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What is Critical Criminology or Neo-Marxism? A-Level Sociology Videos

This video explores Critical criminology. Critical criminology, or Neo-Marxism, is less deterministic than traditional Marxists. It regards crime as a conscious meaningful choice, very often with a political motive. Critical criminology brings elements of labelling theory and Marxism into a fully social theory of deviance.

The new criminology
In 1973 Taylor, Walton and the Young wrote the New Criminology which produced the most important neo- Marxist contribution to our understanding of crime and deviance
Taylor et al shares similar elements with traditional Marxists for example:

capitalist Society is based on class conflict and exploitation, and the key to understanding crime lie in the extreme social inequalities of power and wealth.

The interest of the capitalist class is protected by the state via favourable laws, and by criminalising the working classes.

Crime might be entirely removed if capitalism was replaced by a classless society.

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What is Critical Criminology or Neo-Marxism? A-Level Sociology Videos

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This video explores Critical criminology. Critical criminology, or Neo-Marxism, is less deterministic than traditional Marxists. It regards crime as a conscious meaningful choice, very often with a political motive. Critical criminology brings elements of labelling theory and Marxism into a fully social theory of deviance.

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Case study for corporate crime

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Police investigating the Grenfell Tower fire have concluded there are "reasonable grounds" to suspect the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and the council's tenant management organisation (TMO) may have committed corporate manslaughter.

Chiefs from both organisations will be formally interviewed by officers as part of the criminal investigation into the tragedy that claimed at least 80 lives.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed to The Independent it had updated those affected by the fire today.

A statement circulated to those involved said an "initial assessment" of seized material and witness statements had allowed police to conclude that each organisation may have committed the offence.

Both organisations will be questioned under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

"We have seized a huge amount of material and taken a large number of witness statements," the letter to those affected by the disaster said.

"After an initial assessment of that information, the officer leading the investigation has today notified Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the Kensington and Chelsea TMO that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that each organisation may have committed the offence of corporate manslaughter under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

"In due course, a senior representative fo each corporation will be formally interviewed by police in relation to the potential offence."

It was unclear which senior figures will be interviewed by police and the legislation does not allow for the arrest of any individual.

A Met Police spokesperson told The Independent: "This is a complex and far reaching investigation that by its very nature will take a considerable time to complete.

"The Met has made a commitment to the families who lost loved ones in the fire and survivors that they will be kept updated, as far as we possibly can, as the investigation continues.

"As is routine, we will not give a running commentary on this investigation."

Samia Badani, residents association chair for Bramley House - a block that overlooks the tower - told The Independent the move was a positive step forward for the community.

"I'm very pleased, I think over the years we have had a very good relationship with local police and the relationship with the council is the opposite," she said.

"We are so bruised in the community that we needed some reassurances so it's a step forward."

It comes after a number of stakeholders from both RBKC and the TMO resigned in the wake of the tragedy over accusations they ignored a catalogue of warnings over fire safety.

The council's chief executive Nicholas Holgate was the first to step down in the aftermath over the borough's handling of the fire.

"Despite my wish to have continued, in very challenging circumstances, to lead on the executive responsibilities of the council, I have decided that it is better to step down from my role, once an appropriate successor has been appointed," he said in a statement on 21 June.

A week later, TMO leader Robert Black stepped aside to "concentrate on assisting with the investigation and inquiry", followed by RBKC leader Nick Paget-Brown and deputy leader Rock Feilding-Mellen just hours later.

Council leader Elizabeth Campbell said she would fully support the Met's investigation.

"Our residents deserve answers about the Grenfell Tower fire and the police investigation will provide these. We fully support the Metropolitan Police investigation and we will cooperate in every way we can," she said.

"It would not be appropriate to comment further on matters subject to the police investigation."

The news comes after family and friends of five of those killed in the blaze, including two child victims, gathered to remember their loved ones.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, joined a congregation in north Kensington, little more than half a mile from the scene of the disaster.

The lives of artist Khadija Saye, her mother Mary Mendy, Berkti Haftom and her 12-year-old son Beruk, as well as five-year-old Isaac Paulos were being celebrated at the ecumenical service in St Helen's Church.

The service opened with a recording of Michael Jackson's "Heal The World", and the Gospel For Grenfell choir later sang a number of well-known songs including "Something Inside So Strong".

Ms Saye's cousin Adelaide Mendy recalled the fear and panic on the night of the fire, and her desperate hope that her relatives would not be caught up in it.

She told those gathered: "I felt an excruciating and an almost unbearable pain. I felt powerless at the thought that there was nothing else that I could have done."

