right realism

• Wilson and Herrnstein say that a cause of crime is due to biological differences
• Murray argues that the cause of crime is due the growing underclass who fail to socialise their children properly
• Murray argues that people have become more dependent on the state leading to more lone mothers who are ineffective socialising agents and their sons turn to crime
• Clarke agues that the cause of crime is due to the rational choice theory that the decision to commit crime is based on the consequences
• The strength of the right realists is that the conservative government takes up their solutions on a bigger scale
• The solutions of crime according to right realism are: crime prevention polices (target hardening), zero tolerance (broken windows)
• Criticisms of the right realists are that zero tolerance can lead to more crime elsewhere and they ignore the role of the police
• A criticism of the rational choice theory is that the biological differences theory says that people are born to commit crime so do not make a choice wether to commit a crime
• Wilson and Kelling argue that we must keep neighbourhoods orderly to prevent crime e.g graffiti must be immediately dealt with
• Criticism of biological differences- IQ differences account for less than 3% of differences in offending