Sociology of crime through structural conflict perspective

¶ … sociology of crime primarily using the "structural conflict perspective." It reviews Karl Marx's ideas of capitalism from which the "structural conflict perspective" is derived. Further this paper gives the reader a look at the war against terrorism and the laws formulated to 'fight terror'. An analysis of the war on terror brings out to us as to who the real beneficiaries are and who are the people at loss.

To study criminology one has to understand the root problem. For this an adequate knowledge for the cause of crime must be obtained. When one understands the reason why crime is committed, then it becomes easier to deal with it. Crime exists in society and has been recorded in the earliest historical records. There are many ways to study crime. One of them is the "structural conflict perspective," the roots of which lie in the Marxist theory of capitalism.

KARL MARX AND CAPATILISM

Ignored during his lifetime, Karl Marx's ideas received fame and recognition in the socialist movement after his death in 1883. Karl Marx wrote "The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his production increases in power and range. The worker becomes an ever cheaper commodity the more commodities he creates. With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion to the devaluation of the world of men. Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity -- and does so in the proportion in which it produces commodities generally." [The History Guide]

One of the points on which the nature of capitalism rests is "maximizing profits." Marxist theory suggests that profits should be maximized by selling or providing services at costs that are greater than the cost of manufacture. He suggests that such a goal should be achieved by creating a surplus value. Surplus value is where the capitalist uses the hard work provided by the labor and pays a fraction of the actual value that the labor adds to the raw materials. Hence if the labor adds $100 to the raw materials by making a product out of them, the capitalist pays him for example $25. Further another important aspect of this is given in the example below:

'A person in business for herself making picture frames pays $10 for the material to make each frame, and sells each for $20. Suppose further that she can comfortably make one frame in one hour. She needs $40 a day for the necessities to live on (food, clothing, and shelter), so she only needs to work 4 hours a day to make a living. This is called simple commodities production.

In order for the capitalist to live she still needs at least $40 a day. To get this in profit she will have to work her employee at least 8 hours a day. In order for the employee to live he also needs $40, and therefore he has to work the capitalist's required 8 hours a day. Where she had to work only 4 hours a day to live through simple commodities production, he has to work 8 hours a day under capitalist production to do the same. This is because his labor is now supporting both himself and the capitalist." [Frank Elwell]

STRUCTURAL CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE

Any peace process can lead to two scenarios. One would be negative peace and the other would be positive peace. Positive peace would be the absence of structural violence. When structural causes exist in society, they can be made worse by specific triggers. They then take form of crime and terrorism. Such structural causes range from bad governance (or an illegitimate government), ethno politics, lack of political participation to unfair access to wealth and lack of equal social and economic opportunities. A precursor of crime and terrorism is where one class of the population becomes the sole beneficiary of any economic, social or political benefit.

United States has a diverse population with increasing immigrants from all over the world. They are a blend of Chinese, Pakistanis, Indians, Iranian, etc. When the population exists of such a variety, they become hard to govern. Such a condition leads to bad governance -- a precursor of conflict. Once any form of trigger puts society into the hands of terrorism, it becomes close to impossible to single out any one cause for the conflict. This makes it harder to deal with such a conflict situation.

Social class systems have a direct relation to crime within a society because of the social control of a capitalist government. Such a theory analyses why laws are made and enforced and why the same laws are broken.

'The defining characteristic of any society, from a Conflict perspective, is inequality. Marxists, for example, argue that economic inequality is at the heart of all societies. In basic terms, some people will have more than their fair share of a society's economic resources (money) and others will consequently have less than their fair share." [Conflict Theories]

When such inequalities are given birth to in society then crime rates increase. People use immoral means to acquire their goals which include a better financial status. Conflict is rooted in the economic sphere where everyone fights for resources. People use their power to gain benefits. Power is not possessed by the lower or middle class but only by the upper class. It is this group of people who use all means possible to secure their self-interest. They formulate laws and implement it in such a way that they themselves remain the beneficiaries. This trend is also seen today when one analyses the "anti-terrorism" laws that are created, to see who the beneficiaries are.

TERRORISM

Terrorism is any calculated use of violence against the civilians to achieve political, religious or ideological goals. This is done through instilling fear, intimidation or coercion. Today there exist many such organizations that conduct terrorism all over the world. Even the internet is being used for their means to spread terrorism by propaganda or cyber terrorism. "Today, terrorists give orders, plan attacks, and even send funds via online message boards and chat rooms. Terrorist sites also serve as virtual training grounds, offering tutorials on making bombs, firing surface-to-air-missiles, shooting at U.S. soldiers, and sneaking into Iraq from abroad. The internet also provides a venue for terrorists to disseminate their message, experts say." [Council on Foreign Relations]

Since the recent past terrorism has been associated with organizations like the Italian Red Brigade, Palestine Liberation Organization, Tamil Tigers and some members of U.S. "militia" organizations. There are also some organizations whose aims are of a religious nature which include the extremist Christians opposing abortion in the United States and the extremist Muslim organizations like Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Japan's Aum Shinrikyo and the extremist Sikhs and Hindus in India are also examples of such organizations.

