Toward a Marxian Theory and Social Reality of Crime

Toward a Marxian Theory of Deviance, by Steven Spitzer, critiques the way that traditional theories explain deviance, offers components for a theory of how deviants are produced and more specifically explains their production in a capitalistic society using Marxian theory. Traditional theories placed attention on the individual and ignored important aspects surrounding the subject like the political and social structure of that time, both are critical and contribute to the definition of deviancy itself. As explained by Marx, how deviancy is defined is related to those who are in power and society’s economic stance. Capitalism needs a surplus population to work effectively, and when those in power find a threat to that system they must be able to control it and define that threat is deviant. Spitzer discusses two groups, social junk and social dynamite, produced by capitalism. Social junk refers to individuals that present a burden to society, those who refuse or are unable to contribute the capitalistic society (i.e. the elderly, the handicapped, or the mentally ill). Social Dynamite describes individuals who pose a threat to society and need to be controlled as quickly as possible (i.e. welfare poor, alcoholics, delinquent juveniles). There are two main issues with the production of deviants by capitalism. The first issue is that the “problem population” continues to grow and continues to be a problem throughout time. The second issue is that in order to avoid a societal collapse state resources need to be applied in correlation with the exponentially increasing issues. Spitzer’s indicates that this ongoing production of deviants will eventually develop a need for alternative ways of dealing with those groups of people and suggests four alternatives: normalization, conversion, containment and support for criminal enterprises.
In The Social Reality of Crime, Richard Quinney tries to explain the need for crime within our society. Similar to Spitzer, Quinney discusses how a specific behavior becomes criminal through six propositions. The first proposition works to define crime and suggests that it is the “formulation and application” that defines and creates crime by those who are in social groups that are politically motivated. The second proposition discusses the specific formulation of crime; those who are in power influence public policy and therefore construct the definition of crime used within society. If the interests of those in power shift or change so does the definition crime. The application of crime is the topic of Quinney’s third proposition. The application is the type of enforcement and the way the laws are administered against crime. Both are once again influenced by the people who are the most powerful within society and the greater the interest is to protect themselves against a specific threat, the greater the punishment will be for committing the crime. The fourth proposition indicates that once crime has been defined society must be kept in order. Certain agencies work to establish patterns of criminal behavior and they teach society norms they should follow, which means that the number of those defined as criminal is increased by the mere fact that there are many who can define criminal behavior. The next proposition highlights the importance of communication, specifically for the construction of the “criminal conception” and how it is related to society. These conceptions are created by powerful groups of the society. They depict the behaviors and can influence the way they are portrayed to the public, as perhaps, a threat to society. The last proposition is the reality of crime in our society and uses the above propositions to describe it. Quinney’s stance is that our capitalistic society allows a small group of people to define, dictate, enforce, punish, and use crime to benefit their success.
All these readings emphasizing the lack of power belonging to the poor and the exorbitant amount of power belonging to the rich seem to be appropriately describing our society (a statement that does not imply approval). What is interesting is that the population that holds all the power is small in numbers by comparison the rest of the population. If an outsider were to take a look at those specifics one might be confused as to why a society that claims to be democratic would allow such happenings. By ‘such happenings,’ I refer to a society that caters to one to three percent of people, and in fact contributes to policies and ‘social norms’ that keep that percentage of people in power while simultaneously impeding the rest of the people’s success. The realization: there really is no free will.

