Originally published thirty years ago, Critique of the Legal
Order remains highly relevant for the twenty-first century. Here
Richard Quinney provides a critical look at the legal order in
capitalist society. Using a traditional Marxist perspective, he
argues that the legal order is not intended to reduce crime and
suffering, but to maintain class differences and a social order
that mainly benefits the ruling class.
Quinney challenges modern criminologists to examine their own
positions. As "ancillary agents of power," criminologists provide
information that governing elites use to manipulate and control
those who threaten the system. Quinney's original and thorough
analysis of "crime control bureaucracies" and the class basis of
such bureaucracies anticipates subsequent research and theorizing
about the "crime control industry," a system that aims at social
control of marginalized populations, rather than elimination of the
social conditions that give rise to crime. He forcefully argues
that technology applied to a "war against crime," together with
academic scholarship, is used to help maintain social order to
benefit a ruling class.
Quinney also suggests alternatives. Anticipating the work of
Noam Chomsky, he suggests we must first overcome a powerful media
that provides a "general framework" that serves as the "boundary of
expression." Chomsky calls this the manufacture of consent by
providing necessary illusions. Quinney calls for a critical
philosophy that enables us to transcend the current order and seek
an egalitarian socialist order based upon true democratic
principles. This core study for criminologists should interest
those with a critical perspective on contemporary society.
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