Criminology in Canada: Chapter 9: Social Conflict Theory - Those who ...
Criminology in Canada: Chapter 9: Social Conflict Theory - Those who view crime as a function of social and economic conflict are referred to as the conflict, critical, Marxist, or radical criminologists o Explain crime within economic and social contexts and to express the connections among social class, crime and social control o Crime as the outcome of class struggle - Reject that law is designed to maintain a tranquil and fair society o Criminals are simply violent and predatory o Crimes are considered to be racism, sexism, imperialism, unsafe working conditions, inadequate childcare, substandard housing, pollution of the environment, and war - Conflict theory: sees criminal behavior as caused by economic inequality, and criminal law defined by those in power Marxist Thought Productive Forces and Productive Relations - Believed economic conditions of capitalism had put workers at the mercy of their capitalist employers - 2 components to production 1. Productive forces, which include technology, energy source, and material resources 2. Relations of production, which exist among the people producing goods and services - Believed that societies change through slow evolution or sudden violence because of contradictions or conflicts present in a society o Not able to change, destabilize society, social change Marx on Crime - Crime as a product of law enforcement policies akin to a labeling process theory - Working class people commit crime because their choice is a slow death of starvation or a speedy one at the hands of the law Developing a Social Conflict Theory of Crime Willem Bonger - Society, have and have not groups - Ruling class and an inferior class, penal laws serves the will of the ruling class - Crimes are considered to be antisocial acts because they are harmful to those who have the power at their command to control society - The legal system discriminates the poor, and defends the rich - Proletariat are deprived of the materials that are monopolized by the bourgeoisie, thus more likely to violate the law Ralf Dahrendof - Modern society is organized into imperatively coordinated associations 1. Those who possess authority and use it for social domination 2. Those who lack authority and are dominated - Unified conflict theory of human behavior o Every society is at every point subject to processes of change; social change is everywhere
o Every society displays at every point dissent and conflict; social conflict is everywhere o Every element is a society renders a contribution to its disintegration and change o Every society is based on the coercion of some of its members by others George Vold - Laws are created by politically oriented groups who seek the governments assistance to help them defend their rights and protect their interests - Criminal acts are a consequence of direct contact between forces struggling to control society Modern Conflict Theory - Self-reports studies suggested that crime and delinquent were much more evenly distributed through the social structure than shown by the official statistics - Justice system as a mechanism to control the lower class and maintain the status quo, rather than as the means of dispensing fair and even handed justice - Research and scholarship directed to: 1. Identifying “real” crimes in society 2. Evaluating how the criminal law is used as a mechanism of social control 3. Turning the attention of citizens to the inequities in society Conflict Criminology - Describe how the control od the political and economic system affects the administration of criminal justice, show how justice in society is skewed so that those who deserve to be punished the most are actually punished the least, those that commit relatively minor and out of economic necessity receive the stricter sanctions Power Relations - Unequal distribution of power creates conflict - People use power to shape public opinion to meet their personal interests The Social Reality of Crime - Social reality of crime: Quinney’s conflict theory regarding the interrelationships between power, society and criminality - Criminal definitions are based on 1. Changing social conditions 2. Emerging interests 3. Increasing demand that political, economic, and religious interest be protected 4. Changing conceptions of public interest - Criminal definitions are constantly changing set of concepts that mirror the political organization of society - Criminals are people who have come up short in the struggle for success and are seeking alternative means of achieving wealth, status or survival Norm Resistance - Social conflict is inevitable when authorities in society are in conflict with those who are controlled by, but have little ability to control, the law - Norm resistance: the interaction between authorities and subjects that eventually produces open conflict between the two groups o Authorities and subjects are both committed to opposing cultural norms
