Conflict Theories Chapter 11 Crim ⢠Conflict perspective assumes that ...
Conflict Theories Chapter 11 Crim
Conflict perspective assumes that societies are more divided by conflict than they are integrated by consensus o Question the assumption that or laws represent the interests of society as a whole Consensus theorist view that law as the codification of mutually agreed upon society norms and values Cultural Conflict Theory Thorsten Sellin o First criminologists to propose a conflict perspective for the analysis of crime Modern society is composed of diverse cultural groups, each maintaining distinct “conduct norms” or cultural rules that govern appropriate conduct Says that culturally homogenous societies the values and norms to which people subscribe will be similar, so the conduct norms of the broader social group will reflect societal consensus But in more cultural heterogeneous societies, urbanization, industrialization and overall societal consensus is less likely o Conflict between conduct norms of different cultural groups o Conduct norms – specification of rules or norms of a appropriate behaviour generally agreed upon by members of the social group to whom the behavioural norms apply cultural conflict can arise when conduct norms clash o certain types of criminal behaviour as resulting from a conflict between the conduct norms of divergent cultural groups While there are many ways which social groups can secure conformity of their members, criminal law stands out because everyone must follow it no matter what social group you belong to But criminal law does depend on the character and interests of those groups in the population which influence legislation (dominant interest groups) o Criminal law reflect dominant social values of dominant cultural group o Criminal norms = conduct norms codified into laws that represent dominant group o Stellin says that crime is an expression of culture conflict when individuals who act based on the conduct norms of their own cultural group find themselves in violation of the conduct norms that the dominant group has enacted into law Box 11.1 – Honour Crimes in Canada: the Murder of Aqsa Parvez (example of cultural conflict theory – criminal norms) Life outside school was tightly controlled by father She wanted to choose her own clothing, go to the movies
Forced to wear the hijab Asqa told her closest friend that if she ran away again than her father would kill her 5000 woman and girls killed each year from honour killings what is honour killing? – cultural sanctioning of premeditated killings of women perceived to have brought dishonour to their families, often by engaging in illicit relations with men involve the murder of woman or girl by her male family members not normally act alone, but with the approval or encouragement of other family members rumour of an alleged impropriety is usually enough to justify an honour crime most experts insist an essential characteristics of an honour killing is that it is premeditated Group Conflict Theory George Vold Group conflict theory as an explanation for certain types of criminal behaviour o a theory that attempts to explain certain types of criminal behaviour as resulting from a conflict between the interests of divergent groups Vold focuses on crimes that occurs as a result of conflict between diverse “interest” groups o Assumption that humans are “group involved” Groups will come in contact with one another as their interests begin to overlap and become competitive Laws that are passed reflect the dominant interest group who won the struggle for police power/law making of state Normal social process for Vold Two classes of group conflict that result in crime o Crimes arise from a conflict between the behaviour of minority groups and the legal norms, rules and regulations of the dominant majority gangs o Some crimes arise from a conflict between competing interest groups who are vying for power Protests, revolution Limited to instances where criminal behaviour arises from the conflict between interest groups and does not try to explain other types of criminal acts o Only inter-group crime Richard Quinney Explains criminality as the result of conflict between groups Focused on the notion of segments of society, which are types of social groupings Placed emphasis on the unequal distribution of power in society
Only some interest groups are sufficiently powerful to influence policy, because power is unequally distributed Crime in 6 propositions o Crime is product of legal definitions o Crime is behaviour that conflicts with the interests of segments that have the power to shape public policy o Powerful segments also enforce and administer the law o People in less powerful segments are more likely to have their behaviours defined as criminal, because their interests are not represented in the formulation and application of criminal defs o Mass media have a role in the diffusion of criminal conceptions through society o Process above is called social reality of crime Marxist Conflict Perspectives in Criminology Marxist theories of crime and deviance do not look to the individual offender for explanations of crime Take the position that crime must be analysed in the context of its relationships to the charter of the society as a whole Crime is best understood in relation to the social, political and economic structures of the society in which it occurs View conflict as rooted in the very structure of capitalist society, particularly capitalist economic relations Economic structure = promote conflict in turn providing the precipitating conditions (unemployment) for crime to occur Organization of capitalist