Left and Right Realists theories of crime

Right Realists:

-Reject the idea that crime occurs because of societies structures and the ineqalities in them.

-Suggets that interactionalist theorists are too sympathetic towards criminals (say that crime is caused from labelling- suggests that criminals have no choice but to commit crime because they have been socially excluded from sociey) and are too hostile towards the criminal justice system. 

- Murrays underclass- people who are at the bottom of the social class hierarchy and are unemployed and on benifits to avoid actually going to work- such as single parent families, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities. The decrease of the nuclear family- lone parent families and a lack of socialisation within them- not socialised into correct norms and values of society with a lack of respect for authority and lack of community effort to control crime. However, right realists focus on working class crime and ignore the impact that white collar crime has on society, such as the damaging effects it has to our economy by companies that 'fiddle expenses'  Murray suggets that the underclass choose to go on benifits bevause they cannot be bothered to find a job when this may not be the case, labelling theorists would suggetst that the stigma stuck on to the working class may unable them to get employment, for example if someone was caught with child *********** on their computer then they may be unlikley to ever get a job because no one want to hire a "peadophile".

Rational choice- people weigh up the pros and cons of commiting the devaint behaviour- if the pros out weigh the cons than crime will be commited, for example if someone was to commit the crime and gain money as well as peer status and populairty within the peer group then they will be much better off than if they didnt do it and were left feeling lonley and deprived, therefore the crime is worth the risk as they would be better off than they already are. Therefore the solution to crime is to increase the costs of commiting the crime for example, hightening security in broken communities so that it is easier for people to get caught. However, this theory ignores…