Alun Davies Critical Writing.
"Why is it that a high percentage of crime is committed by members of the under and working classes?".
This question asks us to deal with the reasons why there seems to be a trend in society where by the working and under classes seem to represent a high percentage of the over all crime statistics, and asks us to give an explanation to answer this.
I would like examine the Marxist view point to begin with, since this view point in my opinion, gives the fullest and most adequate answer possible in trying to explain continual working class crime.
It is first necessary to look at the social-macro before dealing with the social-micro of crime, I say this on the basis that all Marxist theory is based on a social-macro principle, which is that the ruling classes oppress all subordinate classes for there own economic gain. Marxist believe that the ruling classes are able to do this through their ownership of the means of production, although there is a whole philosophy which deals with explaining this assumption, this essay is not concerned with that, but what does need to be dealt with while explaining working class crime in relation to Marxist theory is the way in which society runs, and what aspects drives members of the working and under classes towards crime, and why they cannot simply exist in society with out breaking the moral laws which the constitutional law is based upon.
Marxists see crime as a natural side affect of the capitalist system, they see it as inevitable, and unavoidable. Since capitalism by its very nature is concerned and driven by its need to accumulate as much capital as is physically possible, it is no surprise when capitalism, since it is not a ideology, formed an alliance with liberalism. Which has the core belief that the individual is the most important concept in society.
