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Radical Criminologies: Feminist, Marxist and Conflict Theories (Left…
Radical Criminologies: Feminist, Marxist and Conflict Theories
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Feminist theory
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Feminist criminoloy
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Aims to review and criticise the way women had been and are being treated by the criminal justice system both as offenders and as victims
Key relationship between masculinity and crime, which proved to be an important and developing area of enquiry
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The female criminal
Lombroso's reflections - though odd - are one of the rare experiments of female criminality in traditional criminology
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She commits crime because she is a 'victim' and is driven to mental breakdown or because she has failed at being a mother, wife, etc.
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Pollak (1950) 'Dark figure in a skirt' - women commit just as much crime as men, are equally involved in crime as men but generally don't get caught because they fake orgasms and are therefore 'used to deceit'
Feminist critique
Though female crime is untypical, women face problem of 'double deviance' or 'double jeopardy' (Hiedensohn 1989)
Two kinds of 'charges' - for the crime and for the departure from female gender expectations (e.g. infanticide, sexual 'depravity'
Female crime is not driven by biology - response to need, driven by rational choices, often made in difficult conditions
Conformity explained in terms of the different rules, norms and expectations applied to men and women
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Implication, though, is that when male straightjacket is removed they will commit as much crime
Left Realism (1980s)
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Accept that structural inequalities, social conditions, and perceptions of injustice are the main causes of crime
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Strengths
It recognises that crime can have devastating consequences for the most deprived communities, and that most offenders and victims are poor and working class
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Produced a fuller explanation for crime than that offered by any one single theory - draws upon Marxist ideas of the importance of social inequality, Merton's concept of strain and anomie, Cohen's ideas of status frustration, subcultural theories, labelling and the growth of individualism and consumerism.
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Weaknesses
It doesn't really explain why most working-class youth don't turn to crime. if the 'toxic mix' is as toxic as it appears to be, why isn't there more crime, and why have crime rates been falling?
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It neglects other responses to relative deprivation and marginality apart from crime, such as Merton's retreatism and ritualism, although it does recognise Merton's rebellion
It neglects gender, a part of the 'malestream criminology'
Radical criminology
The New Criminology by Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jack Young (1973)
New paradigms for thinking about deviance and crime - 'Radical Criminology', 'Critical Criminology', 'Left Realism' and 'Marxist Criminology'
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