2.4.1.9 - Right realism

• Situational crime prevention (SCP) aim to reduce crime by increasing the risks or difficulties of committing the crime and reducing the rewards
• SCP is base on rational choice theory which right realists believe to be true for all offenders
• SCP includes target hardening measures such as locking cars, employing security guards, and reshaping the environment to design crime out of an area
• If criminals find a target too hard to crack, they will look for another softer one
• SCP may result in more vulnerable targets are victimised more because other targets have been hardened
• Environmental crime prevention (ECP) is the improvement on the environment in an area to reduce the likelihood of crime
• Environmental improvement strategy


  All signs of disorder must be tackled promptly to keep the likelihood of crime low in the area
• Zero tolerance policing (ZTP)


  Taking a tough zero tolerance stance towards crime, even if they would be considered trivial and not worth it
• Zero tolerance claims to have been successful in New York in the 1990s
• The long term affects of ZTP have not been studied yet
• Penal populism refers to the government's attempts at proposing laws to punish offenders that will be popular with the general public
• Professor Wilson said that the penal population policy started as a result of the Jamie Bulger case in 1993
• The media fuelled public concern about violent crime in the community
• As a result of media concern, political parties all agreed that they needed to be tough on crime and that offenders needed to be punished
• The UK has more life sentences than the whole of Europe combined
• Tony Blair's New Labour government came to power in 1997 and promised to be tough on crime and causes of crime
• The New Labour government of 1997 introduced measures like ASBOs and curfews
• Penal populism has led to rising numbers in jail and increasing numbers of suicides, homicides, self harm, and assaults on prison staff
• The prison system has been overcrowded since 1994
• National Audit Office found that their is no consistent correlation between prison numbers and levels of crime
• Prison has two functions in right realism:

  • Incapacitation
  • Deterence
• Incapacitation


  Criminals become incapable of harming the public as they are physically out of the public domain
• Deterrence


  Criminals think twice before offending when they see the punishment handed out
• A prison's effectiveness can be judged on:

  • Rehabilitation
  • Recidivism
  • Deterrence
  • Incapacitation