Left and Right Realism

Left- "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" Blair

Right- tougher on the criminals than the causes

Right Realism-

Value consensus and shared morality underpin society and is reflected in the laws as criminals are seen immoral as they break the consensus and social order, which is cruicial to allow people to live without the fear of crime.

People are naturally selfish take short cuts through crime, which is regualted by the agencices of socialisation social control and the law.

Community control. Poor socialisation and lack of community controls mean that crime and antisocial behaviour occurs.. The most effective form of crime control is by strengthening the bonds of community, stricter primary and secondary socialisation and re establishing social cohesion by bringing a sense of invidiual repsonsibilites. These are more effective than the police. 

New right (comes under right realism)- Murray links crime to unemploymed workshy underclass wholive in a broken community with social disorder. Underclass lack individual responsibility and respect forauthroity as they become dependant on welafre. They have dysfunctional family life and breakdowns within the family and lone parenthood which murray belives leads to poor socialisation and control and of teaching them moraql standards and there is a lack of community pressure to control deviance. 

Rational choice and oppurtunity, people are rational and weigh up the costs and benefits before choosing what action to take. 

Cornish and Clarke (right realists) - people choose to commit crime because they decide that the benefits to be gained are greater than the potential costs as the oppurtunities are avalibale and therefore worth the risk. The solution is to increase the costs such as heavier policing  to increase the risk of being caught and to reduce the oppurtunities for crime.

Crime will always exist there will always be a form of selfishness and greed that slips through forms of social controls. Its a wase of time to try and find the causes of crime are as most deprived people dont commit crime. The most that can be achieved is to reduce the impact of crimes on victims particulary violent crimes and burgulary which are cimres the public are mostly worried about.  White collar and coporate crimes have relativley little impact on individuals in their daily lives so they shoudlnt be a major focus of policing. 

Evaluation-

Adresses the immediate causes of crime and provides policies for reducing the oppurtunities of crime.

Recognises the importance of community and family and control and repsonses to crime from the community etc in affecting crime levels.

Doesnt adress the wider structural causes of crime thatother theories do.

Doesnt pay any attention to white collar crime and coporate crime and other hidden crimes like domestic violence and child abuse or traffiking. 

Suggests that offenders are rationally weighing up the costs and beneifts but some crimes are impulsive or irrational and do not bring any obvious gain like vandalism and violence. 

Lyng- edgework - Miller - Katz - seductions of crime - people may offend for the secuctivness or…