topic 8 - realist explanations of crime and deviance Flashcards
Wilson and Kelling
right realists / new right
broken windows 🪟 theory
—> ZERO TOLERANCE APPROACH should be taken against criminal YSCs
—> even minor crime (e.g. broken windows) should be fixed IMMEDIATELY
—> if people see existing crime, they’ll be encouraged to commit more crime
boots estate
Clarke - rational choice theory
crime = RATIONAL calculation of the likely consequences of being caught
logically weighing up perceived rewards of crime vs perceived costs of crime
e.g. robbing a bank has potentially very high rewards compared to cost
currently, perceived costs are lower than rewards so crime rate increased
(lack of situational crime prevention, surveillance cameras etc)
Hirschi
social bonds theory
crime occurs when attachment to society is weakened
4 social bonds:
1. COMMITMENT (personal investments, goals)
2. ATTACHMENT (connections with other people, care)
3. BELIEF (social values and morality in regards to social rules)
4. INVOLVEMENT (how busy you are, how much empty time and space)
Thatcher/Reagan, neoliberalism on crime
social policy - law and order Needs to be stronger
1980s belief that crime occurs if police are not strong enough and punishment is too soft
Policies reflecting this view led to extreme increase of prison population
UK prisons increase of 90% between 1993 and 2010
retributive justice
welfare dependency
roger matthews and jock young
SQUARE OF CRIME
crime arises from an intersection of
OFFENDER
VICTIM
CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
GENERAL PUBLIC
crime cannot be analysed in terms of one factor, they are all interconnected and influence each other
e.g. public opinion can influence government policy and CJS; offenders and victims can be defined through CJS
John Lea and Jock Young
3 factors driving people to crime:
- RELATIVE DEPRIVATION (subjective feeling of deprivation one may feel when comparing themself to others, fuelled by media images)
- MARGINALISATION (fringes of society: homeless, poor, ethnic minorities feeling hopeless, excluded, abandoned. Lack social, economic, political power)
- SUBCULTURE (criminal subcultures form communities who use crime to deal with the above concepts)
Young
crime caused by move from INclusive society to EXclusive society
50s were golden years of capitalism (security, stability, social inclusion, high employment, low divorce rates, relatively strong communities, general consensus of morality, lower crime rates)
since 70s: instability, insecurity, exclusion, increased unemployment and poverty, deindustrialisation and loss of unskilled manual jobs, destabilised family + community life, worse welfare state: LEADS TO INCREASED MARGINALISATION, EXCLUSION AND CRIME
Lea and Young - social exclusion of ethnic minorities:
systematic racism especially in police leads to ethnic minorities forming defiant subcultures on the edge of society, so more likely to be both criminal offenders and victims
