Within this essay there will be a clear understanding of the contrast and comparison between left and right realism, supported by accurate evidence that will support and differentiate the two wings of realism.
During the 1970’s to the early 1990’s there had emerged two new approaches to the study of crime and deviance. The discipline of criminology had expanded further introducing right and left realism, both believe in different areas and came together in order to try and get a better understanding on crime and prevention. There were many theorists that had influenced the realism approaches such as; Jock Young (Left Wing) and James Wilson (Right Wing).
Realism, in philosophical terms, refers to the concept that there is a reality beyond our perception. This means that how we see things and what we believe about them has no impact on the nature of said things. For example an individual may see an object as blue and another see the same object to be red, this is merely a disagreement between both parties about how they should label the colour. This wouldn’t mean that both parties are discussing different objects, this shows that no matter what individual’s beliefs or thoughts on the real world are only ever approximations and do not accurately capture reality. (O’Brien, M and Yar, M, 2008)
Right realism was originated around the 1970’s and was heavily influenced by politicians, originally it was believed to have originated in USA, by the policy makers and republicans, and were brought in to the UK by prime minister Margaret Thatcher. According to White et al (2012), those that supported the right realism had clear foundations, those being, to place responsibility for crime on the individual that had committed and reasserting the ...
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... crime and deviance differently. This is why left and right realism have formed a general consensus that influence politicians as to what laws may help deter criminal behaviour and to what support is needed for struggling families via government initiative. For example if a community has been affected by crime offering them some form of social justice and support they would be less likely to commit crime themselves as a form of revenge. The government’s policies on criminal behaviour and victim support are reflected through some of the main theories and beliefs of realism.
Works Cited
Carlen P (1992) Criminal Women and Criminal Justice, Sage, London.
Newburn T (2013), Criminology, Routledge, Oxon.
O’Brien M and Yar M (2008) Criminology: The Key Concepts, Routledge, London.
White R, Haines F and Asquith N (2012) Crime and Criminology, Oxford University Press.
Jock Young’s book “The Criminological Imagination” very clearly spells out the author’s feeling that orthodox criminology has lost its way and has been swallowed up into obscurification through bogus, post-modern positivism. Young postulates, the cost of this phenomena is the loss of critical thinking and objectivity in the field of criminology. Young contends criminology can be rescued from obscurity if returning to its orthodox beginnings by reducing the impact of neo-liberalism with critical imagination, and not simply succumbing to empirical data to try to explain everything. Young contends, doing so seems to simply cloud the view, thus giving rise to a host of incomplete and overly politicized theories.
Right and left realists both offer completely different solutions to crime, primarily because the way in which they focus on looking into crime is completely different. Left realists favour victim surveys (Lea, Left Realism: a framework for the analysis of crime, 1992), saying crime is caused by relative depression, social injustice and marginalisation whilst right realists favour looking at official statistics when studying crime, they say crime is caused by a simple lack of control. However when looking at both sides of realism and their solutions to crime both show to have positive and negative solutions, meaning it can be argued either way regarding
Conscious efforts to critique existing approaches to questions of crime and justice, demystify concepts and issues that are laden with political and ideological baggage, situate debates about crime control within a socio-historical context, and facilitate the imagination and exploration of alternative ways of thinking and acting in relation to crime and justice. (p. 3).
Unlike previous theories, the conservative theory took a primitive approach to crime during the 1980s and 1990s. After the turn of the century, crime was associated and viewed through the lens of society. That lens shifted during the 1980s as crime was viewed as the responsibility of the individual and not through society. For example, the individualistic views the Classical School and Positivist School theorists had. Although Wilson and Herrnstein did not take the same approach as Beccaria, Bentham, or Lombroso each set out to once again, get tough on crime and bring ‘“punishment back into society’” (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 2015, p. 328). The two primary questions for conservative theory was asked by Wilson and Herrnstein in their book,
In the context of criminology Left and Right Realism first came into prominence in accordance with the Reagan and Thatcher governments that emerged in America and Britain in the 1970s. Both administrations dominated politics for a considerable period and represented a significant break with much previous post-war politics and public policy, favouring free market economics and mounting a critique on social welfare programmes that had developed in previous decades (Newburn 2012). In this essay I will compare and contrast these two criminological perspectives, first by explaining Left and Right Realism, and subsequently developing an analysis to highlight any areas of contrast between the two perspectives. I will argue that Left Realism is primarily
Right realism can be linked to political right wing parties ideology and the sociological theory functionalism. The reason is because people have not been socialised correctly therefore children do not possess the correct norms and values to make society function correctly, which leads to social order. This created the divide between people from the upper class to the working class and underclass. We can see people within the working and underclass
Young, J. (1981). Thinking seriously about crime: Some models of criminology. In M. Fitzgerald, G. McLennan, & J. Pawson (Eds.), Crime and society: Readings in history and society (pp. 248-309). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Crime is an irrelevant concept as it is tied to the formal social control mechanism of the State; deviance is a concept that is owned by sociology thus our study should be the sociology of deviance, rather than criminology
Realism is one of the oldest and most popular theories in International Relations. It offers a perspective about competition and power, and can be used to explain the actions between states. An example of realism is the U.S. reaction – or lack thereof – during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Right realism is a branch of the functionalist approach, using the identification of the realistic views of the causes of crime and deviance and what constitutes as the best solution for the social control of it. In general, right realism believes that the major contributors of crime are: the breakdown in moral fabric of society, a growing underclass, a breakdown in social order, more opportunity for crime, crime is committed as a deliberate and rational choice, and finally; society is depreciated the more crime is committed, creating a
Newburn, T., (2013) Criminology Tim Newburn. (2nd ed). 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14.4RN: Routledge.
The advantages to the left realist theory is that it challenges Marxists ideal view of crime. It also considers the experiences of the victim and it offers potential solutions. Moreover, it highlights exploitation of youths and ethnic minority groups. However, the weakness to this theory is that the government is not willing to spend enough money on changing poor areas, and there is no guarantee that would work anyway.
Realism is one of the important perspectives on global politics, it is a notion about the conservative society and political philosophy (Heywood 2011: 54; Shimko 2013: 36). Besides, Gilpin (1996) claims that “realism…, it is not a scientific theory that is subject to the test of falsifiability, therefore, cannot be proved and disproved.” (Frankel 1996: xiii). The components of the realist approach to international relations will be discussed.
The Classical School of Criminology generally refers to the work of social contract and utilitarian philosophers Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham during the enlightenment in the 18th century. The contributions of these philosophers regarding punishment still influence modern corrections today. The Classical School of Criminology advocated for better methods of punishment and the reform of criminal behaviour. The belief was that for a criminal justice system to be effective, punishment must be certain, swift and in proportion to the crime committed. The focus was on the crime itself and not the individual criminal (Cullen & Wilcox, 2010). This essay will look at the key principles of the Classical School of Criminology, in particular
The realist school is based on the thought that human nature is not perfectible. Human nature is viewed as evil and something that cannot be trusted or counted on. In order to have a successful society the citizens need to be controlled by a strong sovereign government. This strong government would be the only thing able enough to control human nature and the evils it produces. If a strong central government did not exist a state of chaos would be created by the people of the land. One of the leading philosophers of the realist school was Thomas Hobbes. He elaborated on many of the concepts of realism.