Critical criminology

1. Introduction

We live in a world rife with political, social, and economic conflict in nearly every
corner of the globe. Conflict comes in many forms, occurs at many levels of society,
and involves a whole slew of adversaries: workers and bosses, the United States and
its overseas enemies, religious zealots and apostates, citizens and police. It occurs
within cities, in neighborhoods, and even within the family. Conflict can be destructive
when it leads to war, violence, and death; it can be functional when it results in
positive social change. Conflict promotes crime by creating a social atmosphere in
which the law is a mechanism for controlling dissatisfied, have-not members of
society while the wealthy maintain their power. This is why crimes that are the
province of the wealthy, such as illegal corporate activities, are sanctioned much more
leniently than those, such as burglary, that are considered lower-class activities.
Criminologists who view crime as a function of social conflict and economic rivalry
have in the past been known by a number of titles, such as conflict, Marxist, left, or
radical criminologists, but today most commonly they are referred to as critical
criminologists and their field of study as critical criminology.1

Like their title hints, critical criminologists view themselves as social critics who
dig beneath the surface of society to uncover its inequities. They reject the notion that
law is designed to maintain a tranquil, fair society and that criminals are malevolent
people who wish to trample the rights of others. They believe that the law is an
instrument of power, wielded by those who control society in order to maintain their
wealth, social position, and class advantage. They consider acts of racism, sexism,
imperialism, unsafe working conditions, inadequate child care, substandard housing,
pollution of the environment, and war-making as a tool of foreign policy to be “true
crimes.” The crimes of the helpless—burglary, robbery, and assault—are more
expressions of rage over unjust economic conditions than actual crimes 2

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<http://ebooks.narotama.ac.id/files/Criminology%20(11th%20Edition)/CHAPTER%208%20Social
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2017

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2. Critical criminology

Critical criminology is a diverse area of criminological theory and research. The term
critical criminology began to appear only in the 1970s; however, scholarship in this
tradition has existed for over a century. Broadly speaking, critical criminology is
research on crime, law, and deviance that challenges traditional criminology. The
thread that binds critical approaches together is the belief that inequalities influence
crime. Class inequality and its repercussions dominated much of the early critical
criminological thought. While class inequalities are still viewed as important by many
critical scholars, inequalities based on race and gender are now also garnering
attention. The majority of contemporary critical criminology scholars would agree that
all three forms of inequality constitute important areas of study.3

Critical criminology is an umbrella term for a variety of criminological theories and

perspectives that challenge core assumptions of mainstream (or conventional)
criminology in some substantial way and provide alternative approaches to
understanding crime and its control. Mainstream criminology is sometimes referred to
by critical criminologists as establishment, administrative, managerial, correctional, or
positivistic criminology. Its focus is regarded as excessively narrow and predominantly
directed toward individual offenders, street crime, and social engineering on behalf of
the state. The critical criminological perspectives reject the claims of scientific
objectivity made on behalf of mainstream criminology as well as the privileged status
of the scientific method. Although some critical criminologists apply an empirical
approach with the use of quantitative analysis, much critical criminology adopts an
interpretive and qualitative approach to the understanding of social reality in the realm
of crime and its control. The unequal distribution of power or of material resources
within contemporary societies provides a unifying point of departure for all strains of
critical criminology.4

3. Historical Development of Critical Criminology

2
Michael Lynch and W. Byron Groves, A Primer in Radical Criminology, (Albany, NY: Harrow & Heston,
1989), pp. 32–33
3
M. A. Long, Critical Criminology-The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment (2015) p.1
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< http://research-paper.essayempire.com/examples/criminal-justice/critical-criminology-research-paper/>
last visited on 11-11-2017 at 3:32 pm

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Contemporary critical criminology has its roots in a range of theoretical perspectives
that have advanced a critique of both the existing conditions in society and the
conventional or established theories that claim to explain society, social phenomena,
and social behavior. Marxist theory has been one source of inspiration for some
influential strains of critical criminology, although it has been a common error to
characterize all critical criminologists as Marxists or neo-Marxists. Karl Marx and his
close collaborator Friedrich Engels did not develop a systematic criminological theory,
but it is possible to extrapolate a generalized Marxist perspective on crime and
criminal law from their work. The ownership class is guilty of the worst crime: the
brutal exploitation of the working class. Revolution is a form of counter violence,
then, and is both necessary and morally justified. The state and the law itself ultimately
serve the interests of the ownership class. Human beings are not by nature egocentric,
greedy, and predatory, but they can become so under certain social conditions.
Conventional crime is, in essence, a product of extreme poverty and economic
disenfranchisement and of “false needs” and the dehumanizing and demoralizing
effects of the capitalist system. However, conventional crime is neither an admirable
nor an effective means of revolutionary action, and all too often it pits the poor against
the poor. Marx also regarded crime as “productive”—perhaps ironically— insofar as it
provides employment and business opportunities for many. In an authentically
communist society the state and the law will wither away, with the formal law being
replaced by a form of communal justice. Human beings will live in a state of harmony
and cooperation, without crime.5

