Principles of a Marxist Approach to Criminology – Third Draft

Hi, after a year or so here is the third draft of my ideas of what the main principles of a Marxist criminology. Thanks to everyone who has commented on these ideas already. I think I've got them pretty much sorted now and I think my aim after hopefully reading lots of interesting comments from my readers on these will be to write it up into some sort of manifesto. (If you want to see the previous draft please click the first tag at the bottom).
Like around Christmas I'm going to be away for about a week or so, so you'll have to make do with some of the posts below for that period.

1) A Marxist approach to Criminology is not a separate theory of crime. Rather it is the use of Marxist ideas to study the phenomena studied by criminologists as part of an integrated study of society as a whole. Such an approach should draw on already existing Marxist concepts such as the State, Alienation etc.

2) Crime and criminal justice system should be understood in a criminal historical materialist context, we should look at their development to their present conditions. Allied to this would be an understanding that the economic context of a situation would have an impact on what types of crime are prevalent and how these will be responded to.

3) A marxist approach is moreover a class approach and sees crime to an extent as an expression of the conflict between classes in society. This is important in several important ways. Firstly, the ruling class in any each will have more power to define what is crime and to manage responses to crime in their interest. Due to this, crime will affect different classes differently as will the responses to crime.

4) As in the discipline of Criminology, a Marxist approach to Criminology would not just limit itself to studying crime as it is defined at the current moment. It would seek to take a definition of crime which is aligned with the interests of the working class and other oppressed layers in society.

5) A marxist approach is also an internationalist approach. However, crime and laws differ from country to country. Crime needs to be understood on various levels, from the local, to the regional, the national and the international.

6) As well as studying crime in ‘normal’ capitalist society, we should also seek to study what happened to crime and criminal justice during revolutionary periods and also in states that have claimed to be socialist.

7) We should seek to review how the workers movement has addressed the question in the past, as well as various intellectuals who have tried to put across arguments from a similar perspective (ie. Foucault, Jock Young etc.) and build upon these bases. We also need to keep abreast of ‘bourgeois’ criminologists and evaluate their ideas too.

8) As Marx says in his theses on Feuerbach, "Philosophers have hitherto interpreted the world, point is to change it". We should analyse crime and the criminal justice system from the point of the working class. We should put forward ideas of how a socialist/communist society would attempt to solve these problems, and fight for these to be adopted in the here and now.

9) We should seek to encourage debate and discussion between Marxists (and others) on issues related to criminology.

Principles of Marxist Criminology - A Progress Report

In the run-up to my hosting of the Carnival of Socialism this Friday, I thought it would be worth looking over the last draft of my Principles of Marxist Criminology and seeing how well I'm covering those principles with posts and whether I need to be thinking about more (as well as updating it in the near future - thanks for the repsonse - especially the post on Law and Disorder about it - very helpful stuff). To see the seocnd draft- go here http://leftwingcriminologist.blogspot.com/2008/02/principles-of-marxist-approach-to.html.

1) Marxist Theory Applied to Crime

So far I've posted on the relevance of marxist ideas around Alienation and then a further post relating this to Alcoholism. I've also posted on the Marxist theory of the State too regarding the comments of Marx and Engels on the Paris Commune. However - areas that I've thought of some far include talking about relative deprivation and discussing more on the state (ie. Lenin, Bob Fine).

2) Development of Criminal Justice and Relation to Economy

So far I haven't done all that much here apart from a review of a book on the Emergence of Prisons and a piece on Political Economy and Prisons. I could do some stuff on probation perhaps and also policing too.

3) Class Approach to Crime

Haven't really covered anything here at all - I don't think - perhaps the article on Human Rights fits here

4) Internationalism

This has experienced a sort of boom recently - partly becuase of an upcoming essay. There's been posts on Imperialism and International Criminal Justice.

5) How Crime Affects of Layers of the Population other than the Working Class

I haven't really covered this at all. Perhaps becuase this point is really a restatement of point 3? I'm meaning to do a post on domestic violence at some point

6) Crime in Revolutionary Periods

I've done three posts in this area, one on the Russian Revolution, one on just before the collapse of Stalinist Russia and one on Dual Power in Russia and Portugal. I'm also looking into doing something on Cuba - and there always the series on Venezuela which will have a new post in the next month or so.

7) Role of the State - see 1 where i discussed this

8) Examining Previous Contributions to this Area

I've reviewed several books now on Left Realism and Critical Criminology - the latest was a look at an interductory chapter by Jock Young

9) How To Change Criminal Justice for the Better

I think the pieces I've written on the criminal justice system fit in here - the latest is Prisons: Lumbering Into Further Crisis

I've also done posts on corporate crime, criminal justice workers unions too. I'd also like to do some stuff on environmental crime too. Then there's the question of where do human rights and civil liberties fit - and what about my posts on Wales and Criminal Justice? Also - as was mentioned by the Law and Disorder blog - where does the sociology of law fit in to this. These are questions I'd like help with an will attempt to address in the next draft.