Marxist Theories of Crime

12 Key excerpts on "Marxist Theories of Crime"

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  eBook - ePub

  Criminological Theories

  Introduction and Evaluation

  • Ronald L. Akers(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  As these examples demonstrate, when Marxist theorists offer explanations of crime that go beyond simply attributing the causes of all crime to capitalism, they rely on concepts taken directly from the same “traditional” criminological theories of which they have been so critical and which they have declared to be inadequate. As Jensen (1980) points out, the specific factors used in modified Marxist theories to explain crime, such as economic and racial inequality, urban density, industrialization, family, and peers, are exactly the same factors proposed in mainstream, non-Marxist sociological theories. The more Marxist theory in criminology is modified to incorporate age, gender, socialization, strain, differential opportunity, and social learning patterns, the less it differs from non-Marxist theories. Except for nuances of emphasis and terminology, it becomes virtually indistinguishable from the main sociological theories of crime that it was meant to replace.

  Is Crime the Result of a Capitalist Economy?

  If the Marxist view of capitalist society as criminogenic is valid, then crime should be very low, if not non-existent, in all socialist societies. Conversely, it should be very high in all capitalist systems. The theory explains differences in the crime rate across types of society, but it does not explain differences in individual or group behavior within the same society. Therefore, any analysis of variations in crime solely within the same society cannot test the theory. The inherent, crime-generating contradictions of capitalism can only be tested by cross-national comparisons of crime in capitalist systems with crime in pre-capitalist and socialist systems.2

  Marxist criminologists have shown little interest in such comparisons of real societies, preferring to compare existing capitalist society with ideal, future socialist systems. Many Marxists have long argued that none of the currently defunct socialist states of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe were truly socialist. These systems were state capitalism, collectivism, or at best imperfectly and improperly applied socialism (see Greenberg, 1981). During the time that countries such as Sweden moved from more capitalistic economies and voted in social democratic governments with policies that are often described as socialist, both violent and property crime rates have skyrocketed (Felson, 1994:12). But Marxists would not accept the political economy of these societies as truly socialist. This concept of socialist society as a future Utopia that has yet to be established in reality renders Marxist theory untestable. If no such society based on Marxist principles exists or has ever existed, then there can be no empirical comparison of crime between capitalist and socialist systems; hence, it would be impossible to test the Marxist hypothesis that capitalism causes crime and socialism prevents crime. Such utopianism changes Marxism from a theoretical explanation of crime as it exists in reality into a moral philosophy about a crime-free ideal society.

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  The Criminology and Criminal Justice Companion

  • Susan Robinson, Tracy Cussen(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  At a later point, Marx published his work Das Kapital . According to Marxism, the proletariat will always strive to obtain a fair share of the wealth and resources while the bourgeoisie will always fight to keep it. It is not difficult to see why criminologists have used Marxist theory in an attempt to explain crime. For instance, a Marxist perspective of criminology locates crime within the social, political and economic structures of society, which Marx argues are determined by the wealthy and powerful elite. This theoretical perspective is also concerned with the opportunities afforded ordinary citizens to legitimately reach the goals of society in order to obtain and maintain their basic needs. Marx views agents of social control, such as the police, as agents juveniles lived was linked to the formation of gangs. While the opportunity to form gangs was correlated with the poverty of the neighbourhood and the social deterioration of the area, the decision of the individual to join a gang was influenced by their attachments to others and to community institutions. Anne Cattarello ( 2000 ) introduces a contemporary approach to social ecology which links macro-level theories of crime with micro-level theories. Cattarello built upon the work of Shaw and McKay ( 1942 ) in her own empirical research to test her theoretical model. Cattarello ( 2000 ) also drew on the work of Hirschi ( 1969 ) and Akers ( 1985 ) and census data to develop an integrated theory of delinquency that involved bringing together spatial analysis of crime clusters with theories of social disaffection. The results suggested that while social disorganisation affects peer associations it does not affect social bonds. She found that bonds to family and commitment to school were not influenced by social disorganisation. She also found that the effect of delinquency is completely mediated by positive peer associations.

