Explain how the social context of the mid-1960s led to the rise of conflict theories.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Starting in the mid-1960s, however, scholars increasingly sought to identify how conflict and power were inextricably involved in the production of crime and in the inequities found in the criminal justice system. They were influenced by the changing context of American society. During the 1960s and into the 1970s, the United States experienced contentious movements to achieve civil rights and women’s rights. Americans witnessed riots in the street, major political figures assassinated, widespread protests over the Vietnam War culminating with students shot down at Kent State University, and political corruption highlighted most poignantly by the Watergate scandal. These events sensitized a generation of criminologists to social and criminal injustices that compromised the American dream’s promise of equality for all and that led to the abuse of state power. Given this jaundiced view of American society, the new brand of theorizing that they developed was called critical criminology.