Neo-Marxist perspective of crime – revision notes with evaluative points
- Stuart Hall’s ‘full social theory of deviance’ looked at the idea of the Black mugger as the ‘enemy within’ as a scapegoat for other social ills of the period
- Wave after wave of strike action brought about civil unrest and the subsequent challenge to social order and the power of the state
- Stuart Hall’s point is by making the Black mugger someone to fear, it solidified a fractured UK society around the state
- Subsequently society allowed the state to randomly stop and search Black youths
- This labelling of Black youths led to a process of deviancy amplification
- Therefore Hall’s idea are more comprehensive as they merge labelling, societal reaction, moral panics and deviancy amplification into a complete ‘social theory of deviance’ as pointed out by Taylor et al
Paul Gilroy took up this social theory of deviance in his book ‘There ain’t no black in the Union Jack’
- Gilroy rejected the view that Blacks’ resorted to crime due to poor socialisation,
- he said it was a result of ethnic minorities defending themselves against an unjust society
- Gilroy saw the resultant riots in Toxteth and Southall in 1981 as political acts – this links well to Taylor et al’s point 3 above
- The riots did remove of the ‘sus’ laws brought in by 1970s ‘muggings
sociologytwynham.com 
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