Social Class and Crime

Social Class and Crime

Street Crime:

Evaluation (AO3):

• These explanations do not give any reason why the majority of working-class people do not turn to crime.

• There is widespread evidence of crime committed by members of other social classes which may be undetected and unrecorded.

• Some crimes are dealt with outside the law (eg. gangs).

• Suggesting that most criminals are working-class vs an exaggerated and too deterministic.

Crimes in the Suits

White Collar and Corporate Crimes

Pearce (1976) calls these ‘crimes of the powerful’ and the impact of such crimes dwarf the everyday crimes of the working-class.

Croall (2007) suggests the following distinction between white collar and corporate crimes being the most universal:

• White-collar crime: committed by middle-class individuals who abuse their position for personal gain at the expense of others.

• Corporate crime: Slapper and Tombs (1999) define this as offences committed by large companies that directly benefit the company rather than the individual.

Bourgeoisie can get away with crime due to relation with other bourgeoisie (eg. Lord Conrad Black bailed out by Trump).

More is to be added.