For most of the history of criminology, rather few criminologists specifically adopted a
Marxist framework. The Dutch criminologist Willem Bonger was an exception to this
proposition. Although he rejected dogmatic Marxism, Bonger—especially in
Criminality and Economic Conditions (1916)—sought to show how a political
economy organized around “private property” promoted crime. Some later neo-
Marxist or radical criminologists were critical of Bonger for adopting a positivist and
empiricist approach to the study of crime and for his attention to the “correction” of

5
Gresham M. Sykes, Rise of Critical Criminology, The, 65 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 206 (1974)
<http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc> last visited on 14-11-2017 at 2:43 pm

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lawbreakers, but within the context of his time Bonger was certainly a pioneering
figure in recognizing the value of a Marxist framework for the understanding of
crime.6

Although many sociologists and criminologists continue to recognize the power of

some basic dimensions of Marxist theoretical analysis to make sense of the world, it is
also indisputably true that any invocation of “Marxist” carries with it a lot of baggage
in the form of association with the immense crimes committed—primarily during the
20th century—in the name of a claimed Marxist or communist society. Accordingly, it
is difficult for some criminologists to be receptive to the potent explanatory
dimensions of Marxist theory and concepts independent of the perverse applications of
Marxist analysis in some historical circumstances.

Most of the criminology and criminological theory produced into the 1960s addressed
the causes of crime and criminality within a framework that did not challenge the
legitimacy of the law and the social order. This began to change in the 1960s. Labeling
theory, which emerged out of symbolic interactionism, shifted attention away from
criminal behavior to the processes whereby some members of society come to be
labeled as deviants and criminals and to the consequences of being socially
stigmatized. Many critical criminologists were influenced by this approach, although
they ultimately criticized it for its focus upon the “micro level” of social behavior and
its relative neglect of the broader societal and political context within which the
labeling process occurs.7

The 1960s as an era is associated with the intensification of various forms of conflict
within society, so it is not surprising that the core theme of conflict received more
attention during this era. Thorsten Sellin, a socialist in his youth, produced one early
version of a criminological approach that focused on the centrality of conflict in the
1930s, and George Vold subsequently produced a pioneering criminological theory
textbook in the 1950s that highlighted the significance of group conflict for the
understanding of crime and its control. In the 1960s, Austin Turk, Richard Quinney,
6
Ibid.
7
<http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/criminology/critical-criminology/2/> last visited on 14-11-2017
at 9:23 pm

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and William J. Chambliss (with Robert T. Seidman) introduced influential versions of
conflict theories into the field of criminology. Conflict theory focuses on the unequal
distribution of power within society as a fundamental starting point for the
understanding of crime and its control, with some groups better positioned than others
to advance their interests through law. Conflict criminology provided a basic point of
departure for radical criminology and, subsequently, critical criminology. Turk has
been a proponent of a “nonpartisan” version of conflict theory, which takes the
position that the central role of power and authority in defining crime and guiding
criminal justice processes can be assessed empirically without identifying with a
particular political agenda. Quinney, following the publication of his seminal conflict
theory text, The Social Reality of Crime (1970), moved through a number of stages of
theory development, from radical to critical to beyond. Chambliss also subsequently
became more directly identified with radical and critical criminology.8

4. How Critical Criminologists define Crime

According to critical theorists, crime is a political concept designed to protect the

power and position of the upper classes at the expense of the poor. Some, but not all,
would include in a list of “real” crimes such acts as violations of human rights due to
racism, sexism, and imperialism and other violations of human dignity and physical
needs and necessities. Part of the critical agenda, argues criminologist Robert Bohm, is
to make the public aware that these behaviors “are crimes just as much as burglary and
robbery.” Take for instance what Alette Smeulers and Roelof Haveman call
supranational crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and other
human rights violations. Smeulers and Haveman believe that these types of crimes
should merit more attention by criminologists, and therefore they call for a separate
specialization.9

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http://research-paper.essayempire.com/examples/criminal-justice/critical-criminology-research-paper/>
last visited on 15-11-2017 at 10:11pm
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<http://ebooks.narotama.ac.id/files/Criminology%20(11th%20Edition)/CHAPTER%208%20Social
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 The nature of a society controls the direction of its criminality; criminals are not
social misfits but products of the society and its economic system. According to
Michael Lynch and W. Byron Groves, three implications follow from this view:

