All left realism

Emergence

• 1980s and 90s

• In response to RR

Ideological similarity

• Reformist socialism

  • Focus on practical solutions to crime

  • Revolution and classless society before abolition of crime waste of time

CRTICISM of Marxism

• Concentration on white collar/corporate crime

• Important but ignores W/C crime and its effects

CRITICISM of Neomarxism

• Romanticises W/C criminals as Robin Hoods

  • Reality: W/C people victimise other W/C people, not the rich

CRITICISM of labelling theorists

• Neglect real victims by concentrating on labelling criminals

  • I.e. W/C people who suffer at the hands of criminals

Lea and Young (1984) - 3 causes of crime

1. Relative deprivation

2. Subcultures

3. Marginalisation

Relative deprivation (👀) - Runciman (1966) - explanation

• Feeling like you’re deprived compared to others/your own expectations

👀 - Runciman (1966) - change over time

• 1930s

  • Increasing poverty

  • Decreasing crime - everyone had very little so no one felt deprived compared to others

• 1950s

  • Increasing living standards

    • More inequality

    • More media to be aware of this inequality

    • Resent others for having more

  • Increasing crime - resort to crime to obtain what they feel entitled to

👀 - Young (2002) - COR

• Widespread FMC values → increasing inequality → increasing individualism → greater sense of 👀

👀 - Young (1999) - individualism, families and crime

• Relative deprivation + individualism → crime

• Indivdualism = pursuit of self-interest at expense of others

  • Increases disintegration of families by undermining mutual suppport and selflessness

    • This then undermines familial control over individuals

      • This leads to a spiral of anti-social behaviour (like crime)

Subcultures (🥷) - explanation

• Subcultures = collective solution to problem of 👀

  • Different solutions = different groups

🥷 - examples, Weber

• Solutions could be crime or religion

• Weber’s “theodicy of disprivilege”

  • Religion for coping with disadvantage

🥷 - Messner & Golden (1992)

• Racial discrimination → deep violent subcultures

🥷 - Pryce (1979) - Bristol’s Black community

• Example of subculture in Bristol’s Black community - “Saints”

  • Pentacostal ⛪️

  • Hard-working

  • Law-abiding

• Saints used collective self-help to aid survival in a racist society

🥷 - Pryce (1979)

• Criminal subcultures subscrive to values and goals of mainstream society

  • E.g. materialism, consumerism

🥷 - Young (2002) - ideology vs opportunity

• Neighbourhoods in 🇺🇸 fully immersed in American Dream yet lack opportunity → high street crime

Marginalisation (🗞) - why it leads to crime

• Marginalised groups lack clear goals and organisations to represent their interests

  • Like workers have trade unions

• This then leads to frustration and crime

🗞 - example

• Unemployed youth = marginalised

  • Lack representation and goals

• Especially: politically powerless

• Instead: turn to crime like violence and rioting

🗞 - Gibbs & Merighi (1994) - example

• Marginalisation of Black people in 🏥, 🏫, 🏠 → anger and frustration → crime

👮‍♀ing and control - Kinsey, Lea & Young (1986)

• 👮‍♀️ “clear-up” rates too low to effectively deter crime

• Spend too little time investigating

• Solution: involve public in determination of priorities and style of 👮‍♀ing

👮‍♀️ and the public

• 👮‍♀ rely on the public to provide information

• Now losing public support, especially from inner city dwellers, EM and young people

% of 👮‍♀️ info that comes from the public

90

Military policing - vicious circle

• Less flow of info from public → more reliance on military policing (like stop and search) → more alienation → less public trust in 👮‍♀ → less flow of info from public

5 practical solutions to current issues with policing

1. Make 👮‍♀ accountable to local communities

2. Involve public in policy

3. Multi-agency approach:

   • Combine voluntary organisations with social services, housing and schools

4. Change priorities:

   • Minor drug crime → DV, hate crime

5. Spend more time investigating

Structural causes and crime

• Need to reduce structural causes to effectively reduce crime

• Structural causes:

  • Inequality of opportunity

  • Discrimination

• Ideal world:

  • Tolerant of diversity

  • Close-knit communities

4 govt policy changes that relate to crime - New Labour 🔴

1. “New Deal” for unemployed youth

2. ASBOs (anti-social behaviour orders)

3. Policing of hate crimes and SA

4. SureStart

3 CRITICISMS of NL policy - Young

1. Failed attempt to recreate the 'Golden Age’ of the 1950s

2. Only addressed symptoms of crime, not the underlying causes

3. ASBOs and the New Deal didn’t work

3 focuses for different areas of govt - local

1. Bar and club crime hotspots

2. Shop crime hotspots

3. Road crime hotspots

2 focuses for different areas of govt - national

1. Online cybercrime through legislation relating to social media

2. Large businesses

IFS 2024 — 4 impacts of surestart centres

1. Reduced custodial sentences by 1/5

2. Every £ spent saved 19p on youth justice and social care

3. Decreased criminal convictions for 16y/o living within 2.5km of a centre by 13%

4. Access to SS between 0 and 4 y/I led to significant decrease in youth crime

Young (2011) - aetiological crisis part 2!