o People with group support will be resistant to authority or change o Assessing the strengths, weaknesses of opponents helps avoid conflict with authorities Research on Conflict Theory - Dangerous classes: personal characteristics (being single, young, urban and male) that can result in harsher treatment in the criminal justice system - Aboriginals are more likely to be denied bail, to be subjected to pretrial detention, and to plead guilty without knowing the consequences of doing so - Blacks were more likely to be stopped by police, whites more likely to receive bail - Conflict theorists show that the criminal justice system is quick to take action when the victim of crime is wealthy, white and male but is uninterested when the victim is poor, a member of a minority group and female, indicating how power position affects justice Analysis of Conflict Theory - Identify power relations in society and their role in promoting criminal behavior - Reject the view that the law represents the values of the majority of that legal codes create a just society and criminals are simple predators - Disagree, instead that crime is a matter of rational choice made by offenders motivated more by greed and selfishness than by poverty and hopelessness Marist Criminology - Poor commit street crimes: rape, murder, theft and mugging - Middle class: cheat on taxes, engage in petty corporate crime - Laws regulating corporate crime are window dressing deigned to create the impression that the justice system is fair Fundamentals of Marxist Criminology - Ignore formal theory construction, heavy emphasis on empirical value-free testing arguing that criminological scholarship should have a political and ideological basis - Leftist criminologists see the crime as being designed to protect the power and position of the upper classes at the expense of the poor - Capitalism produced a relatively high level of crime and violence 1. Each society will produce its own types and amounts of crime 2. Each society will have its own distinctive ways of dealing with criminal behavior 3. Each society gets the amount and type of crime that it deserves - Criminality is a function of the social and economic organization of society - To control crime and reduce criminality is to end the social conditions that promote crime Economic Structure and Surplus Value - Relationship between crime and the ownership and control of private property in a capitalist society - Social conflict is fundamentally related to the historical and social distribution of productive private property and surplus value (profit) - Surplus value: the laboring classes produce wealth that far exceeds their wages and goes to the capitalist class as profits - Once people are marginalized, commitment to the system declines, producing another criminogenic force: a weakened bond to society
Instrumental Marxism - Criminal law and criminal justice system as an instrument for controlling the poor - How law in capitalist society works to preserve ruling class power o Society is based on an advanced capitalist economy o The state is organized to serve the interests of the dominant economic class o The criminal law is a state instrument used to maintain the existing social and economic order o Crime control occurs through institutions established and administered by the elite class o Contradictions in capitalism require that lower classes remain oppressed by the legal system o The collapse of capitalism and creation of a society based on socialism will solve crime Concepts of Instrumental Marxism - Defines the state, law and the ruling class as a single entity - Shaped by economic, social and political interest of the ruling class and is used by the ruling class to its own advantage Privilege - Privilege: in conflict theory, refers to the wealth and prestige enjoyed by some, which puts them in conflict with those in society who are less well off - Members of the ruling class conspire to control society, what benefits one member of the ruling class benefits them all o Some laws benefit the lower classes, the capitalists compete with one another rather than conspire Structural Marxism - Structural Marxism: the view that law is designed to maintain the capitalist system; individuals whose behavior threatens social stability will be sanctioned - The law is used to maintain the long-term interest of the capitalist system and to control members of any class who pose a threat to its existence - Law and justice are not purely instruments of the capitalist class o Created laws to enforce controlling corporate crimes, price fixing, false advertising and illegal restraint of trade - Structuralist: the law is designed to keep the capitalist system operating in an efficient manner - Stephen Spitzer’s Marxism theory of deviance: o Capitalist modes of appropriating the product of human labor o The social conditions under which capitalist production takes place o Patterns of consumption o The process of socialization for production o The ideology that supports the functioning of capitalist society Crime, the Individual and the State - Marxist study the relationships among crime, victims and the criminal and the state 1. Crime and its control are a function of capitalism 2. The justice system is biased against the working class and favors upper-class interests
