Conflict and Consensus in the Designation of Deviance

Abstract

This paper identifies theoretical and empirical problems in a conflict perspective on crime and deviance. We then propose an alternative apposition of consensus and conflict viewpoints. This new approach is grounded in empirical definitions of the conditions under which consensus and conflict can be said to exist, and is used to generate propositions about attitudes toward empirically identified "consensus" and "conflict crimes." The support found for these propositions encourages a shift from regarding attitudes toward deviance as simple instruments of coercion, to a view in which these attitudes are accorded a wider significance in the combined processes of deviance definition, status allocation and, eventually, the cooptive maintenance of political authority. Where sociologists of past decades (e.g., Friedmann) commonly assumed that behaviors designated as criminal reflected a broad consensus among social groups, recent work asserts that such designations are a consequence of conflict between social groupings, particularly social classes. Although a growing literature surrounds this conflict perspective (Chambliss; Platt, b; Quinney, a, b; Taylor et al. a, b), fundamental theoretical and empirical problems remain unresolved. First, orthodox Marxists (e.g., Hirst; Mugford) note that conflict criminologists neither use Marxism's explanatory units nor appreciate Marxism's tendency to see criminals as a " . . . 'dangerous class,' the social scum, (and) that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society . . . " (Marx and Engels, 44, cited in Hirst, 39). Also neglected by the conflict criminologists are the more recent neo-Marxian and Weberian theoretical innovations of critical (see Mullins and Mullins) and conflict (see Collins, b) sociology. *Order of authorship is alphabetical and does not reflect seniority or priority; the authors share equal responsibility for this paper.