Left and right realism

Question 1

left wing

Answer 1

• focus on power and inequality
• state should intervene to share out wealth
• inequality leads to individuals to commit crime
• Marxist, interactionist, radical crimonology, left realist

Question 2

right wing

Answer 2

• focus on individual achievement
• equality is not possible or desireable
• functionalist, Right Realist, New Right

Question 3

Hirschi - control theory

Answer 3

Inidividuals with strong relationships, responsibilities, engaged in social activities, strong sense of morality are leaa likely to commit crime, so those who do not have strong ‘social bonds’ commit crime

Question 4

attachment - Hirschi

Answer 4

if family care about them then less likely to commit crime as it would go against their expectations

Question 5

committment - Hirschi

Answer 5

responsibilities that are too good to loose

Question 6

involvement - Hirschi

Answer 6

people taking part in a community are too busy to consider

Question 7

belief - Hirschi

Answer 7

subsituting to a common value system, which conflict deviance

Question 8

New Right - Murray

Answer 8

• poor socialisation leads to criminality
• over generous welfare system leads to fecklessness
• single mothers, illegitimacy
• contraversially linked IQ to criminaliy

Question 9

evaluating Murray

Answer 9

Gallie - long term unemployment, strong work ethic, no evidence of dependancy

Charleworth - poverty had impact on physical and mental health but did not make people ciminal

Young - sociology of vindictiveness seeking to punish and demean those at bottom of society

Question 10

realist crimonology

Answer 10

• accept the ‘typical criminal’ shown in stats BUT stats may be innacurate
• challenge traditional theories for bein gtoo ‘idealist’, remote and offering no practical solution

Question 11

Mathews and Young - realist crimonology

Answer 11

concern about the ‘corrosive effect crime can have on communities, focusing on the lived reality of crime’

Question 12

Wilson - right realism

Answer 12

challenges Marxist crimonology for being based on ideology rather than facts

Question 13

long term trends in crime can be accounted for by three factors

Answer 13

1. young males are most likely to commit crimes as they are aggressive (the more young men the more crime)
2. changes in the benefits and costs of crime at different times due to eg accessibility
3. broad social and cultural changes in society reinforced may influence general norms and values

Question 14

Wilson argues that

Answer 14

the 3 factors are largely uncontrollable, so crime cannot be prevented. He does not think that poverty is the root cause of crime.

He places emphasis on the severity of punishment and more on the stress of certainty of capture

Question 15

role of environment and community

Answer 15

• maintaining visible order eg police presence discourages deviance, while neglect fosters a culture of disorder, leading to crime
• Wilson and Kelling highlighted how low-level disorder eg public drunkness escalates to serious crime if left unchecked

Question 16

biological and socialisation factors

Answer 16

• Wilson and Herrnstein argued that criminal tendancies are partly biological and influenced by individual traits like impulsiveness
• proper socialisation, often in nuclear families, can supress these tendancies but inadequate socialisation increases risk

Question 17

policing in newark

Wilson and Kelling’s - broken window theory

Answer 17

• increased police foot patrols over 5 years made residents feel safer and percieve reduced crime
• officers focused on maintaining order by addressing low-level deviance

Question 18

broken window phenomenon

Wilson and Kelling’s - broken window theory

Answer 18

• a single broken window signals neglect, inviting further vandalism and deviance
• Zimbado’s experiment showed that an abandoned car in a run-down area was quickly vandalised, while one in a middle-class area remained untouched until a window was deliberately broken, then it was destroyed

Question 19

implication

Wilson and Kelling’s - broken window theory

Answer 19

• untended behaviour and neglect erode community controls, increasing deviance
• visible police presence and addressing minor disorders help create an orderly environment that deters crime

Question 20

critisisms of right realism

Answer 20

• focuses heavily on individual blame, social control, and punishment, neglecting broader social causes of crime
• Young argued that deviance and control are interconnected and must be studied together, highlighting the narrow perspective

Question 21

young - left realism

Answer 21

aims to balance two extremes in crimonology

Question 22

key arguments of left realism

Answer 22

• street crime - there has been a genuine risk in street crime and public fear surrounding it, which cannot soley be explained by biased policing or moral panics
• impact on victims - fear of crime significantly affects peoples behaviour, particularly women, who often avoid going out after dark

Question 23

Mathews and young - the square of crime

Answer 23

crime arises from the intersection of 4 elements:
- offender- motivations and actions of criminals
- victim - impact of crime on individuals
- informal control - influence of public opinion, peers, family, and media
- state - role of formal agencies in addressing crime

Question 24

Lea and Young - law and order

Answer 24

explain crime in terms of three concepts
- relative deprivation
- marginalisation
- subculture

Question 25

critique of extremes

Answer 25

New right/ right realism: overemphasis media-driven moral panics and excessive policing of certain comunaties