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Analysis of the criminal justice system is designed to identify the processes that exert control over people’s lives - How sentencing in a juvenile court is a function of social class, how power relationships help undermine any benefit the lower class gets sentencing reforms, how the justice system is class biased, the relationship between capitalism and rape - Goal is to show how the capitalism creates an environment in which crime is inevitable - Income is concentrated in the hands of a few affluent people. Those in power will be willing to spend enormous sums to keep people who are poor and minority group members under state control Historical Analysis - Focus on the historical background of commonly held institutional beliefs and practices, to show how changes in the criminal law corresponded to the development of capitalist economy Critiques of Marxist Criminology - Summary of Marxist theory o Marxist criminologists refuse to confront the problems of socialist countries o Capitalism is blamed for every human vice and for predatory and personal crime o Doesn’t explain criminality existing in states that have abolished private ownership of the means of production o Overlook distinctions that exist between people in different classes o Attempt to explain issues that are obvious, o Suspect even those practices and freedoms that most people cherish as the cornerstones of democracy - These concepts do not reflect the key issues in the structural and economic process o May be the outcome of the capitalist system New Directions in Critical Criminology - Looks at crimes of the powerful and views crime as a consequence of unequal power relations in society - Left realism explains and measures street crime and proposes short term solutions Left Realism - Reject utopian views of Marxist they called idealistic, street criminals as revolutionaries, and themselves took the self-named “realistic” approach that street criminals prey on the poor and disenfranchised o By capitalist system and members of its own class o Relative deprivation = discontent, discontent + lack of political solution = crime - Left realism: conflict theory: holds that crime is a real social problem experienced by the lower classes, and that criminologists should develop crime prevention strategies o All classes need protection, and crime control reflects community needs - The police and courts are not inherently evil tools of capitalism who tough tactics alienate the lower classes - Pre-emptive deterrence: advocated by left realists in which community organization efforts can reduce crime before it becomes necessary to use police force
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Street crime is real, the fear of violence among the lower classes has allowed the right wing to seize law and order as political issue - Left realists want crime control policy to build on the work of strain theorists, social ecologists and other mainstream views - Community based efforts hold hopes as crime control techniques Feminist Theory - The cause of crime, gender differences in the crime rates and the exploitation of female victims from a gendered perspective Marxism Feminism - Gender inequality is a function of the exploitation of females by fathers and husbands; women are considered a commodity worth possessing (land, money) - Traced back to the development of private property and male domination over the laws of inheritance - Marxist feminists: view that gender inequality stems from the unequal power of men and women in capitalism, which is based on the development of private property, male domination, and the exploitation of women - Capitalism, patriarchy and crime; capitalist society both patriarchy and crime o Capitalists control the labor of workers, while men control women both economically and biologically (double marginality) o Women are isolated in the family, fewer opportunities to engage in elite deviance and denied access to male-dominated street crimes - Masculinities and Crime: in every culture, males try to emulate what are considered to be ideal masculine behaviors (authoritative, in charge, combative, and controlling) Radical Feminism - Radical feminism: view that female crime is caused by males supremacy (patriarchy), the subsequent subordination and control of women by male aggression - Focus on social forces that shape women’s lives and experiences to explain female criminality How the Justice system Penalizes Women - Viewed female delinquents as sexually precocious girls who need to be brought under control - Detained before trial and force to do a compulsory pelvic exam - Female delinquency is viewed as relatively more serious then males and more likely to be severely sanctioned Power Control Theory - Crime and delinquency rates are a function of two factors 1. Class position (power) 2. Family functions (control) - Paternalistic: characterization of leaders in government or organizations as father figures, while other are treated as children - Females in a paternalistic households have been socialized to fear legal sanctions more than their brothers have - Egalitarian: description of an equal sharing of authority and power
