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Date Submitted: 02/25/2016 11:15 AM
Desara Kurtaj
Assess different Marxist views of the relationship between crime and social class? (21 marks)
The Marxist view is primarily based on the assumption that crime is used as a social releaser by the working class citizens due to the fact they are being exploited by the bourgeois which leads status frustration and not being able to move up the social mobility ladder. Marxists also believe that working class people are given negative publicity, and that their non-utilitarian and utilitarian crimes are repeatedly being exposed more than white collar crimes , which leads to moral panic amongst the public e.g. events such as the 2012 riots.
Although Marxist view is more or less the same , the Neo Marxist views differs slightly , as they believe that individuals are not driven to the life of crime , they would argue that it is not deterministic and that we shape society by choosing our behaviour and actions towards each other. Neo-Marxists see individuals as turning to crime as a meaningful attempt to construct their own self-conception. Neo Marxists such as Taylor, Walton deny that crime is caused by biological anomie, subcultures or by labelling. Neo- Marxists would argue that crimes are conscious and deliberate acts which have political motives, an example of this can be the civil rights movement, women’s liberation. However, some sociologist view argue that there is no political motives behind crime and that crime is not the reason or the solution to changing political laws or policies.
The traditional Marxist view is that they state that capitalism is criminological, Marxists such as Engels believes that crime is the product of working class people being exploited by capitalist society. He argues that the working class individuals turn to illegitimate ways of making money in society as they are not fearful of the consequences because they are so frustrated by their status and the inequalities they face. Karl and Engels also came up with the idea that...