Key Theorists - Realist Theories of Crime

Question 1

Key Theorists – Gibbs and Merighi (1994): Marginalisation as a Cause for Crime

WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?

Answer 1

• The black community are marginalised in terms of poverty, housing, education and jobs.
• Anger and status frustration cause people to turn to crime.

Question 2

Key Theorists - Lea and Young (1992): Relative Deprivation as a Cause for Crime

WHAT DID THEY FIND?

Answer 2

• Ethnic minorities feel resentment due to relative deprivation as they see there to be unfair and biased policing in their community.

Question 3

Key Theorists - Messner and Golden (1992): Subcultures as a Cause for Crime

WHAT DID THEY FIND?

Answer 3

• Where racial discrimination existed deep violent subcultures flourished.

Question 4

Key Theorists - Henry and Milovanovic (1996): Evaluation of Left Realism

WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?

Answer 4

• Left realism accepts the authorities’ definition of crime as being street crime committed by the poor, instead of defining the problem as being one of how powerful groups do harm to the poor.

Question 5

Key Theorists – Wilson and Herrnstein (1985): Biological Differences as a Cause for Crime (Right Realism)

WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?

Answer 5

• Crime is caused by a combination of social and biological factors.
• Biological differences between individuals make some people more strongly predisposed to commit crime than others. For example, personality traits such as aggressiveness, extroversion, risk taking and low impulse control put some people at a greater risk of offending.

Question 6

Key Theorists – Herrnstein and Murray (1994): Biological Differences as a Cause for Crime

WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?

Answer 6

• The main cause of crime is low intelligence, which they also see as biologically determined.

Question 7

Key Theorist – Murray (1990): Socialisation and the Underclass

WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?

Answer 7

• That the crime rate is increasing because of a growing underclass who are defined by their deviant behaviour and who fail to socialise their children properly.
• The underclass is growing in both the UK and USA as a result of welfare dependency.
• The welfare state’s ‘generous revolution’ since the 1960s allows increasing numbers of people to become dependent on the welfare state. It has led to the decline of marriage and the growth of lone parent families because women and children can live off benefits. This also means that men no longer have a responsibility to support their families, so they no longer need to work.
• However, lone mothers are ineffective socialisation agents, especially for boys. Absent fathers mean boys lack paternal discipline and appropriate male role models. As a result, young males turn to other, often delinquent, role models on the street and gain status through crime rather than supporting their families through a secure job.