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  Criminology

  A Reader

  • Yvonne Jewkes, Gayle Letherby, Yvonne Jewkes, Gayle Letherby(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  In particular, then, this means that the law and the processes which underpin the formation of the law are placed under scrutiny, alongside the way in which the law is used to criminalize particular social groups in the interests of the powerful. Consequently the law, and its enforcement, are seen as particular sites where the legitimized powers of the state are exercised. Those powers, it is argued, express themselves especially along class, race and gender lines. There are a number of different writers whose work can be located under this general heading of concern with the criminality of the state. Here particular atten-tion will be paid to three varieties of this interest: Marxist criminology, radical criminology, and critical criminology. While these labels certainly are not mutu-ally exclusive, the ideas associated with each of them will be discussed in turn. Marxist Criminology Strands of Marxist theorizing can be found in the writings of various criminolo-gists. Arguably the work of Chambliss (1975) and Quinney (1977) has been particularly influential. Chambliss’ work is a clear attempt to use Marxist theorizing to construct a political economy of crime. Marx himself had little to say about crime or the law, but the general tenor of his views on society and social relationships can be translated into the criminological context. As Chambliss argues, capitalism cre-ates the desire to consume and it has to be recognized that not all members of society are able to earn enough to match the levels of consumption induced by the capitalist process. There are the owners and the non-owners, the bour-geoisie and the proletariat, all of whom have different priorities at different points in time both to produce and to consume. 28 c r i m i n o l o g y : a r e a d e r

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  Criminological Theory in Context

  An Introduction

  • John Martyn Chamberlain(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Marxist criminology was also heavily criticised for holding, firstly, an overly deterministic view of human behaviour and the ability of human beings to exercise free will and change both their behaviour and their circumstances, and secondly, an overly romantic view of the working-class criminal and having a concurrent tendency to excuse their behaviour on the grounds of the fact that they are exploited by a ruling elite (Coleman et al., 2009). Furthermore, it is generally held by later Critical criminologists that Marxist criminology oversimplifies society into essentially two groups of ‘have’s’ and ‘have-not’s’, not least of all because the idea that a small band of powerful people, who are in collusion with each other, somehow run society and determine the destinies of us all is rather wide of the mark and arguably somewhat the stuff of bad Hollywood movies. It is important to remember here the key position of the conflict paradigm: that society is made up of a number of competing groups operating in conflict with each other, not just two. Finally, another key criticism of Marxist criminology is that its proponents seemed to argue that a Critical socialist revolution is the only solution to society’s many social problems, including crime. Yet more pragmatic criminologists pointed out that this oversimplified matters and that they would probably achieve more lasting social change from working with the existing system and making incremental changes within it.

  Box 6.3 Key summary points

  • Influenced by the work of Marx and Bonger, a key idea running through the emergence of Critical Marxist forms of criminology in the late 1960s and early 1970s was that most crime is a rational means of survival when survival is never guaranteed due to the inherent conflicts and class divisions which exist within capitalist societies. In his book Class, state and crime Richard Quinney (1979: 176) writes that ‘much criminal behaviour is of a parasitical nature, including burglary, robbery, drug dealing, and hustling of various sorts’.
  • Marxist criminologists view crime and deviance as social constructs, rather than as things which somehow belong to individuals as a result of some aspect of their individual biology or psychology.
  • Marxist criminologists argued that by divorcing the study of crime from the study of class domination criminologists are tacitly involved in reproducing the inequalities caused by capitalism. They are challenging the idea that criminology can be a disinterested social science and conclude that criminologists must not simply look at the law breakers, but the law makers and law keepers as well.
  • Marxist criminology was criticised for possessing an overly deterministic view of human behaviour and an over-romantic view of the working-class criminal. It was also criticised by Critical and Feminist criminologists who argued that certain crimes involving female victims and victims from ethnic minorities, including forms of hate crime, rape and domestic violence, are due to ideological factors relating to patriarchy or institutionalised forms of racism, rather than responses to the class-based inequality caused by capitalist systems.