Deconstructionism - Deconstructionism: the critical analysis of language in legal codes and regulations to determine how content causes racism or sexism to become institutionalized - Deconstructionists rely on a various type of discourse - Semiotics: language that comprises a set of signs that describe the world by conveying meanings understood by their audience - Believed that language is value laden and contains the same sorts of inequalities present in the rest of the social structure Restorative Justice - Restorative justice: mediation and conflict resolution are used as an alternative to the more formal court system to heal injury to personal and community relations - Criminal behavior as a violation of relationships serves as the basis of restorative justice programming throughout Canada - Understanding the causes of conflict and then exercising compassion when responding to criminal justice and social justice issues - Restorative justice, guided on three principles 1. Community ownership of conflict 2. Material and symbolic reparation for victims and the community 3. Social reintegration of the offender - Redefining crime in terms of a conflict among the offender, the victim, and the affected constituencies (families, schools, workplaces) Peacemaking Criminology - Peacemaking: conflict theory, stresses humanism, mediation and conflict resolution as means to end crime - View the efforts of the state to punish and control as crime-encouraging rather than crime discouraging - Mutual aid is harmonious for society - Marginalization: the condition that results when people live in areas conductive to crime, which leads to their decreased commitment to the system, producing another criminogenic force: weakened bond to society
o Every society displays at every point dissent and conflict; social conflict is everywhere o Every element is a society renders a contribution to its disintegration and change o Every society is based on the coercion of some of its members by others George Vold - Laws are created by politically oriented groups who seek the governments assistance to help them defend their rights and protect their interests - Criminal acts are a consequence of direct contact between forces struggling to control society Modern Conflict Theory - Self-reports studies suggested that crime and delinquent were much more evenly distributed through the social structure than shown by the official statistics - Justice system as a mechanism to control the lower class and maintain the status quo, rather than as the means of dispensing fair and even handed justice - Research and scholarship directed to: 1. Identifying “real” crimes in society 2. Evaluating how the criminal law is used as a mechanism of social control 3. Turning the attention of citizens to the inequities in society Conflict Criminology - Describe how the control od the political and economic system affects the administration of criminal justice, show how justice in society is skewed so that those who deserve to be punished the most are actually punished the least, those that commit relatively minor and out of economic necessity receive the stricter sanctions Power Relations - Unequal distribution of power creates conflict - People use power to shape public opinion to meet their personal interests The Social Reality of Crime - Social reality of crime: Quinney’s conflict theory regarding the interrelationships between power, society and criminality - Criminal definitions are based on 1. Changing social conditions 2. Emerging interests 3. Increasing demand that political, economic, and religious interest be protected 4. Changing conceptions of public interest - Criminal definitions are constantly changing set of concepts that mirror the political organization of society - Criminals are people who have come up short in the struggle for success and are seeking alternative means of achieving wealth, status or survival Norm Resistance - Social conflict is inevitable when authorities in society are in conflict with those who are controlled by, but have little ability to control, the law - Norm resistance: the interaction between authorities and subjects that eventually produces open conflict between the two groups o Authorities and subjects are both committed to opposing cultural norms
o People with group support will be resistant to authority or change o Assessing the strengths, weaknesses of opponents helps avoid conflict with authorities Research on Conflict Theory - Dangerous classes: personal characteristics (being single, young, urban and male) that can result in harsher treatment in the criminal justice system - Aboriginals are more likely to be denied bail, to be subjected to pretrial detention, and to plead guilty without knowing the consequences of doing so - Blacks were more likely to be stopped by police, whites more likely to receive bail - Conflict theorists show that the criminal justice system is quick to take action when the victim of crime is wealthy, white and male but is uninterested when the victim is poor, a member of a minority group and female, indicating how power position affects justice Analysis of Conflict Theory - Identify power relations in society and their role in promoting criminal behavior - Reject the view that the law represents the values of the majority of that legal codes create a just society and criminals are simple predators - Disagree, instead that crime is a matter of rational choice made by offenders motivated more by greed and selfishness than by poverty and hopelessness Marist Criminology - Poor commit street crimes: rape, murder, theft and mugging - Middle class: cheat on taxes, engage in petty corporate crime - Laws regulating corporate crime are window dressing deigned to create the impression that the justice system is fair Fundamentals