Marxism and Neo-Marxism on Crime

Marxism and Neo-Marxism on Crime and Deviance

Marxists argue that crime must be understood in the context of capitalist society — its class structure, exploitation, and the power of the ruling class to define what counts as criminal.

Traditional Marxism: Crime and Capitalism

The Criminogenic Nature of Capitalism

Marx did not write extensively about crime, but his analysis of capitalism implies that crime is an inevitable product of the capitalist system:

• Capitalism is criminogenic: it generates crime by its very nature because:
• Poverty and inequality: the working class are driven to crime by material deprivation — theft, burglary, and fraud may be the only way to obtain consumer goods that capitalism promotes but denies to the poor
• Competition and greed: capitalism encourages aggressive, selfish, acquisitive behaviour — this extends to criminal behaviour at all levels of society
• Alienation: workers are alienated from their labour, from each other, and from their human nature — this can lead to frustration, violence, and anti-social behaviour
• Consumerism: capitalism creates artificial "needs" through advertising — those who cannot afford to satisfy these needs legitimately may turn to crime

Who Benefits from Crime?

Marxists argue that the criminal justice system serves the interests of the ruling class (bourgeoisie):

• The law is not a neutral set of rules but an instrument of class power:
• Laws protecting private property are central to the legal system — they protect the wealth and assets of the capitalist class
• Laws regulating the behaviour of the working class (vagrancy, public order, drug offences) are vigorously enforced
• Crimes of the powerful (corporate fraud, tax evasion, health and safety violations) are under-policed and leniently punished
• Selective enforcement: the police focus on street crime (committed by the working class) rather than suite crime (committed by corporations and the wealthy)
• Ideological function: the focus on working-class crime serves to divide the working class ("respectable" workers vs "criminal" underclass) and divert attention from the crimes of capitalism

Chambliss (1976) — The Saints and the Roughnecks

• Studied two groups of delinquent boys in an American high school:
• The Saints: middle-class boys who committed frequent, serious delinquency (drink-driving, vandalism, dangerous pranks) but were never arrested
• The Roughnecks: working-class boys who committed less serious offences but were constantly in trouble with the police
• The key difference was class power: the Saints' parents had the resources and social connections to protect them; they had cars (committed crimes away from home) and were seen as "good boys" by teachers and police
• Conclusion: the criminal justice system is biased by class — the same behaviour is treated differently depending on the offender's social class

Snider (1993) — Corporate Crime

• Argued that corporate crime causes far more harm than street crime:
• More people are killed and injured by workplace accidents, pollution, and unsafe products than by murder and assault
• The financial cost of corporate crime (tax evasion, fraud, price-fixing) dwarfs the cost of burglary and theft
• Yet corporate crime is under-reported, under-policed, and leniently sentenced
• Capitalist states are reluctant to regulate businesses because they depend on them for economic growth, employment, and tax revenue
• The law is therefore shaped by the interests of capital, not by the harm caused by different types of crime

Evaluation of Traditional Marxism

Strength	Weakness
Highlights the link between crime and capitalist inequality	Too deterministic: not all working-class people commit crime; not all capitalists are criminals
Exposes the class bias of the criminal justice system	Ignores non-class dimensions of crime: gender, ethnicity, age
Draws attention to corporate crime and crimes of the powerful	Romanticises working-class crime as a form of resistance — most crime (burglary, assault, drug dealing) victimises other working-class people
Shows that law is not neutral but reflects power	Left realists (Lea and Young): Marxism ignores the real impact of street crime on working-class communities — it is not just a ruling-class fabrication
	Functionalists: crime exists in ALL societies, not just capitalist ones

Neo-Marxism: The New Criminology

Neo-Marxists (or critical criminologists) build on Marx but add elements of labelling theory and recognise that criminals have agency — they are not simply passive victims of capitalism.

