UPI Study › Courses › Criminology › Free lessons › Lesson 8.4 Free with a free account
Evaluating Conflict Theories and Their Applications in Contemporary Criminology
Criminology · Chapter 8: Conflict Theories and Restorative JusticeSection 8.4 · lesson 34 of 91video coming soon
← Restorative Justice: Principles, Community Practices, and Case PathwaysNext lesson: Social Development Theories and Glueck's Theory of Juvenile Delinquency →
In this lesson
Scoring the conflict tradition on six criteria and tracing its influence on mainstream criminology.
- Evaluate the conflict tradition against the six criteria for judging a criminological theory
- Explain why testability is the tradition's hardest problem and which research programs address it
- Trace contemporary research questions back to their conflict-tradition origins
- Distinguish conflict claims from consensus claims about the same law
Transcript
Everything said in the video, section by section (1,513 words). Read along, or search it.
Opening Question
Grading a School of Thought
Imagine grading a whole school of thought, the way a teacher grades an essay. Scope, consistency, testability, support. What grade would the conflict tradition earn? Not an A, not an F. The honest answer is uneven, and the reasons are what matter.
Lesson Roadmap
Evaluating the Conflict Tradition as a Whole
This lesson closes the chapter by stepping back and evaluating the conflict tradition as a whole. You will assess it against the six criteria for judging a criminological theory. You will see why testability is its hardest problem, and which research programs have tackled it. You will also trace what the tradition gave mainstream criminology, often without anyone using the conflict label. Finally, you will practice identifying which tradition a described claim belongs to. That skill matters, because the same law can be explained in both ways. The aim is an honest, evidence-based verdict rather than a loyalty to either side. By the end, you should be able to score the tradition, and defend each score with a reason.
Six Criteria
An Uneven Performance Across the Criteria
Subchapter seven point nine introduced six criteria for evaluating a criminological theory. They are consistency, scope, parsimony, testability, empirical support, and policy usefulness. Applied to the conflict tradition as a whole, the performance is uneven. Its scope is broad, reaching from the making of law all the way to the operation of enforcement. Its internal consistency is reasonable within each of its branches. Its parsimony is more debatable. A single premise, that law reflects power, generates a wide range of specific claims. Some of those claims are more economical than others. The tradition's most persistent difficulty lies in testability. And correspondingly, it lies in the strength of its empirical support, since untestable claims cannot gather much.
Research Programs
Three Programs Tackling the Testability Problem
Three research programs have addressed the testability problem directly. Studies of criminalization processes trace the legislative history of specific statutes. They examine which groups advocated for a statute, and which groups opposed it. Studies of enforcement distribution ask whether comparable conduct is treated differently, depending on who is involved. Is it policed, charged, or sentenced differently by social position? That approach connects to the disparity research introduced in Subchapter seven point two. Studies of differential legal outcomes examine case-level results after controlling for the conduct itself. Whatever variation remains is then isolated, and becomes the thing to explain. Each program has produced findings that support some conflict claims, in specific contexts. Still, the broad, general claim remains hard to test at that scale. That is the claim that law as a whole serves concentrated power, and it is difficult to confirm or disconfirm.
Evidence Review
Separating Settled Findings from Contested Ones
It helps to separate what is relatively settled from what is still argued. Findings on enforcement disparity are relatively well supported in specific cases. So are findings about the legislative history of particular statutes. What remains contested is how far those case-specific findings generalize. Do they add up to a claim about the criminal law system as a whole? There is also the question of alternative, non-conflict explanations. Differences in reporting, or in how resources are allocated, could account for some of the same patterns. This lesson states that disagreement without resolving it. Your job is to recognize where the evidence is strong, and where an argument outruns it.
Scorecard
Each Criterion Scored With a Reason
Here is the full scorecard, criterion by criterion, each score with its reason. Consistency is reasonably strong, because each branch applies its premises coherently to its own object. Scope is broad, running from lawmaking through enforcement to sentencing. Parsimony is moderate, since one premise generates many claims of varying economy. Testability is weak at the general level, but stronger for specific claims. Broad claims about power resist direct test, while narrower enforcement claims do not. Empirical support is mixed, because case-specific support is stronger than support for the tradition in general. Policy usefulness is rated as improving, for a clear reason. Left realism and restorative justice both translate critique into practice that agencies can adopt. The evidence behind these scores ranges from criminalization case studies to restorative justice outcome evaluations.
Quick Check
Is This Claim Testable?
Quick check. A paper claims: whenever a law helps the poor, the powerful allowed it, to keep the poor quiet. Is that testable as stated? Pause, and decide.
Check Answer
A Claim No Result Could Refute
No, not as stated. On this reading, a law that helps the poor serves the powerful, and so does one that hurts them. No result could count against it. That's the reverse problem: restate it as a specific, observable prediction that could, in principle, be shown false. For example: relief programs will expand more after periods of organized unrest than after comparable calm periods.
Mainstream Influence
Conflict Questions Become Everyone's Questions
Several lines of inquiry that began in the conflict tradition are now ordinary criminological research. One is attention to how law itself is made, rather than treating it as a given. Another is attention to the decision points in the justice system where discretion operates. A third is the study of corporate and state harm as legitimate criminological subjects. A fourth is the gendering of criminological questions, introduced by feminist criminology. These are now pursued without necessarily being labeled conflict or critical work. That absorption is itself a measure of the tradition's influence. A school of thought has succeeded when its questions become everyone's questions.
