Left Realism Flashcards
Main ideas:
See society as unequal capitalist
They believe in gradual change rather than violent overthrow of capitalism
Believe we need explanations of crime and to recuse rather than waiting for classless society.
Explain taking crime seriously:
Marxists: concentrated on crimes of powerful, such as corporate crime. LR, agree that this is important, but they argue that it neglects working class crime and its effects.
Neo-M: stealing from rich as act of political resistance to capitalism. Point out that working class criminals point out other working class criminals and not the rich
Explain causes of crime:
Lea and young identify 3 related causes of crime.
Relative deprivation
Subculture
Marginalisation
What’s relative deprivation:
Runciman: concept of relative deprivation to explain crime. Refers to how deprived someone feels in relation to others or compared with own explanations. Leads to crime when people resent others unfairly having more
What’s subculture:
Different groups produce different subcultural solutions.
Religious subcultures encourages conformity
What’s marginalisation:
Groups lack clear goals and organisation to represent their interests
Unemployed youth are marginalised, no organisation to represent them and no clear goals just sense of frustration.
Powerless
Explain later modernity exclusion and crime:
Young argues that we are living in late of modern society, where instability, insecurity and exclusion make crime worse
De industrialisation and loss of unskilled jobs have increased unemployment’s - young ppl
Explain tackling crime:
Policing and control
Military policing: police are losing public support.
Critisisms of LR:
Henry argues accepts authorities definition of crime and it being committed by poor
Interaxtionists argue they rely on quanititative data
Comparison:
Both see crime as a real problem