Al-Qaeda feels that the United States wants to become the sole global leader. It speaks of the United States giving unstinted support to states like Israel which has massacred thousands of Palestinians to date. They say that the United States has anti-Islamic clandestine agendas. Bin Laden, the leader of the organization knows that the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia (a land holy to the Muslims) is for the reason to acquire domination over the oil reserves. United States in the other hand needs to maintain their control over the oil fields and ensure that the American companies are involved in oil extraction for the fulfillment of their capitalistic goals. Bin Laden however wishes that the United States should leave Saudi lands and thus in order to achieve this, he distorts the meaning and essence of "Jihad" that is taught by Islam. Jihad in itself means to struggle and thus a man struggling to be a better human is "Jihad." However Bin Laden distorts the meaning of this term and states that America is anti-Islamic and needs to be destroyed and thus Muslims should do a struggle against it. This struggle however is defined by Bin Laden to be "conflict" or "war" and he says that all means can be used to conduct this war including the killing of innocent civilians -- something which Islam condemns.

The United States of America is one of the most, in fact the most powerful nation in the world today. They have the most elite military force with an exceptional technologically advanced weapons system. Organizations like Al-Qaeda have a considerable military strength with rudimentary weapons systems. Both are nothing but capitalists who use immoral means to gain benefits and try to achieve their goals. Al-Qaeda portrays to have a religious agenda and seeks to acquire more sophisticated weapons to achieve their goals whereas the United States sells weapons all over the world to improve their economic standing. This exporting of weapons creates instability and insecurity all over the world very much similar to what actions of organizations like Al-Qaeda do. Although both end up doing the same, one speaks about tolerance while the other talks about hate.

FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM

A similar crime was witnessed on September 11, 2001. The United States of America saw the sad death of thousands of innocent people just because some people wanted to acquire their goals. This followed an economic crisis and many innocent civilians faced unnecessary loss of jobs. The political environment has ever since been changing constantly and the United States went into war against Afghanistan. After Afghanistan there was a pre-emptive action on Iraq against the regime of Saddam Hussein who was accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction.

With terrorism becoming more organized, the law enforcement bodies try to formulate more laws to provide security to their citizens. There have been many congressional debates on the Antiterrorism and the Immigration policies of the United States. The immigration laws have been made stricter with a better screening of who comes in and who does not. Recently the citizens of some countries working in the United States were also asked to register themselves. This was a step to collect data about the people living and working in the United States.

When the government of the United States wanted to go to war with Afghanistan, it began its propaganda via the media instilling fear in the hearts of the Americans. People were told that they are under constant threat by the Muslim terrorists; different states were put under different colors denoting the level of danger. With such steps, psychologically the Americans developed a negative view of Muslims in totality rather than understanding that terrorists belong to no religion whether their goals are religious or not. To gain support for their war on terror, the government should be given the complete credit of successfully causing a racial problem in the United States once again. A considerable portion of the population of the United States feels that the Muslims should be thrown out or that the Arabs should have special identity cards and should be under observation at all times.

They formulated laws against terrorism like increased screening at airports which have led to further racial and ethnic profiling. Such laws have been the cause of increased racial profiling in the United States. Law enforcement agencies have been given complete authority to deal with "suspects" in any way they feel necessary and thus they have interrogated, detained, verbally and physically abused many Muslim immigrants for unspecified reasons. Giving such autonomy to law enforcement bodies will only prove hazardous to the United States itself in the long run.

The government has authorized the monitoring of mosques even without any indication of criminal activities. They detain some as material witnesses due to the lack of evidence to indict them. Such actions and steps damage the role of the United States that otherwise advocates democracy and freedom.

THE BENEFICIARIES

The war on terror has proved good for the business of industries. The Texas-based Lockheed Martin received the biggest military contract in the history of the United States of America. It was a $20 billion contract to build 3000 stealth super sonic fighter jets for the military. President George Bush in his January 30, 2002 state of the union address labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil" and only a couple of days later he purported a $48 billion increase in the military budget. This act by President Bush gives him a reason to increase the military spending which will enrich the military contractors from whom enormous purchases will be made.

Also interesting is how the interim President installed in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai was previously a consultant to UNOCAL, the same United States oil company that is to build an oil pipeline through Afghanistan.

An important component of the growing political crisis within the United States is the relationship between Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton Corp., the Fortune 500 oil services and construction company Cheney headed between 1995 and 2000. In addition to accusations of accounting fraud, recent reports have detailed the lucrative relationship between Halliburton and the American military. Cheney's old firm has been a major beneficiary of the expansion of U.S. military operations around the world in the aftermath of September 11.

Over the past several months, the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) has been involved in a $16 million project to construct cells at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for alleged Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan. In Uzbekistan, KBR has a contract to run camps at the Khanabad air base, which has been used extensively in the Central Asian war. Within Afghanistan, the company has been hired to provide services at the Force Provider military camp. [Joseph Kay]

After the war in Iraq was over, American corporate involved in rebuilding Iraq have been the major beneficiaries as a result of this war. This rebuilding includes things like reconstructing schools, hospitals, road networks, water systems and bridges. Major companies given the contract to rebuild Iraq include Bechtel Group Inc., Halliburton Co., Stevedoring Services of America, Abt Associates Inc., SkyLink Air and Logistic Support (USA) Inc., International Resources Group, Research Triangle Institute and Creative Associates International Inc.

The world's second largest source of oil is Iraq with the majority of subterranean oil untapped. The United States' oil corporations are to develop the oil industry to such an extent where it can become a major source of oil for the world. It will be a major rival to Saudi Arabia.

War was waged against two countries. The people who died were soldiers and innocent civilians and the ones who will benefit from this are not the American citizens but the corporations. They will mend money while families weep over their lost ones. The theory of capitalism is put to practical use here. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has spent $600,000 of the taxpayers' money and the Bush administration has sought $8million through 2005.