David Gordon says that crime is seen to be a working class problem and therefore this justifies the ruling classes need to control and imprison those who break the law, this distracts attention from the misdeeds of the bourgeoisie.
Chambliss looked at the laws in East African colonies, showing that the law whereby the people had to pay tax and if they couldn’t pay they would be imprisoned, served the needs of the capitalist Britain as it forced people to work for them for relatively small pay. This aloud for a greater profit to be made. He found that crimes was in every single strata of society, it was merely the fact that lower classes were being caught that made it seem like it was a working class problem. As the police focused more attention looking to the working classes for the criminal behaviour the upper classes were left alone. Law enforcers were not there to prevent crime but to mange it, the biggest criminals i.e. the ruling classes were getting away with crimes while the small time criminals are prosecuted.
Frank Pearce argues that laws that appear to be for the benefit of the working class, instead benefit the ruling class as it gives capitalism a caring image and creates a false consciousness amongst the work force. Furthermore these laws e.g health and safety are not rigorously enforced.
Neo Marxists however, focuses on the process by which the state defines certain activities as criminal and by this criminalizing certain groups. They look at the process of criminalisation in relation to the state as it seeks to manage the capitalist system.
Taylor et al argued that traditional Marxism is deterministic; it sees workers as driven to commit crime out of economic necessity. Traditionalists reject that external factors such as anomie, subcultures, labelling or biological and psychology factors can cause crime. Taylor et al takes a more voluntaristic view (we have free will). They outline a full social theory of the deviance whereby the criminologist must consider; the way in which wealth and power are distributed, the circumstances surrounding the decision of an individual to commit an act of deviance, the meant of the deviant act for the person involved, the ways in which other members of society such as the police respond to t the deviant act and the impact of the deviant label.
Stuart et al argued that this societal reaction of a moral panic towards the young black mugger must be seen in the wider view of capitalism and the class system. The origins of the mugging came as the black youth; being acutely aware of the racism in British society led them to be less than willing to accept the situation. This caused conflict between them and the older generations resulting in them taking to the streets and drifting into petty crime. Mugging was a survival strategy.
It was the mass media which ensured that this moral panic came about, over exaggerating the muggings making it seem as if black youths were indulging in mindless havoc in the inner cities. As a result to this the police reacted by increasing stopping, searching and question young Black men, many of the men saw this as unjustified and some responded with verbal abuse or violence – leading to their arrest more often than not. The results was a process of deviancy amplification, by labelling the Black youth as deviant more deviance was caused and so police introduced stronger measures.
Edwin Sutherland defined white collar crime as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation. He challenged the view that crime was mainly a working class problem saying that the financial cost of white-collar crime was more severe than the cost of working class crime.
The two types of crime identified are occupational crime, committed at the expense of the organisation often carried out by employees and corporate crime which are committed to benefit the organisation such as non-payment of VAT. Some researchers give evidence of a third type –state crime where by the state or agencies such as police or military commit crime on behalf of the state.
White collar crimes are often treated differently to other crimes, this is due to four main factors; these crimes are largely hidden from the public, large scale frauds are highly complex and difficult to unravel, it is difficult to allocate responsibility and they are often described as crimes without victims.
The Criminal justice system is a lot more lenient with punishments, because they are more likely to issue official warnings instead of giving a jail sentence etc. The Regulatory bodies are more concerned with compliance than with identifying offences they advise rather than punish and thus white-collar criminals get away with.
Merton’s his strain theory was developed to explain this crime. If people in white-collar occupations find that pay increases and promotions blocked then they sometimes innovate and turn into illegal means to become successful. Corporations have subculture whereby they endlessly pursue wealth and profit, this culture encourages risk taking, success at all costs is demanded even if this means fraud, bribery and corruption. Breaking the law is just a small price to pay for the chance at monetary success.
