Left Realism

• Summary - inequality is the main source of crime - it encourages relative deprivation
• Strength - Draws attention to the importance of poverty and inequality as the underlying causes of crime
• Strength - Drawing attention to the reality  of street crime and its effects especially on victims
• Weakness - Henry + Milovanovic argue that left realism accepts the authorities definition of crime as just being the street crime of the poor. It fails to explain white collar and corporate crime and ignores the harms done to the poor by the crimes of the powerful 
• Weakness - It over-predicts the amount of working class crime - not everyone who experiences relative deprivation and marginalisation turns to crime
• Weakness - It focus on high-crime inner-city areas gives an unrepresentative view and makes crime appear a greater problem than it is