Concluding Lecture Notes on Contemporary Theories

Below are some final brief notes on contemporary theories of crime. Please copy these and study them, along with the other lecture notes for the midterm exam coming up next Thursday, Oct. 21.

CONTEMPORARY THEORIES

A. Many of the more contemporary theories, to my mind, don't make much improvement over the traditional theories we've already covered. Indeed, they seem to be more concerned with exposing biases in the way our criminal justice system operates. There are three main ones:

1. Conflict theory -- biases based on social class (or race)
2. Marxist theory -- biases based on class
3. Feminist theory -- biases based on gender, especially the subordinate position of women.

B. No doubt these theories bring out some valid issues, but they also tend to exaggerate the role of these factors and generally can be considered more IDEOLOGICAL. Among them, I would say the feminists attempt to argue there are biases against women in the criminal justice system may be the most distorted. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that women receive more lenient sentences than men for the same crimes, not vice versa.

C. The conflict theorists have exposed the issue of racial bias, which I believe should be fairly obvious (as in the Tulia case), although many (such as Prof. Akers) downplay this "extra-legal" variable (race) in criminal justice decision-making.

D. The Marxists may have a point in suggesting that capitalist societies tend to have higher crime rates than socialist ones. But they also have been guilty of idealizing socialist systems or just assuming they would have lower crime rates. Also, they tend to ignore obvious differences in crime rates between various capitalist countries.

1. An interesting point point some Marxist theorists have raised is -- that as the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (I would even say, China) become more capitalist their crime rates have risen dramatically. But that is a bit simplistic. One must consider how repressive the former Soviet Union was and that other things could also explain this surge.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATION ON THE SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF CRIMINAL AND DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

Even though no theory stands out as THE answer to the many different types of criminal behavior, I believe sociologists have identified some important social factors that must be considered not only in explaining this behavior, but also ultimately addressing or correcting it more effectively.