LEFT AND RIGHT REALISM

Right Realism (James Q. Wilson and Ron Clarke)

(Sociobiological explanations, rational choice theory, the routine activity approach, and administrative criminology –for their work in helping the state to administer the criminal justice system).

The 1980’s saw a return to ways of thinking about crime that although packaged in a different language, revitalized the idea that the sources of lawlessness reside in individuals not within the social fabric.

They make an appeal to common sense. However, common sense seems to be defined as the popular, media-influenced picture of crime in contemporary society. Various liberal approaches have failed. The following is evidence of this failure: (i) high crime rates, (ii) a sense that the criminal justice system is soft on crime, (iii) a sense that the criminal justice system tends to favor and protect the accused, (iv) a sense that police forces are understaffed and hampered by liberal policies that restrict their power, and (v) a sense that victim’s rights are neglected and that they deserve court-sanctioned retribution for crimes committed against them.

Right realists advocate for law and order policies. Laws should be unambiguous and rigidly enforced. The consequences of transgression should not be an attempt at treatment or reform of the offender. These approaches are considered ineffectual. Instead, harsh punishments should be enforced as a means of getting offenders off the streets, as deterrence to future crime, as social retribution. The major emphasis is on order and discipline as crime flourishes where social discipline is lax.

1. Crime is not determined by social forces but by forces within the individuals.
2. Searching for the causes of crime is a distraction and waste of time.
3. Individuals choose to commit crime. So fewer criminal choices will be made if the government creates more effective and appropriate punishments.
4. Improving social conditions will not reduce crime rates.
5. Rehabilitation is an ineffective way of dealing with offenders.
6. Crime is a problem. Public fear has a rational basis.
7. It is realistic about what can be done about crime and the limitations of present day knowledge. It does not disdain marginal gains. It discounts utopian solutions.
8. Crime is a violation of the law because the law embodies the society’s morals (which in turn reflect absolute religious notions of right and wrong. Crime is an offense against morality.
9. Crime may be prevented by the repeated assertion of strong social authority founded on traditional morality.

Left Realism Jock Young, Elliot Currie

It starts from a position which centralizes the need to address problems as people experience them.

Mainstream criminology are interested only in crimes committed by working class, poor, or unemployed people. They have been totally uninterested in crimes that actually cause more monetary loss and physical injury but that are committed by people and corporations with money. Critical criminologists have made important contributions to the study of the crimes of the powerful, such as corporate crimes, government wrongdoings, and white collar crimes. But most critical criminologists ignored the causes and possible control of crime committed by members of the working class against other members of the working class, with the exception of violence against women, children and members of the ethnic groups. This failure to acknowledge working class crime has come at a great price to the left. It has allowed right wing politicians in several countries to claim opposition to street crime as their own issue, giving them room to generate ideological support for harsh law and order policies. So, in North America politicians presume that only conservatives have expertise and knowledge about crime and policing.

Left realism is a reaction against both left’s tendency to neglect victimization among working class people and the conservatives’ extremely harsh social strategies. It is a perspective that attempts to explain and measure street crime and propose short term policies to control it. It is an attack on left idealists who offer simplistic analyses based heavily on instrumental Marxist and feminist views of the state and law, but who ignore street crime and offer no practical proposal for change.

Basic principles of Left Realism

1. Left realists see working class crime as a serious problem for working class. Working class people are victimized from all directions in a capitalist society.
2. Square of crime: the square consists of four interacting elements: victim, offender, state agencies, and the public. The social relationships between each point on the square are as follows: the relationship between the police and the public determines the efficacy of policing, the relationship between the victim and the offender determines the impact of crime, the relationship between the state and the offender is a major factor in recidivism.
3. Relative Deprivation: Poverty experienced as unfair (relative depravation when compared to someone else) creates discontent and discontent when there is no political solution leads to crime. So, relative depravation equals discontent, discontent plus lack of political solution equals crime.
4. Principle of specificity: it is imperative to understand the specific circumstances in which crimes occur. There is a need to place behavior in social context. explanations must be grounded. The local crime survey is the preferred methodological tool (both quantitative and qualitative methods), such as local surveys on victimization, fear of crime, woman abuse, perceptions of the police, etc.
5. Control of crime must reflect the nature of crime. It involves activity on each side of the square. Short term anti-crime strategies that both challenge the right wing law and order campaign and take seriously working class communities’ legitimate fear of street crime. These may include preemptive deterrence, which involves working in a neighborhood to try to prevent crime from happening, rather than coming in with a massive police presence after the fact. Also, demarginalization, i.e., moves to eliminate the problem of large numbers of young men who feel that they are not part of society and have nothing to lose by committing crime. Further, democratic or community control of the police, as well as participation in crime prevention and policy development, should be a goal of city councils. Also, it is only through multi agency intervention that the reality of crime can be tackled. Thus, for example, the public has a crucial role to play in formulating a policy response to the crime problem (democratic input).

Left Realist attacks on left idealists

Public fear of crime and working class criminals is a serious barrier to developing a society in which people trust one another and work together toward a common goal.

For some idealists any criminal justice reform is useless. Only a fundamental change from a capitalist economy to a socialist one can reduce or eliminate crime. In its extreme form, the idealist argument is that implementing criminal justice reform could convince people that things might get better and thus must be opposed since that would delay revolution.

The public attitude toward crime and punishment has changed in recent years. For example, even if the US has the harshest and most punitive imprisonment system in the world, many, if not most Americans believe it when politicians and media figures claim that most criminals receive only a slap on the wrist.

In both Canada and the US many politicians who want to win voter approval push for sharp reductions in the government budget but big increases in government expenditures for policing and prisons.

Analyze any federal or provincial political party’s platform and write specific measures to deal with criminal problems from the perspective of Left or Right Realism.