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Grenfell police have 'reasonable grounds' to suspect Kensington council committed corporate manslaughter

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Police investigating the Grenfell Tower fire have concluded there are "reasonable grounds" to suspect the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and the council's tenant management organisation (TMO) may have committed corporate manslaughter. Chiefs from both organisations will be formally interviewed by officers as part of the criminal investigation into the tragedy that claimed at least 80 lives.

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The London Riots of August 2011 are a good way of introducing 'perspectives' on crime and deviance, as well as the strengths and limitations of studying crime using different methods.
The 2011 London Riots - Background/ Context

Between 6 and 10 August 2011, several London boroughs and other cities and towns across England suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson.

The first night of rioting took place on 7 August 2011 after a peaceful protest in Tottenham, following the death of Mark Duggan, a local man from the area, who was shot dead by police on 4 August 2011. Police failed to notify Duggan's family of his death and no senior police officer was available to meet the protest, creating anger at perceived disrespect. The protesting crowd outside the police station set light to two police cars, and the pictures of this circulated on social media attracted other people to the area - what started as a relatively peaceful protest quickly descended into a riot involving mass looting.

The following days saw similar scenes in other parts of London with the worst violence taking place in , Brixton, Chingford, Peckham, Enfield, Croydon, Ealing and East Ham. The city centre in Oxford Circus was also attacked. From 8 until 10 August, other cities in England including Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, along with several towns, saw what was described by the media as 'copycat violence'.

The riots were characterised by rampant looting and arson attacks of unprecedented levels. As a result, David Cameron returned early from his holiday in Italy and other government leaders also ended their holidays to attend to the matter. All police leave was cancelled and Parliament was recalled on 11 August to debate the situation.

There were a total 3,443 crimes across London linked to the disorder, including 5 deaths and at least 16 others injured as a direct result of related violent acts. An estimated £200 million worth of property damage was incurred, and local economic activity was significantly compromised.

The riots have generated significant on-going debate among political, social and academic figures about the causes and context in which they happened.
This Daily Mail article on the London riots by Melanie Phillips on is a superb example of a New Right take on the 'causes' of the event...extracts below.....
Biased Media Reporting on the London Riots

' The violent anarchy that has taken hold of British cities is the all-too-predictable outcome of a three-decade liberal experiment which tore up virtually every basic social value. What is so notable and distressing is that this mayhem has been carried out in the main by teenagers and children, some as young as eight. These youths feel absolutely entitled to go 'on the rob' and steal whatever they want.'

'What has been fuelling all this is not poverty... what we have been experiencing is a complete breakdown of civilized behavior among children and young people... We are not merely up against feral children, but feral parents... either they are too drunk or drugged or otherwise out of it to care, or else they are helping themselves to the proceeds, too.'

'As David Cameron observed yesterday, there are clearly pockets of society that are not just broken, but sick. Most of these children come from lone-mother households. And the single most crucial factor behind all this mayhem is the willed removal of the most important thing that socialises children and turns them from feral savages into civilised citizens: a father who is a fully committed member of the family unit. The result is fatherless boys who are consumed by an existential rage and desperate emotional need, and who take out the damage done to them by lashing out from infancy at everyone around them. Such children inhabit what is effectively a different world from the rest of society. It's a world without any boundaries or rules. A world of emotional and physical chaos.'

'This breaking of the family was encouraged by the Welfare State... Welfare dependency further created the entitlement culture that the looters so egregiously display. It taught them that the world owed them a living. It taught them that their actions had no consequences.'
Melanie Philips no doubt enjoys writing for the right wing daily mail, and her readers no doubt enjoy the sense of righteous moral indignation they feel when reading her articles (they are all in pretty much the same vein!). Unfortunately for them, but more unfortunately the impoverished teenage children of the single parents she lambasts, this is an extremely narrow analysis of the causes of the Riots. Moreover, Philip's analysis is not supported by the rigorous quantitative and qualitative research carried out by the London School of Economics in the year since the riots. This is not to say that irresponsible parenting and the breakdown of social control didn't have something to do with the riots - but there are a lot of other factors that need to be considered as well.
Actual evidence on the 'causes' of the London Riots'

The findings below are based on the research findings taken from Reading the Riots - Researchers spoke to 270 rioters: 185 people in London, 30 in Birmingham, 29 in Manchester, 16 in Liverpool, seven in Salford and three in Nottingham. Thirteen were in prison.

Who were the Rioters?

They ranged in age from 13 to 57

A third said they had never been found guilty in court or cautioned

The overwhelming majority said gangs played little or no part in what happened.

About three-quarters were aged 24 or under, only a small minority, people over 40.

