Topic 4 - Realist Theories

Question 1

Right realism

Answer 1

New-right/Neo-liberal outlook, they favour ‘get tough’ stances on crime

Question 2

Views of right realists

Answer 2

• Marxists emphasise too much on capitalism causing crime
• Labelling focuses too much on ‘others to blame’
• They would argue crime is a rational choice people are not passive

Question 3

What do right realists do

Answer 3

Critique other theories for their failure to identify any practical crime prevention measures arguing that many of the theories are far too sympathetic to the offender and hostile to the agencies of social control

Question 4

Causes of crime according to right realists

Answer 4

Wilson and Herrnstein present the biosocial theory:
- Biological differences
- Socialisation and the underclass
- Rational choice theory

Question 5

Biological differences

Answer 5

HERRNSTEIN and MURRAY
- Some people are more pre-disposed to commit crime
- Personality traits such as aggression, impulsiveness, and extroversion put people at greater risk for offending
- Main cause of crime is low IQ

Question 6

Socialisation and the underclass

Answer 6

MURRAY
- Effective socialisation can decrease the risk of them becoming offenders
- Nuclear family is best adapted to this as male role models instil discipline
- Crime is the result of the growing underclass who are defined by the deviant behaviour and their failure to socialise their children adequately
- The state has undergone a generous revolution since the 1960’s
- Subsiding the lifestyles of the underclass = decline of marriage and the nuclear family
BENNETT, DILULIO, and WALTERS argue children growing up surrounded by “deviant, delinquent, and criminal adults” produce “vicious, predatory unrepentant street criminals”

Question 7

Rational choice theory

Answer 7

CLARKE
- Individuals have free will and the power of reason
- Decision to commit crime is a choice based on rational calculation of the likely consequences
If crime happens, calculations made…
- Rewards outweighs costs
- Benefit reaped illegitimately outweighs consequence enforced
- Risk of being caught is minimal
- Law is lenient
WILSON suggests if legit opportunities declines at the same time as cost of illegit opportunities then crime would rise

Question 8

Routine activity theory

Answer 8

FELSON
1 A motivated offender
2 A victim or target - a victim or property
3 Absence of a capable guardian - formal control agencies e.g., police or neighbours
- If we assume the offender makes a rational choice to commit crime then the presence of a capable guardian is likely to deter them
- Informal rational guardian is likely to deter offending behaviour

Question 9

A03 Right realists explanations of crime

Answer 9

• Ignores structural causes of crime
• Rational choice may be able to explain utilitarian crime to some extent but does not adequately explain non-utilitarian crimes such as violence
• Overstates the biological element - LILY ET AL found that IQ differences account for less than 3% of differences in offending

Question 10

Right realists solutions to tackle crime

Answer 10

• Broken windows
• Zero tolerance policies
• Target hardening

Question 11

Broken windows

Answer 11

WILSON and KELLING
- Crucial to maintain the appearance and orderly character of neighbourhoods to prevent crime taking place

Question 12

Zero tolerance policies

Answer 12

• There should be no tolerance of underdesirable behaviour such as prostitution, begging, or drunkenness
• The police should control the streets so the law abiding feel safe
• First introduced in New York

Question 13

Target hardening

Answer 13

• Greater use of prisons
• Ensuring punishment follows very quickly after an act of deviance to maximise their deterrent effect
• Costs of offending should be far greater

Question 14

A03 Right realist approaches to tackling crime

Answer 14

• YOUNG argues the success of ZTP in NY has been largely exaggerated and in fact a myth that politicians and police used for an already decreasing crime rate
• It is preoccupied with petty street crime and ignores corporate crime
• ZTP allow the police to discriminate against the homeless, youths, and certain ethnic minority groups. JONES found that ZTP failed to prevent crime rising in the USA
• It over emphasises the need for the control of disorder rather than lack of investment as a cause of neighbourhood deviance
• Target hardening and ZTP leads to crime being displaced

Question 15

Left realism

Answer 15

Emerged in the 1980’s to challenge right realist approaches on government policy

Question 16

Who do left realist’s critique

Answer 16

• Traditional Marxists: focus too much on crimes of the powerful neglecting working class crime and its effects
• Neo-Marxists: romanticise working class criminals as stealing from the rich to give to the poor as an act of political resistance to capitalism. Given most crime is intra-class this is not a realistic standpoint
• Labelling theorists: see the working class as victims of discriminatory labelling by social control agents neglecting the working class people who are victims of these offenders

