Left and Right Realism

Right Realism
1. James. Q. Wilson & Ernst Van Den Haag - 1975
  1. Critique of sociological theory which failed to solve the problem of crime
  2. Negative view on human nature
    1. This human nature needs to be subject to social control and socialised into appropriate behaviour.
    2. selfish human nature
      1. rising crime reflects ineffective and inadequate social control
      2. permissive attitudes allow anti social behaviour
      3. feckless parenting: absent fathers, lack of discipline in education, liberal policies of the state all serve to ferment crime
      4. results in spiralling incivilities
  3. James. Q. Wilson
    1. if incivilities aren't kept minimal then it allows for wider crime to be commited
      1. advocates that police adopt a zero tolerance policy
    2. reflects the vies of Durkheim in the sense that informal control are crucial for law and order
      1. 3 Key factors affecting long term crime
        number of young males
        cost/benefits
        inadequate socialisation to norms and values
    3. Ernst Van Den Haag
      1. willing to cheat to get on and therefore they need to be controlled for their own good and of societies.
        reasonable for the law and order to target the poor
        advocates the tough penal system for punishment: corporal and capital
2. Rational Choice Theory- Clarke and Coleman (1980)
  1. criminals will engage in crime if the benefits outweigh the costs
    1. solution: increase the cost of crime (tougher punishments)
3. oppose any connection between poverty and crime
  1. increased affluence, crime has soared
    1. Key factors behind increase in crime
      1. extending the welfare state
      2. lack of discipline in education
      3. decline of the traditional family
4. SOLUTIONS TO CRIME
  1. Reduce opportunities to offend
  2. increase costs to outweigh benefits
  3. responsible parenting
  4. crime control should be responsibility of the community
  5. tough punishment
5. Charles Murray
  1. New right 1990- argues that the underclass are particularly insufficiently integrated into society's norms and values
    1. prone to : criminal tendencies , violence, education and failure welfare dependency
  2. Paternalism- deviant subcultures of the underclass
6. Critique of right realism
  1. influential to government policy of both the UK AND USA
    1. EG: Zero tolerance has been successfully adopted in New York by police.
  2. lack of investment in deprived areas rather than incivilities that cause crime increase.
  3. easy to pick on scapegoats from single parent families
  4. Marxists argue that concentration on minor crime, major crime gets ignored
Left Realism
1. Lea and Young (1984)& Mathews and Kinsley
  1. sees crime as a real problem for ordinary people and explains it through analysis social and economic relationships, and how some groups become marginalised.
2. Crime is real phenomenon
  1. argues the rising crime rate cannot solely be explained by the 'unreliability of official crime statistics’.
  2. Less critical of crime statistics than others, and say that they do not reflect typical criminals
  3. Focus on victims as well as criminal
3. Ethnicity and crime
  1. black criminality: increase in crime among the young blacks
  2. accept that there is institutional racism and a canteen culture amongst police
  3. stems from racial discrimination, unemployment and material deprivation
  4. they see black youths having high aspirations but not being able to achieve these aspirations
4. Sees the origin of crime as a three fold:
  1. Relative deprivation
    1. Lea and Young argue that frustrated from this disparity between expectations and the reality of lifestyle leads to feelings of relative deprivation.
  2. Marginalisation
    1. Lea and Young argue that marginalisation means the process by which certain groups find themselves on the edge of society.working class feel alienated by unemployment, low wages, school and police. young black males feel marginalisation through prejudice and harassment.
  3. Subculture
    1. Lee and young: black subculture is distinctly different from their parents who accepted their marginalised position in society. Black youth subculture has high material expectations, eg: money and status symbols, flash cars etc... because black youth culture is so engaged with consumption and wealth, it is that exact reason why they engage in crime
5. exam evaluation:young black males by Ralf Nightingale (Philadelphia) and Philip Bourgois (New York). All their work links back to the ideas of Robert Merton and his ‘strain theory‘ (sharing society’s goals but not having means to achieve them).
6. Policing Problem
  1. police too often resort to military policing to solve crime through stop and search methods, this alienates the community from them, recently the muslim culture,
  2. Public should have more say in policing policies
7. SQUARE OF CRIME
  2. takes us beyond the offender and shows concern for victim patterns and formal and informal factors
  3. crime can only be understood through the interrelationships between these four aspects
8. social change and crime
  1. Jock Young (1997) 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:
  2. peoples desire for immediate and personal pleasure
  3. less consensus about moral values
  4. a breakdown from informal social controls
9. EVALUATION:
  1. Relative deprivation or marginalisation cannot explain the motive behind offender’s actions
  2. focus on victims as well as offenders is good, adding another dimension to our understanding of crime.
  3. Equally not all people in relative deprivation turn to crime.
  4. recognition of multiple causes of crime
  5. that when society’s values break down crime become more likely

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Left and Right Realism

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	Created by cwylie_15 over 8 years ago