Criminological Theory in Context by John Martyn Chamberlain

Author:John Martyn Chamberlain [Chamberlain, John Martyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446269879
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 26760728
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2015-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

Box 6.1 Key summary points

Critical criminology encompasses a range of different approaches which have different emphases and nuances, and which have been categorised under various headings, including Marxist criminology, Critical criminology, Left Realism, Feminist criminology, Peacemaking criminology and Cultural criminology, amongst others.

These diverse viewpoints share a concern with examining how different forms of oppression, inequality and conflict affect people in everyday life as well as through the lens of crime and law.

For Critical criminologists core organising social science concepts such as race, class and gender are both identities and structures. As structures, they contain historically located social orders and rules which serve to define the institutionalised forms of socio-political and economic power a group member possesses, as well as the types of opportunities for success and social advancement people from these groups typically have open to them. As identities, they tell us something about the common social expectations concerning the behaviour of people from different groups which are present within a society at different points in time, and so the different ways in which people can and do act to construct a personal sense identity in and through their gender, their class, or their race.

While early Critical criminology in the form of Marxist criminology emphasised the deterministic nature of social structure, later Critical criminology, such as Cultural criminology, tends to emphasise what is called the ‘duality of structure’. This stance acknowledges that we are clearly in no small part a product of our social environment and our practical circumstances do act in certain circumstances to constrain and shape our everyday behaviour, but people nevertheless do intrinsically possess agency and free will, and furthermore, certain structures in society can actually act to enhance agency (for example, equal opportunities and human rights legislation and institutions).

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