Understanding Conflict Theories in Criminology

This assignment delves into conflict theories within criminology. It examines how these theories view crime as a product of societal conflicts and power imbalances. Key concepts explored include social control, law as a tool for dominant groups, and deviant behavior as a reaction to inequality. The text emphasizes the role of critical criminology in highlighting the influence of hegemonic attitudes on criminalization.

Running head: CRIMINAL JUSTICE
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Criminology
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Institution:
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Introduction
Deviation as social behavior and delinquency as a constant phenomenon in society has been
debated historically and its consequent social control. The conception of the natural crime of
Rafael Garazo who in his book that gives the name to that nascent discipline "The
Criminology" published in 1885, in which he commented referring to the dangerousness of
the human being: Fear is the psychic, subjective activity, which progresses from a weakness
to a lack of feelings of piety and probity, which makes it increase in degrees of danger and
social maladjustment (Gerstenfeld, 2006).
Theories of Social Control Surge towards the 1960s several theories of control, which attempt
to explain crime on the basis of pressures (situations of conflict, poverty and social
repression, inequality combined with inciters as attractive objects for crime, subcultures that
reinforce the delinquent attitude, influence of the media that favor criminal behavior and
individual impulses or frustrations. "Reckless called this incomplete discourse the theory of
containment, for that the individual had elements or forces that contain people so that they do
not commit crime: self-control ability, education, attachment to moral standards and the
construction of a good self-concept. Other theorists such as Sykes and Matza elaborated the
theory of neutralization and drift, given that most young people do not rejects frontally the
conventional social norms, when transgressed they can resort to a series of mechanisms of
neutralization or exculpation: they deny the responsibility, for not being able to do it better;
deny the victim disqualifying it, appeal to undue loyalties, defense of the need for their
conduct, defense of a value, denial of justice; the "world does it," etc (Healey, 2006).

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The most widely spread and studied Theory of Social Control or Social Links of Travis
Hirschi, formulated in 1969 in his book "Causes of Delinquency". After a field study on
juvenile delinquency, based on information collected from the youth themselves, their
parents, school and other people close to them, concludes that the genesis of criminal
behavior would not be found in the acquisition of disvalor and criminal rules, but in non-
existence - or rupture - with social ties that are contrary to delinquency: "Criminal actions
occur when the attachment of individuals to society is weak or broken." Thus, Durkehim's
postulates when he defined anomie as referring to "detachment from norms, loss of social
solidarity, weakening of collective consciousness, moral convictions, then generates social
disintegration" (Inciardi, 2010).
Theory of Consensus If we collect the above, we will have a series of positions, tendencies
or theories that start from the thesis that moral and legal normative integration would
guarantee social harmony; that individual and collective attachment to moral foundations,
values, principles and legal norms, is essential to maintain a coherence in the social fabric.
The positive differential association according to Sutherlan; containment forces such as
education and the internalization of values as Reckless's contention theory states, in order to
form an adequate self-concept that would dissociate us from or depart from criminogenic
factors as Hirschi put it well in his theory of social bonds. In such a way that society as
projected by Durkehim must be amalgamated with moral values as the only dykes of
contention that would alienate the social individual from criminal behavior (Merino,
2013).This is called Theory of Social Consensus, a discourse that is postulated as the union of
criteria to establish the behaviors or behaviors conventionally accepted in the society, as well
as the actions that must be criminalized.
The social order is therefore based on consensus and the law represents the protection of the
basic values of the whole national structure or system (status quo). Thus the State guarantees

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in pluralistic society a neutral application of laws, putting the general interests of society
before individuals or groups. Criminology would then examine (as it has been doing) the
causes of criminal behavior that separate certain people from the consensus. For these
individuals are the minority elements of society that do not adapt to the guidelines that
society and the state seek for harmonious coexistence, and consequently develop a
pathological reality that must be repressed (Merino, 2013).
The informal social control of crime has been an efficient mechanism until the mid-
twentieth century, and given the social reaction: deprivation status, labeling or labeling
approach, marked social injustices, wild differences in the redistribution of wealth ,
exploitation and class consciousness, this mechanism has worn away and there is only formal
social control, a way in which the consensus society has taken refuge to keep distance with
the stigmatized subject as a delinquent potential. It is through laws, prosecution, police,
courts and detention centers how control is exercised over individuals or social groups
considered potential offenders, because of their social class stigma fundamental.IV.-
Theories of Conflict (Radical Criminology, Critical Criminology and New Criminology)
The social control of criminal behavior within the framework of the class struggle, the
confrontation between sectors and diverse social groups with conflicting or conflicting
interests has been included. From Enrico Ferri in 1884 to Karl Marx at the same time: The
first came to the conclusion that it was not poverty itself but the unequal distribution of
wealth that determines the level of delinquency; and the second explained and quoted
verbatim: "In the social production of his life men enter into certain relationships (Consensus
theory, 2012). Necessary, independent of their will ... All these relations of production
constitute the economic structure of society, the real basis on which a legal and political
building rises and respond to certain forms of social consciousness.

