Right Realism Flashcards
Overview
Right realism sees crime, especially street crime, as a real and growing problem that destroys communities, undermines social cohesion and threatens society’s work ethic. The right realist approach to crime has been very influential in the UK, the USA and elsewhere. For example, is main theorist, James Q. Wilson, was special adviser on crime to President Reagan, and it has provided the justification for widely adopted policies such as ‘zero tolerance’ of street crime and disorder.
Causes
Biological differences
Socialisation of the underclass
Rational choice
Theorists for biological differences
Wilson and Herrnstein
Herrnstein and Murray
Biological differences
Wilson and Herrnstein put forward a bio social theory of criminal behaviour. In their view, crime is caused by a combinations of biological and social factors. Biological differences between individuals make some people innately more strongly predisposed to commit crime than others. For example personality traits such as risk taking. Murray argues that those who commit crime - the underclass are simply less intelligent and this fact is proven by IQ testing, a low IQ causes people to commit crime as they are unable to fully evaluate if their behaviour is deviant or acceptable or whether it falls in lines with the value consensus.
Socialisation of the underclass sociologist
Murray
Socialisation of the underclass
Crime is increasing because of the growing underclass who fail to socialise their children properly. According to Murray, the new rabell is particularly notorious for this. Lone mothers are ineffective socialisation agents especially for young boys, this causes young boys to turn to delinquent male role models as they lack one at home. Lone mothers are unable to instil the value consensus in their young boys and so they turn to male role models who teach them an alternative value consensus. Poor socialisation of the underclass leads to a deviance amplification spiral
Rational choice sociologist
Clarke
Rational choice
Rational choice theorists such as Ron Clarke (1980) argue that the decision to commit crime is a choice based on a rational calculation of the likely consequences. If the perceived rewards of crime outweigh the perceived costs, or if the rewards of crime appear to be greater than those of non-criminal behaviour, then people will be likely to offend. Right realists argue that the perceived costs of crime are low and this is why the crime rate has increased. In their view, there is often little risk of being caught and punishments are in any case lenient.
Tackling crime
Right realists do not believe it is fruitful to try to deal with the causes of crime (such as biological and socialisation differences) since these cannot easily be changed. Instead they seek practical measures to make crime less attractive.
Their main focus is on control, containment and punishment of offenders rather than eliminating the underlying causes of offending or rehabilitating them.
Crime prevention policies should therefore reduce the rewards and increase the costs of crime to the offender, for example by ‘target hardening’, greater use of prison and ensuring punishments follow soon after the offence to maximise their deterrent effect.
Zero tolerance sociologist
Wilson and Kellings
Zero tolerance
Wilson and Kelling’s (1982) article Broken Windows argues that it is essential to maintain the orderly character of neighbourhoods to prevent crime taking hold.
Any sign of deterioration, such as graffiti or vandalism, must be dealt with immediately.
They advocate a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards undesirable behaviour such as prostitution, begging and drunkenness.
The police should focus on controlling the streets so that law-abiding citizens feel safe. Supporters of zero tolerance policing claim that it achieved huge reductions in crime after it was introduced in New York.
Zero tolerance in action
It was introduced in New York by Rudy giuilliani - in 1990s he launched a zero tolerance policy and decreased crime by 49%
Critic of zero tolerance
Critic of RR
• It ignores wider structural causes such as poverty.
• It overstates offenders’ rationality and how far they make cost-benefit calculations before committing a crime.
While it may explain some utilitarian crime, it may not explain impulsive or violent crime. Katz work on seduction and crime argues that people commit crime for thrill
• Its view of criminals as rational actors freely choosing crime conflicts with its claim that their behaviour is determined by their biology and socialisation.
It also over-emphasises biological factors: according to Lilly et al (2002), IQ differences account for less than 3% of differences in offending. Iq testing is rigged in favour of the middle class
Critic of zero tolerance in NY
However, Jock Young (2011) argues that its ‘success’ was a myth peddled by politicians and police keen to take the credit for falling crime. In fact, the crime rate in New York had already been falling since 1985 - nine years before zero tolerance. Young argues that police need arrests to justify their existence, they took to arresting people for minor deviant acts that had previously fallen outside their ‘net’, re-labelling them now as worthy of punishment. After zero tolerance was introduced in 1994, police and politicians then wrongly claimed that cracking down on these minor crimes had been the cause of the decline. In fact, the ‘success’ of zero tolerance was just a product of the police’s way of coping with a decline that had already occurred.