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  Routledge Handbook of Deviant Behavior

  • Clifton D. Bryant(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  An important concept is that of surplus population, in that much of the existing forms of criminalisation and public concern with street crime are seen to be targeted at those layers or sections of the population that are surplus to the labour market and the requirements of capitalism generally (Spitzer, 1975). A broad political economic analysis of capitalism is needed in order to set the scene for research and writing on more specific aspects of class conflict and class processes relating to crime, such as youth subcultures (see Hall and Jefferson, 1976). The ongoing contribution of a Marxist framework to understanding contemporary developments in society, and criminal justice specifically, has long been highlighted in the work and writings of Jeffrey Reiman (1998). Reiman first published The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison in 1979. As the title suggests, this book is an analysis of the economic biases, ideological processes, and social inequalities associated with the criminal justice system. In later editions, the book includes an appendix that provides a detailed outline of the Marxist critique of criminal justice. Marxism as an analytical framework may have declined in popularity among academic intellectuals, but Reiman (1999) argues that the issues with which it is concerned have not lost any of their potency or relevance. The Marxist criminological approach highlights the inequalities of a class society (for example, wealth versus poverty, business profits versus low wages), and the impact these have on the criminalisation process. The powerful are seen as designing the laws in their own collective interest, while having greater capacity to defend themselves individually if they do break and bend existing rules and regulations. The less powerful in society are seen as propelled to commit crime through economic need and social alienation

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  Values in Criminology and Community Justice

  • Cowburn, Malcolm, Duggan, Marian, Malcolm Cowburn, Marian Duggan, Anne Robinson, Paul Senior(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Policy Press

    (Publisher)

  11 and there is nothing inherent in its formulation that prevents its articulation with other theories, themes and ideas in the criminological canon. This is important, for, as Tierney (2010, pp 334–5) suggests, fragmentation and cross-fertilisation are emblematic of contemporary criminological theory; ‘self contained theoretical clusters’ are increasingly rare. Today, ‘critical’ criminology ‘is characterised by degrees of diversity and fragmentation, partly resulting from the dissolution of its explicit links with Marxist social theory’ (Tierney, 2010, p 361). Yet, Marxist traces and echoes can be seen in the work of critical criminologists who are not expressly Marxist in orientation, such as left realists, cultural criminologists, feminist criminologists, green criminologists and theorists of punishment, globalisation, white-collar and corporate crime, and moral panics and the media. As Downes and Rock (2007, p 324) argue: ‘it is more difficult than in the past … to see where Marxism begins and ends’. Petty, dogmatic, self-imposed factionalism is clearly self-defeating in such a context.

  Such factionalism is even more nonsensical when, as Roemer (1988, p 124) suggests, the central thrust of Marxist theory is now widely adopted by social theorists of all hues: ‘it is questionable what it means to take a specifically Marxist approach to history when the materialist axiom, the cornerstone of the Marxist approach, has become central to almost all contemporary social thought’. Indeed, as Elster (1986, p 5) argues, there is an inevitable paradox that Marxism, like any theory, must face: if it is not plausible, then it will simply disappear, but if it is plausible, then it is likely to be subsumed into the mainstream of social science and cease to be specifically Marxist. As such, the decline of explicitly Marxist work in critical criminology is, in one sense, a result of the fundamental theoretical plausibility of the materialist perspective.12

  Conclusion: the persistence of Becker’s questions

  It is clear that Marxism has immense difficulty in providing robust answers to the questions raised by Becker. The erosion of the traditionally conceived classes of modernity has made it increasingly difficult for Marxists to specify whose side they are on, and the contradictions inherent in the theory itself make the espousal of particular values a daunting and divisive task. An adoption of the censure perspective not only offers Marxist criminology a productive way forward, but also renders Becker’s questions of less immediate importance.

