Assess Different Marxist Views of the Relationship Between Crime and Social Class

Firstly, traditional Marxist theory explains that the workings of society can be explained by the concept of exploitation, such as the exploitation of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, this was the starting foundation of Chambliss theory to exploring the relationship between class and crime. The traditional Marxist view to crime is that the criminal law justice system is extremely beneficial to the ruling class. The dominant ideology of the ruling classes is disseminated through agencies such as, education, media, and religion which is forced onto individuals, this process is known as hegemony.

Secondly, capitalism is based on consumerism, selfishness and competition therefore crime can be considered a normal outcome of these values which stress looking after one self at the expense of others, in other words even though capitalist benefit most out of the criminal justice system if we look at their personality traits and the whole concept of capitalism it is more likely that upper class people in this business have the ability to commit such crimes as they are used to using the motto, every man for them self.

Lastly, Marxist theory provides an explanation of how crime is dealt with in society capitalist plays a big part in this, as they divert attention of the masses away from the try causes of their situation and the criminal justice system helps capitalist play on this as society sees young, working class black/white males as the criminal groups. Moral panic occurs in society when, once again, the upper class journalists write only cases where black youths have mugged a white upper class person and that the fact they are wearing a hoody shows they are lower class and looking for trouble. People in society will watch the news and read newspapers and most will make an overall assumption and stereotype all black youths they come across.