Marxism and Criminology

the long version

In 'Criminology and Marxism: A History of Criminal Selectivity', Valeria Vegh Weis rehabilitates the contributions and the methodology of Marx and Engels to analyse crime and punishment through the development of capitalism (15th century to the present) in Europe and the United States. She proposes that the concepts of over-criminalization and under-criminalization show that criminal justice has always been unequal. This unfairness has been necessary, the book argues, for the founding and reproduction of a capitalist society. In a moment in which racial profiling, prosecutorial discretion, and mass incarceration do not find easy answers, Vegh Weis proposes to recover Marx and Engels to identify socio-economic and historic patterns of crime and punishment to suggest transformative changes to criminal justice.