Sociology of Punishment - Marxist Theories of Punishment

Marxist Theories of Punishment

These theories offer explanations as to why we imprison offenders not with claims of crime preventions, but that it is done with the goal of controlling those groups “whose socially disadvantaged position makes them volatile, disaffected and thus threatening”, Duff, 1994:306].

Criminal conduct is not a lower class monopoly, but is distributed throughout the various classes. But as has been shown, the same is not true of the distribution of punishment, which falls, overwhelmingly and systematically, on the poor and the disadvantaged. Discriminatory decision-making throughout the whole criminal justice system ensures that the socially advantaged are routinely filtered out: they are given the benefit of the doubt, or are defined as good risks, or simply have access to the best legal advice. Serious, deep-end punishments such as imprisonment are predominantly reserved for the unemployed, the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, the addicted, and those who lack social support and personal assets. Increasingly, this class bias had taken on a racial complexion, as disadvantaged minority groups come to be massively over-represented in the prison population., Duff, 1994:306] The benefits of using a marxist framework to answer this question is that it allows us to understand why offenders from the working class are imprisoned and offenders from the middle/upper classes are not. Marxist theory is based upon the idea of class struggle and ideology. Important to our understanding of imprisonment are the two concepts of hegemony and relative autonomy. Hegemony is in simple terms leadership with the consent of the led (that is leadership that is considered by those who are led to be the legitimate exercise of leadership).

Marxist theories tells us then, that the reason we imprison offenders is to control those who are a threat to dominant values.