The Marxist Perspective on Crime (AQA A Level Sociology): Revision Note

Criminogenic capitalism

• Marxists see crime as the result of capitalist inequality and exploitation

  • The bourgeoisie (ruling class) control the economy, state, and law-making

  • The proletariat (working class) suffer poverty, powerlessness, and alienation

  • Crime is a social construct that reflects ruling-class interests

• The Marxist view of crime has three main elements:

  • Criminogenic capitalism

  • The state and law making

  • Ideological functions of crime and law

• Capitalism is criminogenic — by its very nature, it produces crime (Gordon, 1976)

• Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class to make a profit, whatever the cost

• Capitalism is damaging to the working class as:

  • poverty may force the poor into utilitarian crimes (e.g., theft, burglary)

  • alienation and lack of control create frustration, which can lead to non-utilitarian crimes (e.g., violence, vandalism)

  • capitalist values (consumerism, greed, competition) encourage crime at all levels of society

  • even the wealthy may turn to white-collar crime (e.g., tax evasion, fraud) to maximise profit

The state and law making

• Marxists argue that the law does not reflect value consensus but is socially constructed to reflect ruling-class interests

• Chambliss (1975) argues that laws protecting private property are central to capitalism

• Snider (1993) argues that the capitalist state resists laws that regulate business or threaten profitability

Selective law enforcement

• Marxists argue that the law is applied unequally

  • The powerless (working class, women, ethnic minorities) are more likely to be criminalised

  • Crimes of the powerful are often ignored by the police and courts

• Reiman and Leighton (2012) argue that the more likely a crime is to be committed by higher-class people, the less likely it is to be treated as criminal

• Street crime is heavily policed, while corporate and white-collar crime is under-policed — despite causing far more harm

• This creates the impression that working-class people are the main criminals

Ideological functions of crime and law

• Laws sometimes appear to benefit the working class (e.g., health and safety legislation)

• However, Marxists argue these are often cosmetic, designed to protect capitalism's image

• Selective law enforcement makes crime appear a working-class problem, dividing workers and hiding exploitation

• The media present criminals as disturbed individuals, concealing the fact that capitalism itself produces crime

Evaluation of the Marxist theory of crime

Strengths

• Highlights power and inequality

  • Shows how the law reflects ruling-class interests rather than a neutral value consensus

  • Exposes the unequal treatment of working-class vs ruling-class crime

• Exposes hidden crimes

  • Draws attention to corporate and white-collar crime, which cause great harm but are often ignored

  • Challenges the distorted picture of crime given by official statistics

• Crime as socially constructed

  • Demonstrates how crime statistics are shaped to criminalise the poor

  • Helps explain why working-class people appear over-represented in official crime data

Criticisms

• Too deterministic

  • Assumes poverty and exploitation always lead to crime

  • Ignores individual choice – not all poor people commit a crime, despite facing pressures

• Cross-cultural differences

  • Not all capitalist societies have high crime rates

  • E.g., Japan and Switzerland have much lower homicide rates than the USA

• Romanticises working-class criminals

  • Left Realists argue Marxists ignore the harm working-class criminals cause to their own communities

  • Crimes like burglary and mugging often target other working-class people, not the ruling class

• Incomplete theory

  • Ignores other inequalities, such as gender and ethnicity, emphasised by feminist and critical race theories

  • Over-focuses on class while neglecting how different forms of inequality intersect

White-collar & corporate crime

• These are crimes usually committed by middle- and upper-class individuals in positions of power

  • White-collar crimes are offences committed by individuals of high status in their jobs as managers, executives, or directors

    • E.g., fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion

  • Corporate crimes are offences committed by businesses to maximise profit, often against employees, consumers, or the environment

    • E.g., price-fixing, selling unsafe products, false accounting, bribery, illegal disposal of toxic waste

Scale and harm

• Corporate crime often causes more harm than street crime

• Its impact can be:

  • Physical: deaths, injuries, illnesses (e.g., unsafe workplaces)

  • Environmental: pollution and ecological damage

  • Economic: large-scale fraud, mis-selling, costing consumers, workers, taxpayers, and governments billions annually

• Tombs (2003) argues that corporate crime is about both profit and the power to avoid being labelled criminal

Examples

• Crimes against consumers

  • Poly Implant Prothèse scandal (France, 2011): Breast implants filled with industrial silicone instead of medical-grade material to cut costs

• Crimes against the environment

  • Volkswagen (2015): Cheated emissions tests on 11 million cars, disguising pollution levels far above legal limits

• Crimes against workers

  • Rana Plaza collapse (Bangladesh, 2013): Over 1,100 workers were killed and thousands were injured when a garment factory collapsed after management ignored visible cracks in the building

Abuse of trust

• Professionals (e.g., doctors, lawyers, accountants) may exploit their status for personal/corporate gain

• This undermines public trust in key institutions like healthcare, law, and finance

Examples

• Fraudulent medical claims (USA): widespread scams where doctors claimed insurance payments for treatments never performed

• NHS dental fraud (UK): dentists have claimed payments for work they did not carry out

• Harold Shipman (UK, 1976): convicted of forging prescriptions to obtain pethidine; later found guilty of murdering over 200 patients, showing how professional authority can mask serious criminal activity

The invisibility of corporate crime

• Compared with street crime, crimes of the powerful are relatively invisible

• Even when exposed, they are often not seen as “real” crime

Reasons for invisibility

• Media coverage: focuses on violent street crime and under-report corporate crime, reinforcing the stereotype that crime is a working-class issue

• Lack of political will: the state prioritises tackling street crime over corporate crime

• Complexity: corporate crime often involves technical details and multiple individuals, making it hard to detect and prove responsibility

• De-labelling: often treated as civil offences or 'misconduct'. Penalties are usually fines, not prison

• Under-reporting: victims may not realise they’ve been harmed, or the harm is spread across many people (e.g., mis-sold pensions)

Explanations of corporate crime

• Strain theory: Box (1983) argues that companies innovate illegally when profits cannot be achieved legally

• Differential association: Sutherland (1949) argues that crime is learned within groups. If company culture normalises rule-breaking, employees are socialised into criminal practices

• Labelling theory: the powerful shape what counts as crime. Expensive lawyers/accountants can redefine offences as 'incidents' or 'misconduct'

• Marxism: corporate crime is a normal response to capitalism’s drive for profit

  • Executives often share a subculture of criminogenic capitalism (wealth, profit, risk-taking)

  • Breaking the law may be seen as worth the risk if profits increase

• By downplaying corporate crime and exaggerating working-class crime, the system sustains ruling-class power

Evaluation

Strengths

• Highlights crimes of the powerful

  • Draws attention to white-collar and corporate crimes, which often cause more harm than street crime

  • Challenges the stereotype that crime is only a working-class issue

• Exposes under-policing

  • Shows how corporate crime is systematically ignored or downplayed by the state

  • Explains why official statistics give a distorted picture of crime

Criticisms

• Overprediction of crime

  • Strain theory and Marxism assume most businesses would offend if given the chance

  • Nelken (2012) disagrees, believing that firms avoid crime for reputational reasons, not just fear of punishment

• Measurement problems

  • The scale of corporate crime is difficult to assess because it is underreported and complex

  • Invisible offences (e.g., mis-sold pensions) spread harm across many victims who may never complain

• Law-abiding can be profitable

  • Braithwaite (1984): US pharmaceutical firms that complied with FDA rules gained access to lucrative overseas markets

  • Law-abiding behaviour may sometimes bring greater profits than breaking the law