ABSTRACT
Critical criminologists were to focus their attention on both the crimes of the powerful and those of the less powerful. Crime was associated with broad processes of the political economy that affect both groups but in quite different ways. Critical criminologists have argued that crime rates are far from being a perfect measure of the actual amount of criminality in society – being more a measure of the level of police activity – and thus can create a misleading image of horrific rises in certain types of crime. Critical criminologists have thus argued that working-class crime is insignificant when compared to the ‘crimes of the powerful’ that have largely gone unpunished. The crimes of the powerful have escape criminalization and stigmatization. The policy implications of critical criminology are thus very similar to the earlier variants with the major priority being a significant restructuring of society to address the inherent inequalities based on socio-economic exclusion, gender and ethnic discrimination.
