laws that limit business activity as they’ll operate abroad

• e.g. Bhopal disaster = chemical gas leak from plant in India and no one held accountable

marxism - ideological functions

• laws occasionally passed appearing to benefit working class e.g. workplace health and safety laws

• Pearce = benefit upper-class by keeping workers fit for work

• selective enforcement makes crime look like a working class phenomenon and encourages working class to blame criminals not capitalism

marxism - evaluation

• feminist = benefit men

• functionalist = benefit everyone

• economically deterministic

• bot all poor people commit crime

• not all capitalist countries have high crime rates

neo marxism - anti determinism

• reject theories who see crime is caused by other external factors

• take volunteeristic view that we have free well and it’s a meaningful action and conscious choice

• criminals not passive puppets but deliberately strive to change society

• emphasise individual liberty and diversity

• shouldn’t be labelled as deviant just for being different

neo marxism - Taylor et al

• social theory of deviance

• 1. wider origins of the deviant act

• 2. immediate origins of the act

• 3. act itself and meaning of the actor

• 4. immediate origins of societal reaction

• 5. wider origins of societal reaction

• 6. effects of labelling

crimes of the powerful - overview

• more likely a crime to be committed by upper-class, less likely it is to be treated as an offence (Reinman and Leighton)

• white collar crime is any illegal act or omission that is a result of deliberate decisions or culpable negligence by a legitimate business intended to benefit the business (Pearce and Tombs)

• occupational crime = by employees for own personal gain e.g. Enron, MP expenses scandal

• corporate crime = by employees for organisation in pursuit of their goals e.g. PIP, VW emissions

crimes of the powerful - scale and types

• do more harm than ordinary crime e.g. in USA, cost over 10 times ordinary crimes

• Tombs = enormous costs, physical, environmental, economic, it’s ‘widespread routine and pervasive’

• financial e.g. tax evasion, bribery

• against consumers e.g. PIP scandal

• against employees e.g. discrimination, violation of wage laws

• against environment e.g. VW emission scandal

• state-corporate e.g. government and businesses committing harms to achieve goals

crimes of the powerful - invisibility

• Pearce and Box = paid little attention to by government so are more damaging

• Conklin = US business crime caused more financial loss than any theft

• Box = in UK, more deaths and injuries from breaches by businesses than murder or manslaughter

• Hughes and Langan = due to low visibility (largely hidden, hard to blame), complexity (multitude of transactions), diffusion of responsibility (hard to blame, many involved), diffusion of victimisation (no obvious victim)

• also ignored due to little media coverage or reported as technical infringement (sanitises), lack of political will to tackle and de labelling

crimes of the powerful - explanations

• strain = turn to illegal means to maximise profit, violations increased as financial performance got worse

• differential association = learned from others, if company culture permitted, employee socialised into criminality

• labelling = negotiation of justice, expensive lawyers, get charges reduced, not negatively labelled, CJS reluctant to investigate

• marxism = capitalism spread idea working class crime more harmful and widespread, avoid making laws conflicting their interests, only some prosecuted but only tip of the iceberg

relationship between class and crime - functionalism

working class has developed subculture in opposition to mainstream culture so has higher crime rates

relationship between class and crime - strain

working class denied opportunity to get successful legitimately so experience strain

relationship between class and crime - subcultural

working class youth culturally deprived, not socialised into main middle class culture, suffer status frustration, join a subculture with alternative status hierarchy

relationship between class and crime - labelling

official stats socially constructed, working class more likely to be labelled criminal as law enforcement see them as ‘typical criminals’

relationship between class and crime - marxism

working class driven to poverty so need to survive, non-utilitarian due to alienation in work, stats ignore upper-class crime but they do commit crime too

relationship between class and crime - realists

working class more likely to commit crime, official stats are real, right → inadequate socialisation and biological factors, left → marginalisation, subcultures, relative deprivation