Crime, a word assigned to an unexpected and undesirable act, done to fulfill any particular desire through an unlawful act by breaking rules, thus causing a sense of terror and disturbance in society. Examples of crime need not be revealed as they are well known to even an infant who has just taken birth. Yet if examples are needed then crimes include stealing, robbing, rape, murder, threatening, frightening, or any such other acts.
New York a city of business, best known for the businessman and the job opportunities available there. With a growing business and growing job opportunities, in the eighteenth century, a group of people caught stealing something when they are asked what they have stolen? They answered something which changed the views of people towards crime: they were caught for the offense of stealing a piece of bread. Many such incidents make people believe that most of the crimes are done to fulfill the basic needs of the individual.
After the world war was over, more preciously world war II, cases of stealing and robbing were flooded all over the news channels. Robbers, in most of the cases, had not stolen anything luxurious: they stole bread, vegetables, and such things which are not valuable enough for getting stolen rather were just less than enough, for survival.
Sociology of Crime: Crime is a social phenomenon
Marxist a great sociologist had developed his own theory of crime. The theory states criminals are not culprits, the offenders who are needed to be convicted are the reasons which made them criminals, no person, on earth has taken birth with a prior intention to do crimes but when he is subjected to the inequalities conferred by society he does his part to complete his part of the responsibility. In other words, crime is the result of structural inequalities which a society presents to his members, intentionally or unintentionally.
An individual when got pressurized under the intra-group conflicting demands takes such steps as a crime. Theories defining crime are not present in Marxist criminology, yet his economic theory has provided sufficient context to define the word “Crime”.
Also Read: Criminology
There are bundles of the list with thousands of names of criminals but when the case study of those criminals is done with a survey they are found helpless. They are left with only one way to complete or fulfill their needs and i.e. to break the laws.
Karl Marx argued that the law is the mechanism by which one social class, usually referred to as the ruling class or aristocrats, exploits all the other classes and keeps them in a position in which they do lack having an adequate quantity of resources. Thus, this school uses a Marxist lens through which the criminalization process can be explained in a different context as it is assumed today. It also explains why some acts are defined as deviant or wrong and eligible for conviction whereas others are not. It is therefore interested in political, state crime, and state-corporate crime.
