Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Right/Left Realism
- Right Realism
- Originated in 1970s by James Q Wilson and Ernst Van Den Haag
- It was developed as a critique of
sociological theory which failed to
solve crime.
- Negative view of human nature
(People are naturally selfish and
greedy)
- Human nature
needs social control
and have
appropriate
behaviour
- Van den Haag argues it is reasonable
for law and order agencies to target the
poor
- Right Realists
- Believe the solution to crime is the Rational Choice Theory
- Rational Choice Theory
- Developed in Clarke and
Coleman (1980)
- Argues that criminals will commit crime if
the benefits outweigh the costs
- Solution is to increase the costs of crime (tougher punishment)
- Anti-Sociological criminology
- Right Realists oppose the
connection between crime
and poverty.
- They point out that wealth and crime rates have rising.
- Key Factors behind
crime increase.
- Extending the Welfare State
- Lack of discipline in education
- Decline in traditional family types
- Selfish Human Nature
- Rising crime levels reflect inadequate social control
- Permissive attitudes allow self
indulgent and anti-social behaviout
- The result of this has caused
crime like: muggings, graffiti,
theft and car break-ins.
- Lacking parenting, absent fathers, lack of discipline in
schools, cause this behaviour
- Solutions to Crime
- Reduce opportunities for offending.
- Increase punishments
- Heavy fines,sentences and Capital punishment
- Crime control should fall upon members
of the community
- Responsible parenting
- 'Broken Window Thesis'
- James Q. Wilson argues that
unless small crime like littering are
kept minimal then more anti-social
behaviour and serious crime will
happen.
- Argues 3 factors affecting long term crime
- Number of young males
- Costs/benefits of crime
- Inadequate socialisation into norms/values
- He says that police
should adopt a
'zero-tolerance'
policy for even small
crimes.
- Emile Durkhiem's idea that local informal
controls are crucial for law and order
- Charles Murray argues
that underclass are not
integrated into society's
norms and values.
- He calls deviant subcultural values
of the underclass as 'paternaslism'.
- Critique of Right Realism
- Infulential on Government policy in USA & UK
- For example 'zero-tolerance' adopted in New York
- Some argue it is a lack of investment in deprived areas than incivilities that cause crime to rise.
- Easy to pick on scapegoats like single parent families.
- Marxist argue that concentrating on minor crimes than more serious crimes get ignored by authorities.
- zero-tolerance will shift crime to other areas.
- Left Realism
- Lea and Young developed left realism in response of right realism.
- Sees crime as a real problem for
ordinary people
- Argues that rising crime rate cannot be
explained by the unreliability of social crime
statistics.
- Focus on victims as well as offenders,
recongnisng crime is mostly in the inner-city
and housing estates.
- Ethnicity and Crime
- Lea and Young accepted that there is a real increase in crime by young blacks,
- Accept that there is institutional racism
- Black criminality stems from racial discrimination, low wages and unemployment.
- See Black youth having high aspirations but not able to achieve them.
- Left Realism see origins of crime as three folds:
- Relative deprivation
- Lea and Young argue that frustrated
between expectations and the reality of
lifestyle leads to feelings of relative
deprivation.
- They argue the reality
for many young Black
males is a choice of
unemployment,
training schemes.
- They feel unfairly
denied the ‘glittering
prizes’ offered to
others. This can
develop into
strategies which can
involve deviant and
criminal behaviour.
- Marginalisation
- Lea and Young
argue that
marginalisation
means the
process by which
certain groups
find themselves
on the edge of
society.
- White and Black
working-class youth
often feel alienated by
schools, unemployment,
low-wages, and the
police.
- Subculture
- Subculture of young blacks
is different from their
parents who accepted their
marginalised position in
society.
- Black youth subculture has high material
expectations and aspirations: money and
status symbols like flash cars, etc.
- Black youth is so closely enmeshed in values of
consumption, style and wealth, this is precisely why they
engage in crime because of blocked opportunities.
- Policing Problem
- Kinsey, Lea and Young identify a number of
problems with contemporary policing.
- The police too often resort to 'military policing' as a method of solving
crime through 'stop and search' policies.
- This alienates the community from them, recently the Muslim community.
- Argue that to improve this relationship the public should have more say in shaping police
policy.
- Square of crime
- Shows concern for victim patterns and formal and informal factors.
- Argue that crime can be
only understood by
interrelationships between
four elements.
- State, offender, informal controls and victims.
- Jock Young also has a generic
theory to explain the recent
growth in crime. He argues
that late modernity is making
crime worse in a number of
ways:
- Greater uncertainty and instability in most
aspects of life.
- People’s desire for
Immediate and
personal pleasure.
- Less consensus about moral values.
- A breakdown of
informal social
controls
- Critique of Left Realism
- Key strength is recognition of multiple causes of crime.
- Focuses on victims as well as offenders is good,
adding another dimension to our understanding
of crime.
- However, Relative deprivation or marginalisation
cannot explain the motive behind offender’s actions e.g.
white-collar.
- Equally not all people in relative deprivation turn to crime.
- It assumes that society’s values break down crime
become more likely a return to anomie theory and a
view not too distant from Right Realism.