Explaining accommodation and resistance in Kentucky

A primary tenet of critical theory is that capitalism and economicinequality produces crimes of resistance and crimes of accommodation andthus excessive social control. Although most tests of this paradigm focus onthe urban poor or people of color as oppressed groups, this paper addressesKentucky counties as aggregate groups suffering from industrial exploitation,economic oppression and excessive social control. We hypothesize that thecapitalist exploitation and colonization of the region's natural resources willlead to crimes of resistance, or marijuana cultivation, and crimes ofaccommodation, or child maltreatment. Findings reveal that exploitativeeconomic conditions within Kentucky counties increase marijuanaproduction while only physical exploitation of the labor force affects childmaltreatment.