Murray, Clarke and Wilson and Kelling

• Claims

  • realism theory, Right Realism
  • Murray: The underclass Theory, inadequate socialisation of single mother households normalise criminality as well as welfare dependency
  • Solution: cuts to welfare
  • Clarke: Rational Choice Theory, if rewards outweigh the cost, people make a rational choice to commit crime
  • Solution: increase punishments
  • Wilson and Kelling: Broken Window Theory, signs of disorder leads to more disorder
  • Solution: maintain the community and clamp down on petty crime
• Components

  • Zero Tolerance: clamp down on the first signs of petty crime and deviance
  • Target Hardening and Punishment: reduce opportunity to commit crime and increase punishment
• Credibility

  • led to a shift in official thinking
  • offers more of a practical approach to tackling crime
  • ignores wider structural causes
  • overstates offenders rationality and how far they make cost-benefit calculations before committing a crime
• Application

  • New York City Port Authority Bus Terminal: had major problems with crime, took a zero tolerance and target hardening approach, led to a reduce in crime and customer complaints
• Refuting Evidence

  • just displaces crime
  • Mooney 1998: 'there isn't a substantial scrap of evidence' that there is a link between the underclass and crime
• Supporting Evidence

  • Flood-Page et al 2000: supports that decline in family leads to criminalisation and children from lone parent households are likely to become offenders