Marxism is a structural theory, as people's actions are shaped by society and in particular the economic system. It is a conflict view of society.

Evaluate the contribution of Marxist explanations to the study of crime

Marxism is a structural theory, as people’s actions are shaped by society and in particular the economic system. It is a conflict view of society. Marxists argue that the upper class control all of society including law and order. They therefore have control over judges, police and the government. This gives them the power to define what is right in society in the interest of themselves. Therefore there is no criminal justice system for the working class. Instead the working class believe that the system is fair due to the ideology put forward by the upper class. This is known as false class-consciousness.

Marxists argue that the upper class control the definitions of deviance in four main strands. The first contribution is that laws benefit the upper class and not the population generally. This view is supported by Pearce who argues that the majority of laws in Britain and America, work in the favour of capitalism. e.g. the conservatives got rid of the super tax which the rich had to pay. Pearce argues that even the laws that appear to benefit the subject class in reality benefit the ruling class as well. Factory legislation protecting the health and safety of workers provides an example, because the system needs a healthy safe population of producers and consumers.

Just as important as laws that are passed are laws that are not passed. William Chambliss (1976) supports this argument, who suggests that much of what takes place in the creation of laws is non-decision making. For example, a movie star hiring a nightclub and spending $20,000 on a birthday party, while a few blocks away people are starving.

However, such behaviour is justified by ruling class ideology with statements such as ‘they’ve earned their money; they have a right to spend it as they see fit.’

The second contribution that the Marxist theory makes to the study of crime is the police and media focus on working class crime to divert attention away from upper class crime. Marxists point towards white collar and corporate crime, which often goes undetected or is dealt with leniently.

White collar crimes are crimes committed by an individual against the business e.g. fraud. This work has been studied by E.Sutherland (1940). He found that white collar crimes are substantially underestimated in official criminal statistics. He found that petty stealing from work and the major crimes of bribery and corruption often passed unnoticed or were dealt with informally and unofficially by firms who did not want publicity. There was also evidence that middle class and upper class offenders were treated differently than working class offenders when brought to justice. The reasons Sutherland suggested for this were:

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Judges are from similar social backgrounds and tended not to think of white collar criminals as ‘criminal types’
Their crimes are not considered dangerous to the public such as muggers
Victims of white collar crimes are not physically hurt as other victims are e.g. companies suffer the effects of fraud
The media do not portray white-collar crime as serious. Sutherland makes the point that businessmen own the media.

Corporate crimes are crimes which are committed by the business itself e.g. breaking health and safety regulations. An example of this is Chambliss’s study of crime networks in Seattle ...

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Judges are from similar social backgrounds and tended not to think of white collar criminals as ‘criminal types’
Their crimes are not considered dangerous to the public such as muggers
Victims of white collar crimes are not physically hurt as other victims are e.g. companies suffer the effects of fraud
The media do not portray white-collar crime as serious. Sutherland makes the point that businessmen own the media.

Corporate crimes are crimes which are committed by the business itself e.g. breaking health and safety regulations. An example of this is Chambliss’s study of crime networks in Seattle USA. He argued that the forces behind organised crime in America are leading members of the ruling group. His evidence is based on several years’ participant observation in Seattle. He pieced together a picture of organised crime as being controlled by the key personnel in the police force, local government, business and the legal profession. He argues that the emergence of organised crime networks is bound to happen in a capitalist system, which stresses economic self-interest as all-important rather than community spirit.

While looking at corporate crime, it is generally noticeable how such crime is greatly under reported in the media, in comparison with conventional crime. Corporate crime is not visible the way that ‘conventional’ crime is. An example of this is Stuart Hall’s study on how the media sensationalised and created a moral panic on mugging, which is associated as being a working class crime.

Criticising Marxists views on white-collar crime and corporate crime are left realists. Left realists tend to see Marxist theories as putting undue emphasis on corporate crime. They argue that crimes such as burglary, robbery and other violent crimes cause greater harm than Marxist theories seem to imply. The victims of such crimes are usually working class and the consequences can be devastating. To left realists Marxism offers a rather one sided view of crime and in doing so offers no way of dealing with the types of crimes which are of most concern to the members of the population.

The third point Marxists contribute to the study of crime is that upper classes when convicted, receive more lenient sentences than the working classes. Pearce argues that when the law is applied against the upper classes it’s purpose is to make the system appear fair. By providing a few laws that are of use to everybody, the real nature od the legal system is hidden. This maintains the myth that laws applies equally to the rich and poor and that the state is a neutral body guarding the welfare of society as a whole.

Therefore this view makes Marxism very difficult to criticise as some upper class deviants do get convicted. The only criticism that can be made is the fact that they often do receive leaner sentences. For example Laud archer tends to lead a life of ‘luxury’ in prison, while Laud Guinness was let out of prison early as it didn’t suit his ‘lifestyle’.

