left realism

• left realists

  • socialist political outlook
  • inequality in a capitalist society as the root cause of crime
• The causes of crime

  Lea and young identify 3 related causes of crime: relative deprivation, subculture and marginalisation
• Relative deprivation 


  Lea and young argue that two factors are increasing peoples sense of relative deprivation

  1. the media pump out messages urging everyone to aspire to material possessions
  2. Society is becoming more unequal due to cuts in benefits, unemployment, job insecurity and low pay

  due to the unfairness some resort to crime to obtain what they feel should be rightfully there

  Young also notes that there is ’relative deprivation downwards’ people who are better off feel resentment against those who are actually worse off and this may explain some hate crimes to powerless groups
• subculture

  • a group way if solving relative deprivation
  • criminal subcultures share society’s materialistic goals but because legitimate means are blocked they result to crime.
• Marginalisation


  According to lea and young marginalised groups are ones that lack organisation to represent their interest and lack clearly defined goals.

  Jobless youths have no clear goals or organisations to represent them selves so instead they have a sense of powerlessness, frustration and resentment of injustice which they express through crime such as violence and rioting