class power

• Capitalism: an economic and political system in which country's trade and industries are controlled by private owners for profit
• Capitalism creates crime and therefore this needs to be overturned and replaced with an economic structure based on communisim
• Criminogenic capitalism- through exploiting w/c they then have to find other ways to survive (crime) and only way to obtain consumer goods is through utilitarian crimes. As well as alienation and lack of control over their lives results in aggression and non utilitarian crimes.
• Crimogenic capitalism- 'dog eat dog' system which leads to corporate crimes such as tax evasion.

  David Gordon- crime is a rational response and found in all social classes although media only show w/c crimes
• Law enforcement as only serving the interest of the capitalist class-

  Selective reinforcement . Powerless groups such as the w/c and ethnic minorities are criminalized, the police and the courts tend to ignore the crimes of the powerful.
• Ideological functions of crime and law-

  Frank Pearcel, such laws often benefit the ruling class too. E.g by keeping workers fit for work. By giving capitalism a 'caring' face such laws also create a false consciousness amongst workers.
• Marxists evaluation

  • useful explaining crime and classes
  • ignore gender and ethnicity crimes
  • not all capitalist societies have high crime rate
  • CJS prosecute corporate crime