Explaining accommodation and resistance in Kentucky

A primary tenet of critical theory is that capitalism and economic inequali ty produces crimes of resistance and crimes of accommodation and thus exces sive social control. Although most tests of this paradigm focus on the urba n poor or people of color as oppressed groups, this paper addresses Kentuck y counties as aggregate groups suffering from industrial exploitation, econ omic oppression and excessive social control. We hypothesize that the capit alist exploitation and colonization of the region's natural resources will lead to crimes of resistance, or marijuana cultivation, and crimes of accom modation, or child maltreatment. Findings reveal that exploitative economic conditions within Kentucky counties increase marijuana production while on ly physical exploitation of the labor force affects child maltreatment.