Another view by Marxists in the explanation of crime is that crime is inevitable in a capitalist society as capitalism encourages greed. Marxists argue that the capitalist system generates crime for the following reasons:

Capitalism is based on the private ownership of property. Personal gain rather than collective is encouraged.
Capitalism is a competitive system. Mutual aid and co-operation for the betterment of all are discouraged in favour of individual achievement of the expense of others. Competition breeds aggression, hostility and particularly for the losers frustration.
Economic self interest rather than public duty motivates behaviour
The capitalist mode of production emphasizes the maximization of profits and the accumulation of wealth.

These views are supported by William Chambliss. Who argues that greed, self- interest and hostility generated by the capitalist system motivate many crimes at all levels within society. Thus, in low- income areas of society the mugger and petty thief use what they have got to get what they can. In higher income brackets, business people, lawyers and politicians have a more effective means at their disposal and can grab a ‘larger piece of the cake’.

While David Gordon argues that crime is rational, it makes sense. In a ‘dog eat dog’ society where competition is the order of the day, individuals must fend for themselves in order to survive.

In evaluation , Marxists have been criticised for assuming that a communist system could solve crime. This has been proven, as before the end of communism on the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, crime had not been solved.

In contradiction, Stephen Jones (1998) points out that capitalism does not always produce high c rime rates, for example, in Switzerland, which has a very long a emphasised capitalist system, crime rates are very low.

While also, feminist sociologists have argued that Marxist theories emphasise to much on class inequality. They point out that Marxist theories ignore the role of patriarchy in influencing the way the criminal justice system operates. While Marxists have also rejected the importance of racism in the enforcement of laws.

Another criticism of Marxism is that it is too economically deterministic i.e. argues all aspects of crime are determined by the economic system. Therefore Marxists ignore the freedom of choice the criminal has to commit crime. This criticism has influenced a range of other approaches to the study of crime and deviance. One of these approaches is neo- Marxism, whose inspiration has come from traditional Marxism while using elements from other theories.

Neo- Marxists undertake ethnographic studies to discover the meanings of people’s decisions and actions and why they choose to commit crime. This has been discovered by sociologists such as Taylor, Walter and Young in their study of ‘ The New Criminology’ in the 1970’s.

The new criminologists argued that in order to understand why a crime took place, it was no good looking at the individual’s motivation e.g. alcohol and obvious influences e.g. family background. New criminology utilises both Marxism and Interactionism. A Marxist perspective looks at the wider capitalist society that help generate the circumstances of crime and police response to it, while it is also important to use Interactionist ideas to see hoe the behaviour of the victim, offender, media and criminal justice system all interact to influence the system.

Also supporting neo-Marxism is Paul Willis who carried out an ethnographic study on ‘ the lads’. He found that there were elements of Marxism as the class system was reproduced, but the boys also made their own conscious decision to follow in the footsteps of their fathers.

Criticisms of neo- Marxism come from Hirst (1975) who argues that this approach strays to far from the Marxist tradition. While Rock (1988) argued that it gave a far too romantic view of criminals, as they present it as if the criminal is driven towards crime.

It is also important to note that Young accepted these criticisms and re-evaluated his earlier work. However he argued that recent approaches such as realist criminology, feminist criminology and post-modern criminology are all aimed at creating justice in society and therefore are a continuation of the new criminology.

Another criticism of traditional Marxism comes from the sub-cultural theory. This is known as the post Marxist sub-cultural theory. They criticise traditional Marxism by suggesting that youths are able to oppose capitalist values because they have less commitment to society in terms of mortgages and family commitments. Therefore they turn to youth culture as a way of coping with their problems caused by capitalism and resisting capitalism

Phil Cohen illustrates this approach in his study of East London youth culture in the 1970s. He argues that the form the youth culture takes is related to the changing social and economic structure of east London. There was a distinct loss of community and close-knit way of life caused by re-development. A t the same time standards of living were increasing in the wider community. Cohen argues the forms of youth culture adopted in East London (which were shown in the terms of dress, music, haircuts and fashion) made clear statements about the attitudes of youth towards police and showed disdain for the values of wider society.

However criticisms of this theory was made by S.Cohen. He pointed out that these writers were simply biased in their analysis. They wanted to prove that working class youth cultures were an attack on capitalism, and therefore made sure that they fixed the evidence to find this. He pointed, for example, that there were many different ways to interpret the sub-cultural style of the groups, and that the interpretation that the Marxist writers had imposed was just one of many possibilities.

Postmodernist Redhead(1991)also argued that his study of the rave subculture associated with ecstasy showed that clothes language and music had nothing to do with the meaning of the sub-cultures.

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