• Crime is no longer a major threat, which realism is struggling to explain

• Crime is a social construction and therefore is still seen as a threat

Crime Survey for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (2019) - % of people that thought crime has increased over the last 10 years

• 81

• It’s actually decreased

ONS (2023)- % of people in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿that think crime has increased

75

Crime Survey for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (2024) - % by which violence, burglary and car crime has decreased over the last 30 years

Almost 90

ONS (2023) - crime peak and low

• Peak: 1995

• All-time low: 2023

ONS (2023) - 3 reasons for all-time low + types of crime it’s decreased

1. Vehicle electronic immobilisers

2. More household security

3. Increased security in public

• Fewer teenage-committed crimes

• Fewer criminal careers

Crime Survey for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 (2024) - 3 types of crime that are increasing + reason

• Fraud

• Computer misuse

• General cybercrime

• Due to increase in opportunities, skills and rewards

YouGov - years in which there were spikes in public fear of crime

• 2012, 2019

• Little fear of crime in 2016 and 2020 due to other fears (Brexit, COVID)

4 causes of unreasonable fear of crime

1. TV

2. Newspapers

3. Media (skewed reporting)

4. Political rhetoric

Key policies regarding anti-social behaviour

• 1998 - ASBOs

• 2015 - IPNAs

3 key features of the increasing anti-social behaviour rate

1. Blurred boundaries of crime

• Turned incivilities → crime, which in turn creates more crime

  • E.g. breaching an ASBO was a crime

2. Has a subjective definition

3. Flexibility

• Became used against anything and was constantly widened

  • Created endless infringements

Aetiological crisis definition

• Theories of crime failed to explain the increase of crime

Young (2011) - creation of aetiological crisis

• Created by increase in crime in 1950s

  • Denied by critical criminology and labelling theory as a social construction

    • Instead claimed to “actually be due to increases in reporting/labelling”

LR explanation of the rise in crime (so solving the aetiological crisis)

• More crime → more victims of crime → victims resort to crime → more crime

LR solution to the 1950s increase in crime

• Recognise victims of crime via victim surveys

Impact of crime on disadvantaged groups

• More likely to be victims of crime

  • Such as burglary, street crime, violence

• Therefore more fearful of crime, has more of an effect on their lives

  • E.g. women not going out at night

Unskilled workers are _x more likely to be burgled

2

Disadvantaged groups and reporting of crime

• Disadvantaged groups less likely to report crime

  • Police therefore less likely to deal with crimes against disadvantaged groups like r4pe, DV and racism

Young (2002) - current society (1970s→present) and crime

• Late modern

  • Unstable

  • Insecure

  • Exclusive

• High crime rates due to increased exclusion of those at the bottom:

  • Deindustrialisation → loss of unskilled jobs, any jobs short-term and low-paid → high unemployment of youth and EM

  • Cuts to welfare spending → destabilisation of family and community life

• High crime yet low tolerance of crime

Young (2002) - 1950s and 60s and crime

• ‘Golden Age’ of modern capitalist society

  • Stable

  • Secure

  • Inclusive

• Low crime rates due to:

  • Full employment

  • Comprehensive welfare state

  • Low divorce rate

  • Strong communities

  • Moral consensus

2 causes of 👀

1. Cultural inclusion

2. Economic exclusion

• Similar to Merton’s anomie

Cultural inclusion

• Promoted by media

• Allows everyone access to society/the media’s materialistic and consumerist messages

Economic exclusion

• Increasing emphasis on leisure, personal consumption and immediate gratification

• Poor denied access to this

Generalisation of 👀

• 👀 normally only at the bottom of society

• Now widespread:

  • Resentment of undeservedly high rewards received by some (🧍⚽)

  • 👀 downwards: M/C resent W/C for living off ‘undeserved’ welfare due to competitive nature of M/C jobs

Consequences of 👀 downwards

• More hate crimes, e.g. racism towards asylum seekers, riots last summer

Exclusion

• Exclusion → more crime and more types of crime

  • Crime now widespread across social structure

Changing reactions to crime

• Less public consensus on right and wrong

• Therefore un🌫|🌫acceptable boundary becomes blurred

Consequence of disintegration of families/communities

• → informal controls less effective → greater public intolerance of crime → demands for harsher penalties and more criminalisation of behaviour

CRITICISM of LR — Henry and Milovanovic (1996)

• Does not challenge authority’s definition of crime as W/C crime

• Ignores crimes of the powerful

CRITICISM of LR — Marxist

• Fails to explain corporate crime, which is more harmful than W/C crime

CRITICISM of LR — interactionists

• Reliance on victim surveys means unable to understand offender’s motives

2 CRITICISMS of LR

1. Overestimates crime and focuses in inner-city crime

• Not all experiencers of 👀 commit crime

2. Assumes existence of value consensus