Critical Criminology

1
Critical Criminology

• Crime and Power

2
Conflict TheoryGeorge Vold 1958

• EXPLAINATION FOR 4 TYPES OF CRIME
• Arising from political protests
• Resulting from labor disputes
• Arising from disputes between and within
  competing unions
• Arising from racial and ethnic clashes

3
Karl Marx

• Capitalism
• Mode of Production
• Bourgeoisie
• Proletariat

4
Law in Capitalistic Societies

• Emphasizes preserves private property, which
  belongs to the ruling class.
• Appearance of promoting legal equality to pacify
  the powerless by making them feel good about the
  status quo obscuring the true nature extent
  of their oppression.

5
10 Building Blocks to Marxism

• 6. Exploitation
• 7. Law The State
• 8. Alienation
• 9. Fetishism of Commodities
• 10. Structural Analysis

• Historical Materialism
• Theory Praxis
• Dialectic
• Class Conflict
• Theory of Surplus Value

6
Instrumental Marxism

• Law, law enforcement agencies, and government are
  instruments of the ruling class to maintain their
  advantageous position in society and to control
  those who pose a threat to that position.

7
The Social Reality of Crime (1970)Richard Quinney

• Definition of Crime
• Formulation of Criminal Definitions
• Application of Criminal Definitions
• Development of Behavior Patterns in Relation to
  Criminal Definitions
• Construction of Criminal Conceptions
• The Social Reality of Crime

8
Richard Quinney

• 1. Advanced capitalist economy is the foundation
  of American society.
• 2. The state works to serve the interests of the
  capitalist ruling class.
• 3. Criminal law is merely an instrument of that
  class to perpetuate the current social and
  economic order.

9
Richard Quinney

• 4. A variety of institutions run by governmental
  elites representing the interests of the ruling
  class, are utilized for crime control with the
  purpose of establishing domestic order.
• 5. The coercion and violence of the legal system
  are necessary to maintain the required oppression
  of the subordinate classes, because of the
  inherent contradictions of advanced capitalism.
• 6. A new society based on socialist principles
  is a necessary part of the solution to crime
  control. This cannot occur without the collapse
  of the capitalist society. (Quinney,
  1974.a/p.16).

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Structural Marxism

• Law as an attempt to resolve societal crises
  precipitated by the inherent contradictions of
  capitalism
• Disparity between the written law and the law in
  action
• Position in the social class hierarchy determines
  opportunities

11
William ChamblissLaw, Order, and Power

• Legal norms show the importance of interest-group
  activity, not the public interest
• Judges rely on their personal values when they
  make decisions in trouble cases
• Law enforcement agencies process a
  disproportionately high number of the politically
  weak and powerless

12
The Law of Vagrancy (1964)

• Before 1340s no law in England prohibiting
  begging.
• 1348 Bubonic plague
• 1349 Passage of the first vagrancy law