marxism and crime

marxism and crime

1. criminogenic capitalism

   • crime is inevitable because capitalism is criminogenic- causes crime
   • capitalism is commercialising goods and selling for a profit
   • crime may be a solution for people living in poverty as people want things that are portrayed in the media . for some people they cannot obtain this by the legitimate opportunity structure so they turn to crime
   • trying to achieve these goods can lead to utilitarian crime such as theft
   • alienation leads to non-utilitarian crime such as vandalism. this is because they are frustrated due to completing menial tasks that they have no control over
   • profit is essential for capitalism, ruthless competition is encouraged, therefore white collar crime , e.g. fraud and tax evasion occur
   • gordon
     • crime is a rational response to the capitalist system and hence is found in all social classes
       • however, statistics make it all appear as a w/c/ phenomenon
   • reiman
     • showed that crimes committed by the RC are far less likely to be treated as a criminal offence. there is a disproportionately high rate of prosecutions for street crimes
   • evaluation
     • too deterministic
     • ignores non class inequalities
     • gordon- crime is found in all classes e.g. white colllar
     • right realism- the old and poor have a low crime rate. they say crime is due to individual biology, socialisation and rational choice
   • the media
   • exploitation
   • alienation

2. the state and law making

   • chambliss
     • claims laws protecting private property from the cornerstone of capitalist economy
     • e.g. East Africa where the british exploited the african workers by forcing them to pay taxes
   • the bourgeoisie have the power to prevent the introduction of laws
     • snider
       • the capitalists rarely pass laws that regulate the activities of business or that threatens profitability
   • serve the capitalist class
   • marxists believe that the bourgeoisie seem to be protecting the proletariate with health and safety laws but actually they are just putting on a caring face to the bourgeoisie.
     • in reality they believe these laws benefit the bourgeoisie because safety laws ensure workers that are healthy and able to work
   • evaluation
     • functionalists see the law as reflecting the value consensus and the interests of sociaty as a whole
     • the justice system sometimes does go against the interests of the capitalist class such as the enron scandal where the company were hiding losses but they were still prosecuted

3. ideological functions of the law and crime

   • for many marxists, crime and law provide valuable function in allowing the RC to maintain their position of wealth, power and advantage
   • Althusser and the ideological state apparatus
     • the ruling class are able to socialise individuals into accepting the RCI.
       • ISA's promote ruling class values of freedom, self interest, competition and the rights of private property
   • pearce
     • laws are passed to benefit the ruling class e,g, corporate homicide act 2007 -only one prosecution
       • such laws are not enforced and if they are it is selectively so it portrays crime as a w/c phenomenon
         • this creates divisions as the w/c blame criminals for their problems
     • health and safety laws are passed to put a caring face onto the bourgoisie
   • the media portrays criminals as disturbed individuals, which conceals that it is capitalism that creates the criminals through, alienation, media advertising and exploitation
   • feminists would point out that the system is patriarchal and it is the males who create law

4. white collar and corporate crime

   • white collar crime
     • sutherland
       • is a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation.
         • he ignores
           • occupational crime
             • committed by employees for their own personal gain- often against the organisation they work for
           • corporate crime
             • committed by employees for their organisation in pursuit of its goals e.g. misspelling products to increase profiy
               • corporate crime can be the most dangerous as it can put people's lives and the environment in danger.
               • it can include crimes against staff and the environment
               • e.g. the enron scandal affected its workers as they could not access their pensions and some had to sell their homes
               • the scandal also affected wall street on a bigger scale as the share prices fell
             • tombs
               • corporate crime has huge physical costs: deaths, injuries and illness, environmental pollution
             • corporate crime includes
               • financial crimes
               • crimes against consumers
               • crimes against employees
               • crimes against the environment
               • state-corporate crimes
             • invisibility of corporate crime
               • is down to
                 • the media
                 • lack of political will
                 • crimes are often complex
                 • de-labelling
                 • under reporting
             • explanations
               • strain
                 • box
                   • if a company cannot achieve its aims by legal means, it may use illegal ones.
                 • clinard and yeager
                   • law violations by large companies increased their financial performance deteriorated, suggested willingness to 'innovate' to achieve profit goals
               • differential association
                 • sutherland
                   • crime is behaviour learned from others in social context. the less we associate with people who hold attitudes favourable to the law and the more we associate with people with criminal attitudes, the more likely we are to become deviant ourselves
                 • if a company's culture justifies committing crimes to achieve corporate goals, employee will be socialised into this criminality.
                   • geis
                     • individuals joining companies where illegal price-fixing was practised became involved in it as a part of their socialisation
                 • this idea links to deviant subcultures as the culture of business may also favour and promote competative aggressive personality types who are willing to commit crime to achieve sucess
                 • techniques of neutralisation
                   • sykes and matza
                     • individuals can deviate more easilly if they can produce justifications to neutralise moral objections to their misbehaviour
                   • while collar criminals may say they were carrying out orders from above, blame the victim or normalise their deviance by claiming that 'everyone's doing it'. learning these techniques is an important part of socialisation into a deviant corporate culture
               • labelling
                 • delabelling
                   • sociologists have applied labelling to white collar and corporate crime
                   • nelken
                   • businesses and professionals often have the power to avoid labeliing. e.g. they can afford expensive lawyers and accountants to help them avoid activities that they are involved in being labelled as criminal
                 • the reluctance or inability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute also reduces the number of offences accorded
                 • this means sociologists who rely on official statistics will underestimate these offences
       • sees white collar crime as a greater threat to society

5. evaluation

   • ignores the relationship between crime and non-class inequalities
   • it is too deterministic and over predicts the amount of crime in the w/c
   • not all capitalist societies have a high rate of crime
   • it does sometimes act against the interests of the capitalist class
   • ignore intra-class crime