5.2 marxist explanations

Key Marxist ideas

  • capitalism is criminogenic/ causes crime

  • Capitalism requires social control in order to prevent revolution

  • Laws exist to protect the interests of the ruling class

  • Focus on white collar crime, corporate crime and state crime

Core themes

  • power and stratification - the bourgeoise hold power in society and the state works in their interest

  • Socialisation transmits the capitalist ideology, done through the law. Agents of social control and the repressive state apparatus (police) are used to control people to serve capitalism, disguised as ‘protection’

Chambliss

  • most of the laws are property laws. This protects those who own property

  • Went further to argued people use their wealth to bribe officials and avoid punishments

  • Suggested the CJS selectively apply their laws to control the working class and to protect the rich

Graham

  • Illustrated chamblisses point by looking at how the government policed illegal drug trade

  • Found that politicians agreed not to greatly restrict amphetamine production and distribution because most of it was made and sold by large pharmaceutical companies, rather than ‘criminals’

  • So allowed it because it benefited the bourgeoise

Pearce

  • argued that laws to help workers, really just helped the bourgeoise

  • Health and safety laws were just to provide a healthy and production workforce

  • However snider concluded that these laws were not enforced strongly anyway, so these laws were just ‘for show’

Evaluation

  • there is an existence of crime in communist societies. For example the Soviet Union shows that capitalism is not criminogenic, because crime still exists

  • In contemporary society more people own property, so the law is less targeted towards the upper classes. However Marxists would still argue that the CJS would take crimes against the rich more seriously

  • Society is democratic, law makers are elected by everyone so there must be a consensus around crime

  • More laws that protect workers, e.g minimum wage. This does not benefit the bourgeoise. But Marxists would still argue that these laws benefit the bourgeoise as they prevent revolution

  • Present working class criminal as passive and that people commit crime due to their economic circumstances. Neo-marxists and left realists would argue crime is a conscious choice

Neo-Marxism

  • argued the working class make an active choice to break the law, and that this was a positive political act against the bourgeoise

Young and Taylor - the new criminology

— argued that the following should be considered following a deviant act —

  • the structure of society and where power resides

  • The structural background to the deviant act

  • The immediate cause of the act and the act itself

  • The societal reaction

  • The impact of that reaction

Stuart Hall - black muggers

  • found there was a ‘crisis of capitalism’ (An economic recession)

  • There was an increase in black unemployment, so more turned to the ‘informal economy’ / crime

  • The ruling class divided the working class to prevent anti-capitalism political activism, turned white and black people against each other

  • Moral panics about street crime by black people was used, leading to increased police and ‘fantasy crime’. Increased policing and data collection made it appear that there was more crime

  • This all prevented revolution or radical political change

Evaluation

  • only a small portion of crime could be considered politically motivated

  • Left realists would argue most victims are working class which this explanation doesn’t account for. It may even be dismissive of victims and tries to make crime into something ‘positive’, when they should be producing solutions to crime

  • Some argue the ‘black muggers’ theory is a conspiracy theory. No one can prove they deliberately divided the working class. Pluralists would argue it was done for profit, sensationalising crime increases newspaper sales

Overall evaluation

  • reductionist - suggest all crime is caused by economics. Postmodernist however would argue society is complex and fragmented. So there are more than one influence for crime

  • Realists would argue Marxists ignore the victims of crime and see crime as positive which can be socially sensitive

  • Feminists - lack of focus regarding women and crime

  • Some would argue that crime committed by the proletariat (white collar crime) is more serious and a greater concern for the general public, which is why it is policed more. However Marxists would argue that the same type of crime is still treated very differently depending on class, e.g oxford med student stabbed her boyfriend but was not given a sentence due to her ‘extraordinary talent’