Tracing Questions
Four Questions From Origin to Mainstream
Here are four contemporary research questions, each traced from its conflict-tradition origin to its mainstream form. The question of who is policed most intensively now lives on as enforcement disparity research. The question of why a given conduct carries a criminal label has become criminalization process studies. The question of how gender shapes system response is now mainstream gender and justice research. And the question of whether corporate harm is regulated or criminalized has become regulatory and white-collar research. In each case, the question survived while the label faded. That is the pattern to look for when you read current studies in these areas. The research may never cite conflict theory, yet its starting question came from there.
Criticisms
Three Persistent Criticisms and Left Realism
Three criticisms persist despite this influence. The first is difficulty accounting for consensus offenses, conduct that virtually every group condemns. The second is the risk of inferring interest from outcome, rather than demonstrating it independently. The third is the distance between a power-based critique and a concrete, adoptable policy proposal. Left realism responds directly to the third criticism. It insists that any critical account of crime must also produce workable, practical responses. Those responses should reduce harm to disadvantaged communities in the near term. Policy engagement, in other words, is not a lesser concern, subordinate to structural critique. For left realism, a critique that cannot help the people most harmed by crime is incomplete.
Lasting Impact
Restorative Justice as Institutional Export
Conflict-derived questions now run throughout ordinary criminological research. Studies of sentencing disparity draw on conflict-tradition insight. So do studies of corporate and regulatory harm, and studies of how gender shapes system response. Yet these are typically conducted and published as mainstream empirical criminology, rarely under a conflict-theory label. So the tradition's influence is easy to underestimate, if you search only for its name. Restorative justice, from Subchapter eight point three, stands as the tradition's most successful institutional export. Its practices have been adopted, in some form, across many jurisdictions, and those jurisdictions have very different political orientations. That breadth suggests its critique of purely retributive punishment resonated well beyond the tradition that first made it.
Skill Practice
Telling Conflict Claims From Consensus Claims
How can you tell which tradition a claim belongs to? A claim tends to be a conflict claim when it explains a law, or its enforcement, by whose interests it serves. It tends to be a consensus claim when it explains the same law by values, broadly shared across the society. Take a licensing requirement. Saying it exists chiefly to protect an established industry from new competitors is a conflict claim. Saying it exists because the public broadly values consumer protection is a consensus claim. Both may be partially correct. To distinguish them, look at who benefits from the requirement's specific design. The stated purpose alone will not tell you, since nearly every law states a public-spirited purpose.
Comparison
Two Traditions Answering Different Questions
The honest comparative position is that the two traditions largely answer different questions. They are not really competing to answer the same one. And the available evidence does not compel a choice between them at the level of the whole tradition. A law can reflect values widely shared across a society, and still be enforced unevenly, in a way that serves a particular group. Neither observation cancels the other.
Applied Example
Devon Reviews a Regulatory Study
Consider Devon, a journal reviewer evaluating a submitted study. The study claims to test whether a regulatory change served an established industry, at the expense of new market entrants. Devon's task is to ask whether the design could, in principle, have produced a result disconfirming the hypothesis. If the design would have found support regardless of what the data showed, it has not tested anything. That is the testability problem, met at the level of a single study.
Key Takeaways
Broad, Influential, Hard to Test
To recap. Scored honestly, the conflict tradition is broad but hard to test. Its questions went mainstream. Restorative justice is its greatest export. And the two traditions mostly ask different questions. This closes Chapter eight, and Chapter nine turns to the developmental and life-course tradition.
About Criminology at UPI Study
Criminology (Criminology 150) is a self-paced online course of 91 video lessons in 21 chapters, from classical criminology and crime data to theories of crime, victims, policing, courts and corrections. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.
Every lesson transcript is free on pages like this one, and the videos are free with a free UPI Study account. Enrolling adds a practice quiz after each lesson, the graded work and final exam that earn the credit, lifetime access, and an official transcript on completion. UPI Study has helped over 130,000 students with college credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
Enroll now → Course details Download the syllabus Every course with PRO →
Why take it here
Why students take Criminology with UPI Study
Where the credit goes
Universities that work with NCCRS
Criminology carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
Thomas Edison State UniversitySigned partner
University of the PeopleSigned partner
Charter Oak State CollegeSigned partner
Strayer UniversitySigned partner
Columbia Southern UniversitySigned partner
Indiana TechSigned partner
Penn StateWorks with NCCRS
Southern New Hampshire UniversityWorks with NCCRS
SUNYWorks with NCCRS
+many more cooperating universitiesFind my college →Find my college → Not listed? Ask Athena in the corner of this page, or book a 15-minute call.
FAQ
Questions students ask us
About Evaluating Conflict Theories and Their Applications in Contemporary Criminology
Why is testability the hardest problem for conflict theories in criminology?
What research programs have tried to test conflict theory claims?
How can you tell a conflict claim from a consensus claim about the same law?
How would you grade the conflict tradition on the six criteria for judging a theory?
About the Criminology course
How many college credits is Criminology?
How much does Criminology cost and what is included?
Which universities accept UPI Study credits?
How long does Criminology take?
How are the exams done?
How do my credits reach my college?
Ready for the full course? Earn 3 credits in Criminology.
91 video lessons, a quiz after each one, and the graded work that earns the credit. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.
3 credits · NCCRSEnroll →