society – fosters crime Mode of production is composed by The forces of production and the social relations of production o Forces of production – tools, techniques, raw materials, and labour power used in production o Social relations of production – refers to the relationships that exist among humans with respect to the ownership of the means of production Social relations of production = gave rise to two classes o Bouregoise Economically dominant class who own the mean of production o Proletariat Economically subordinate class, property –less Based on class exploitation One class is in a position of dominance over the other class in the economic sphere, the other social institutions in society will be organized according to the interests of the dominant class Law and crime should not be studied in isolation, but rather in relation to the whole of society and particularly the economic sphere Instrumental Marxism
Assumption that the state in capitalist societies broadly serves the interests of the ruling or capitalist class instrumental Marxism – the state is weird as the direct instrument of the ruling or capitalist class. Instrumentalism is based on the notion that the processes of the superstructure are determined by the economic base Economic structure of society determines the nature that society’s political and legal superstructure Direct reflection of the interests of the capitalist class Law is equated with class rule – the ruling class controls the formation of law, and the focus is on the coercive nature of law Viewed the state and the legal system as instruments that could be directly manipulated by the capitalist class Many critiques of instrumental capitalism o For portraying the ruling class as a unified and homogenous group o For ignoring how the actions of ruling class members are influenced or constrained by structural causes o The instrumental position is unable to account for legislation that is not in the immediate interest of the ruling class (with regard to that the law represents only the interests of the ruling class) o Intrumentalism draws upon an overly rigid interpretation of the base/superstructure metaphor Form of causality where the superstructure is a necessary consequence of the economic base The sturcturalist perspective takes the position that the institutions of the state ensure the ongoing viability of capitalism more generally Institutions of the state must function so as to reproduce capitalist society as a whole Because the state reproduces the logic of capitalist structure in its economic, legal and political institutions The idea that the state is independent of the ruling class is known as relative autonomy o State has a certain amount of independence from the capitalist class and is therefore able to enact laws that are not in the immediate interests of the capitalist class Relative autonomy of the state provides a state structure “capable of transcending the parochial, individualized interests of specific capitalists and capitalist class factions” Emergence of Canadian anti-combines legislation could be viewed as a pragmatic attempt by the government to find a symbolic solution to the confrontation between capital and labour, given the political influence of the more prominent trade unions Structural Marxists argue that laws that benefit the less powerful reflect an ideological need to develop a widespread consent for the existing social order
Structuralists therefore argue that law functions as an ideological means of domination Ideological domination consists of those processes that produce and reaffirm the existing social order, and legitimate class domination Law may be said to function as an ideological means of domination to the extent that is acts to legitimate the existing capitalist social order Box 11. 2 – Law Ideology and the Struggle for the vote by Canadian Woman The struggle for the vote by Canadian woman in the early 1900s is an example that helps to illustrate how the law served to reaffirm and legitmate the existing social order One argument was that woman did not belong in public life, rather that they were wives and mothers only – domestic circle Crimes of the Powerless Spitzer = ‘surplus population’ Spitzer argued that criminalization of much behaviour ia directed toward those problem populations who are surplus to the labour market Problem populations created in two ways o Created directly through the contradictions in the capitalist mode of production o Created indirectly through contradictions in the institutions that help to reproduce capitalism Problem populations become candidates for devience processing when they disturb, hinder or call into question any of the following: (refer to lecture slide) David Greenberg explained juvinle delinquency from a Marxist perspective and argues that juveniles from a class of their own because they share a common relationship to the means of production Juveniles can be considered as part of the surplus population because they are excluded from lawful sources of income Box 11.3 Is it a corporate crime? The Menu Foods Pet Food Recall Menu foods announced a smassive recall of cans and pouches of tainted dog and cat food Cat and dog deaths Ubiquit of the global sourcing of pet and human food ingredients and the magnitude of the outsources of production of branded pet food to the contract manufacturers Many pet food companies do not make their own pet food but rather “outsource” this function to third party contracters, known as copackers Marxist analysis would point to the structure of capitalist ecnomies and the on-going pressure for companies to extract ever-increasing amounts of surplus value in the form of profits Socialist Feminism Critique and extension of the radical feminist position radical feminism emerged in 70s as a critique of the liberal feminists focus on rectifying gender inequality through legal reforms to the existing system