1. Each society produces its own types and amounts of crime.

2. Each society has its own distinctive ways of dealing with criminal behavior.

3. Each society gets the amount and type of crime that it deserves.

This analysis tells us that criminals are not a group of outsiders who can be
controlled by increased law enforcement. Criminality, instead, is a function of social
and economic organization. To control crime and reduce criminality, societies must
remove the social conditions that promote crime. In our advanced technological
society, those with economic and political power control the definition of crime and
the manner in which the criminal justice system enforces the law. Consequently, the
only crimes available to the poor are the severely sanctioned “street crimes”: rape,
murder, theft, and mugging. Members of the middle class cheat on their taxes and
engage in petty corporate crime (employee theft), acts that generate social disapproval
but are rarely punished severely. The wealthy are involved in acts that should be
described as crimes but are not, such as racism, sexism, and profiteering. Although
regulatory laws control illegal business activities, these are rarely enforced, and
violations are lightly punished. One reason is that an essential feature of capitalism is
the need to expand business and create new markets. This goal often conflicts with
laws designed to protect the environment and creates clashes with those who seek their
enforcement. In our postindustrial society, the need for expansion usually triumphs.
For example, corporate spokespeople and their political allies will brand
environmentalists as “tree huggers” who stand in the way of jobs and prosperity10

5. Forms of Critical Criminology

10
Ibid.

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Critical criminologists are exploring new avenues of inquiry that fall outside the
traditional models of conflict and critical theories. The following sections discuss in
detail some recent developments in the conflict approach to crime.

5.1. Left Realism

Some critical scholars are now addressing the need for the left wing to respond to the
increasing power of right-wing conservatives. They are troubled by the emergence of a
strict “law and order” philosophy, which has as its centerpiece a policy of punishing
juveniles severely in adult court. At the same time, they find the focus of most left-
wing scholarship—the abuse of power by the ruling elite—too narrow. It is wrong,
they argue, to ignore inner-city gang crime and violence, which often target indigent
people. The approach of left realism is most often connected to the writings of British
scholars John Lea and Jock Young. In their well-respected 1984 work, what is to be
done about Law and Order? They reject the utopian views of idealists who portray
street criminals as revolutionaries. They take the more “realistic” approach that street
criminals prey on the poor and disenfranchised, thus making the poor doubly abused,
first by the capitalist system and then by members of their own class. Lea and Young’s
view of crime causation borrows from conventional sociological theory and closely
resembles the relative deprivation approach, which posits that experiencing poverty in
the midst of plenty creates discontent and breeds crime. As they put it, “The equation
is simple: relative deprivation equals discontent; discontent plus lack of political
solution equals crime.11

5.2. Critical Feminist Theory

Like so many theories in criminology, most of the efforts of critical theorists have been
devoted to explaining male criminality. To remedy this theoretical lapse, a number of
feminist writers have attempted to explain the cause of crime, gender differences in
crime rates, and the exploitation of female victims from a critical perspective. Critical
11
Lea J, Left realism: A radical criminology for the current crisis, International Journal for Crime, Justice
and Social Democracy,(2016) Available online at <www.crimejusticejournal.com IJCJ&SD 2016 5(3):
53‐65> last visited on 15-11-2017 at 10:12 pm

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feminism views gender inequality as stemming from the unequal power of men and
women in a capitalist society, which leads to the exploitation of women by fathers and
husbands. Under this system, women are considered a commodity worth possessing,
like land or money. The origin of gender differences can be traced to the development
of private property and male domination of the laws of inheritance, which led to male
control over property and power. A patriarchal system developed in which men’s work
was valued and women’s work was devalued. As capitalism prevailed, the division of
labor by gender made women responsible for the unpaid maintenance and
reproduction of the current and future labor force, which was derisively called
“domestic work.” Although this unpaid work done by women is crucial and profitable
for capitalists, who reap these free benefits, such labour is exploitative and oppressive
for women. Even when women gained the right to work for pay, they were exploited
as cheap labour. The dual exploitation of women within the household and in the labor
market means that women produce far greater surplus value for capitalists than men.
Patriarchy, or male supremacy, has been and continues to be supported by capitalists.
This system sustains female oppression at home and in the workplace. Although the
number of traditional patriarchal families is in steep decline, in those that still exist, a
wife’s economic dependence ties men more securely to wage-earning jobs, further
serving the interests of capitalists by undermining potential rebellion against the
system.12

