The issues of ideology and State autonomy with regard to law and social control are also explored, raising doubts about the relative autonomy thesis and stressing the need to distinguish between reforms which jeopardize dominant class interests and are usually blocked or eroded and reforms which pose no threat to the dominant class interests and are permitted. The argument is made that criminologists have oversimplified the relationship between criminal law and State structure in Canada because of their failure to recognize that intensifying crime control is consensus-promoting, not consensus-threatening and because they have assumed a necessary relationship between relative autonomy and the liberalization of criminal justice systems. 93 references. For related articles see NCJ 125888-125895. (Author abstract modified)