o A perspective that views the problem of gender inequality and of women’s subordination in society as rooted in the institution of patriarchy Radical feminists locate the fundamental conditions of women’s oppression in the institution of patriarchy, defined as a systematic expression of male domination and control over woman which permeates all social, political and economic institutions But criticised for assuming a universality of women’s subordination Critiqued for its tendency to give primacy to gender oppression under patriarchy o Radical feminism replaced capitalism with patriarchy o A system of male domination an control whereby the structure of society privileges men over women. Stressed the systemic nature of the oppression of women. Capitalism and patriarchy go hand in hand – mutually dependent Social feminism o A perspective that views women’s exploitation under capitalism and oppression under patriarchy as interconnected. Neither the class structure of capitalism nor patriarchal gender relations are given priority in socialist feminism, rather gender and class relations are viewed as mutually dependent Social feminism are interested in examining society from the perspective of both productive labour and reproductive labour (domestic labour) Snider highlights unintended consequences of mandatory arrest policies, such as an increase in the number of women arrested, often for using violence to defend themselves, as well as increase in number of women facing contempt charges for their subsequent refusal to testify against their abusers Left Realism Maintains that for conventional criminology, crime is antisocial behaviour involving people who lack values Emphasize the need to examine the square of crime, which is the relationship between the offender, the victim, the police and the public Street crime refers to some form of injury committed directly by one or more specific individuals against the body or property of the victim (murder, rape, robbery, theft, vandalism, burglary) Victims tend to be those from the most vulnerable segments of the community, crime is disproportionately distributed among the working class, women and racial minorities Working class crime must be taken seriously Argue for concrete crime control programs, objective of offering non repressive crime control policies o Alternatives to prisons, preemptive deterrence, transforming the police force into a police service accountable to the police and
harnessing the energies of the marginalized to create a politics of crime control Positive – sensitizing us to the amount and kinds of street crime and domestic violence
Conflict perspective assumes that societies are more divided by conflict than they are integrated by consensus o Question the assumption that or laws represent the interests of society as a whole Consensus theorist view that law as the codification of mutually agreed upon society norms and values Cultural Conflict Theory Thorsten Sellin o First criminologists to propose a conflict perspective for the analysis of crime Modern society is composed of diverse cultural groups, each maintaining distinct “conduct norms” or cultural rules that govern appropriate conduct Says that culturally homogenous societies the values and norms to which people subscribe will be similar, so the conduct norms of the broader social group will reflect societal consensus But in more cultural heterogeneous societies, urbanization, industrialization and overall societal consensus is less likely o Conflict between conduct norms of different cultural groups o Conduct norms – specification of rules or norms of a appropriate behaviour generally agreed upon by members of the social group to whom the behavioural norms apply cultural conflict can arise when conduct norms clash o certain types of criminal behaviour as resulting from a conflict between the conduct norms of divergent cultural groups While there are many ways which social groups can secure conformity of their members, criminal law stands out because everyone must follow it no matter what social group you belong to But criminal law does depend on the character and interests of those groups in the population which influence legislation (dominant interest groups) o Criminal law reflect dominant social values of dominant cultural group o Criminal norms = conduct norms codified into laws that represent dominant group o Stellin says that crime is an expression of culture conflict when individuals who act based on the conduct norms of their own cultural group find themselves in violation of the conduct norms that the dominant group has enacted into law Box 11.1 – Honour Crimes in Canada: the Murder of Aqsa Parvez (example of cultural conflict theory – criminal norms) Life outside school was tightly controlled by father She wanted to choose her own clothing, go to the movies