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The productive type of material life ultimately determines the vital social, political,
and spiritual process. It is not the consciousness of man that determines his being, but,
conversely, it is his social being that conditions his conscience. "Marx's arguments have been
projected forcefully throughout the twentieth century, and although he does not propose a
program of criminal policy American authors such as Chambliss in 1975 and Quinney in
1972, also Taylos, Walton and Young in 1973 (The New Criminology), structured a Marxist
criminological thought: they impel the latter as a premise: "Power uses all resources and
mechanisms within its reach, including the law itself and justice, to strengthen and maintain
its dominant position in society (Consensus theory, 2012).
This would imply that non-dominant groups would become preferential objectives of
legal control " The law is merely the ideological facade of universal armed justice to protect
the powerful in the pursuit of their own private interest" In those seventies XX, arises within
the framework of the theories of the conflict, new criticisms of Traditional Criminology, as
an explanatory causal science paraphrasing Jimmy Steward; and a good number of
criminologists are exposed to the analysis of social control and justice mechanisms as a
paradigm of Critical Criminology, a new epistemological tendency of criminology, without
implying a new science; because it is simply a vision of the problem of social conflict that
adheres to the defense of the dominated classes as victims criminalized and repressed by the
Criminal Law, instrument of the State and the dominant groups of the Society (Eagly, Baron
& Hamilton, 2010). Critical criminology considers that it is society and the mechanisms of
social control, which criminalize and seek to maintain positions of social and political
privilege. The tendency is to criticize this tendency to marginalize those who disagree with
the ideology of those who hold power and manipulate criminal law, with consequent
structural injustices. It also criticizes the position of Traditional Criminology to consider the
offender as an abnormal and pathological individual; and not a normal citizen that social

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pressures or circumstances have influenced him as criminal factors and delinquency (Eagly,
Baron & Hamilton, 2010). Criminology Critical distance away from the formalism of the
Classical School, in which the offender is simply the individual who violates the law, and
who defines the offense with the formal logic that it is a legal fact; and the positivists of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries on the analytical observation of the delinquent: The
classics worried about crime, the positivists for the delinquent.
Thus Critical Criminology seeks to make the analysis not of the individual, but of
society, criminality, and even more of the structures of power. Some essayists argue that it is
a question of passing from a micro-criminology to a macro-criminology, seeing the whole to
observe as incident of in individuals; correct society, make it fair, correcting social
inequalities. The method of this modern tendency is eminently sociological (Stroebe,
Kruglanski, Bar-Tal & Hewstone, 2012). It is interesting to observe that for critical
criminology, the figure of social control is not merely a response to crime, but a factor
generating deviant behavior. In short, this trend seems to mark that society or its dominant
groups are by their hegemonic attitude criminalizing, defining or formulating the crime; and
that the delinquent is the dominated. This seems to be the perspective of the two tendencies
of Critical Criminology: the labeling approach and Marxist thought. Some Postulates of
Conflict Theories Consider that crime is a function of existing conflicts in any society,
without which such conflicts must necessarily harmful or dysfunctional. The social order of a
plural society does not rest on a supposed consensus, but on dissent. Since conflict is inherent
in society itself, conflict in the present era is antagonistic and conflictive; part of the dynamic
evolution of the peoples.v Conflict is functional, since it generally contributes to positive
social change; conflict does not express a pathological reality, but rather the structure and
dynamics of the social process. Law represents the values and interests of the ruling classes,
not the general interests of society. Criminal justice integrates the mechanism of social

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control and manage the application of the laws in accordance with the interests of the ruling
classes. Deviant behavior is a reaction to the unequal and unjust distribution of power and
wealth in society. To conclude I must again mention this Spanish author who does the
following reflection on the theories of conflict: In general it can be admitted that the most
positive contribution of theories of conflict lies in the critical demystification of the
"consensual" paradigm. With remarkable realism they have emphasized that modern society
is a plural society and therefore necessarily "conflictive". And that conflict can contribute
decisively to integration and social change, as the consensus itself. A certain conflict can
explain certain manifestations of criminality, that seems indisputable. Now every criminal
fact must not be relegated to a conflict existing in the social system; this would be an
unfounded generalization (Davies, Croall & Tyrer, 2010).

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References
Consensus theory. (2012). [Place of publication not identified].
Davies, M., Croall, H., & Tyrer, J. (2010). Criminal justice. New York: Pearson Longman.
Eagly, A., Baron, R., & Hamilton, V. (2010). Social psychology of group identity and social
conflict. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Gerstenfeld, P. (2006). Criminal justice. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press.
Healey, J. (2006). Criminal justice. Thirroul, N.S.W.: Spinney Press.
Inciardi, J. (2010). Criminal justice. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Merino, N. (2013). Criminal justice. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.
Stroebe, W., Kruglanski, A., Bar-Tal, D., & Hewstone, M. (2012). The social psychology of
intergroup conflict. Berlin [u.a.]: Springer.