Welcome back to CSS Breakdown: Book by Book — Season 2. We’re exploring ‘An Introduction to Criminological Theory’ by Roger Hopkins Burke. In Episode 10, we delve deeper into the structural roots of crime with conflict and radical criminological theories.

This episode, based on Chapter 10 of Roger Hopkins Burke’s An Introduction to Criminological Theory, explores the structural and ideological critiques offered by conflict and radical criminological theories.

We examine:

⚔️ Conflict Theories – Inspired by thinkers like Thorsten Sellin and George Vold, these theories argue that law and criminality are shaped by struggles between competing interest groups. Laws reflect the values of the powerful, often leading to the marginalization and criminalization of weaker or minority groups.

📉 Radical Criminology – Drawing heavily from Marxist ideology, this school of thought sees crime as an inevitable outcome of capitalist inequality. According to this view, the criminal justice system functions primarily to protect the interests of the ruling class, framing working-class deviance while overlooking corporate crime and structural violence.

🇬🇧 We also look at the New Criminology movement in the UK, which aimed to build a comprehensive understanding of deviance by integrating individual motivation with wider social structures. While this approach was ambitious, it has been critiqued for being too theoretical or idealistic.

For CSS aspirants preparing for Criminology, Sociology, or Political Science, this episode is a must-listen for understanding how power, inequality, and ideology shape both crime and its control.