Right realist view of crime

Murray

• Poor socialisation and the underclass - families dependent on the welfare state (benefits), a perverse incentive

• Lone mothers do not fully socialise their children and absent fathers means boys particularly are more likely to commit crime

Dennis

• Social controls have weakened in the family and in the community (inadequate socialisation)

Wilson & Herrnstein

• Some people are likely to become criminal because it is in their personality

• Some people are more aggressive. May lie and cheat and steal as part of their character

• Low intelligence also leads to criminal behaviour

Clarke - Rational choice theory

• Individuals are free beings - they have social agency and free will

• People can choose whether to commit crime

• They are capable of weighing up reward versus risk

Wilson & Kelling - Broken Windows thesis

• Unless incivilities (litter, graffiti, noise levels etc.) are kept minimal, then wider antisocial behaviour and more serious crimes will follow

• Fix immediately

• Advocate the police adopting a policy of ‘zero-tolerance’ for even minor crimes

Solutions to crime

• Main focus is control, containment and punishment - zero tolerance policies (Wilson & Kelling) and target hardening measures - reshaping the area

• Increasing the costs to exceed the benefits

• Responsible parenting, ‘active citizens’ - Murray

• Tough punishment, heavy fines, sentences and advocation of corporal and capital punishment

Criticisms

• Ignores wider structural issues such as poverty

• Where zero tolerance is introduced, this simply shifts crime to other areas

• It is easy to pick on a scapegoat like single parent families

• Only looks at working class crime, corporate crime gets ignored by the authorities (Marxists)