Right Realism Flashcards
Who are the right realists?…
Right realism is sometimes known as the conservative or New Right perspective on crime.
Right realism sees crime, especially the street crime committed by young people, as a real and growing problem.
They are very concerned about the 3 key factors driving young people to crime.
1) A breakdown in traditional informal controls…
In the past, bad behaviour was deterred by disapproval from neighbours, family, friends.
Right Realists say, these social groups have grown weaker as agencies of social control and this process has undermined the concept of community.
2) The welfare state…
According to Right Realists, the state has supposedly undermined community and mutual support by encouraging people to be workshy and dependent upon welfare benefits.
This has undermined social cohesion because it has encouraged individualism, selfishness etc.
3) The police…
Right Realists argue that the police have lost their fight against crime because clear-up rates have not significantly improved.
Consequently, crime has flourished because policing is not effective and the punishments for committing crime are seen as weak by potential criminals.
Underclass theory…
Charles Murray suggests that both in the USA and UK, there exists a lower-class subculture or underclass below the ‘respectable’ working-class, which subscribes to deviant and criminal values rather than mainstream values.
He claims that parents in this underclass transmit this deficient culture to their children via socialisation.
He suggests that this criminal underclass is growing as a result of welfare dependency.
Murray’s 3 key arguments…
1) Young people belonging to the ‘underclass’ subculture are likely to be long-term unemployed because they are workshy, i.e. they choose not to work despite work being available to them. They prefer to be welfare-dependent, i.e. to live off state benefits (lazy).
2) Members of the underclass are generally lacking in moral values and are not committed to marriage and family life, a large percentage of underclass children are supposedly brought up by single mothers who allegedly are inadequate and irresponsible parents. Absent fathers mean that boys lack paternal discipline and appropriate male role models (lone parents).
3) Young male members of the underclass often turn to other, often delinquent, role models on the street such as gang leaders and drug dealers and gain status through crime rather than supporting their families through a steady job. They are also generally hostile towards the police and authority (subcultures).
Support for Murray’s arguments…
Bennett, Dilulio, and Walters (1995) argue the young criminal underclass exists as a result of ‘growing up surrounded by deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults in a practically perfect criminogenic environment that is, one that seems almost consciously designed to produce vicious, predatory unrepentant street criminals’.
Right Realists therefore see this alleged underclass as the main cause of the youth crime that exists in inner city areas and on council estates.
Statistics supporting Murray, Bennett, Dilulio, and Walters…
Trust For London (non-profit organisation)
> Violence, robbery, and sexual offences were recorded 2.1x more in the most income-deprived 10% of areas compared to the least income-deprived 10%
Rational choice theory…
Individuals have free will and the power to reason and thus choose their own actions.
Clarke (1980) argues that an individual’s decision to commit crime is a choice based on a rational calculation of the likely consequences of their actions.
If the perceived rewards of crime outweigh the perceived costs of crime, or if the rewards of crime appear to be greater than those of non-criminal action, then people are more likely to choose to offend.
Perceived risk…
Right realists argue that the perceived costs of crime are low today and this is why the crime rate has increased. Criminals perceive there is little risk of being caught or punished, and in any case, punishments are very lenient.
As Wilson says:
“If the supply and value of legitimate opportunities (jobs) is declining at the very time that the cost of illegitimate opportunities (punishment) is also declining, a rational teenager might well conclude that it makes more sense to steal cars than to wash them”.
Support for perceived risks…
In a similar analysis, Felson (1998) notes that if community controls (e.g. from family, neighbours, the community etc) are strong, this increases both the risk of being caught and punished, and deters crime.
However, all too often, especially in inner city areas, community controls are weak, and the risk of being caught and punished is low.
Control theory…
Control theory, which is based on rational-choice theory, is concerned with finding practical or real solutions to the crime problem.
Travis Hirschi, for example, argues that the sociological focus should no longer be on why people commit crime but why most people do not.
He argues that most crime is ‘opportunistic’ most people would commit it if the situation was right and they stood little chance of being caught.
Cost and benefits…
However, he argues that people are generally rational in terms of their actions and choices – they weigh up the ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’ of their behaviour, and make choices about their actions on this basis.
This theory is sometimes referred to as ‘cost-benefit analysis’.
Hirschi argues that most people do not commit crime because they have four social controls in their lives which mean that the costs of crime (i.e. being caught and punished) clearly outweigh the economic and personal benefits of crime.
More to lose..
Hirschi suggests these four controls prevent many people from turning to crime because, quite clearly, the costs of being caught and publicly punished outweigh the benefits of crime, i.e. these people have a great deal to lose.
Hirschi’s theory is quite useful in explaining why younger people may turn to crime because it is only as people start to get older that they start to acquire the sorts of controls described above.
He notes that younger people have got less to lose in terms of attachment and commitment etc. For young people, respect and reputation may actually be enhanced by criminality.
Solutions to crime…
Right realists believe that the best way to reduce crime is not to change the criminal but to take practical measures to reduce the opportunity for crime and to make the potential crime more difficult for the criminal, i.e. to make sure that the costs of crime clearly outweigh the benefits.