Matilde Cantero
CCJ 605
11.27.2012

Kathleen Daly and Meda Chesney-Lind write about feminism, its origin, myths and feminism’s relationship to criminology. The authors address three myths so that the readers may gain a better understanding of the concept of feminism. The first myth is it is not objective. They argue that that most gender natured analyses’ have been written by men, and represent a perspective of a privileged white male. These depictions are taken as normal, therefore when feminist perspectives develop, they are seen as not objective when in actuality they provide a more realistic view of life. The second myth discussed is the narrow focus on women. Simply put, Daly and Chesney-Lind point out that even though the focus is to explain women’s situations, feminists do not disregard the male gender, their masculinity or the clear connections between structure and society. Rather, they use those subjects as body to their approaches for feminist explanations. The last myth is that there is only one feminist perspective. Instead feminism is composed of a “set of perspectives that include liberal, radical, Marxist, and social feminism.” Before addressing feminism and the relevance to criminology, the authors discuss the definition of feminism. The term is based on notions of gender inequality and the social change that must come from those realizations. This is not to be confused with the simple discussion of women’s issues, but an emphasis of gender issues throughout history, in politics, in society, within institutions, and in structures of knowledge. The authors connect feminism and criminology by focusing on women as victims, as offenders, and the differences between gender and the justice system. The main point is that theories to explain crime are not inclusive of women. Women are typically seen as victims in the criminal justice system and the state’s interest is often placed on men. It seems like Daly and Chesney-Lind try to make a point that criminology doesn’t focus on women very much because there aren’t many female criminals, but criminology addresses more than just offenders and should integrate a female into studies and theories.
Neil Websdale’s article, Predators: The Social Construction of “Stranger-Danger” in Washington State as a form of Patriarchal Ideology, discusses how the Washington State Predator Law perpetuated a sense of moral panic that geared focus away from the truth about sexual predators. This law failed to include the most prevalent sexual crime, intimate partner violence and placed concentration on the idea of ‘stranger danger’ when most sexual crimes are in fact not committed by strangers to the victim. Washington defended the law by indicating that had it included IPV, it would have actually discouraged women from reporting their husbands or partners due to the fear that they would be imprisoned. Websdale argues that this is a patriarchal defense, where the law really protected the male assailants instead of the female victim. Predators who were strangers to the victims were consistently being covered by the news media and predictions of potential future dangerousness of predators were being made. The article specifically focused on the sexual abuse of a boy who was sexually abused and castrated, and how it was used to seed fear into the public for allowing their sons to be playing outside of the home. This made a young boy the ideal victim, with a disregard for daughters. Furthermore, it implied that children were completely safe at home, which is a dominant misconception, as many child abuses cases actually take place inside the home. Websdale compares the story mentioned above to another case that involved a young girl who was, similar to the boy; she had also been sexually abused and assaulted to the point where she received vaginal reconstruction. Websdale’s critique was that this victim’s story was not the covered by the media as the boy’s case had been, and indicates that this is a representation of the patriarchal society in which we live in where symbolically we place more interest on the penis than the vagina. Discussing the lack of effort to place equivocal weight on all sexual crime regardless of gender and age, Websdale argues that if the definition of a serial rapist referred to multiple times as opposed to multiple people, then the most likely serial rapist would a husband or an ex-husband. The fact that we do not have an actual term for those individuals only indicates that we have much room for progression.
Alluding to the myths that Daly and Chesney-Lind discuss and correct, it seems as though on the surface terms like ‘feminist’ or ‘feminism’ imply a hatred of men and the belief that women are superior. However, concepts are hardly ever taken at face value and are typically seen as deserving of further evaluation. The fact that those terms carry such a negative connotation for the public only furthers the perception that ‘this is a man’s a world,’ (specifically a privileged, white man’s world) where feminism presents an unacceptable threat to those in power. The reality, and Websdale’s article makes a clear argument to support this, is that feminism deserves a role in criminology. Maybe to understand rape against a woman, we have to figure out why it is that after so many years females do not have full control of their sexuality. My initial response to a female working in prostitution and pornography stems from my catholic parents who instilled that both were immoral. Morality is subjective, so for the sake of and scholarly exploration I propose that the argument to legalize prostitution is no less logical then the argument to legalize marijuana. I’m not comparing a woman’s sexuality to a drug, simply proposing the idea that legalizing prostitution would allow government to control the risks of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and benefit from the (not so underground) crime. Maybe legalizing it would be giving too much power to the female sex, which poses a strong threat to men when they are no longer in control of a woman’s sexuality. Perhaps a scenario like such would be the beginning of a gender-neutral society.