Topic 4 - Marxism

• Snider - Marxist


  • Overemphasis on street crime to distract away from the white collar and corporate crime that the bourgeoisie commit
  • The upper class use agents of social control to construct laws to control the working class
  • 2008 many MPs claimed for expenses they were not entitled to- led to public outcry over abuse of tax payers' money
  • What is considered legal/illegal reflects the interests of the bourgeoisie- they commit the same amount of crime but their power allows them to avoid prosecution
• 2008 National Fraud Authority


  Benefit fraud costs the UK public over £1b yet tax evasion cost £15b
• Functionalists, such as Durkheim, argue that our laws are a reflection of value consensus and the examples Snider gives, like using an offshore account, are not actual crimes.
• Gordon - Marxist


  • Selective law enforcement - prosecutions of the upper class are rare compared to working class
  • Individuals are deemed social failures, blaming them instead of the institutions of capitalism
  • Allows capitalism to remain unquestioned as threats are locked up in prison
• Durkheim criticised Gordon's theory, arguing that the whole community decides who is prosecuted, reflecting value consensus.
• Radical criminology combines marxist views with interactionism
• Hall et al- radical criminology


  • There was a moral panic about crime and mugging - despite there being no evidence of increase
  • Media reporting led to concern for public safety which led to an excess of police
  • Drew attention away from economic problems of capitalism such as industrial and social unrest
• Merton rejects Hall's notion that high crime rates for the working class are fiction or political acts. It is merely a response to strain.
• Chambliss - Marxist


  • Capitalism promotes 'criminogenic' values
  • Individualism and competition leads to stealing
  • Basing status on money leads to fraud
  • Oppression leads to public disorder and violence
• Chambliss's theory is critiqued as non-capitalist societies, such as communist, socialist, and tribal experience crime