Introduction:

Criminology is an expanding discipline, which deals with the crime and criminals. It primarily starts
with the etymology of crime. As any disease first requires diagnosis for proper healing, similarly
prevention or control of crime, if we consider it a diseases of the society requires finding out its causes.
The causes may depend on some variables, as put forward by many criminologist, which is very much
within the domain of human freewill, or the causes may be biological, psychological, or social, as
theorized by the positive thinkers, which most of the time remain beyond the control of individuals.

Criminology is a young discipline that started developing over the last two and half centuries, shedding
light on the causation and the prevention of crime. The scholar and the philosophers of the eighteen
century raised their voice to reform the then existing criminal justice system and establish a penal
system to eliminate the criminality from society. They tried to prove into the causes why people commit
crime. The systematic discussion give rise to classical and positive school, which further became
instrument to the development of biological, psychological, sociological and economic explanation of
criminal behavior.

School of criminology:

School of criminology represent the historical legacy of the field. Though many of the earlier theories
have been discredited, but their presentation is needed for two fold reasons; the first it gives an idea
about the development of criminology; second, modern thinking has resurrected many concept of these
theories in new forms.

Interestingly all the school of criminology originated in Europe and America. Considering the
geographical location Asia and Africa contribute nothing to the development of criminology. But the
schools outline some basic features psychology, physiology and human society, which has universal
application irrespective of human race and society. A brief sketch of all major school is given below.

Marxist school of criminology:

Marxist criminology is one of the prominent school of criminology in the present world. In a different
way Marxist criminology is one of the school of criminology that adopts a predefined political
philosophy. Its function is similar to that of the functionalist school which concentrates stability and
continuity producing factors in society. Marxist criminology is so much influenced by the teaching of
Karl Marx that law is the mechanism by which the ruling class keep the other classes in a deprived
position. Marxist criminology focuses on the reasons for the changes of the things, identifying the
disruptive forces in the industrialized societies, and described how society is fractioned by power,
wealth, prestige and the perception of the world. It also focuses on the casual relationship between
immediate and structural social environment of crime and crimiogenic conditions. Marxist criminology
explains why some acts are outlined as deviant whereas others are not, and it is more concerned more
with political crime, state crime and state corporate crime.

Evolution of Marxist school:

On the basis of the theory of Marx and Engels socialist or economic school emerged after 1850. They
believe in economic determinism. Marx discussed very little about crime and criminology, but
advocates of socialist schools applied Marxist theories to explain the causes of crime. In the same line
they recommended the way out.

Marxist recognized that for a society to function efficiently, social order is necessary. However, apart
from communist societies, they consider that in all societies’ one class, the ruling class gain far more
than other classes. Marxist agree with the functionalist that socialization plays a crucial role in
promoting infirmity and order. However, unlike the latter, they highly critical of the ideas, values and
norms of capitalist society, which they termed as capitalist ideology. Modern Marxist point to education
and media as socializing agencies.

The main principles of this theory:

The Marxist criminologist considered that the nature is the primary given factor and matter determines
everything. Our consciousness takes element from the material world, thought and intellect are formed
on the basis of matter. According to them, things in this world are not permanent and immutable, they
are not fixed once and for all. They are subjected to a process undergoing continuous change. Marx and
Engels firmly believed that laws of this material world are not established by god, nor do they depend
on human intention. The laws of the nature are attached to itself and they are discoverable and human
can realize the laws fully.

Marx and Engels identified the infra-structure and the superstructure of the human society. According
to them, the economic foundation of a society and the conditions in which the means of productions are
exploited is called the infra-structure. Rest of the things of a society- ideas, social habits, morality and
religion are super structure. Law, in their consideration, is a super structure. Interest of the ruling elites
are translated, in the view of Marx and Engels, into the latters of law. It is an instrument at the disposal
of those who hold the reins of command in a given society as a means of production are controlled by
them. They are straight forward to say that law has been a means of oppressing the exploited class.

Hi, after a year or so here is the third draft of my ideas of what the main principles of a Marxist
criminology. Thanks to everyone who has commented on these ideas already. I think I've got them
pretty much sorted now and I think my aim after hopefully reading lots of interesting comments from
my readers on these will be to write it up into some sort of manifesto. (If you want to see the previous
draft please click the first tag at the bottom). Like around Christmas I'm going to be away for about a
week or so, so you'll have to make do with some of the posts below for that period.
1) A Marxist approach to Criminology is not a separate theory of crime. Rather it is the use of Marxist
ideas to study the phenomena studied by criminologists as part of an integrated study of society as a
whole. Such an approach should draw on already existing Marxist concepts such as the State, Alienation
etc.

2) Crime and criminal justice system should be understood in a criminal historical materialist context,
we should look at their development to their present conditions. Allied to this would be an understanding
that the economic context of a situation would have an impact on what types of crime are prevalent and
how these will be responded to.

3) A marxist approach is moreover a class approach and sees crime to an extent as an expression of the
conflict between classes in society. This is important in several important ways. Firstly, the ruling class
in any each will have more power to define what is crime and to manage responses to crime in their
interest. Due to this, crime will affect different classes differently as will the responses to crime.

4) As in the discipline of Criminology, a Marxist approach to Criminology would not just limit itself to
studying crime as it is defined at the current moment. It would seek to take a definition of crime which
is aligned with the interests of the working class and other oppressed layers in society.

5) A marxist approach is also an internationalist approach. However, crime and laws differ from country
to country. Crime needs to be understood on various levels, from the local, to the regional, the national
and the international.

6) As well as studying crime in ‘normal’ capitalist society, we should also seek to study what happened
to crime and criminal justice during revolutionary periods and also in states that have claimed to be
socialist.

7) We should seek to review how the workers movement has addressed the question in the past, as well
as various intellectuals who have tried to put across arguments from a similar perspective (ie. Foucault,
Jock Young etc.) and build upon these bases. We also need to keep abreast of ‘bourgeois’ criminologists
and evaluate their ideas too.

8) As Marx says in his theses on Feuerbach, "Philosophers have hitherto interpreted the world, point is
to change it". We should analyse crime and the criminal justice system from the point of the working
class. We should put forward ideas of how a socialist/communist society would attempt to solve these
problems, and fight for these to be adopted in the here and now.

9) We should seek to encourage debate and discussion between Marxists (and others) on issues related
to criminology.
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