Crime and Deviance - Marxist Approach

1. IME
CR
&
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2. Capitalism and Crime
• Marxist views on deviance adopt a conflictstructuralist stance.
• The economic base or infrastructure
determines the precise nature of the
superstructure, i.e. the way the economy is
organised will determine the norms, values
and what is defined deviant.

3. Capitalism and Crime
• Classical Marxists contend that
– Capitalism itself is a crime, and
– It also causes crime.

4. Capitalism and Crime
• According to Marxists capitalism is based on
oppression and economic exploitation of the
majority.
• It creates a dog eat dog world in which greed,
violence and corruption flourish.
• Marxists state that crime happens as a result
of inequality and poverty.

5. Deviant for Whom?
• Marxism suggests deviance means to stray
from the norms and values of the ruling
classes since they control the means of
production, and are therefore the intellectual
rulers in society.
• They have the power to define working class
activities as deviant, and in doing so control
them.
• …parallels with labelling theory...

6. Power and Control
• The rich make the
laws in order to
protect their wealth
and power –
therefore property
theft and benefit
fraud is punished
more harshly than
embezzlement and
tax evasion

9. Power and Control
• According to Marxists, the real criminals are
the rich people who exploit the rest of us and
make us poor.
• Criminals are just rejecting the society we live
in.

10. David Gordon (1991)
• Suggests that most working class crime is a
realistic rational response to inequalities.
• He claims – considering the nature of
capitalism we should not ask
– ‘why the working class commit crime?’,
but instead
– ‘ why they don’t commit more crime?’

11. Gordon
• Gordon argues that the ideology of capitalism
encourages criminal behaviour in all social
classes.
• The need to win at all costs ,or go out of
business, encourage capitalists to commit
white collar crime and corporate crimes such
as tax evasion.
• Capitalism also encourages a ‘culture of envy’
among poorer sections of society that may
encourage a criminal reaction.

12. Louis Althusser
• Argues that the law is an ideological state
apparatus which functions in the interests of
the ruling class to maintain and legitimate
class inequality in the following ways:
1.It is concerned with protecting the major
priorities of capitalism wealth, private
property and profit. Snider notes that the
capitalist state is reluctant to pass laws that
regulate the activities of businesses.

13. 2. Box notes that the powerful kill, injure, maim
and steal from member of society but these
acts are not covered by law and health and
safety is a civil rather than criminal offence.
3. Law enforcement favours the rich. Benefit
fraud attracts prosecution and prison, yet tax
fraudsters rarely get taken to court and
prosecuted. Think Starbucks, Gary Barlow
4. White collar crime is under policed and
under punished.

14. White Collar Crime
•
•
•
•
•
Fraud
Accounting offences
Tax evasion
Insider dealing
Computer crime
• Largely undetected

15. Corporate Crime
• Selling dangerous goods to consumers
• Between 1965 and 1995 25,000 people were
killed in the workplace in the UK with 70% of
deaths due to employer violation of the HSE
• Environmental offences – e.g. BP Oil disaster
in the Gulf of Mexico
• False accounting / share price fixing / money
laundering
• .....the case studies are endless!!!

16. The Penalties
• Hazel Croall notes that despite the fact that
the costs of corporate crime far out stripping
working class crime, they are not regarded a
serious problem:
– Offences are invisible
– Responsibility is delegated so it difficult to see
where the blame lies
– Many regulatory bodies warn offenders rather
than punish them.

17. Criticisms of Traditional Marxism
• It ignores the relationship between crime and
important non-class variables such as ethnicity
and gender
• The criminal justice system sometimes acts
against the interests of the capitalist class
(MPs expenses scandal)

18. NEO MARXISM – THE NEW
CRIMINOLOGY

19. The New Criminology
• Taylor, Walton and Young published The New
Criminology in 1973.
• Much of their work agrees with classical
Marxism in that they agree that inequalities
lie at the root of crime and they support a
radical transformation of society.
• However, as opposed to being driven to
crime, these sociologists insist criminals
choose to commit crime

20. Taylor, Walton and Young
• They reject all theories that see behaviour as
driven by external forces.
• They see the individual as turning to crime as
the meaningful attempt to construct his own
self-conception.
• They deny that crime is caused by biology,
anomie, or being a member of a subculture,
by environment, by labelling or by poverty.

21. Crime is a Political Act!
• They stress that rimes are often deliberate
and conscious acts with political motives.
• Thus the Women’s Liberation Movement, the
Black Power Movement and Gay Liberation
Front are examples of people fighting back
against the injustice of capitalism.
• Thus vandalism is a symbolic attack on
society’s obsession with property (Banksy)

22. Robin Hood
• They also state that many crimes against
property involve the redistribution of wealth –
poor stealing from rich.
• They hope for a socialist, not communist,
society with a greater emphasis on freedom
where deviants are accepted.
• They also wanted to see a fully social theory
of deviance which looks at deviance from a
number of angles simultaneously.

23. Further studies
• A number of sociologists including Stuart Hall
and Paul Gilroy have investigated the
relationship between race and crime and see
much crime as being politically motivated.

24. Further studies
• They claim that the mass media creates a view
that black criminals are pathological.
• This creates a moral panic and black and
Asian youths became heavily policed and also
lead to divisions between black and white
working class diverting people from the real
issues.

25. Criticisms of New Criminology
• Over-romanticizing working class criminals as
Robin Hoods
• The reality is that many victims of crime are
working class
• It is difficult to imagine a political motive
underpinning crimes such as domestic
violence, rape and child abuse.
• It is too idealistic to tackle crime practically

26. Summary Clip
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb42CkSK9tk