Chapter 6 Critical Theories: Marxist, Conflict & Feminist

Chapter Summary
 Chapter Six is an overview of the critical theories of crime. The Chapter begins with an evaluation and analysis of Karl Marx.  From neo-Marxism came the more popular conflict theory of crime. The Chapter then discusses post modernism and peacemaking criminology, and explains why these theories are recognized in the critical framework.  After reading this chapter, students should be able to:  Explain critical criminology.  Chapter Six then explains feminism, & the gendered problem of crime.

Chapter Summary
       The chapter concludes with an analysis and evaluation of each of the critical theories, as well as the policy implications that arise from the critical theories. Understand Marxism and neo-Marxism Explain the conflict perspective of crime Understand postmodernist & peacemaking criminology. Discuss feminist criminology. Analyze and critique the critical theories. Discuss policy implications.

The Conflict Perspective of Society  Critical theorists see society riddled with dissension, inequality, and conflict.  Any apparent consensus in society is maintained by overt and covert coercion.  Critical criminology: An umbrella term chosen for variety of theories united only the above assumption that conflict and power relations between various classes of people best characterize the nature of society.

Karl Marx & Revolution  The core of Marxist is the concept of class struggle.  In Marxs time the oppressors were the wealth owners of the means of production (the bourgeoisie) and the oppressed were the working class (the proletariat).  The ruling class always develops ideologies to justify and legitimize their exploitation.  Marx called the workers acceptance of ideologies that ran counter to their interests false consciousness.

Karl Marx & Revolution  In time, false consciousness would be replaced by class consciousness; that is, the recognition of a common class condition and the development of a common unity in opposition to capitalist exploitation.  This would set the stage for revolution.

Karl Marx & Revolution  According to Marx and Engels, criminals came from a third class in societythe lumpenproletariatwho would play no decisive role in the expected revolution.  Crime was the product of an unjust, alienating, and demoralizing social condition that denied productive labor to the masses of unemployed.

Karl Marx & Revolution

  The origin of crime has come to be known as the primitive rebellion. Capitalist societies pass laws that criminalize any action that jeopardizes private property and tend to overlook many socially injurious activities viewed as economically beneficial for the ruling class.

Willem Bonger: The 1st Marxist Criminologist

 Willem Bonger: Criminality and Economic Conditions (1969) supported the view that the roots of crime lay in the exploitative and alienating conditions of capitalism.  The social sentiments that concerned him were altruisman active concern for the well-being of othersand its opposite, egoism, a concern only for ones own selfish interests.

Willem Bonger: The 1st Marxist Criminologist

 According to Bonger, all individuals in capitalist societies are infected by egoism because they are alienated from authentic social relationships with their fellow human beings, and all are thus prone to crime.

Willem Bonger: The 1st Marxist Criminologist

The root cause of crime is the capitalist mode of production. Poverty was the major cause of crime, but the effects of poverty can be traced to the family structure and on parental inability to properly supervise their children.

Modern Marxist Criminology

 Neo-Marxist criminology is little more than maudlin sentimentality for criminals.  Many neo-Marxist criminologists appear to view the class struggle is the only source of all crime and to view real crime as violations of human rights, such as racism, sexism, imperialism, and capitalism.

Modern Marxist Criminology

 Other neo-Marxists are faithful to Marxs view and are critical of common street crime as an activity preventing the formation of proletarian class consciousness.

Left RealismTaking Crime Seriously

Left realist criminologists believe that the path of least resistance is to work within the system. People make choices for which they must be held accountable, but there are a variety of conditions that make some choices more probable and understandable than others.

Conflict Theory: Max Weber, Power & Conflict

 Max Weber had an interest in the social change wrought by the industrial revolution and in social conflict.  Weber viewed the various class divisions in society as normal, inevitable, and acceptable.  Criminality exists in all societies and is the result of the political struggle among different groups attempting to promote or enhance their life chances.

From Individual Violators to Group Struggles

George Vold moved conflict away from an exclusive emphasis of value and normative conflicts to include conflicts of interest. Social life is a continual struggle to maintain or improve ones own groups interest in a constant clash of antagonistic actions.

