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Traditional Marxist Perspectives on Crime
Traditional M arxist Perspectives on Crime
Marxist Perspective on Crime/3/4/2000/P.Covington/2000 Deviance Disc
Writers
William Chambliss, Milton Mankoff, Frank Pearce, Lauren Snider
Page References
Introduction
While Marx did not write at length about crime, Marx argued that the laws
were generally the codified means by which one class, the
rulers, kept another class, the rest of us in check.
Marxists recognise that for a society to function efficiently,
social order is necessary. However, apart from communist
societies, they consider that in all societies one class – the
ruling class – gains far more than other classes. Marxists
agree with functionalists that socialisation plays a crucial
role in promoting conformity and order. However, unlike
the latter, they are highly critical of the ideas, values and norms of capitalist
society, which they term ‘capitalist ideology’. Modern Marxists point to
education and the media as socialising agencies, which delude or ‘mystify’ the
working class into conforming to a social order, which works against its real
interests.
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Traditional Marxist Perspectives on Crime
Basic Beliefs:
The idea that the poor are driven to commit crime strongly underpins the theories
of those criminologists who have taken Marx’s work further…
➳ Deviance is partly the product of unequal power relations and inequality in
➳ general. It is an understandable response to the situation of poverty.
➳ See power as largely being held by those who own the factors of production.
➳ Crime is often the result of offering society-demeaning work with little sense of creativity. The Marxist
concept of alienation can be applied here.
➳ The superstructure serves the ruling classes.
➳ The state passes laws, which support ruling class interests. Maintain its power, coerce, and control the
proletariat. They see individual property rights as much more securely established in law than the
collective rights of, for instance, trade unions.
➳ Laws passed reflect the wishes and ideologies of the ruling classes.
➳ Moreover, people have unequal access to the law. Having money to hire a good lawyer can meant
the difference between being found not guilty or guilty.
➳ Thus for Marxists punishment for a crime may depend and vary according to the social class of the
perpetrator.
Given the Above the Main issues for Marxists are....
The manipulation of basic values and morality of society
The process of law creation.
The enforcement of law
Individual motivation.
Who Makes the Laws
From a Marxist Viewpoint....
Laws are made by the state, which represent the interests of the ruling class.
This line of argument forms the basis of a theory of widespread crime and
selective law enforcement; crime occurs right the way through society, but
poor criminals receive harsher treatment than rich criminals. Marxists tend to emphasise
‘white collar, corporate crime’ and pay less attention to ‘blue collar’ variants. They note that
the crimes of the upper class exert a greater economic toll on society than the crimes of the
‘ordinary people’
Definitions of Business Crime from A Marxist Viewpoint
Corporate or Business Crime: This term is usually applied to business persons holding
power who engage in fraudulent activity on behalf of their company to raise profits. Thio
notes that the economic cost of corporate crime is between 24 times to 42 times greater
than losses accounted for by ‘traditional’ property crimes.
White Collar Crime: term that is more generic used for a range of crime in business.
Organised Crime: Best known examples include the MAFIA, where a complex web of
politics, the law and big business can all be intertwined in a world of corruption and
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Traditional Marxist Perspectives on Crime
violence. Violence against members of the USA population by corporate gangsters in pursuit
of profit far exceeds violence by ‘lower class street criminals’
Mannheim and Chambliss: Excessive Protection of Property
Many sociologists have noted the large number of laws dealing with property in capitalist society.
For example, Hermann Manheim writes that....
The history of criminal legislation in England and in many countries shows that an excessive
prominence was given by law to the protection of property.
According to William Chambliss, such laws were largely unnecessary
in feudal society were land, unmoveable property, was the main source
of wealth and landowners were the undisputed masters of the
economic resources of the country.
However, with the increasing importance of trade and commerce, which involve movable property,
and the eventual removal of feudalism by capitalism resulted in vast numbers of laws protecting the
interests of the emerging class. Chambliss argues....
The heart of the capitalist system is the protection of private
property, which is, by definition, the cornerstone upon which
capitalistic economies function. It is not surprising, then, to find
that criminal laws reflect this basic concern.
Snider: Big Corporations Benefit from the Legal System
Lauren Snider notes that capitalistic state is often
reluctant to pass laws, which regulate big business
concerns, which might threaten profitability. She notes
that capitalist states often use vast sums to attract
investment from big corporations. They offer new
investors...
Tax concessions
Cheap loans
Grants
Build infrastructures to help capitalism.
Snider suggests having offered this the state is unwilling to enforce laws against
pollution, workers health, and safety; or monopolies
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Traditional Marxist Perspectives on Crime
Bhopal - The Dangers of Unrestricted Capitalism
NAME Raisa Bee
AGE Died aged 16
AGE AT DISASTER 4
NEIGHBOURHOOD Teela Jamalpura
She died at 6.45 in the morning of 31st October 1996 in the TB Hospital.
She was four years old when she was severely exposed to Carbide's toxic
gases. In the interview her mother gave she recalled, "That night my little
daughter was vomiting all over the place and soiling her clothes over and
over. She was coughing and gasping for breath and crying that her eyes
were on fire.. She was very ill for over a week and we thought the worst
was over. A few months later her problems worsened and she would get
acutely breathless and bring out sputum when she coughed. She
continued to have burning sensation in the eyes. She got weaker and
weaker and was wheezing all the time. She lost her appetite for food and
stayed depressed all the time. Then we spotted streaks of blood in her
sputum. We took her to different doctors and hospitals but her condition
did not improve. She vomited a lot of blood before she died." The medical
records available with her mother show that Raisa was admitted at the JLN
Hospital on 7.8.'96 for 20 days with complaints of breathlessness, cough
and anxiety attacks. Chest x-ray report dated 30.10.'96 from the TB
Hospital mentions "Bilateral infiltration with cavity formation left mid zone".
