Topic 4: Realist Theories of Crime

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  • Created by: Lilly_B
  • Created on: 17-06-17 20:15
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  • Topic 4: Realist Theories of Crime
    • Right Realism
      • Causes of crime
        • Biological differences
          • Herrnstien: biological differencs make some people more strongly predisposed to commit crime then others
          • Herrnstien and Murray: Main cause of crime is intellegence which is biologically determined
        • Socialisation and the underclass
          • Murray: crime caused by growing underclass - welfare state's 'generous revolution' lead to welfare dependancy, lone parent families, and inadequatly socialised children/undiciplined sons
        • Rational choice theory
          • Clarke: decision to commit crime is a rational, calculated choice
      • Tackling Crime
        • Wilson and Kelling: 'Broken Window' theory
        • Zero tolerance: clamp down on prostitution, drug use, and 'slipperly slope' petty crimes
      • Criticisms:
        • Ignores wider structual issues
        • Over-estimates offenders' rationalism - doesn't explain non-utillitarian crime
        • Zero tolerance just leads to displacement of crime to other areas
    • Left Realism
      • Taking crime seriously
        • Marxists
          • Agree's on importance of coperate crime, but argue that they neglect working-class crime and its effects
        • Neo-Marxists
          • Romanticises working-class criminal when crime is intra-class
        • Labelling theorists
          • Approach neglects the real victims - working-class people who suffer
      • Causes of crime
        • Relative deprivation
          • Lea and Young: Media and advertisement raises expectations for materialism  perpetulated by individualism
        • Subculture
          • Solution to relative deprivation - pentecostal churches and theodicy of disprivilage
        • Marginalisation
          • Groups lack clear goals and organisation - expression of frustration
      • Late modernity, exclusion and crime
        • Young: Growing contrast between cultural inclusion and economic exclusion- line between acceptable and unacceptable blurred due to diverse society
      • Tackling crime
        • Policing and control
          • Lea and Young: loss of support from poor/ethnic inorities = military policing and swarming/stop and search tactics
          • Police should build bond with community/multi-agency approaches with victim support
        • Structual causes
          • Need to tackle inequality, job oppotunities, racial/sex discrimination, housing and fighting sterotypes
        • Government policy
          • Influencer of 1997-2010 New Labour 'tough on crime, tough on causes of crime' stance
          • Firmer approach on hate crimes, sexual assult, domestic violence, ASBOs + 'New Labour's New Deal' = jobs for young youth
          • Young = policies doomed attempt to recreate 'Golden Aage' - New Deal didn't not lead to secure jobs and ASBOs did not recreate sense of community - haven't tackled underlying causes

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