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p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’; color: #000000; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} White-collar crimes which are committed by offenders from middle-class backgrounds (Croall, 2001), and are not reported to the police. Therefore, crime statistics under-represent offenses committed by middle-class and over-represent offenses committed by working-class individuals (Davies et al.
, 2007). From a Marxists point of view, crime is a product of capitalism as the police’s attention is towards the working class (Moore et al. 2009). In Chambliss William’s study of ‘The Saints and the Roughnecks’, he describes the saints as a group of young males from a middle-class background and the roughnecks as a group of working-class young males. It states that the delinquency between the two groups through Chambliss’s perspective was essentially the same, and it gives evidence that middle-class individuals are treated differently by the system as their deviancy is not taken as seriously (Chambliss, 1973).
However, Marxism has been criticized for predominating the economic interests of society and not society as a whole (Marsh,1986). Furthermore, statistics indicate that young people are more likely to engage in crime than older individuals (Moore et al., 2009).
Albert Cohen (1955 cited in Williams and Macshane 2015), suggested that is because of the subcultural theory that causes delinquency within the groups. Different groups have norms and values that may differ from the society’s dominant culture, as he described the deviant acts done by young people are due to ‘status frustration’ (Williams and Macshane, 2015 pg.143) of trying to achieve social status within the group, rather than financial gain. Functionalism described the roots of subcultures as individuals reacting to the pressure of society, Robert Merton called this ‘The Strain Theory’ (Merton, 1938). A theory that states that some individuals which may not have the resources to achieve the goals set out by society, respond to the pressure differential. Some may retreat from society, however, some may rebel, and commit crimes (Marsh, 1986). Merton’s strain theory given an explanation of why individuals may fall into subcultures, however, does not explain why some individuals may conform in society’s norms while others commit criminal acts (Moore et al.
, 2009). Marxism and the subcultural theory, argue that young offenders that have a working-class background, get associated with violence due to class-based frustration (Cohen, 2002). A group that is a threat to society’s values is also ‘folk devil’ (Cohen, 2002) and an example of such subculture are the ‘Skinheads’ which go against society’s norms as a response to the decline of traditional working class (Moore et al., 2009). The media exaggerates when talking about these subcultures or other similar groups and these social groups from the eyes of the people become a threat to society, and due to the way the media portages them, it leads to moral panics (Moore et al.
, 2009).
