Neo-Marxism

Question 1

What do Neo-Marsxits say about the Traditional Marxist approach?

Answer 1

= rather simplistic + crude in that:

1. Vs = ignored, harm done by offenders isn’t analysed e.g blue collar crimes, T.M = sympathetic towards the offenders
2. Views CJS + law creation/ enforcement = 1D (taken at face value), assumes the rc have full control over it, ignore other influences

Question 2

When did Neo-Marxists approach emerge?

What in response to?

Answer 2

1970s
Response to criticisms of traditional Marxism
Also known as New Criminology
Argues that crime cannot only be explained by the capitalist economic infrastructure

Question 3

What is Neo-Marxism a combination of?

Answer 3

Marxist (structural/ deterministic) critique of capitalism + interactionist understanding of he agencies involved in the PROCESS of becoming a criminal

Question 4

Can individual motivating factors give a full explanation as to WHY a crime happened?

Answer 4

NO
Societal factors factors also need to be considered
e.g. problems created by capitalism and how the wider circumstances may have led to the crimes

Question 5

What are the 3 things that new criminologists consider when trying to ID WHY a crime took place?

Answer 5

1. Individual motivating factors
2. Societal factors (from a Marxist perspective)
3. Interactionist approach (consider behaviour of V, offender, media, CJS + how interactions influenced what happened in response to the crime)

Question 6

What 6 elements of a deviant act did Taylor et al state needed to be analysed IOT create a ‘fully social theory of deviance’?

Answer 6

1. Wider social origins of dev act (wider context e.g C)
2. Immediate origins of dev act (specific situation which led criminal to commit dev act e.g. police racism)
3. Actual act + what it means to dev (political act against rc? etc)
4. Immediate origins of societal reaction (e.g family, police)
5. Wider origins of societal reaction
6. Outcomes of societal reaction on deviant’s further action (what happened to deviants once labelled? stop them from reoffending, accept the label?)

Question 7

Describe Hall’s ‘policing the crisis’ (1978) study

Answer 7

Moral panic over muggings which occurred in Britain in 1970s
Concept of ‘mugging’ = imported from US (being robbed on street by black men)
Media created collective fear of ‘enemy within’
Black muggers = used as scapegoat for other social ills
1970s brought economic decline - ‘crisis of capitalism’
Brought abut civil unrest, challenge social order + P of capitalist state
Blacks = labelled as someone to fear, it united a fractured (white) UK S - led to random stop and searches
S + police labelling led to deviancy amplification
Eventually wide spread ‘race riots’ in early 1980s
Hall shows PROCESS involved in becoming a ‘criminal/ V’

Question 8

What are the 4 criticism of the Neo-Marxist approach?

Answer 8

1. Traditional Marxists (moves too far away from tradition, over-emphasises independence C state from C economy)
2. Feminist criminologists (continued the commission of w from criminological discussion, ignoring P of patriarchy in analysis)
3. Left Realists (‘romanticises’ view of criminals, = those angry at C expressing their anger through crime not politics. little discussion of street crimes, daily by wc)
4. Methodologically model = extremely complex + difficult to apply. How useful is it in explaining + tackling crime?

Question 9

What is a strength of the Neo-Marxist approach?

Answer 9

Provides an important critique of traditional Marxist economic determinism
= big influence on the development of Left Realism