Forced to wear the hijab Asqa told her closest friend that if she ran away again than her father would kill her 5000 woman and girls killed each year from honour killings what is honour killing? – cultural sanctioning of premeditated killings of women perceived to have brought dishonour to their families, often by engaging in illicit relations with men involve the murder of woman or girl by her male family members not normally act alone, but with the approval or encouragement of other family members rumour of an alleged impropriety is usually enough to justify an honour crime most experts insist an essential characteristics of an honour killing is that it is premeditated Group Conflict Theory George Vold Group conflict theory as an explanation for certain types of criminal behaviour o a theory that attempts to explain certain types of criminal behaviour as resulting from a conflict between the interests of divergent groups Vold focuses on crimes that occurs as a result of conflict between diverse “interest” groups o Assumption that humans are “group involved” Groups will come in contact with one another as their interests begin to overlap and become competitive Laws that are passed reflect the dominant interest group who won the struggle for police power/law making of state Normal social process for Vold Two classes of group conflict that result in crime o Crimes arise from a conflict between the behaviour of minority groups and the legal norms, rules and regulations of the dominant majority gangs o Some crimes arise from a conflict between competing interest groups who are vying for power Protests, revolution Limited to instances where criminal behaviour arises from the conflict between interest groups and does not try to explain other types of criminal acts o Only inter-group crime Richard Quinney Explains criminality as the result of conflict between groups Focused on the notion of segments of society, which are types of social groupings Placed emphasis on the unequal distribution of power in society
Only some interest groups are sufficiently powerful to influence policy, because power is unequally distributed Crime in 6 propositions o Crime is product of legal definitions o Crime is behaviour that conflicts with the interests of segments that have the power to shape public policy o Powerful segments also enforce and administer the law o People in less powerful segments are more likely to have their behaviours defined as criminal, because their interests are not represented in the formulation and application of criminal defs o Mass media have a role in the diffusion of criminal conceptions through society o Process above is called social reality of crime Marxist Conflict Perspectives in Criminology Marxist theories of crime and deviance do not look to the individual offender for explanations of crime Take the position that crime must be analysed in the context of its relationships to the charter of the society as a whole Crime is best understood in relation to the social, political and economic structures of the society in which it occurs View conflict as rooted in the very structure of capitalist society, particularly capitalist economic relations Economic structure = promote conflict in turn providing the precipitating conditions (unemployment) for crime to occur Organization of capitalist society – fosters crime Mode of production is composed by The forces of production and the social relations of production o Forces of production – tools, techniques, raw materials, and labour power used in production o Social relations of production – refers to the relationships that exist among humans with respect to the ownership of the means of production Social relations of production = gave rise to two classes o Bouregoise Economically dominant class who own the mean of production o Proletariat Economically subordinate class, property –less Based on class exploitation One class is in a position of dominance over the other class in the economic sphere, the other social institutions in society will be organized according to the interests of the dominant class Law and crime should not be studied in isolation, but rather in relation to the whole of society and particularly the economic sphere Instrumental Marxism
Assumption that the state in capitalist societies broadly serves the interests of the ruling or capitalist class instrumental Marxism – the state is weird as the direct instrument of the ruling or capitalist class. Instrumentalism is based on the notion that the processes of the superstructure are determined by the economic base Economic structure of society determines the nature that society’s political and legal superstructure Direct reflection of the interests of the capitalist class Law is equated with class rule – the ruling class controls the formation of law, and the focus is on the coercive nature of law Viewed the state and the legal system as instruments that could be directly manipulated by the capitalist class Many critiques of instrumental capitalism o For portraying the ruling class as a unified and homogenous group o For ignoring how the actions of ruling class members are influenced or constrained by structural causes o The instrumental position is unable to account for legislation that is not in the immediate interest of the ruling class (with regard to that the law represents only the interests of the ruling class) o Intrumentalism draws upon an overly rigid interpretation of the base/superstructure metaphor Form of causality where the superstructure is a necessary consequence of the economic base The sturcturalist perspective takes the position that the institutions of the state ensure the ongoing viability of capitalism more generally Institutions of the state must function so as to reproduce capitalist society as a whole Because the state reproduces the logic of capitalist structure in its economic, legal and political institutions The idea that the state is independent of the ruling class is known as relative autonomy o State has a certain amount of independence from the capitalist class and is therefore able to enact laws that are not in the immediate interests of the capitalist class Relative autonomy of the state provides a state structure “capable of transcending the parochial, individualized interests of specific capitalists and capitalist class factions” Emergence of Canadian anti-combines legislation could be viewed as a pragmatic attempt by the government to find a symbolic solution to the confrontation between capital and labour, given the political influence of the more prominent trade unions Structural Marxists argue that laws that benefit the less powerful reflect an ideological need to develop a widespread consent for the existing social order
