The Left Realist Perspective on Race, Class, and Gender 1

Prior to the early 1980s, most critical criminologists ² focused primarily on two issues: (1) the extent, sources, and control of crimes of the powerful (e.g., white-collar and corporate crime) and (2) the influence of class relations on definitions of crime and the administration of justice. Their empirical and theoretical work on these problems played a key role in sensitizing the broader criminological community to the fact that "suite crime" is much more economically, physically, and environmentally harmful than any type of street crime, such as mugging, armed robbery, and stranger-to-stranger assault. ³ These scholars have also demonstrated that there is no "justice for all." For example, a large empirical literature clearly shows that First Nations people and African Americans are much more likely to be arrested, convicted, and incarcerated than members of the dominant culture who commit the same crimes (DeKeseredy and Mac Lean, 1990; Lynch and Patterson, 1991; Mann, 1993; Stevens, 1991).