From Individual Violators to Group Struggles

Volds conflict theory concentrates entirely on the clash of individuals loyally upholding their differing group interests, and has no interest in explaining crime unrelated to group conflict. Conflict is a way of assuring social change, a way of generating group solidarity, and a way of assuring social stability.

The Social Reality of Crime

 The ultimate cause of crime is the law.  Conflict criminologists differ from neo-Marxist criminology in that it concentrates on the processes of value conflict and lawmaking rather than on the social structural elements underlying them.

The Social Reality of Crime

 Conflict theorists make no value judgment about whether crime is socially harmful, the actions of revolutionaries, or violations of human rights.  Conflict theorists tend to share neo-Marxisms fondness for research illustrating some principle of their perspectives rather than formulating hypotheses from it and putting them to the test.

Table 6.1 Comparing Marxist and Conflict Theory on Major Concepts Concept Marxist Conflict
Origin of conflict The powerful oppressing the powerless (e.g., the bourgeoisie oppressing the proletariat under capitalism). It is socially bad and must and will be eliminated in a socialist system. The owners of the means of production and the workers are engaged in the only conflict that matters. Only two classes defined by their relationship to the means of production, the bourgeoisie and proletariat. The aristocracy and the lumpenproletariat are parasite classes that will be eliminated. It is generated by many factors regardless of the political and economic system. It is socially useful and necessary and cannot be eliminated. Conflict takes place everywhere between all sorts of interest groups. There are number of different classes in society defined by their relative wealth, status, and power.

Nature of conflict

Major participants in conflict

Social class

Table 6.1 Comparing Marxist and Conflict Theory on Major Concepts Concept Marxist Conflict
Concept of the law It is the tool of the ruling class that criminalizes the activities of the workers harmful to its interests and ignores its own socially harmful behavior. Some view crime as the revolutionary actions of the downtrodden, others view it as the socially harmful acts of class traitors, and others see it as violations of human rights. The law favors the powerful, but not any one particular group. The greater the wealth, power, and prestige a group has, the more likely the law will favor it. Conflict theorists refuse to pass moral judgment because they view criminal conduct as morally neutral with no intrinsic properties that distinguish it from conforming behavior. Crime doesnt exist until a powerful interest group is able to criminalize the activities of another less powerful group. The distribution of political power that leads to some interest groups being able to criminalize the acts of other interest groups. As long as people have different interests and as long as some groups have more power than others, crime will exist. Since interest and power differentials are part of the human condition, crime will always be with us.

Concept of crime

Cause of crime

The dehumanizing conditions of capitalism. Capitalism generates egoism and alienates people from themselves and from others. With the overthrow of the capitalist mode of production, the natural goodness of humanity will emerge, and there will be no more criminal behavior.

Cure for crime

Postmodernist Theory
 Postmodernist criminology is firmly in the critical/radical tradition in that it views the law as an oppressive instrument of the rich and powerful, but it rejects the modernist view of the world.  All knowledge is socially constructed and has no independent reality apart from the minds of those who create it.

Postmodernist Theory
 All worldviews are mediated by language.  The dominant language of society is the language of the rich and powerful, and by virtue of owning the dominant language their point of view is privileged.

Peacemaking Criminology
 Peacemaking criminology has the philosophy of peace on crime.  Punishing criminals escalates violence.  In place of imprisoning offenders, peacemaking criminologists advocate restorative justice, which is basically a system of mediation and conflict resolution.

Feminist Criminology
 Feminism is a set of theories & strategies for social change that take gender as their central focus in attempting to understand social institutions, processes, and relationships.  Mainstream feminism holds the view that women suffer oppression & discrimination in a society run for men by men who have passed laws and created customs to perpetuate their privileged position.  Gender & power rather than class & power.

Feminist Criminology
 Female crime has been virtually ignored by mainstream criminology.  Generalizability problem: Do traditional malecentered theories of crime apply to women?  Gender ratio problem: What explains the universal fact that women are far less likely than men to involve themselves in criminal activity?

The Generalizability Problem

 Anomie theory: This theory cannot be applied to women because women are socialized to be successful in relationships, to get married, and to raise families, not for financial success.  Subculture theories: This theory cannot explain why women who have achieved their relationship goals commit crimes.  Differential association: This theory is better for explaining why females commit less crime than men.

