Right realism explanations on crime and deviance

• accept the 'typical criminal' that police recorded figures show
• challenge traditional theories for being too 'idealistic' and romanticising the criminal
• concerned about the 'corrosive effects that crime can have on communities'
• challenging traditional theories for offering no practical solutions to crime

• focus on 'street crime'
• tend to blame the individual offender
• solutions focus on controlling people

The importance of social order

• challenges mainstream criminology
• argues they are based on ideology rather than facts e.g. white collar-crime is over-emphasised
• he believes that long-term trends in crime can be accounted for:

1. How many young males in society = most likely to commit crime as they are temperamentally aggressive and have short term horizons - crime will increase or decrease depending on how many young males there are

2. The availability of jobs and the state of the economy = benefits and cost of crime will change depending on things like accessibility, the economy and job availability - particularly affects property crime

3. How people are socialised into society = family, media and religion influence general norms and values - can affect the extent to which 'at risk' people are tempted into deviance or are willing to conform

• argues that these 3 factors are uncontrollable
• this means that no government can actually prevent crime at the source
• does not believe poverty is the real cause of crime (many poor people don't commit crime)
• therefore, attempting to redistribute wealth is costly, unfair and will not reduce crime
• to reduce crime it is about enforcing the law with less emphasis on the severity of the punishment and more emphasis on the likelihood of being caught
• the environment plays a key role in creating a 'culture' of order and acceptable behaviour:

social order is maintained = individuals will not be tempted to partcipate in deviant behaviour

police visbly clamping down on crime = culture is created where other residents also report crime    more and are involved in informal social

ALTERNATIVELY

impression that nobody cares amd disorder is prevalent = previously law-abiding people may see it as acceptable to join in with deviant behaviour

Broken windows

• when communities are faced with low level disorder they will stay indoors more and not get involved
• crime will flourish as nobody is challenging it
• urban decay develops
• those who can will move away and the area goes into a downward spiral
• once an area has a criminal culture there is little point policing it
• police should spend their efforts elsewhere where they can make a difference
• they should identify areas at tipping points and try to restore order with a visible police presence (right-realist solution)

Broken windows study

Procedure

• considered psychology experiments and a study into policing in New York in the mid-1970s
• the police study experimented with increasing police foot patrols
• after a 5 year programme, the local residents indicated that they felt much safer and that crime had reduced
• police officers had a better relationship with residents
• police had taken on an 'order maintenance' role, addressing low level deviance such as public drunkeness, rowdy behaviour and begging

Conclusions

• came up with the 'broken window' phenomenon
• when a derelict building had one broken window, the others will soon follow
• when people identify a building as derelict and uncared for, they see it as acceptable to further vandalise it

Once criminal barriers have been broken down, deviance can happen anywhere!

Similar to Zimbardo who left an abandoned car in a middle-class area and one in a run-down area

• 'unintended behaviour' leads to a breakdown of community controls
• alternatively, if police have presence and address low-level disorder, this will create an orderly environment

Biological criminal tendencies

• there is a biological element to criminal behaviour
• 'criminal' traits can be heightened if people lack proper socialisation
• single-parent families, or those who lack commitment to society's norms and values, may not provide proper socialisation - similar to Murray