Do We Need a New Definition of “Crime”?

How the Bourgeoise Class Dictates our Perception of Crime

This article was heavily inspired by this week’s podcast of Citations Needed, an exceptional media-critique podcast everyone should check out. This particular episode focused on the ways in which we perceive crime, how media covers crime, and the inflated statistics used to increase police funding and avoid the actual causes of crime. My attempt here will be to flesh out the sorts of crimes that are disregarded in our current definition and explain how that benefits the ruling class.

crime — an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law.

Above is the dictionary definition of the word, with some excellent hints as to where the issues lies. “Prosecuted by the state” and “punishable by law” are both societal constructs to an extent: agreed upon actions that require punishment in the form of fines, jailtime, and/or state sanctioned violence. However, the people who have decided these particular laws have by and large been a group of capital owning (white) men with an interest in preserving the status quo. And that status quo is an ever increasing and growing market with limited state interference. A market that makes decisions and solves problems simply through its supply and demand nature. I’d like to expand upon a section Nima and Adam of Citations Needed spent a bit of time on, with the use of some figures to make the case that we are using a very narrow definition of “crime”:

According to a study published in February 2021, crime throughout 2017 is estimated to have cost the US 2.6 trillion dollars. This is the most recent data I can find. I’d be unsurprised if 2020, a year plagued by a global pandemic with limited support from the federal government, extremely high unemployment and homelessness wasn’t markedly higher. Still, the US will repeatedly arm and fund the police state instead of addressing the root cause of the majority of crimes: material conditions. People who are better taken care of financially, mentally and physically commit less crimes. However, let’s now look at a few things that don’t qualify as a crime but are even more costly and devastating here in the States and abroad:

Wage theft: Economists estimate that wage theft is so pervasive, and so unenforced that is costs US workers $15 billion per year, a number far higher than physical theft each year.

Forced Labor/Imperialist Exploitation: In 2014, the International Labor Organization released an estimate, claiming that the US makes over $150 billion in profit annually from forced labor in other countries, particularly developing nations.

Illegal Wars: The US has spent over 6 trillion dollars on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and parts of Asia since 2001, an illegal war based on misinformation surrounding WMDs. Of course, the real nature and reasoning behind many of these conflicts was over oil and resources, a way to generate profits for the barons and conglomerates that so often get ignored in the conversation surrounding crime.

Discrimination: How much in wages is lost each year due to workplace discrimination limiting the opportunities of marginalized community members? How does this create a feedback loop that needs to be examined as it relates to the textbook definition of crime? These figures are extremely hard to find, but we can look to the realities of the black community to this day as they continue to struggle for liberation and equality.

Environmental destruction: Although this is tough to actually quantify as well, we can imagine how it effects future generations, who will have to bear the financial weight of our crimes against the environment. It’s important to be critical of the fact that we are currently doing next to nothing to punish the perpetrators of these horrific crimes: crimes that not only kill and exploit the current inhabitants of Earth, but that could lead to widespread disaster in the coming decades. Disaster that will, as always, disproportionately effect the working class over the capital owning 1%. Why are we not jailing, fining and regulating this group of people?

These are just a few examples that work to illustrate the skew that law enforcement and the judicial system have created: one that benefits and turns a blind eye to their actions and hammers the working/lower class, putting them in an opportune position to be exploited for their labor. Many of the inmates that receive longer, harsher sentences for committing “crimes” are subjected to slave labor.

As you can see, it turns into a remarkably violent feedback loop. We need immediate policy actual and a radical expansion of the definition of crime in the United States and abroad, so that we can actually work to address the root causes of crime and begin to move towards a more just, equitable, and non-violent society…one that doesn’t look at the homeless as a problem but a symptom…one that looks at textbook crimes as products of a desperate and systematically racist and classist system…one that rectifies our past and present to secure a future worth living.

Thanks for reading, and follow if you are interested in further discussions of these sorts of topics. Comment your thoughts below!