Social class*

• ‘Typical criminal‘ *


  • Young, working-class males

  • influenced by peer groups

  •subcultures within the working class normalise deviance as a response to lack of opportunity in lower class
• Sutherland (1949)


  crime rates based on social class, shows high incidence in low socio-economic class.
• Social disorder in crime and class

  • Chaotic social backgrounds link to poverty
  • prisoners have a history of social exclusion
• Williams et al (2012)


  prison populations reflect social class, eg. drug exposure, school exclusion, and lack of qualification.
• Cavadino and Dignan (2001)


  in prosecution and punishment, classes gets vastly magnified due to lack of media representation for working class vicitms.
• Young (1988)

  “the myth of the equal victim” - the poor are hit hardest when victims of crime, meaning groups recover at different speeds.
• Kinsey (1984)


  the poor suffer more than the wealthy by the effects of crime, due to a lack of insurance causing “multiple victimisation.”
• Conflict theory 


  class and race create a power imbalance that is exploited by traffickers - wealthy nations benefit from cheap labour
• Bonger (1916) - criminality and economic conditions

  • the ruling class control the economy by exploiting the working class
  • the working class are more likely to commit crimes as a means of survival
  • capitalism increases the likelihood of crime among the poor, eg. alienation
• Young (2003)

  • the "underclass" face systematic disadvantages
  • social exclusion of the lower class
  • we live in a "bulimic society", people are encouraged to prioritise wealth and status
  • deviance is "the vertigo of late modernity", deviance as an expression of exclusion and the desire for inclusion
• Althusser (1970)

  institutions which control the proletariat:

  1. repressive state apparatus (RSAs) - obvious repression of any attempts at rebellion
  2. ideological state apparatus (ISAs) - subtle way of forcing society to conform to the interests of the ruling class