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  Criminology in Brief

  Understanding Crime and Criminal Justice

  • Robert Heiner(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Criminal justice policies represent a set of societal reactions, as do the labeling of criminals, and public fears about crime. For example, while there were considerably fewer than 100 victims of serial murderers in any given year, in the 1980s, the FBI was reporting that there were many thousands of such victims; popular culture was inundated with accounts of serial killers; and the public’s awareness and fear of serial killers rose exponentially. 2 So, while sociologists may not be so interested in why a person becomes a serial killer, they might be very concerned with why the FBI’s and the culture’s reaction to the phenomenon was so disproportionate to its actual incidence at that time (see Chapter 4). The theories below are discussed in chronological order, more or less. When criminologists discuss theory among themselves, the name of the theorist often becomes shorthand for the theory itself. Thus, some of the theories below are introduced by the name of the theorist, while other times, the name of the theory is more familiar to criminologists. As the discipline of criminology is largely a “spinoff” from sociology, sociological theories had a profound influence on the development of criminology, and most of the theories discussed below are quite familiar to most American criminologists, whether or not they were trained in specifically in sociology. Karl Marx (conflict theory) Karl Marx was born in Germany of Jewish parents in 1818. He studied law and philosophy at the University of Berlin. He began contributing articles on social and economic issues to a newspaper in Cologne and eventually became its editor. As he matured, his writing became decidedly revolutionary and Marx was banished from a number of European countries. He settled in London and devoted himself to his writing

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  Handbook of Sports Studies

  • Jay Coakley, Eric Dunning, Jay Coakley, Eric Dunning(Authors)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Marxist theorists assume and stress that soci-etal developments are initiated through eco-nomic processes, in particular by any change in the mode of production, that is, the structured MARXIST THEORIES 31 relationship between the means of production and the way humans are involved in this process. The economic conditions of capitalism automatically generate a socio-economic con-flict between the ‘masters of production’ (capi-talists; owners of the means of production) and the ‘direct producers’ (workers; owners of labour power). Both societal groups are best understood in terms of classes competing for power (‘class struggle’) as the owners of the means of production exploit the direct produc-ers financially (wages less than the economic values produced) and suppress them politi-cally (socio-political dependencies). This power imbalance is also characterized by the increasing impoverishment and alienation of the workers and phases of high unemploy-ment (caused by overproduction, the declining rate of profit, etc.). As an inevitable result, class struggles turn into revolutions driven by the working class with the aim of establishing socialist or communist societies. In a nutshell, the history of humankind is a history of class conflict. Marx and Marxist theorists claim that such class conflict is leading to the emergence of communist societies and that these must be seen as the highest level of human cultural development. Equally important in the range of Marxist concepts is that of the superstructure, a term which refers to all social and cultural forms other than the economy. That is because the superstructure is of fundamental significance for societal developments. From a Marxist per-spective, it is the economy which has deter-mining effects on the superstructure. One key function of the superstructure is to act as a framework for ideologies that justify and stabilize the modes of production and con-sumption under capitalism.

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  Sociology

  The Essentials

  • Margaret L. Andersen; Howard F. Taylor, Margaret Andersen, Howard Taylor(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  The tendency in functionalist theory to assume that the sys-tem works for the good of the whole too easily ignores the inequities in society and how these inequities are reflected in patterns of deviance. These issues are left for sociologists who work from the perspectives of con-flict theory and symbolic interaction. Conflict Theories of Deviance Recall that conflict theory emphasizes the unequal distribution of power and resources in society. It links the study of deviance to social inequality. Based on the work of Karl Marx, conflict theory sees a dominant class as controlling the resources of society and using its power to create the institutional rules and belief sys-tems that support its power. Like functionalist theory, conflict theory is a macrostructural approach; that is, both theories look at the structure of society as a whole in developing explanations of deviant behavior. Because some groups of people have access to fewer resources in capitalist society, they are forced into crime to sustain themselves. Conflict theory posits Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. DEVIANCE AND CRIME 155 that the economic organization of capitalist societies produces deviance and crime. The high rates of crime among the poorest groups, especially economic crimes such as theft, robbery, prostitution, and drug selling, are a result of the economic status of these groups.

