left realism

• developed from

  Marxist and critical criminology
• critisises Marxists


  for suggesting the only way to tackle crime is by abolishing capitalism
• left realists critisise as

  the abolition of capitalism is very unlikely and not realistic in tackling crime in societies
• Marxists neglect street crime

  left realists concentrates on filling this gap
• Lea and Young (Left Realism)


  Most victims of street crime were the poor
• left realists stress on studying victims

  They make extensive use of local victim surveys to find out about how crime affects the lives of those
• inner city dwellers


  working class + low income

  greatest likelihood of being victims

  tend to have the greatest fear of crime
• Underpolicing


  Crimes such as sexual assaults and racially motivated attack tend to be underreported
• Overpolicing


  Some crimes have too much attention and resources devoted to them such as sex workers and drug users

  these crimes do more to the offenders than to 3rd parties and can be dealt with better through medical intervention and education rather than punishment
• Rising crime rates


  cannot simply be explained away by changes in reportings and records
• Relative Deprivation


  A rise in people's expectations to what they think they're entitled to consume x the fact that some social groups don't have the economic resources
• What makes relative deprivation worse

  Increased inequality x increased emphasis on material success
• Subculture


  May be created to cope with relative deprivation.

  Some may encourage criminality

  Some may discourage crime
• Young


  there's less consensus on moral values due to the variety of subcultures claiming their values are legit

  This leads to conflict and rising crime
• Marginalisation


  Involves being pushed to the fringes of society because groups lack power, influence and involvement in mainstream life of society
• Marginal groups


  Lack organisation to represent their interests in political life. Their concerns are not genuinely taken seriously by those in power
• The square of crime

  A model of the different factors involved in understanding and explaining crime. It combines elements of traditional approaches like subcultural and labelling theory
• The square of crime elements

  State

  Offender

  Victim

  Informal social control
• The square of crime stance on victims

  Believe victims will often be the ones who initially define whether an action is illegal and violent or not by deciding whether they're going to report it or not
• Left Realism Positive Evaluation

  Concept of relative deprivation is useful in understanding why crime can increase despite increased living standards

  Useful suggestions in improving policing, contributed into making the criminal justice system fairer

  Only theory which incorporated the role of victims
• Left Realism Negative Evaluation

  -They have not gathered empirical data

  -lacks direct evidence for reasons why people commit crime

  -fails to explain why some who experience relative deprivation turn to crime when other don't

  -hasn't explained why officially recorded crime has fallen in recent years
• empirical data


  factual statements and statistics (scientific)
• Hughes


  fails to successfully explain the cause of street crime and it relies to much on subcultural theory
• Ruggiero


  Left realists have neglected cooperated and organised crime