All three doctors in the assessment panel in the Sambhavna Clinic's
Verbal Autopsy project have opined that Raisa's death is attributable to her
exposure to Carbide's gases and the injuries caused to her respiratory and
neuropsychiatric systems. In their opinions tuberculosis was a
complication that arose out of the injury caused to her lungs.
No claim for compensation for Raisa's death has been registered.
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Traditional Marxist Perspectives on Crime
The Guinness Affair
This case involved fraudulent leaks to the financial
markets by Guinness directors, which artificially boosted
the price of Guinness shares. The directors concerned
made sizeable profits from the company directly and
indirectly for themselves. One of the convicted offenders,
Gerald Ronson, (one of Britain’s 100 richest people)
received a one-year sentence in Ford Open Prison and
was released on parole after serving about 6 months.
During his time in prison, he had access to a telephone, and his wife continued to run the group
of companies he owned. Since his release, he has continued to be a successful businessman.
Another of the convicted offenders, Ernest Saunders, received a five-year sentence and was
released after about 18 months because of being diagnosed as suffering from Alzheimer’s
disease. Since then, it has proved to be a false diagnosis and Ernest Saunders has now a
successful business consultant.
Exercise One
Show how the articles support the Marxist view of crime in a capitalist society. Make 5 statements that would
support this view and three that would reject this view.
Exercise Two
Quinney considers the following components the key components within a Marxist analysis of crime.
Compete the sentences with the word below to make sense of them.
1. America and by implication Britain is first and foremost an advanced …….. society.
2. Within capitalist societies, the state is organised to serve the interests of the capitalist …..
3. Laws and conventions are created by the state and the capitalist class to preserve existing
social relations of ……
4. Laws and conventions are created by the state and the capitalist class to preserve existing
social relations of ……
5. In order to maintain order in society, the control of crime (and deviance) is
undertaken by state agencies, such as the …… …….
6. As a result of this, working class people remain oppressed, particularly
through ….. means.
7. Crime and deviance can only be eradicated with the collapse of capitalism and
the creation of a …… society.
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Traditional Marxist Perspectives on Crime
1. Police and Judiciary,
2. Socialist
3. Capitalist
4. Legal
5. Class
6. Inequality
Exercise Three
Marxist sociologists claim that society is divided ideologically as well as socially. In saying this, they alert
us to the facts that not only are there different classes, but there are different class interests. To identify the
existence of these competing interests or the following statements into pairs which express opposing views?
Which of Marx’s two broad classes do you think would agree with each statement?
1. Strikes are one of the few ways in which workers can exert the influence over their pay
and conditions of employment.
2. Is it right that those who have a great deal of wealth should not be taxed heavily
because they have earned it!
3. The shareholders of major companies want their employees to
be paid a fair wage for the work they do.
4. Taxes on rich people should be much higher than at present
because they have made their wealth largely by exploiting
ordinary working people.
5. All that shareholders of companies are interested in is in
maximising the returns they get on their shares.
6. Strikes are unnecessary and counter-productive because they interfere with the smooth
running of industry for the benefit of owners, management and workers alike.
Exercise Four
Look at the following statements; link them either to Marxism, Functionalism, Interactionism, or
Biological Explanations or Feminism…
1. Criminal law is not neutral but instead is an instrument of the ruling class.
2. Individuals become deviant through social processes. Societal reactions to deviance
have implications for those labelled deviant in society.
3. Crimes heighten social solidarity by uniting us against the offender.
4. Criminals can be scientifically differentiated from non-criminals.
5. Not only does criminal law reflect the interests of the powerful, so too does the
criminal justice system.
6. Capitalism creates crime.
7. Women have been neglected or misrepresented in theories of crime and criminal
justice policies.
8. Crime can only be dealt with through major social, political and economic change.
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Traditional Marxist Perspectives on Crime
9. Social processes are key to what is defined and not defined as deviant.
10. Exercise Five
Looks at the following are they strengths or weaknesses of Marxism
1. The Marxist solution is simple yet monumental: it capitalism creates crime, if
capitalism is the problem, then the solution is clear, get rid of capitalism.
2. Marxists tend to view the behaviour of individuals as largely governed by
external forces. Thus their accounts are somewhat deterministic. Some
theorists argue that individuals retain free will, which enables them to decide
whether they want to commit crime.
3.
4. Marxists tend to represent working class crime as a creative response to
oppression when reality is that much working
class crime is directed at working class people.
Moreover, they do not fully explain why all
working class people do not commit crime.
5. It seems to ignore the individual motivation.
The stress is primarily on the nature of
capitalism and how economic factors ‘force’
people to act in certain ways.
6. It seems implausible to explain all laws in
terms of the interests of the ruling elite; many laws appear to rest on general
agreement.
7. Socialist states also have high crime rates at least as great as our own.
Resources Used in this Handout
Sociology Themes and Perspectives: Michael Haralambos
Introductory Sociology: Bilton et al 3rd Edition
Crime, Deviance and Social Control: Emma Wincup and Janis Griffiths.
Deviance: Peter Aggleton, Society Now Series of Books
Sociology and Interactive Approach: Nik Jorgensen et al
Investigating Deviance: Stephen Moore, Second Edition.
Introduction to Sociology: Mike O’Donnell, 4th Edition.
Marcrime/30/9/97/P.Covington/1997
Marxist Perspective on Crime/10/7/98/P.Covington/1997
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