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  Marxism and Criminological Theory

  A Critique and a Toolkit

  • Mark Cowling(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  It is also part of an electoral and media nexus that helps to maintain right-wing policies which fit Crime and the Reproduction Conditions of Capitalism 187 with an increasingly unequal and globalised informational society. Despite recent rises in the rate of imprisonment in the United Kingdom this American pattern is not an inescapable future for European states. Their superior welfare states and substantially lower rate of imprisonment also function to reproduce capitalism. The Scandinavian states in particular offer a dramatically different way of running what is still basically a capitalist society. 188 Introduction This brief chapter starts by indicating, from Marx’s own analysis of law, why law has historically been a problem for Marxist analysis. It moves on to consider the clear account of criminal law offered by Pashukanis, before making criticisms which broadly agree with E. P. Thompson, Douglas Hay and David Garland. These and other authors all consider that the law has a degree of autonomy from both the economic foundations of society and from the interests of the ruling class. The overall conclusion is that although there is certainly class bias in the criminal law and the law more generally, the law is effective as a defence of capitalism and the ruling class because it has a certain real degree of neutrality. Law in Marx and Engels As with many areas of social life, Marx and Engels do not attempt an extended systematic discussion of law, 1 but provide a general theory where law features. The clearest overall statement of the position of law comes from the famous passage in the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy , already quoted in Chapter 1: In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.

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  International Handbook of Criminology

  • Shlomo Giora Shoham, Paul Knepper, Martin Kett(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Consistent with thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and Sigmund Freud, control theorists subscribe to a more cynical, selfish, and hedonistic view of the human nature. According to this perspective, the motivations for crime are obvious. After all, why would you pay for something if you can get it for free? The really interesting question is conformity. What are the forces that keep people from acting on their natural impulses? What keeps us in check? As a third way between the two opposites, social learning theories assume that human nature is a tabula rasa, an empty canvas that gradually fills up in reflection of our social environment. Thus, propensity to criminal behavior is a manifestation of growing up in an environment—or a (sub)culture—that promotes, either purposefully or inadvertently, modes of behavior deemed antisocial by the normative mainstream. Finally, the labeling perspective views criminal involvement as a socially constructed process. Group-level differences in criminality do not result from actual differences in behavior as much as from the fact that similar behavior is defined (labeled) differently depending on characteristics like race, class, and ethnicity. Despite their heuristic differences, each of these four perspectives arrives at the same basic conclusion about the relationship between social class and crime. In what follows, we examine the proposed mechanisms in closer detail. 19.2.1 Strain/Anomie Perspective The association between social class and crime plays a key role in the evolu-tion of strain theoretical thinking about crime. Robert Merton [1968] devel-oped his anomie theory (in 1938) to explain why norm breaking was more widespread in the United States compared to some of the more “traditional” European nations, such as the United Kingdom and Italy.

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  Deviance and Crime

  Theory, Research and Policy

  • Walter DeKeseredy, Desmond Ellis, Shahid Alvi(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Controversies in Critical Criminology . Cincinnati: Anderson.

  Composed of original essays, this book provides students and faculty alike with a highly intelligible introduction to major critical criminological schools of thought, including left realist, feminist, and masculinities theories.

  Taylor, I., P. Walton & J. Young (1973). The New Criminology . London: Rout-ledge & Kegan Paul.

  Considered by most critical criminologists to be a classic, this book offers an in-depth appraisal of a wide range of sociological theories of deviance and crime from a Marxist perspective.

  Online Resources

  1. Crim Theory: Criminology Theory Links on the Web
     http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/theorylinks.htm
     This site includes links to many important sites on theories of deviance, crime, and social control. It also includes links to sites on specific crime and deviance theorists created by Florida State University students.
  2. CrimeTheory.com
     http://www.crimetheory.com/ Created by Ohio University sociologist Bruce Hoffman, this site is an excellent teaching and learning resource for students and faculty interested in theories of deviance, crime, and social control.
  3. Crime and Deviance
     http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/crime/crim.htm
     Developed and maintained by the Hewett School’s Department of Sociology, this site is especially useful for students and others seeking highly intelligible introductions to theoretical work done on deviance and crime in both North America and the United Kingdom. The Crime and Deviance Theory Map located at this site is a very useful guide to many of the theories examined in this chapter.

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