of Marxist Criminology - Ignore formal theory construction, heavy emphasis on empirical value-free testing arguing that criminological scholarship should have a political and ideological basis - Leftist criminologists see the crime as being designed to protect the power and position of the upper classes at the expense of the poor - Capitalism produced a relatively high level of crime and violence 1. Each society will produce its own types and amounts of crime 2. Each society will have its own distinctive ways of dealing with criminal behavior 3. Each society gets the amount and type of crime that it deserves - Criminality is a function of the social and economic organization of society - To control crime and reduce criminality is to end the social conditions that promote crime Economic Structure and Surplus Value - Relationship between crime and the ownership and control of private property in a capitalist society - Social conflict is fundamentally related to the historical and social distribution of productive private property and surplus value (profit) - Surplus value: the laboring classes produce wealth that far exceeds their wages and goes to the capitalist class as profits - Once people are marginalized, commitment to the system declines, producing another criminogenic force: a weakened bond to society
Instrumental Marxism - Criminal law and criminal justice system as an instrument for controlling the poor - How law in capitalist society works to preserve ruling class power o Society is based on an advanced capitalist economy o The state is organized to serve the interests of the dominant economic class o The criminal law is a state instrument used to maintain the existing social and economic order o Crime control occurs through institutions established and administered by the elite class o Contradictions in capitalism require that lower classes remain oppressed by the legal system o The collapse of capitalism and creation of a society based on socialism will solve crime Concepts of Instrumental Marxism - Defines the state, law and the ruling class as a single entity - Shaped by economic, social and political interest of the ruling class and is used by the ruling class to its own advantage Privilege - Privilege: in conflict theory, refers to the wealth and prestige enjoyed by some, which puts them in conflict with those in society who are less well off - Members of the ruling class conspire to control society, what benefits one member of the ruling class benefits them all o Some laws benefit the lower classes, the capitalists compete with one another rather than conspire Structural Marxism - Structural Marxism: the view that law is designed to maintain the capitalist system; individuals whose behavior threatens social stability will be sanctioned - The law is used to maintain the long-term interest of the capitalist system and to control members of any class who pose a threat to its existence - Law and justice are not purely instruments of the capitalist class o Created laws to enforce controlling corporate crimes, price fixing, false advertising and illegal restraint of trade - Structuralist: the law is designed to keep the capitalist system operating in an efficient manner - Stephen Spitzer’s Marxism theory of deviance: o Capitalist modes of appropriating the product of human labor o The social conditions under which capitalist production takes place o Patterns of consumption o The process of socialization for production o The ideology that supports the functioning of capitalist society Crime, the Individual and the State - Marxist study the relationships among crime, victims and the criminal and the state 1. Crime and its control are a function of capitalism 2. The justice system is biased against the working class and favors upper-class interests
-
Analysis of the criminal justice system is designed to identify the processes that exert control over people’s lives - How sentencing in a juvenile court is a function of social class, how power relationships help undermine any benefit the lower class gets sentencing reforms, how the justice system is class biased, the relationship between capitalism and rape - Goal is to show how the capitalism creates an environment in which crime is inevitable - Income is concentrated in the hands of a few affluent people. Those in power will be willing to spend enormous sums to keep people who are poor and minority group members under state control Historical Analysis - Focus on the historical background of commonly held institutional beliefs and practices, to show how changes in the criminal law corresponded to the development of capitalist economy Critiques of Marxist Criminology - Summary of Marxist theory o Marxist criminologists refuse to confront the problems of socialist countries o Capitalism is blamed for every human vice and for predatory and personal crime o Doesn’t explain criminality existing in states that have abolished private ownership of the means of production o Overlook distinctions that exist between people in different classes o Attempt to explain issues that are obvious, o Suspect even those practices and freedoms that most people cherish as the cornerstones of democracy - These concepts do not reflect the key issues in the structural and economic process o May be the outcome of the capitalist system