Taylor, Walton, and Young (1973) — The New Criminology

The New Criminology attempted to create a "fully social theory of deviance" by combining:

• Marxism: the wider structural context of capitalism that creates the conditions for crime
• Labelling theory: the power to define what counts as crime and who gets labelled as criminal
• Interactionism: the meanings criminals themselves attach to their actions

A fully social theory of deviance requires an understanding of six elements:

1. The wider origins of the deviant act (the capitalist social structure)

2. The immediate origins (the specific context in which the act takes place)

3. The act itself (what the deviant actually does and what it means to them)

4. The immediate origins of societal reaction (who reacts and why)

5. The wider origins of societal reaction (the class structure that shapes reactions)

6. The effects of labelling on the deviant's future actions

Key Argument

• Crime is often a deliberate, conscious choice with political motives — not simply a product of poverty or socialisation failure
• Working-class crime can be seen as a primitive form of political resistance to capitalism — e.g., property crime redistributes wealth; vandalism attacks symbols of capitalism
• The New Criminology is ideologically committed: it takes the side of the deviant against the capitalist state

Hall et al. (1978) — Policing the Crisis

Stuart Hall and colleagues analysed the mugging moral panic of the early 1970s in Britain — the most important neo-Marxist study of crime:

• In 1972–73, British media created a moral panic about "mugging" — presenting it as a new, violent crime wave predominantly committed by young Black men
• Hall argued that the moral panic was manufactured by the ruling class to serve a political function:
• Britain was in economic crisis (rising unemployment, inflation, industrial unrest) — capitalism was losing its legitimacy
• The state used the mugging panic to divert attention from the real crisis and to justify increased policing and authoritarianism
• Black youth were scapegoated — presented as a threat to social order, justifying the criminalisation of Black communities
• This is an example of Gramsci's concept of hegemony — the ruling class maintaining control through ideological means (media, moral panics) rather than direct force
• The moral panic served to divide the working class along racial lines, preventing the development of class solidarity that could challenge capitalism

Key Concepts from Hall

• Moral panic: an exaggerated media and public reaction to a perceived threat that serves an ideological function
• Hegemonic crisis: a period when the ruling class's ideological dominance is weakened and needs to be reasserted — often through authoritarian means
• Scapegoating: blaming a marginalised group for problems caused by the system

Evaluation of Hall

Strength	Weakness
Shows how crime panics serve political purposes	Too conspiratorial: implies the ruling class deliberately manufactured the panic — evidence for this is weak
Links race, class, crime, and the state in a sophisticated analysis	Ignores the reality of street crime — mugging IS a real problem for victims, not just a media construction
Uses Gramsci's concept of hegemony to move beyond crude Marxism	Does not explain why young Black men were involved in street crime — only analyses the reaction to it
Demonstrates how racialised policing criminalises minority communities	Left realists: taking crime seriously means acknowledging that working-class and Black communities suffer disproportionately from crime

Gilroy (1982) — Myth of Black Criminality

• Argued that Black crime is a form of political resistance rooted in the history of anti-colonial struggle
• Black communities brought traditions of resistance to Britain from colonial contexts — criminalised behaviour is a continuation of this resistance against a racist society
• Evaluation: romanticises crime and fails to explain why most crime victimises other Black people; Lea and Young (1984) argue this view is patronising

Comparing Marxist Approaches

Approach	Key Idea	View of Criminals	View of Law
Traditional Marxism	Capitalism causes crime	Victims of the system	Instrument of ruling-class power
New Criminology	Crime is political resistance	Conscious agents fighting capitalism	Class-biased tool of oppression
Hall	Moral panics serve hegemony	Scapegoats for capitalist crisis	Part of the state's ideological apparatus

Exam Tip

For a 30-mark essay, present traditional Marxism (Chambliss, Snider) first, then neo-Marxism (Taylor et al., Hall) as a development. The best evaluation comes from left realism (crime is real, not just a label) and labelling theory (agrees on selective enforcement but rejects the Marxist emphasis on class as the only axis of power). Always include specific studies — Chambliss's "Saints and Roughnecks" and Hall's "Policing the Crisis" are essential AO2.