Marxist, neo-Marxist and realist theories of crime, including traditional Marxism, critical criminology, left realism and right realism, and their explanations of crime and policy responses.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to explain and evaluate Marxist, neo-Marxist and realist (left and right) theories of crime: their explanations of why crime happens and what should be done about it. The realist theories are largely a reaction to Marxism and labelling, so showing those links earns marks.

Traditional Marxism

Traditional Marxism makes three key claims:

• Criminogenic capitalism: capitalism itself causes crime. Poverty and the inability to meet needs may drive the poor to crime; the consumerist, "dog-eat-dog" values of capitalism encourage greed and self-interest at all levels, so crime is "endemic", from working-class theft to corporate fraud.
• Selective law-making and enforcement: the law reflects ruling-class interests (Chambliss argues laws protect private property above all), and enforcement targets the working class while the crimes of the powerful (white-collar and corporate crime) are under-policed and under-prosecuted.
• Ideological functions: law, crime and punishment perform ideological work, for example a few token prosecutions of the powerful make the law look fair, while the focus on working-class crime divides workers and distracts from exploitation.

Neo-Marxism: critical criminology

Taylor, Walton and Young ("The New Criminology") combine Marxism with interactionism. They reject the determinism of traditional Marxism (the idea that economic forces simply make workers offend) and stress voluntarism (free will): much crime is a conscious, often political choice to resist capitalism, for example a "Robin Hood" redistribution. They call for a "fully social theory of deviance" that covers the wider structure (capitalism), the immediate origins of the act, the act itself, the social reaction, and the effects of the reaction. Critics (including feminists and left realists) argue they romanticise working-class criminals and ignore that most crime victims are themselves working class.

Right realism

Murray blames a welfare-dependent underclass with absent fathers and poor socialisation; Clarke's rational choice theory sees offenders weighing costs and benefits, so the answer is to raise the costs. Right realists therefore support situational crime prevention, "broken windows" and zero-tolerance policing, and tougher sentencing, rather than tackling root causes. Critics note this ignores structural causes (poverty) and corporate crime, and over-states rational calculation for impulsive crime.

Left realism

Lea and Young argue sociology must take crime seriously because it really harms working-class and minority victims (a criticism of both Marxism and labelling for not addressing victims). They explain crime through three linked causes:

• Relative deprivation: feeling deprived compared with others (not absolute poverty), sharpened by media images of wealth.
• Subculture: a collective group response to that shared sense of deprivation.
• Marginalisation: groups lacking clear goals and organisations to represent them (for example unemployed youth) express frustration through crime.

Their policy favours tackling inequality, democratic and accountable policing (improving the flow of information from the community), and community involvement. Critics argue they rely on victim surveys, do not fully explain why some who feel deprived turn to crime and others do not, and accept the official definition of crime too readily.

Evaluation

Marxism usefully highlights power and the crimes of the powerful but is criticised for determinism and for ignoring intra-class crime and victims (the realist critique) and gender (the feminist critique). Right realism is criticised for ignoring structural causes; left realism for relying on victim surveys and not fully explaining who feels deprived. Together they show crime is shaped by both structure and agency, and by power, and the choice between them often reflects political values.