Question 17

Aetiological crisis

Answer 17

There has been a crisis in explanation for the real increase in crime since the 1950’s
- JOCK YOUNG argue critical criminology is the result of an increase in reporting/labelling the poor
- The rise in crime is socially constructed rather than a reality
- LR’s argue that crime is actually rising and the victims are disadvantaged groups = sociology has a responsibility to take the rise in crime more seriously rather than theorising about it

Question 18

Causes of crime according to left realists

Answer 18

LEA and YOUNG
- Relative deprivation
- Subculture
- Marginalisation

Question 19

Relative deprivation

Answer 19

LEA and YOUNG draw the work of RUNCIMAN
- How deprived a person feels relative to others
- Media and advertising raises everyone’s expectations to own material possessions = rise in crime through illegitimate means

Question 20

Subculture

Answer 20

Derived from MERTON, CLOWARD and OHLIN, and COHEN
- A group’s collectivist response to the problem of relative deprivation
- YOUNG identified groups in ghettos in the USA where there was a ‘full immersion’ into the American Dream
- Cannot achieve the mainstream goals of the dream legitimately due to blocked opportunities so they resort to street crime instead
- Some return to crime to close the deprivation gap but others will seek religious comfort. WEBER calls this the theory of dispriviledge which is an explanation for their disadvantage and suffering
- PRYCE identified subcultural responses amongst the African Caribbean community in Bristol such as Hustlers, Rastafarians, and Respectables

Question 21

Marginalisation

Answer 21

• Lacks clear goals and organisations to represent their interests
• Marginalised groups are unemployed youths who do not belong to any organisation and so having no representation either through employment or politics
• This powerlessness results in crime as frustration is expressed through violence and rioting

Question 22

Late modernity

Answer 22

YOUNG
- Instability, insecurity, and exclusion have made the problem of crime far worse
- 1950’s (golden age): full employment, low divorce rates, strong communities etc
- 1950’s: increase in unemployment and a significant loss of unskilled manual jobs that were traditionally taken up by young working-class men

Question 23

Exclusion and crime

Answer 23

• YOUNG notes a growing contrast between cultural inclusion and economic exclusion as a source of relative deprivation:
  1 media saturation promotes cultural inclusion
  2 greater emphasis on leisure and consumption
  3 failure of the ideology of meritocracy

Question 24

Second aetiological crisis

Answer 24

YOUNG
- A second aetiological crisis as since the 1990’s there has been a fall in crime rate
- Suggesting it is no longer a major threat, however the social construct may still be a problem, most people believe that crime rate is increasing

Question 25

The rise of anti-social behaviour

Answer 25

• Blur the boundaries of crime: ‘incivilities’ become crimes, create more crime
• Subjective definition: it is what a person deems anti-social, no objective definition
• Flexibility: ASBOs have been used against people wearing hoodies, letting off fireworks, fly posting
  Therefore, whilst crime rate is going down, governments have created a new crime wave

Question 26

Left realist approaches to tackling crime

Answer 26

1 Policing and control
2 Tackling structural causes of crime

Question 27

Policing and control

Answer 27

KINSEY, LEA and YOUNG
- Public must become more involved in determining police priorities and the style of policing as police clear-up rates are too low and the police spend too little time investigating crime
- About 90% of information about crimes known to the police are reported to them by the public but relationships between the police and public in inner cities are poor = police cannot rely on public information in these areas to tackle crime
- Police have to undertake military policing swamping areas and using stop and search tactics = alienates communities so there is distrust and so the public do not provide them with necessary information
- Improve their relationships with the community

Question 28

Tackling the structural causes of crime

Answer 28

YOUNG
- Argues we must deal with the unequal structure of society dealing with inequality of opportunity, tackling discrimination, provide decent jobs, and improve housing and community facilities
- We must also become more tolerant of difference and avoid stereotyping whole swathes of people as criminal

Question 29

A03 Left realism

Answer 29

• HENRY and MILOVANOVIC argue left realists simply accept the authorities definition of crime as being street as committed by the poor ignoring the more harmful effects of corporate crime
• INTERACTIONALISTS argue that because left realists rely on quantitative data from victim surveys they cannot begin to understand offenders meanings and motives
• The left realist use of subcultural theory means they assume the existence of the value consensus and that crime occurs when this breaks down
• The theory over-predicts the amount of crime as not all those who experience relative deprivation commit crime
• They focus on high crime inner-city areas gives an unrepresentative view and makes crime appear to be more of a problem than it is