Any Marxist writings on crime?

[RadioRaheem84]

Have there been any Marxist or left wing writings on crime, organized or petty?

Any comparisons between the informal and formal sector and how one set of business becomes legitimate and the other illegitimate?

I think this is one topic I never explored. I am sure there has to be some as Mao had to deal with the Triads and such.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't know of any but I'd be interested too. I'm sure there is an "academic-marxist" school of thought in criminology, but I would be very interested in reading a sort of ground-level activist view of the subject and history rather than an academic one (not that it can't be scholarly and well-researched, I'm just not interested in an overly abstract take that you tend to get in sociology/criminology).

[The Jay]

I think that criminology already has some theories that take the structure of society into account. It probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch to make the jump to marxian criminology.

[blake 3:17]

Marx was a not a bad criminologist himself. There is some good stuff from Marxists and anarchists in academia.

I'd meant to post about this site earlier, but now is perfect: http://radicalcriminology.org/

There's also an online journal you can just click to here: http://journal.radicalcriminology.org/index.php/rc

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Angela Davis has some great work on this, especially "Are Prisons Obsolete?" Michelle Alexander as well, although she's not a Marxist by any means, does a great job of looking into issues of racism in the criminal justice system in "The New Jim Crow."

[blake 3:17]

One of the things I'd recommend is Ernest Mandel's Delightful Murder. It's a short book and very readable. Mandel's main vice was reading murder mysteries. The book puts a very interesting frame on many of the questions posed by the OP.

And he has very high regards for Patricia Highsmith!

A book I haven't read, but has been recommended by an anarchist friend is The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia.

[TiberiusGracchus]

The school of left-realist criminology is not marxist but quite sound I believe. Jock Young and John Lea are central proponents.

I can't post links yet but google it.