Marxims And Neo Marxim Flashcards
Marxism and Neo Marxism
According to Marxism crime has 3 main elements:
1. Criminogenic capitalism
2. The state law and law making
3. Ideological function of crime and law
Criminogenic capitalism
- means that capitalism breads crime
- encourages individuals to be materialistic consumers making us aspire to an unrealistic and often unattainable lifestyle
- generating inequity and poverty, both which are correlated with higher crime rates
The state and law making
- law making and enforcement serves the interest of the capitalist class
- chambliss (1975) - laws to protect private are the cornerstone of the capitalist economy
- ruling class have the power to prevent introduction of laws that would threaten their interests
- snider (1993) - capitalist state is reluctant to pass laws that regulate the activities of business or threatens profitability
Selective enforcement
- when it comes to application of the law by CJS there is selecruce enforcement
- w/c and ethnic minorities criminalised, crimes of the powerful go ignored
Ideological functions of crime and law
- laws are passed that may appear to be for the benefit of the w/c but these often benefit the ruling class to
- Pearce (1976) - these laws keep workers fit for work
- these laws are not rigorously enforced
- because the state enforces that law selectively - crime appears to be a w/c phenomenon. Blame criminals rather than capitalism
Taylor, Walton and young (1973) - the new criminology
- capitalism society is based on exploitation and class conflict, characterised by extreme inequalities of wealth and power
- the state makes and enforces laws in the interests of the capitalist and criminalises members of the w/c
- capitalism should be replaces by a classless society
- Marxists is too deterministic. Taylor et al argue it is voluntarism. Crime is a meaningful action a conscious choice
A fully social theory of deviance
In order to understand crime fully and change society for the better, a complete theory of deviance needs to unite aspects:
1. The wider origins of the deviant act
2. The immediate origins of the deviant act
3. The act itself
4. The immediate origins of societal reaction
5. The effects of labelling
Critical criminology
- applying a wide range of perspectives to out understanding of crime
- doesn’t place as much emphasis on class as traditional Marxist ideas do
- sees existing societies and CJS as unfair and exploitative
- does not accept existing laws as being just as an objective measure of social harm
- zeminology - study social harm rather than law breaking
Evaluation of Marxists
- feminist say that Taylors approach is ‘gender blind’
- left realists say it romanticise w/c criminals - usually prey on poor
- this type of crime is not taken seriously by Taylor and its effects are ignored idealistic to be useful in tackling crime
- Stuart hall - used Taylor eat al approach to explain moral panics over muggings in the 1970s
- Taylor, Walton and young have changed their views since the new criminology was published
Crimes of the powerful
- Sutherland, was the first to study white collar crime as:
‘’Crimes committed by a person of high social status and respectability during the course of his occupation’’ - whilst it shift away from the typical class crime and towards crimes such as bribery and fraud etc. it fails to distinguish between occupational crime and corporate crime, the difference is
1. Occupational crime - refers to a crime committed by an employee for personal gain, often at the expense of the organisation they are working for e.g embezzlement
2. Corporate Crime - refers to a crime that is committed by the organisation itself, e.g, tax evasion, health and safety violations, and crimes against consumers
Corporate crime
Financial crimes - e.g tax evasion, money laundering and bribery. Victims of financial crimes include tax payers, shareholders and the government
Crimes against employees - e.g sexual or racial discrimination, and violations of wage and health safety laws
Crimes against consumer - e.g false advertising and selling of unfit goods
Crimes against the environment - e.g the illegal pollution of air, water and land such as toxic waste dumping
Comparing compare crimes and working class crime
- snider - claims corporate crime does more harm for society than w/c crime or ‘street crime’, such as burglary, robbery and murder, which are usually seen as the most serious types of crime
Why are cooperate crime and white collar crime difficult to detect?
- Low visibility - relatively invisible - hidden from the public gaze whereas street robbery are more visible
- Media coverage - the media give much less coverage to corporate and white collar crime compared to w/c crime, reinforcing the belief crime is a w/c phenomenon
- Complexity - it can be difficult to allocate blame as it frequently involves various companies and numerous individuals often working with different bank accounts
- Diffusion of victimisation - described as ‘crimes without victims’ in many cases, there are no obvious victims compared to Murder cases
- Diffusion of responsibility - the responsibility is often diffused - spread out and difficult to allocate blame.
- Ignorance of victimisation - people often become indirectly affected and my not realise they have been a victim of crime because if its relative invisibility
Why are corporate and white collar crimes, if detected, treated leniently?
- victimless - the victims of the crime are often a by product compared to ‘muggings’ burglary and theft which are seen as a direct assault
- legal representation - rich individuals and powerful organisations can afford the highest quality of legal representation
- not dangerous - the public and the judicial system do not see such crime or criminals as dangerous. They often describe corporate crimes in a sanitised language
Evaluation of corporate crime and white collar crime
Methodological problems - trying to investigate corporate and white collar crime will be the fraught with difficulty due to the problems in identifying it and the unwillingness of individuals or organisations to discuss it. So, the actual evidence of how widespread and common such crime is will always be guess work to some extent