5.3. Peacemaking Criminology

To members of the peacemaking movement, the main purpose of criminology is to

promote a peaceful, just society. Rather than standing on empirical analysis of data,
peacemaking draws its inspiration from religious and philosophical teachings ranging
from Quakerism to Zen. For example, rather than seeing socioeconomic status as a
“variable” that is correlated with crime, as do mainstream criminologists, peacemakers
view poverty as a source of suffering—almost a crime in and of itself. Poverty
enervates people, makes them suffer, and becomes a master status that subjects them to
lives filled with suffering. From a peacemaking perspective, a key avenue for

12
Supra note, 9

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preventing crime is, in the short run, diminishing the suffering poverty causes and, in
the long run, embracing social policies that reduce the prevalence of economic
suffering in contemporary society. Peacemakers view the efforts of the state to punish
and control as crime-encouraging rather than crime-discouraging. These views were
first articulated in a series of books with an anarchist theme written by criminologists
Larry Tifft and Dennis Sullivan in 1980. Tifft argues, “The violent punishing acts of
the state and its controlling professions are of the same genre as the violent acts of
individuals. In each instance these acts reflect an attempt to monopolize human
interaction.13

5.4. Postmodernist Criminology

Although a postmodernist criminology has been identified as one strain of critical

criminology, postmodern thought itself is by no means necessarily linked with a
progressive agenda; on the contrary, much postmodernist thought is viewed as either
consciously apolitical or inherently conservative and reactionary. Any attempt to
characterize a postmodernist criminology— or postmodern thought itself—encounters
difficulties. It can be best described as a loose collection of themes and tendencies.
Postmodernists reject totalizing concepts (e.g., the state), they reject positivism, and
they reject the potential of collective action to transform society. Postmodernism
contends that modernity is no longer liberating but has become rather a force of
subjugation, oppression, and repression. For postmodernism, language plays the
central role in the human experience of reality. The postmodernist “deconstruction” of
texts exposes the instability and relativity of meaning in the world. Within critical
criminology specifically, Stuart Henry and Dragan Milovanovic have produced a
pioneering effort—which they call constitutive criminology—to integrate elements of
postmodernist thought with the critical criminological project. They are especially
concerned with highlighting the role of ideology, discursive practices, symbols, and
sense data in the production of meaning in the realm of crime. We must, they contend,

13
Hal Pepinsky, Peacemaking Criminology: Article in Critical Criminology · September 2013 Available at
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257552884> last visited 15-11-2017 at 11:02 pm

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understand how those who engage in crimes, who seek to control it, and who study it
“co-produce” its meaning.14

6. Conclusion

Critical criminology has in one sense tended to reflect the dominant focus of
mainstream criminology on crime and its control within a particular nation; however,
going forward in the 21st century, there is an increasing recognition that many of the
most significant forms of crimes occur in the international sphere, cross borders, and
can only be properly understood—and controlled—within the context of the forces of
globalization. Accordingly, a growing number of critical criminologists have addressed
such matters as collapsed states within a global economy, harms emanating out of the
policies of such international financial institutions as the World Bank, the crimes of
multinational corporations, trafficking of human beings across borders and sex tourism
in a globalized world, the treatment of new waves of immigrants and refugees,
international terrorism, the spread of militarism, preemptive wars as a form of state
crime, transnational policing, international war crime tribunals, and transitional justice.

Although at least some of these topics have been occasionally addressed by

mainstream criminologists, critical criminologists highlight the central role of
imbalances of power in all of these realms. Altogether, critical criminologists going
forward are increasingly likely to take into account the expanded globalized context,
regardless of their specialized interest or focus. On the one hand, critical
criminologists fully recognize the immense power of corporate interests—and other
privileged interests and constituencies—to shape public consciousness in a manner
that is supportive of a capitalist political economy and the broad popular culture that is
one of its key products. The Italian neo-Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci famously
advanced the notion of hegemony to capture this capacity of privileged interests to
influence public consciousness in fundamental ways. On the other hand, many critical
criminologists are also, on some level, both somewhat puzzled and disappointed that
the critical perspective on the political economy has failed to gain more traction with a

14
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wider public constituency by now. What is the future destiny of critical criminology?
The most pessimistic projection would be that conventional and mainstream
perspectives will succeed in rendering critical criminology increasingly marginalized.
In a more moderate projection, critical criminology will continue to be a conspicuous
and measurably influential alternative to dominant forms of criminological theory and
analysis, although it will also continue to be overshadowed by mainstream
criminology. In the most optimistic projection, the influence and impact of critical
criminology will increase exponentially in the years ahead, perhaps at some point even
coming to overshadow mainstream forms of analysis.

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