CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY THEORY AND THE SOCIAL ORDER ESSAY HELP

One of the essential and much needed concept in sociology is of the critical criminology. Seeing the human world, patterns of their lives, patterns of social life, attitudes, values and beliefs and their behaviour is the crux of sociology. Applying the criminological imagination in observing the human world and their social constructs, provides essence to sociology.  Criminal sociology has several theories such as, Classical theory, Positivism theory, Strain theory, Labelling theory, Marxism theory, Critical Criminology, Rational Choice etc. But the focus of this essay is to analyse the Critical Criminology theory with respect to the problem of social order in the 21st century. First, it is important to understand the concepts of Critical Criminology and its’ historical aspects in a concise manner. This will allow us to compare its existence in the current 21st century with its roots. The evolution of the critical criminology and its relationship with the social order is of much importance in the sociological pedagogy. It will enhance our knowledge of the past and allow us to view the dynamics of the 21st century social order through the lens of critical criminology. 

Critical Criminology is derived from the very popular Marxist Theory, which is based on capitalism. According to Kramer (1984), crime should be analyzed according to the structure of the society as a whole. This means that the Critical Criminology takes crime on the basis of “class conflict” and the “structured inequalities” of class society. The traditional crime develops when such divisions and inequalities persist in classes of the society. In a capitalist state, the law and order are fully utilized to protect the elite class. In this perspective, it is believed that when the elite class, who owns the productions, commit any crime, it is due to keep the other lower class in place and to dominate them. Whereas, if the lower-working class commits any crime, it is due to conflict and struggle against the elite class. These understandings, however, may not work in the 21st century because of the social changes, society and class structures and different political settings that exist. The intellectual strategies and the institutional assumptions of the past may not work in today’s environment as the “…longstanding division of labour in the academic world is beginning to break down and allow new forms of intellectual exchange to occur” (Garland and Sparks 2000). However, it is not easy as it may seem. There are several radical socio-economic and political changes that have occurred around the globe, therefore, there is a need to disseminate in the new ways and perspectives of the crime control in the social movements and the critical criminologists should be committed to social change through academic institutions as well as publicly identifiable progressive movements (Robinson 2003). 

Audretsch and Thurik (2000) explain in their paper that the developed countries are moving towards western capitalism and have started to focus more on regulation of policies, public ownership and commercialization of knowledge. They provided empirical evidence of countries showing that those countries which shifted from managed economies to entrepreneur economies, had low level of unemployment. Earlier, the European countries relied on two strategies of developing markets outside the domestic market and depended upon high level of skilled human capital, in order to gain comparative advantage. However, in the past ten years, they lost the comparative advantage because of globalization and communications revolution. Moreover, corporate downsizing has given rise to lack of social conscience with respect to large corporations, resulting in job losses and increasing unemployment. The United States spent 70 percent of venture capital on high-technology startups and the Netherlands spent only 30 percent of venture capital towards high-technology. Apart from these examples, their paper shows various examples which show the “shift in the comparative advantage of high wage countries towards the importance of knowledge-based economic activity”, which is basically the move towards the entrepreneurial economy. “The entrepreneurial economy is based less on the traditional inputs of natural resources, labor and capital, and more on the input of knowledge and ideas” and “…the major issues in the entrepreneurial economy have shifted away from concerns about excess profits and abuses of market dominance to international competitiveness, growth and employment” (Audretsch and Thurik 2000).