Crimiminals will engage in a crime if the besefits outweigh the costs.
Increase the cost of crime. Increase the liklihood of being caught and tougher punishments.
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Anti-Sociological Criminology
Right Realists point out that with increased affluence, crime rates have soared
Extending the Welfare State, lack of discipline in education and a decine in the traditional family are seen as key factors behind crime increase
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Selfish Human Nature
Rising crime levels reflect ineffective and inadequete social control
Permissive attitudes allow self-indulgent and anti-social behaviour
Feckless parenting, absent fathers, lack of discipline in schools, liberal policies of the state all served to ferment crime
The resut has been spiralling volumes of incivilities: Muggings, graffiti, vandalim, car break-ins and theft
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Solutions to Crime
Reduce opportunities of offending
Increase the costs to exceed the benefits
Crime control should also fall upon members in the community
Responsible parenting and 'active citizens' who challege anti-social behaviour
Tough punishment: heavy fines, sentences and advocation of corporal and capital punishment
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James Q. Wilson: Broken Window Thesis
Unless incivilities are kept minimal, then wider anti-social behaviour and mre serious crimes will follow
Advocated the police adopt the 'zero tolerence' policy for even minor crimes
Reflects Durkheim's idea that local informal controls are crutial for law and order
3 key factors affecting long term crime:
Number of young males (Typical deviants)
Costs/benefits of crime (Rational Choice Theory)
Inadequete socialisation into norms and values
To deal with these he suggests target hardening of deviant groups and areas through pro-active policing
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Inadequate and Inappropriate Socialisation
Blame crime on inadequate or inappropriate socialisation by key socialisation agencies in society
The non-traditional famiy, especially single mothers, is viewed as a major factor
Lack of discipline in schools, a mass media that glamourises deviance and crime and the decline in the influence of religious values are other important factors
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Charles Murray (1990)
New Right theorist
Underclass are insufficiently integrated into society's norms and values
Calls the deviant subcultural values of the underclass 'paternalism'
Views the underclass as prone to: criminal tendenices, violoence, illigitimacy and promiscuity educational failure and welfare dependencey
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Ernst van den Haag (1975)
Adopts a poor view of humanity as willing to cheat to 'get on' and therefore some groups need to be controlled for thier own good and that of society
It is reasonable for las and order agencies to target the poor
He advocates a tough penal system of punishment both Corporal and Capital
Agrees with Durkheim and sees punishment as functional, acting as a deterrent
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Critique
It is influencial on Government policy in both the USA and UK
It is a lack of investment in deprived areas rather than incivilities that cause crime to rise
It is easy to pick up on scapegoats like single parent families
Marxists argue that concetration on mior offences means that more serious crimes get ignored by the authorities
The 'Zero Tolerance' policy simply shifts crime to other areas
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