Week Five - Right Realism

Question 1

What is the political context of Right Realism?

Answer 1

Political context: 60s, 70s, 80s – economic decline and inequality

Question 2

What does Right Realism believe the motivations for crime are?

Answer 2

Motivations for crime are individual: biological – e.g. low intelligence; and psychological – e.g. psychological traits of low impulse control, hyperactivity, aggression.

Question 3

What are the key ideas of Right Realism?

Answer 3

Characteristics of an ‘underclass’: permanent unemployment, welfare dependency, family instability, lone parenting, and crime.

Focuses on specific types of crime – street crime; ignores white collar crime

But also rational choice? Suitable target, motivated offender, lack of capable guardian.

Question 4

Crime and Human Nature.. Wilson and Herrnstein 1985

Answer 4

“Wherever it has been examined, criminals on the average differ in physique from the population at large. They tend to be more mesomorphic (muscular) and less ectomorphic (linear)… A corresponding argument is that the more muscular criminals are more likely to have biological parents who are themselves criminals”

Question 5

Broken Windows..Wilson and Kelling 1982

Answer 5

“Disorderly people [are] disreputable or obstreperous or unpredictable people: panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed” (p. 30)

James Q Wilson: forget theorising about the causes of crime and concentrate on the realities and pragmatics of crime and criminality.

Which realities? Which pragmatics?
This involves choices, which involves a view of the world, a ‘theory’.

Question 6

Right Realism..What Should be Done?

Answer 6

Not possible to change the causes of crime

So ignores structural causes of crime such as deprivation and unemployment

And even socialisation which it is accepted results in self-control and lack of moral values

Believes in the power of harsh punishment – incapacitation and deterrence, not rehabilitation. Hard hitting! Get tough!

Focus on ethnic minorities and the ‘underclass’

Expand prisons (and police)

Remove welfare net

Zero tolerance policing

Crime prevention – target hardening (based on rational choice)

…our ideas determine our actions