The Generalizability Problem

 Labeling: The labeling perspective is not an explanation as to why people engage in deviance in the first place, and it lacks an analysis of the structures of power and oppression impinging on women  Marxism: This theory neglects gender issues, plus, working-class women experience the same capitalist exploitation as men, but they still commit far less crime

The Gender Ratio Problem

-Mainstream feminists have asserted that if females were socialized in the same way as males & had similar roles and experiences, their rates of criminal offending would be roughly the same. -This assertion is denied by the biological sciences, as well as by radical feminists, who view gender difference in behavior as a function of differentially wired brains.

Masculinization & Emancipation Hypothesis: Adler & Simon

 Freda Adler attributed the rise in female crime rates in the 1960s and 1970s to an increasing number of females adopting male roles, and by doing so increasingly masculinizing their attitudes and behavior (The Masculinization Hypothesis).  Rita Simon claimed that increased participation in the workforce affords women greater opportunities to commit crime (The Emancipation Hypothesis).

Masculinization & Emancipation Hypothesis: Adler & Simon

More recently, it has been proposed that the gender ratio exists 1. because gender differs in exposure to delinquent peers & that males are more influenced by delinquent peers than females 2. because of female greater inhibitory morality.

Female-Centered Theory: Criminalizing Girls Survival & Victim Precipitated Homicide

Rather than developing general theories of female crime, feminist theories have developed a series of models cataloging the responses of girls and women to situations more or less specific to their gender that result in the committing specific criminal acts.

Female-Centered Theory: Criminalizing Girls Survival & Victim Precipitated Homicide

Chesney-Lind: Girls victimization & their response to it are shaped by their status in a patriarchal society in which males dominate the family & define their daughters & stepdaughters as sexual property.

Female-Centered Theory: Criminalizing Girls Survival & Victim Precipitated Homicide

 Victim-precipitated homicide, which is a homicide in which the murder victim initiates the sequence of events that leads to his or her death.

Radical Feminist Explanation

 Radical feminists argue that because the magnitude of the gender gap varies across time and space and yet remains constantly wide at all ties and in all places that biological factors must play a large part.  The root of gender ratio lies in the fundamental differences between the genders.

Radical Feminist Explanation

Anne Campbell: Staying alive hypothesisevolutionary logic is all about passing on genes that proved useful in the struggle for survival and reproductive success to future generations over the eons of time in which our most human characteristics were being formed.

Radical Feminist Explanation

 Because offspring survival is so important to their reproductive success, females evolved a propensity to avoid engaging in behaviors that pose survival risks.  When females engage in crime they almost always do so for instrumental reasons, and their crimes rarely involve risk of physical injury.

Evaluation of Critical Theories

 It is often said that Marxist theory has very little that is unique to add to criminology theory.  Much of Marxist criminology appears to be in a time warp in that it assumes that the conditions prevailing in Marxs time still exist in the same form today in advanced capitalist societies.  Conflict theory does not attempt to explain crime; it simply identifies social conflict as a basic fact of life and a source of discriminatory treatment.

Evaluation of Critical Theories

 Postmodernism offers no viable alternative except to advance the notion that crime can be abated by changing the way people think and talk about it.  Peacemaking criminologists never offer any notion as to how crime rates can be reduced beyond counseling that we appreciate criminals point of view and not be so punitive.

Evaluation of Critical Theories

 According to feminist theory, maleness is without doubt the best single predictor of criminal behavior.  This leaves feminist theorists without much left to explain in specific female terms about female offending.

Policy Prevention: Implications of Critical Theories

 The policy implications of Marxism are to overthrow the capitalist system and crime will be reduced.  Policy recommendations by left realists include community activities, neighborhood watches, community policing, dispute resolution centers, and target hardening.

Policy Prevention: Implications of Critical Theories

 Conflict theorists favor programs such as minimum wage laws, sharply progressive taxation, a government controlled comprehensive health care system, maternal leave, and national policy of family support as a way of reducing crime.  Feminists argue to reform our patriarchal society as well as push the plight of victims into the light of day.