Summary Of Radical Criminology

So far we have discussed many theories that try to help us understand and explain why crime occurs. In their article, Lynch and Groves advocate the approach known as radical criminology. Radical criminologists believe crime is linked to a society’s political and economic conditions especially in capitalist cultures like the United States (p. 372). Deriving their position from Marx, radicals believe that four conditions relate to occurrence of crime:
a) capitalism is based on inequalities between those who own and those who work
b) because of the inequality between labor and capital, society becomes stratified into social classes characterized by differences in wealth, status, power, and authority
c) because of these differences, persons in different social classes have very different opportunities in terms of life chances and choices
d) among these opportunities are the chances of becoming criminal (p. 373) Ultimately, radicals think that social stratification accounts for the unequal distribution of chances and opportunities available to different persons at different levels in a class structure (p. 373). Radicals stress the causal association between political economy, inequality, and crime in three areas: the working world, how workplace conditions affect familial life, and women and crime. For the purposes
of this paper, I will mainly focus on the economic equality in the working world, including the situation of being unemployed. Radical criminologists confirm the contributory impact of economic factors on social life through the fact that class position affects life chances, political power, and socialization relationships. The fact that the top 1 percent of people in the U.S. own 42 percent of the wealth proves that income is unequally distributed across social classes (p. 374). In the United States, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer—with the rich receiving the better opportunities in life while the poor must resort to criminal activities. Most radicals contest that capitalism fuels criminal behavior because capitalism promotes competition, self-interest, and unemployment. For these radicals, crime is a result of competition over scarce resources and the endorsement of egotism (p. 381). However, for other radicals, egoism is credited as the source of deviant behavior. There is some debate over this topic, but it is widely accepted that competition over insufficient resources is the cause of crime—with egoism being an important by-product over such antagonism. For radicals, criminal behavior is a direct expression of the strains correlated with life under capitalism (p. 382). One of these strains connected with capitalism is unemployment. Unemployment is a consequence of the typical processes of capitalist economies in that under capitalism, unemployment is inevitable. But why is unemployment unavoidable? Joblessness is inevitable because capitalists want to increase productivity by pursuing technological advancements at the expense of human labor. Ultimately, these technological improvements remove human workers from the production process. When these workers are without jobs, the only way for them to achieve even remote levels of material success is through criminal behavior. Capitalism tells them that in order to be important in society they must have material wealth and power—without jobs, there is no means for them to gain material achievement. It is very hard to disagree with the theory of radical criminology. As we have learned from the social disorganization theory, when neighborhoods suffer from structural deficiencies—such as economic deprivation—cultural deficiencies exist as well. Because of these cultural insufficiencies, value systems are weakened and criminal activity prevails. Due to the unequal distribution of wealth that is prevalent in capitalism, low-income families usually live within surrounding vicinities of each other. Because the parents of these families are exposed to inconsistent coercive control structures at work, they exhibit little or no control over their children (p. 377). There is no organization in these low income communities; this disorganization leads to criminal behavior because common values—such as not to steal—are never established. It is important to notice that in radical criminology, in agreement with the social disorganization theory, the individuals committing the crimes cannot be fully blamed for their actions. The social disorganization theory tells us that people are a product of their surroundings—the focus is on the neighborhoods individuals live in, and not really the people themselves. These persons cannot get out of their situations of economic disparity; capitalism holds them down and prevents them from obtaining capitalism’s most important entity—economic success through the possession of material wealth. But where do these individuals learn how to commit criminal acts? The theory of radical criminology does not talk about where criminal acts are learned. I think that the theory of radical criminology lacks this very important concept—it talks about how people are stratified into their respective social roles and why they commit crimes, but even this explanation is weak and something I will address later. Radical criminology could benefit from an explanation on where criminal acts are learned, and I think radical criminologists could point use the theory of differential association to explain such a factor. Differential association tells us that people learn criminal attitudes and behavior during adolescence from close, trusted friends or relatives (Lecture 9/18/03). There is an emphasis on how values are formed through social interaction and that a criminal career is developed if disruptive values are not matched or exceeded by traditional attitudes and behaviors (Lecture 9/18/03). One could infer from the article by Lynch and Groves that because individuals are subject to disorganized living arrangements, they never develop a system of common values. But Lynch and Groves do not include this in their article; they only blame capitalism as the cause of crime. In addition, Lynch and Groves only focus on adults and their connection to criminal behavior; they do not include adolescents in their commentary. If Lynch and Groves included a section on where people learn criminal behavior in their article, I feel their argument would be much stronger.
By not even mentioning adolescents in their piece, they disregard the fact that at some point in time, individuals have to learn criminal behavior somewhere and from someone (and it is usually in adolescence when such behavior is learned). It is very possible that through the social interaction of individuals in low income settings that criminal behavior is learned, but this is very unlikely because it is proven that most criminal activities are learned in adolescence from close, personal
friends. Lynch and Groves also falter in their argument by not developing a more in-depth analysis for why individuals commit crime. They write that individuals commit crime because they want to meet the standards of material wealth established by capitalism. This is easy for the rich to achieve—they already have the means to attain such success. The poor, because they do not have the chance of gaining material success in their jobs, resort to crime because it is the only way to gain even remote levels of material riches. Lynch and Groves do not account for the fact that a person can be predisposed to commit crime by something biological or psychological. Perhaps this person just likes to commit crime, and there is no other reason behind his or her actions. Lynch and Groves make a very strong argument pertaining to capitalism’s causal influence on crime; but at times, their case is faulty because it does not cover all of the possibilities of why criminal behavior exists in capitalist cultures. All social roles are a result of competition for scarce resources amongst individuals across all social classes. It is important to realize that this competition only exists because of capitalism. For radicals, capitalism fuels competition; and this competition is the driving force behind all criminal behavior. In capitalist cultures everyone wants his or her piece of the pie; this piece is easy to attain for the wealthy, but for the poor, crime is the only opportunity at obtaining even a small portion of the pie. Ultimately, capitalism is responsible for the social stratification that affects the life chances and opportunities available to persons at different ends of the social ladder (p. 373); with those at the bottom rung often resorting to deviant behavior just to stay competitive with those individuals at the top.