New Directions in Critical Criminology - Looks at crimes of the powerful and views crime as a consequence of unequal power relations in society - Left realism explains and measures street crime and proposes short term solutions Left Realism - Reject utopian views of Marxist they called idealistic, street criminals as revolutionaries, and themselves took the self-named “realistic” approach that street criminals prey on the poor and disenfranchised o By capitalist system and members of its own class o Relative deprivation = discontent, discontent + lack of political solution = crime - Left realism: conflict theory: holds that crime is a real social problem experienced by the lower classes, and that criminologists should develop crime prevention strategies o All classes need protection, and crime control reflects community needs - The police and courts are not inherently evil tools of capitalism who tough tactics alienate the lower classes - Pre-emptive deterrence: advocated by left realists in which community organization efforts can reduce crime before it becomes necessary to use police force
-
Street crime is real, the fear of violence among the lower classes has allowed the right wing to seize law and order as political issue - Left realists want crime control policy to build on the work of strain theorists, social ecologists and other mainstream views - Community based efforts hold hopes as crime control techniques Feminist Theory - The cause of crime, gender differences in the crime rates and the exploitation of female victims from a gendered perspective Marxism Feminism - Gender inequality is a function of the exploitation of females by fathers and husbands; women are considered a commodity worth possessing (land, money) - Traced back to the development of private property and male domination over the laws of inheritance - Marxist feminists: view that gender inequality stems from the unequal power of men and women in capitalism, which is based on the development of private property, male domination, and the exploitation of women - Capitalism, patriarchy and crime; capitalist society both patriarchy and crime o Capitalists control the labor of workers, while men control women both economically and biologically (double marginality) o Women are isolated in the family, fewer opportunities to engage in elite deviance and denied access to male-dominated street crimes - Masculinities and Crime: in every culture, males try to emulate what are considered to be ideal masculine behaviors (authoritative, in charge, combative, and controlling) Radical Feminism - Radical feminism: view that female crime is caused by males supremacy (patriarchy), the subsequent subordination and control of women by male aggression - Focus on social forces that shape women’s lives and experiences to explain female criminality How the Justice system Penalizes Women - Viewed female delinquents as sexually precocious girls who need to be brought under control - Detained before trial and force to do a compulsory pelvic exam - Female delinquency is viewed as relatively more serious then males and more likely to be severely sanctioned Power Control Theory - Crime and delinquency rates are a function of two factors 1. Class position (power) 2. Family functions (control) - Paternalistic: characterization of leaders in government or organizations as father figures, while other are treated as children - Females in a paternalistic households have been socialized to fear legal sanctions more than their brothers have - Egalitarian: description of an equal sharing of authority and power
Deconstructionism - Deconstructionism: the critical analysis of language in legal codes and regulations to determine how content causes racism or sexism to become institutionalized - Deconstructionists rely on a various type of discourse - Semiotics: language that comprises a set of signs that describe the world by conveying meanings understood by their audience - Believed that language is value laden and contains the same sorts of inequalities present in the rest of the social structure Restorative Justice - Restorative justice: mediation and conflict resolution are used as an alternative to the more formal court system to heal injury to personal and community relations - Criminal behavior as a violation of relationships serves as the basis of restorative justice programming throughout Canada - Understanding the causes of conflict and then exercising compassion when responding to criminal justice and social justice issues - Restorative justice, guided on three principles 1. Community ownership of conflict 2. Material and symbolic reparation for victims and the community 3. Social reintegration of the offender - Redefining crime in terms of a conflict among the offender, the victim, and the affected constituencies (families, schools, workplaces) Peacemaking Criminology - Peacemaking: conflict theory, stresses humanism, mediation and conflict resolution as means to end crime - View the efforts of the state to punish and control as crime-encouraging rather than crime discouraging - Mutual aid is harmonious for society - Marginalization: the condition that results when people live in areas conductive to crime, which leads to their decreased commitment to the system, producing another criminogenic force: weakened bond to society
