Realist Thepries Of Crime And Deviance

Question 1

The basics of realism

Answer 1

Claim that crime is a social construction. Agree that crime is a real problem
Finding practical ways to tackle crime

Question 2

Left realism

Answer 2

Linked to left wing policies
‘Stake holder society” tackling the causes of crime to prevent and reduce it
Want to rehabilitate criminals

Question 3

Basics of left realists

Answer 3

That we should help and support people and that will stop crime happening

Question 4

basics of right realists

Answer 4

rather than trying to tackle causes of crime trying to reduce the impact

Question 5

2 ways right realists sought to tackle crime

Answer 5

Heavier punishments for those convicted to deter future crime will not succeed because potential criminals often have little chance of being caught.
Increase the risk to criminals by increasing the chances of detection.

Question 6

Clarke view on the causes of crime

Answer 6

Clarke believes that criminals have free will and choose to commit crime: rational choice theory.

Question 7

how has crime increased according to clarke

Answer 7

Policing is poor: criminals know there is little chance of being caught;
Community controls (informal social control) are weak e.g. people are too scared to report criminal neighbours in high crime areas
Punishments are too lenient

Question 8

evaluation of clarke

Answer 8

Postmodernists e.g. Lyng argue that deviance is not always rational, it is often spontaneous and simply for thrills: edgework.

Question 9

situational crime prevention

Answer 9

making it impossible for people to commit crime
1-designing out crime, adding extra to prevent crime

Question 10

opportunity theory

Answer 10

Target attractiveness: this refers to how attractive the object to be stolen is to the offender
Accessibility: this refers to how easy the object is to steal in terms of access to it, ease of escape and likelihood of the offence being witnessed.

Question 11

There are 3 key features of the measures aimed at SCP:

Answer 11

They’re directed at a specific crime

They involve managing or altering the immediate environment of the crime

They aim at increasing the effort and risks of committing crime and reducing the rewards

Question 12

designing out crime

Answer 12

One type of SCP is ‘designing out crime’. This means that when a housing development, retail area, etc… is first built, the planners carefully consider the design to reduce the crime that can take place. This will include ensuring good visibility in all areas.

Question 13

target hardening

Answer 13

This is introducing measures to property/goods/people to make them harder to attack.

Question 14

wison and keeling, broken windows theory

Answer 14

The main premise is that if a broken window – a symbol for social disorder and a lack of community concern
So if a community allows its physical environment to decline further damage and anti-social behaviour will occur

Question 15

solutions to broken widow theory

Answer 15

Fix any sign of environmental decay immediately.
Reduce high-rise social housing
The police should react to minor crime like vandalism, and not just focus on serious crime e.g. zero tolerance policing

Question 16

heavier stricter policing and punishment

Answer 16

right realists argue that more powerful social control needs to be exercised over communities and individuals to ‘encourage’ them to conform to norms and values.

Question 17

encouraging community’s to take more responsibilities

Answer 17

Neighbourhood Watch: Encouraging informal surveillance and hence social control amongst neighbours

Improving parenting: make parents take more responsibility for the supervision and socialisation of their children, by punishing poor parents with Parenting Orders e.g. compulsory parenting classes for the parents of persistent truants. Dennis & Erdos argued that single parent families create antisocial boys so encouraging marriage/nuclear families could help too.