Structuralists therefore argue that law functions as an ideological means of domination Ideological domination consists of those processes that produce and reaffirm the existing social order, and legitimate class domination Law may be said to function as an ideological means of domination to the extent that is acts to legitimate the existing capitalist social order Box 11. 2 – Law Ideology and the Struggle for the vote by Canadian Woman The struggle for the vote by Canadian woman in the early 1900s is an example that helps to illustrate how the law served to reaffirm and legitmate the existing social order One argument was that woman did not belong in public life, rather that they were wives and mothers only – domestic circle Crimes of the Powerless Spitzer = ‘surplus population’ Spitzer argued that criminalization of much behaviour ia directed toward those problem populations who are surplus to the labour market Problem populations created in two ways o Created directly through the contradictions in the capitalist mode of production o Created indirectly through contradictions in the institutions that help to reproduce capitalism Problem populations become candidates for devience processing when they disturb, hinder or call into question any of the following: (refer to lecture slide) David Greenberg explained juvinle delinquency from a Marxist perspective and argues that juveniles from a class of their own because they share a common relationship to the means of production Juveniles can be considered as part of the surplus population because they are excluded from lawful sources of income Box 11.3 Is it a corporate crime? The Menu Foods Pet Food Recall Menu foods announced a smassive recall of cans and pouches of tainted dog and cat food Cat and dog deaths Ubiquit of the global sourcing of pet and human food ingredients and the magnitude of the outsources of production of branded pet food to the contract manufacturers Many pet food companies do not make their own pet food but rather “outsource” this function to third party contracters, known as copackers Marxist analysis would point to the structure of capitalist ecnomies and the on-going pressure for companies to extract ever-increasing amounts of surplus value in the form of profits Socialist Feminism Critique and extension of the radical feminist position radical feminism emerged in 70s as a critique of the liberal feminists focus on rectifying gender inequality through legal reforms to the existing system
o A perspective that views the problem of gender inequality and of women’s subordination in society as rooted in the institution of patriarchy Radical feminists locate the fundamental conditions of women’s oppression in the institution of patriarchy, defined as a systematic expression of male domination and control over woman which permeates all social, political and economic institutions But criticised for assuming a universality of women’s subordination Critiqued for its tendency to give primacy to gender oppression under patriarchy o Radical feminism replaced capitalism with patriarchy o A system of male domination an control whereby the structure of society privileges men over women. Stressed the systemic nature of the oppression of women. Capitalism and patriarchy go hand in hand – mutually dependent Social feminism o A perspective that views women’s exploitation under capitalism and oppression under patriarchy as interconnected. Neither the class structure of capitalism nor patriarchal gender relations are given priority in socialist feminism, rather gender and class relations are viewed as mutually dependent Social feminism are interested in examining society from the perspective of both productive labour and reproductive labour (domestic labour) Snider highlights unintended consequences of mandatory arrest policies, such as an increase in the number of women arrested, often for using violence to defend themselves, as well as increase in number of women facing contempt charges for their subsequent refusal to testify against their abusers Left Realism Maintains that for conventional criminology, crime is antisocial behaviour involving people who lack values Emphasize the need to examine the square of crime, which is the relationship between the offender, the victim, the police and the public Street crime refers to some form of injury committed directly by one or more specific individuals against the body or property of the victim (murder, rape, robbery, theft, vandalism, burglary) Victims tend to be those from the most vulnerable segments of the community, crime is disproportionately distributed among the working class, women and racial minorities Working class crime must be taken seriously Argue for concrete crime control programs, objective of offering non repressive crime control policies o Alternatives to prisons, preemptive deterrence, transforming the police force into a police service accountable to the police and
harnessing the energies of the marginalized to create a politics of crime control Positive – sensitizing us to the amount and kinds of street crime and domestic violence
