Assess the Usefulness of Realist Approaches to Reducing Levels of Crime- Essay Plan

ESSAY PLAN-

Assess the usefulness of realist approaches to reducing levels of crime;

Introduction;

- Briefly summarise realist approaches;

- Left realism- like Marxists, see society as unequal and capitalist. They believe in gradual social change rather than violent overthrow. They believe to solve crime we need to develop explanations of crime which will lead to practical strategies to reduce levels.

- Right realism- sees crime as a real and growing problem that destroys communities, undermines social cohesion and threatens society’s work ethic. Right realism led to a shit in official thinking, away from the causes of crime and towards a search for practical crime control measures.

Paragraph one;

- Left realism; explanations of crime

- Young, Lea and Matthews

- Islington- Local victimisation surveys: showed that the real victims of crime were the poor and the powerless

- Left explanations of crime has three elements; 1. Relative deprivation- Runciman, 2. Marginalisation, 3. Subculture- draws upon the Marxist approach/Merton’s ideas.

Paragraph two;

- Left realism; dealing with crime

- Kinsey, Lea and Young

- Policing is flawed as not enough time is spent investigating crime and “clearing up”.

- Public confidence in police is low.

- Inability to “solve crimes”

- Policing techniques which alienate local residents by criminalising them e.g. stop and search.

- Social inequalities must be addressed.

Paragraph three;

- Criticisms of the left realist approach;

- Critical criminologists- “not realistic”.

- Ignores white collar crime

- Concentrates on street crime

- Feminist criminologists (Carlen)- ignores issues such as domestic violence

Paragraph four;

- Right Realism; explanations of crime

- Increase in the “underclass” (Murray)

- Broken Window thesis (Wilson)

- Comments and actions of other members of the local community Once crime...