Critical Criminology

Running Head : CRIMINOLOGY

Critical Criminology

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Critical Criminology

Critical criminology , also known as radical criminology dates back to the concepts of Marxism . Despite the fact that Fredric Engels and Karl Marx were the founders of contemporary radical criminology , none of them gave explicit focus to crime . William Bonger (1876-1940 , a Dutch criminologist was a more direct founder of this concept . It gained popularity during the early 1970s when it tried to explain the causes of contemporary social mayhem . He used economic explanations

were used by critical criminology to analyze social behavior by arguing that social and economic inequalities were the main reason behind criminal behavior (Henry Lainer , 1998 . This view reduces the focus on individual criminals and elaborates that the existing crime is as a result of the capitalist system . Just like the conflict school of thought , it asserts that law is biased since it favors the ruling or the upper class and that the legal system that governs the state is meant to maintain the status quo of the ruling class . Critical criminologist are of the view that political , corporate and environmental crime are not only underreported but also inadequately punished by the existing criminal legal system

Conflict criminology strives to locate the root cause of crime and tries to analyze how status and class inequality influences the justice system . The study of crime causation by radical criminologist increased between 1980s and 1990s as this led to the emergence of many radical theories such as...