Neo-Marxist perspectives view crime as a product of wider social and cultural factors beyond just economic conditions. Stuart Hall's analysis of a 1970s moral panic over "mugging" in Britain found that the focus on black muggers served to unite society around the state during a period of economic crisis and civil unrest. Hall saw deviance as amplified through processes like labeling and the media that solidified public fears. Similarly, Paul Gilroy rejected the idea that crime resulted from poor socialization, arguing that riots by ethnic minorities were political responses to an unjust society.

1. Neo-Marxist perspectives of crime By Chris Thompson sociologytwynham.wordpress.com

2. Neo-Marxist perspectives Neo-Marxist approaches are otherwise known as Radical Criminology This approach starts with Marxist ideas but says it’s far too simplistic as there are wider cultural factors which lead to recidivism Taylor, Walton and Young (1973) merged Marxism with interactionism and labelling (these latter two areas in effect cultural)

3. Neo-Marxist- ‘full social theory of deviance’ Taylor, Walton and Young (1973) created a new model of crime which they termed a ‘fully social theory of deviance’ This model locates crime as being a product of the social system the person is immersed in They identified 7 characteristics evident in their ‘full social theory of deviance’, which are evident in Stuart Hall’s work

4. Stuart Hall – Policing the crisis Stuart Hall’s ‘Policing the Crisis’ is a study of a moral panic over ‘mugging’ in the 1970s In the 1970s a moral panic over mugging happened in Britain Mugging is a concept which was imported from the US in the 1970s and tended to refer to being robbed by black men During the 1970s several newspapers repeatedly reported incidents of mugging

5. Hall –’a crisis of capitalism’ This moral panic was built upon the idea of a collective fear of an ‘enemy within’ Stuart Hall’s ‘full social theory of deviance’ looked at the idea of the Black mugger as a scapegoat for other social ills of the period Between 1945 and the late 1960s Britain had prospered with full employment and improved living standards. However the 1970s brought about an economic decline – a ‘crisis of capitalism’

6. Black Muggers During this period rapidly rising global oil prices brought high unemployment and a fall in living standards Wave after wave of strike action brought about civil unrest and the subsequent challenge to social order and the power of the state Stuart Hall’s point is by making the Black mugger someone to fear, it solidified a fractured UK society around the state

7. Societal reaction Subsequently society allowed the state to randomly stop and search Black youths This labelling of Black youths led to a process of deviancy amplification Therefore Hall’s idea are more comprehensive as they merge labelling, societal reaction, moral panics and deviancy amplification into a complete ‘social theory of deviance’

8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7mnijoDVu0 Another example is Paul Gilroy’s: ‘There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack’ Gilroy rejected the view that Blacks’ resorted to crime due to poor socialisation, he said it was a result of ethnic minorities defending themselves against an unjust society Gilroy saw the resultant riots in Toxteth and Southall in 1981 as political acts The riots did remove of the ‘sus’ laws brought in by 1970s ‘muggings’

9. Synoptic Hall & Gilroy’s perspective is a neo-Marxist one because it examines the influence of culture on law & order policies Remember neo-Marxists cut the superstructure into two Gilroy & Hall’s approach emphasises a crisis of capitalism and how political society used civil society (particularly the media) to get its own way

10. Critics Some critics point out that some laws like traffic laws cannot be seen as being created by a capitalist class Lea & Young – Left Realists say Hall’s ideas say nothing about the victims of crime

11. Neo-Marxist perspectives By Chris Thompson Sociologytwynham.wordpress.com