Radical criminology is the name of the Marxist current of the 1970s, whose founding text is The New Criminology by Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young (1973): crime is explained by the class structure of capitalism, criminal law defends the interests of those in charge, and a criminology worth the name should aim to transform society. Critical criminology is the umbrella term covering that current and all those sharing its suspicion of the power to define and punish: conflict theory, abolitionism, feminist, postcolonial, cultural and green criminology, or left realism. All radical criminology is critical; not all critical criminology is radical.
| Critical criminology | Radical criminology | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A broad set of currents | One specific current within that set |
| Period | From the 1970s to today | Peak between 1968 and the late 1970s |
| Reference names | Baratta, Christie, Hulsman, Chesney-Lind, Cohen, as well as the radicals | Taylor, Walton and Young; Quinney; Chambliss; the Schwendingers |
| Theoretical basis | Plural: Marxism, interactionism, feminism, Foucault | Marxism |
| Axis of analysis | Power in all its forms: class, gender, race, state | Social class and the mode of production |
| Proposal | Varied: from reforms to prison abolition | Transformation of capitalist society |
// What they shareThe common ground
They share the question, which is what separates them from traditional criminology. They do not ask why someone breaks the law, but why the law is what it is: who decides which behaviours are crimes, why some are pursued and others tolerated, and who benefits from the result. Both inherit from labeling the idea that crime is a definition and add what it lacked, which is power. And both point to the same blind spot: the harm done by the powerful —corporations, states— is rarely called crime.
// Where they partThe differences that matter
Whole and part. This is the basic difference. Radical criminology is one of the branches, the oldest and for a time the dominant one. Critical criminology also includes currents that are not Marxist or openly dispute it: for much of feminist criminology, explaining crime by class alone leaves out half the problem.
The offender. The radical criminology of the seventies tended to see him as a victim of the system or, in its more romantic versions, as a primitive rebel. That reading was criticised from within: Jock Young, one of the 1973 authors, later called it "left idealism" and founded left realism against it.
Unity. Radical criminology has a single framework and is therefore easy to summarise. Critical criminology has none: it is a shared orientation, not a theory. That is why people speak of critical criminologies in the plural.
// One villain, two readingsRobin Hood
Robin Hood is the offender radical criminology was looking for. He robs those who have turned their privilege into law, the Sheriff of Nottingham enforces a justice that protects the nobles' property and punishes the hungry man's poaching, and theft is at once survival and protest. He is the figure the historian Eric Hobsbawm called the "social bandit", and radical criminology read him as class rebellion. Critical criminology in the broad sense asks more questions, and some are awkward for the legend. Who decided that hunting in the king's forest was a crime? But also: who do real flesh-and-blood bandits actually rob, the rich or whoever comes down the road? Left realism, which is critical too, would point out that the thief's usual victim is another poor person.
The mistake everyone makes
Using "critical" and "radical" as plain synonyms. In many English-language textbooks of the seventies they were, but today the right answer is that radical criminology is a branch of critical criminology. Another common trap: placing Jock Young only in radical criminology. He co-wrote The New Criminology in 1973 and a decade later led left realism, which was born criticising it.
Which villains each one explains
Case files the archive analyses with each theory. The number is the total; the list shows the first ones.
Sources · further reading
- Taylor, I., Walton, P. & Young, J. (1973). The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
- Quinney, R. (1977). Class, State, and Crime. David McKay.
- Baratta, A. (1982). Criminologia critica e critica del diritto penale. Il Mulino.
Theory questionsFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between critical and radical criminology?
Radical criminology is the Marxist current of the 1970s, which explains crime and criminal law through the class structure of capitalism. Critical criminology is the general term that includes that current and others —feminist, abolitionist, cultural, postcolonial, left realism— united by the analysis of the power to define and punish.
What was The New Criminology?
It is the book by Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young published in 1973, which reviewed all earlier criminological theories and proposed a Marxist-based "fully social theory of deviance". It is regarded as the founding text of British radical criminology.
Which currents are part of critical criminology?
Among others, conflict theory, radical or Marxist criminology, penal abolitionism, feminist, cultural, green and postcolonial criminology, and left realism.
Where and when did critical criminology begin?
In two almost simultaneous centres. In Britain, the National Deviancy Conference, founded in 1968 by young sociologists such as Stan Cohen, Ian Taylor and Jock Young as a breakaway from the national criminology conference at Cambridge. In the United States, the Berkeley School of Criminology, where the Union of Radical Criminologists was founded in 1972, with Tony Platt and Herman and Julia Schwendinger. The university closed the school in 1976.
What is Latin American critical criminology?
It is the branch that brought the critical approach to bear on Latin American reality, with the Latin American Group for Comparative Criminology, born at the University of Zulia in Venezuela, at its core. Its key works are “América Latina y su criminología” (1981), by Rosa del Olmo; “Criminología de la liberación” (1987), by Lola Aniyar de Castro; and “En busca de las penas perdidas” (1989), by Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni. Alessandro Baratta’s textbook appeared in Spanish in 1986.