Marxist Theories of Crime & Deviance 2
- Created by: Jakeyboy13579
- Created on: 29-09-20 13:27
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- Marxist theories of crime & deviance 2
- Neo-Marxism: Critical Criminology
- Neo Marxists are sociologists who have been influenced by Marxist ideas but they combine them with ideas from other approaches such as labelling theory
- The most important neo Marxist contribution to understandin crime and deviance comes from 'The New Criminology' by Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young (1973)
- Taylor et al. (1973)
- Taylor et al. (1973) agrees with Marxists that:
- Capitalist society is based on exploitation and class conflict and characterised by extreme inequalities of wealth and power and understandin this is the key to understandin crime
- The state makes and enforces laws in the interest of the upper class and criminalises the WC
- Capitalism should be replaced by a classless society which would reduce or remove crime from society
- Views by Taylor et al differ from traditional Marxism and much of critical criminology is a criticism of existing theoris of C&D
- Argues that Marxism is deterministic and that crime is voluntary, conscious and meaningful action committed by individuals who are trying to change society
- Aimed to create a 'fully social theory of deviance' that would help change society for the better
- Taylor et al. (1973) agrees with Marxists that:
- Neo Marxism critical criminology evaluation
- Weaknesses
- Feminists criticise the approach for being gender blind and focusing too much on male criminality
- Left realists criticise this approach, arguing that they 'romanticise the offender, depicting WC criminals as Robin Hoods.' However, WC people tend to be the victim of WC crime
- Strengths
- Hall et al is evidence to support the idea that criminal behaviour can have a wider social context
- Weaknesses
- Neo Marxists are sociologists who have been influenced by Marxist ideas but they combine them with ideas from other approaches such as labelling theory
- Crime of the powerful
- Sutherland (1949)
- Coined the term 'white collar' crime and aimed to challenge the stereotype that crime is a purely lower class phenomenon
- Argued that crime is often committed by persons operating through large and powerful organisations
- Tombs (2013)
- Claims that white collar and corporate crime do far more harm than 'ordinary' or 'street' crimes such as theft
- Notes that corporate crime has enormous costs such as:
- Physical (deaths, injuries, illnesses)
- Enviromental (pollution)
- Economic (to consumers, workers, taxpayers and governments)
- Types of corporate crimes
- Financial crimes
- Tax evasion and money laundering
- Crimes against consumers
- False labelling and false advertisement
- Crimes against employees
- Discrimination and health and safety regulations
- Crimes against the environment
- Pollution into the environment
- State-corporate crime
- Where the government working alongside a company commits crime e:g in the Iraq war a PMC was found to be torturing POWs
- Financial crimes
- Sutherland (1949)
- Neo-Marxism: Critical Criminology
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