Around 80% of interviewees were male, although anecdotal evidence from observers of the riots, suggest the proportion was nearer 90%

They came from a wide range of ethnic groups but A slightly larger proportion were from an ethnic minority (50% black, 5% Asian) or of mixed race (18%); this also varied by area: the ethnic makeup of interviewees in Salford and Manchester overwhelmingly white.

The general attainment levels were lower than those of the population as a whole: of the adults, a third had no qualification higher than GCSE , one-fifth of the rioters claimed to have no educational qualifications at all, one in 20 said they had a degree.

Most had prior experience with the Criminal Justice System - only 32% said they had never been found guilty in a court or been cautioned.

Based on the above interviews, the rioters themselves stated the following five main causes (percentages reporting this as a factor in brackets)
What were the main causes of the riots?

Poverty (86%)

Policing (85%)

Government Policy (80%)

Unemployment (79%)

The shooting of Mark Duggan (75%)

Of course, if you conducted the research again using a broader sample and different methods, then you might get different results. But based on this evidence, there does not appear to be any support for the New Right's perspective on what caused the riots...
Asking about the 'causes' of crime is only one aspect among many in the crime and deviance course. Some of the perspectives on crime look at crime much more broadly.
Sociological (/Criminological) Perspectives on the London Riots

Functionalism - argues that society needs crime. Rather than looking at crime as a purely negative phenomenon, crime also has positive social functions. The riots, for example, lead to a temporary suspension of inter-gang violence, and, as a media event, it gave the rest of us something unite against, thus increasing unity in society more generally.

Bonds of Attachment Theory (Functionalism) - The cause of deviance is the breakdown or weakening of informal agencies of social control such as the family and community. Criminal activity occurs when the individual's attachment to society is weakened. This theory would blame poor parenting as the main cause of the riots.

Consensus Subcultural Theory - argues crime is a collective response to the above situation of frustration - If you can't gain status by getting a job, you seek status by some other means within a subculture (possibly a gang) and riots can offer you an opportunity to gain status by 'going further than the next person'.

Traditional Marxism - Argues that crime is a response to a Capitalist system that breeds materialism, greed and selfishness. They also point out that many members of the Elite classes are criminals themselves, but it is generally only the powerless that get punished for their criminal acts, while elites tend to avoid punishment. The rioters were largely teenage youths living in poor areas and many got disproportionate punishments for their involvement in the riots, while politicians engaging in criminal acts often get away without punishment.

Interactionists - See criminal behaviour as a response to labelling by agents of social control - mainly the police. Focussing on the riots - Interactionists would argue that police racism over the last 3 decades has led to black youths being disproportionately targeted by stop and search - and it was this history of negative attention from the police that sparked the riots.

Right Realists - Argue that the riots were caused because of a basic breakdown of both informal and formal social control - weak communities and too few police on the streets, and society not being tough enough on crime. Rioters had too much freedom and felt like they could get away with their crimes.

Left-Realism - Argues there are two main causes of crime - Marginalisation and Relative Deprivation - largely borne out by the Guardian research above.
Explore the 'causes' of the London riots in more depth...
Post-modernism - Argues that the riots are a response to a postmodern society characterised by consumerism, an obsession with self-identity and a quest for excitement. For many the riots were a 'scene' where they could 'play a game' - engaging in vandalism and challenging the police provide both status and excitement - much more than any nightclub could offer.

They're all pretty left wing, so redressing the balance of the right-biased mainstream media...

1. The Moral decay is as bad at the top of our society as it is at the bottom by Peter Oborne -

2. and Zygmunt Bauman - The London Riots - Consumerism coming home to roost as the World's leading critical sociologist - he's got to get in somewhere near the top..

3. ' Look whose ruling now' - London Rioters speak out

4. David Harvey - Feral Capitalism is to blame!

5. Another post focussing on consumerism - Let them yearn for Tatt

6. A nice Balanced view from the JRF - What do we actually know about the riot areas and rioters?

7. Guardian article - the rioters - young, poor and unemployed

8. Some Observations on the Riots by Mark Metcalf - a view from someone familiar with the area

9. It wasn't just youths involved in the riots

10. The Guardian data maps - a nice visual resource!

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Sociological Perspectives on the London Riots

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The London Riots of August 2011 are a good way of introducing 'perspectives' on crime and deviance, as well as the strengths and limitations of studying crime using different methods. The 2011 London Riots - Background/ Context Between 6 and 10 August 2011, several London boroughs and other cities and towns across England suffered widespread rioting, looting...

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What are the relationships between social class and criminality, and how can we explain why these relationships exist?

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(also see 'Green Crime')