ABSTRACT
The classic text in this tradition is Taylor, Walton and Young’s The New Criminology (1973), which provides an impressive summary of previous criminological ideas and a provision of indicators that the authors considered would give rise to a crime-free society. The book is founded on a set of assumptions that can be summarised as follows. First, crime is a two-sided affair – the cause of criminal behaviour and the identification of the power to criminalise. Second, capitalism itself is crime producing – or criminogenic – as crime is a product of the material and social inequalities that are inherent to the logic of capitalism. Third, the only way to eliminate crime is to destroy inequality and thus the power and need to criminalise. Drawing heavily on labelling theory, it was argued that the power to criminalise, make laws and prosecute offenders, or particular groups that are perceived as offenders, was a function of the state. The state was seen to vary in form during different historical periods, and the techniques that it employs to maintain social discipline, ultimately in the interests of the powerful, also varies.
