Right realism

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  • Created by: Becci
  • Created on: 13-12-12 16:49

Right realism

Advantages

  • looks at the real reasons behind why crime is committed
  • has led to a shift in official thinking in offering practical control measures for crime and deviance

Disadvantages

  • ignores wider structural causes such as poverty
  • overstates offenders rationality and how far they make cost-benefit calculations before commiting a crime
  • pre occupied with petty street crime ignoring corporate crime
  • over-emphasises control of disorder, rather than tacking underlying causes of neighbour hoof decline- for example replacing a broken window doesn't tackle the problem of it being broken in the first place
  • their view that actors choose crime freely conflicts with view that behaviour is determined by biological factors

Evaluation

Right realism has been useful in offering an alternative viewpoint to structural theories by looking at crime as a real problem that needs to be tackled and not just a social construction. However, the solutions to crime they put forward are simply displacing crime and so not tackle the root causes that would lead to its prevention.

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