SOC - Left Realism and Crime

Question 1

Lea and Young

Answer 1

Marginalisation
Relative Deprivation
Subcultures

Question 2

Relative Deprivation

Answer 2

• deprivation alone cannot explain crime as crime rates were lower in the past when most of society lived in deprivation.
• As society has become more affluent, the gap between the rich and poor has grown significantly. Advertising makes lower socioeconomic groups feel increasingly left behind.

Question 3

Marginalisation

Answer 3

• White and Black working-class youth often feel alienated by schools, unemployment, low-wages, the police, etc
• Young Black males face marginalisation through prejudice and harassment e.g., ‘military policing‘ (stop and search).
• this may be the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back’: economic marginalisation is transferred into crime.

Question 4

Subcultures

Answer 4

• gangs of young Black males are distinctly different from their parents who largely accepted their marginalised position in society.
• Criminal subcultures have high material expectations and aspirations: money and status symbols like flash cars, etc.
• Black youth is so closely enmeshed in values of this is precisely why they engage in crime – because of blocked opportunities and the desire for consumption, style and wealth

Question 5

Left Realism Links

Answer 5

• Merton’s strain theory

- marginalised group socialised into its own distinct subcultural set of values : Albert Cohen

Question 6

Kinsey Lea and Young

Answer 6

Contemporary policing issues

Question 7

Policing problem

Answer 7

• too often resort to ‘military policing’ as a method of solving crime through ‘stop and search’ policies, alienting BME in those communities
• They argue that to improve this relationship the public should have more say in shaping police policy.

Question 8

Lea and Young Evaluation

Answer 8

• focus on victims as well as offenders is good, adding another dimension to our understanding of crime
• not all people in relative deprivation turn to crime.
• assumes that when society’s values break down crime become more likely – a return to anomie theory and a view not too distant from Right Realism

Question 9

Kinsey and Young Evaluation

Answer 9

This ‘approach’ to policing distorts the stats as to the true nature of crime. Where crime is committed and who commits crime.