• Society-- Limited Resources
• Power and Control: Deviance as a Political Process
• Freedom in an unequal society becomes: The ability to profit over others; to define deviance.
• Focus: Creation and Enforcement of Law.

1. Radical: Economic Structure/Social Class
2. Pluralistic/Cultural: Variety of Interests and a Variety of Groups

• Social Relations of Production vs. Cultural Plurality.
• Question of inevitability of Conflict?

Stephan Spitzer (1970-): (merging with structuralism)

• Social Dynamite and Social Junk
• Not just capitalism: Dynamics (dialectics) of the system and its internal contradictions.
• Higher classes also a threat (failed capitalists, intellectuals, high-tech==> mass education and information resources expand critical faculties.
• Problem (threat): impede production (resist work), impede distribution (steal from the rich), impede socialization (truancy), impede ideology (counter-hegemony)
• Populations are criminalized as:
  1. Size increases and perceived threat increases
  2. Political organization decreases-- controlling the powerless
  3. As other institutional control (family, school, welfare, military) fail.
• Formation of two different types of problem populations: Dynamite (immediate threat and swift control) and Junk (costly, but harmless). "With the growth of monopoly capital, therefore, the relative surplus-population begins to take on the character of a population which is more and more absolute. At the same time, the market becomes a less reliable means of disciplining these populations, and the "invisible hand" is more frequently replaced by the "visible fist." The implications for deviance production are twofold: (1) problem populations become gradually more problematic--both in terms of their size and their insensitivity to economic controls, and (2) the resources of the state need to be applied in greater proportion to protect capitalist relations of production and ensure the accumulation of capital." (in Pontell, 2002, page 121-122)

Radical Marxism--Focus:

Differential application of law:

1. "Small" scale bias and racism at 13 decision points in CJS produces homogeneous population in prison.
2. 10.2% African-Am. vs. 2.7% Whites who are arrested become institutionalized.
3. Working Class vs White Collar Crime
4. Visibility of the powerless
5. Sanctioning: "Great Electrical Conspiracy-- GE fined $1.8 million, "profit"--$1.7 billion.
6. Fine for White Collar criminality is often tax deductible (not usually a criminal sanction, but regulatory action).
7. From 1890-1969: 1551 cases of White Collar "incidents." 45% tried as criminal cases, 35 convictions, 2% of convictions institutionalized for an average length of 6 months.

Solution to the problem of Deviance: Redistribute wealth and power. (How?)

Critique of Marxist Conflict Theory (Goode)

Not all conflict represents economic or social class interests

Crime continues to exist in (so-called) socialist societies

There is a similarity between socialist and capitalist societies in erms of the workings of the legal system: arrest and imprisonment as solutions to the "crime" problem

Pluralistic (cultural) Conflict

• Thorsten Sellin: Conduct norms and culture conflict.
• George Vold: Modern society and variety of groups. Compete for Authority: legitimation.
• Ralf Dahrendorf: Groups' access to authority is key to understanding competition of modern society. Authority==>Legitimate Power.
• Austin Turk:

"...examines authority-subject relationships within institutions with little concern for overarching or overlapping authority-subject relationships across institutions. Within this general framework, Turk focuses on legal conflict and criminalization. Specifically, he asks the following two questions:

1. Under what conditions are authority-subject cultural and behavioral differences transformed into legal conflict?
2. Under what conditions do those who violate laws (norms of the authorities) become criminalized? In other words, under what circumstances are laws enforced? (Liska, 1987: 178)"

Turk's answer to these questions is summarized a set of six propositions.

"In answer to the first question above:

• Proposition 1: Conflict between authorities and subjects occurs when behavioral differences between authorities and subjects are compounded by cultural differences. (Ethnic/minorities, Gays: Thio, Deviant Behavior, 1995, p. 62-63 suggests- "If authorities consider a law highly significant and important, they are likely to assign criminal status to subjects who violate the law.") added explanation
• Proposition 2: Conflict is more probable the more organized are those who have an illegal attribute or engage in an illegal act. (Gays after the Stonewall Riots, SDS)  added explanation
• Proposition 3: Conflict is more probable the less sophisticated the subjects. (Organized vs. Street Crime) (White collar vs. Street Crime, Gays) added explanation

The probability of enforcement can be conditionalized as:

• Proposition 4: The probability of enforcement of legal norms increases as the congruence between the cultural and behavioral norms of authorities increases. (White collar vs. Street Crime, Gays: Thio, Deviant Behavior, 1995, p. 62-63 suggests- "If law enforcers find the subject's legally prohibited behavior to be greatly offensive, the subjects are likely to be treated as criminals) added explanation
• Proposition 5: The lower the power of the resisters (subjects), the higher the probability of enforcement. (Working Class vs Middle Class) (White collar vs. Street Crime) added explanation
• Proposition 6: The lower the realism of norm violators (resisters), the higher the probability of enforcement." (flagrant violations) (Thio, Deviant Behavior, 1995, p. 62-63 suggests- realism applies to authiorities as well.  This places limitations on the use of  brute force and a desire to follow the letter of the law.  Subjects "achieve" realism by concealing violations, decreasing the offensiveness of visible violations, and avoiding behaviors which unite authorities.) added explanation

Turk presents a picture of crime and deviance in a modern, complex and heterogeneous society as an ongoing struggle.

• Equilibrium is difficult, if not completely impossible to achieve.
• The behavior of any group, and perhaps most importantly, the cultural meaning and significance attached to the behavior is destined to provoke a negative reaction from another group.
• In particular, authority groups will continuously strive to maintain and expand there control over societal resources by defining the activity of "subject groups" as threatening (therefore deviant and/or criminal), to the existing order (implicit here is the idea that the existing order is the order, the only legitimate order).

Solution? Conflict is inherent in human relationships, therefore deviance will always be a feature of social life. Through reform we can reduce the intensity and extent of deviance.

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/200/conflict.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel rok@umsl.edu
References and Credits for this Page of Notes
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 11:51 AM