Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to episode eight of Crime and Deviants
Speaker 1: for the Sociology Show podcast. In this episode, we will
Speaker 1: look at left realist explanations of crime. So what is realism?
Speaker 1: Will realists believe that crime is a real problem that
Speaker 1: requires a real solution. In this sense, they are more
Speaker 1: practical than other sociologists. Left realism developed around the same
Speaker 1: time as right realism in the nineteen eighties, and it
Speaker 1: rejected traditional left wing Marxist views. Left realists claim that
Speaker 1: Marxists are unrealistic in the way that they avoid dealing
Speaker 1: with the very real problem that crime poses for the
Speaker 1: working class. Crime and deviance is the result of being
Speaker 1: unequal and therefore the fault of society and not the individual.
Speaker 1: Left wing views refer to the political views of the left,
Speaker 1: such as the Labour Party. In contrast to the right,
Speaker 1: they tend to focus on issues of power and inequality
Speaker 1: rather than blaming the criminal and deviant individual. They argue
Speaker 1: that people at the bottom are victims of their circumstances
Speaker 1: and that equality should be the goal of society. The
Speaker 1: state should intervene to share out the wealth and ensure
Speaker 1: that everyone has an equal chance in society. Crime and
Speaker 1: deviance is the result of being unequal and therefore the
Speaker 1: fault of society and not the individual. They also argue
Speaker 1: that the law is not applied equally and that crime
Speaker 1: is defined and enforced by those in power. For this reason,
Speaker 1: we can see that Marxism and interactionism are also left
Speaker 1: wing ideas. What about left realist explanations? Then? Left realism
Speaker 1: developed in protest to the right realist ideas of the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. Left realists believe that crime is the result
Speaker 1: of poor social and economic conditions, and therefore choose to
Speaker 1: not blame or criminalize, but help disadvantaged groups. Just like
Speaker 1: right realists, left realists believe that crime is a real
Speaker 1: problem and requires a real solution. The first left realist
Speaker 1: that we look at are Roger Matthews and Jock Young,
Speaker 1: and they see the notion of the squad of crime
Speaker 1: as an important reminder that crime arises at an intersection.
Speaker 1: Any understanding of the roles of the offender and the
Speaker 1: victim must be supplemented with an understanding of the role
Speaker 1: of the general public expressed through the media, peers, family,
Speaker 1: and community. The final element of the square of crime
Speaker 1: is the role of the criminal justice system, especially the police,
Speaker 1: and the courts. Matthews and Young argue that criminologists cannot
Speaker 1: look at any one of these factors in isolation, but
Speaker 1: instead should try to understand how they influence each other.
Speaker 1: For example, public opinion can drive government policy and police practice,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. We saw with a moral panic about
Speaker 1: mods and rockers that this influenced the role of the
Speaker 1: police in making more arrests. Whether a person is a
Speaker 1: victim or not depends on the offender and the crime
Speaker 1: and its impact on the victim. A victim of rape
Speaker 1: may be denied their victim status if the police or
Speaker 1: courts failed to get a conviction against the offender. Therefore,
Speaker 1: to fully understand crime, you must look at the four
Speaker 1: elements of the offender, the victim, the general public, and
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system to fully understand how they interact
Speaker 1: with each other and to fully understand why crime occurs.
Speaker 1: The second sociologists we look at for the left realist
Speaker 1: view is John Lee and Jock Young, and they say
Speaker 1: that three factors propel people into crime. Lee and Jung's
Speaker 1: explanation of crime has three elements, relative deprivation, marginalization, and subcultures.
Speaker 1: Relative deprivation refers to a subjective feeling of deprivation an
Speaker 1: individual may feel when comparing themselves to others around them.
Speaker 1: Fueled by media images that emphasize consumerism, the working class
Speaker 1: are aware of living in poverty and feel resentful about
Speaker 1: what they could have but can't afford the latest trainers,
Speaker 1: the nicest new iPhone, for example. This leads some to
Speaker 1: commit crime in order to feel less deprived. The second
Speaker 1: reason why some people commit crime is due to margination
Speaker 1: those on the fringes of society. This is people like
Speaker 1: the homeless, the poor, and some ethnic minority groups. They
Speaker 1: may feel abandoned by society and frustrated. Without any status, power,
Speaker 1: or goals. They are excluded from society and lack power economically.
Speaker 1: They also socially lack power that knowing the correct people
Speaker 1: around them, and they politically lack power that lack of
Speaker 1: power to influence decision makers. The third concept is subculture.
Speaker 1: This refers to groups with shared norms and values. The
Speaker 1: formation of a subculture links to relative deprivation and marginalization,
Speaker 1: as those who share a sense of deprivation and marginalization
Speaker 1: will develop subcultures that allow them to cope with this problem,
Speaker 1: many of them turning to crime such as burglary. To
Speaker 1: resolve the issue, we then have Jock Young on his
Speaker 1: own who talked about the move from an inclusive to
Speaker 1: an exclusive society and how this leads to crime. Jock
Speaker 1: Young focused on the way that society excludes increasing numbers
Speaker 1: of people and draws a link between social exclusion and crime.
Speaker 1: He contrasts today's society with the period of the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: which are often referred to as the golden Age of
Speaker 1: modern capitalism. It was a period of stability, security, and
Speaker 1: social inclusion, with full employment, a comprehensive welfare state, low
Speaker 1: divorce rates, and relatively strong communities. There was a general
Speaker 1: consensus about right and wrong and lower crime rates. Since
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, there's been increased in stability, insecurity and
Speaker 1: exclusion have increased de industrialization and the loss of unskilled
Speaker 1: manual jobs. Have increased unemployment and poverty, and the gap
Speaker 1: between the rich and the poor. Many jobs are now
Speaker 1: really insecure, short term or low paid. These changes have
Speaker 1: destabilized family and community life and contributed to rising divorce rates.
Speaker 1: That sense of community has been lost in many different areas.
Speaker 1: All of these changes have contributed to increased marginalization and
Speaker 1: exclusion of those at the bottom, and crime is a
Speaker 1: response to these by some groups. Again coming back to
Speaker 1: Lie and Young, they also have another idea of social
Speaker 1: exclusion of ethnic minoritized groups which could lead to crime.
Speaker 1: Lee and Young believed that the systematic racism which exists,
Speaker 1: especially within the police force, leads to ethnic minoritized groups
Speaker 1: forming defiant subcultures who are forced to live on the
Speaker 1: edge of society. This idea has been discussed through the
Speaker 1: concept of social exclusion and it links to Cloud and
Speaker 1: Owen's work on subcultures. The left note that these socially
Speaker 1: excluded communities are also much more likely to be victims
Speaker 1: of crime too, So, according to left realists, how do
Speaker 1: we deal with this? What are the solutions to crime
Speaker 1: and what sort of social policy should be brought in
Speaker 1: to try and ultimately reduce crime rates in certain areas well.
Speaker 1: The left wing solutions to crime are longer term and
Speaker 1: seek to deal with the deeper structural causes of crime
Speaker 1: in order to remove the need to commit crime. Lee
Speaker 1: and Jung argue that crime can only be reduced by
Speaker 1: reducing income and wealth inequalities, by reducing relative deprivation and
Speaker 1: closing the gap between the rich and the poor. They
Speaker 1: suggest this needs to be done by addressing the economic
Speaker 1: and social conditions such as poverty, unemployment, poor housing, poor education,
Speaker 1: low pay, and racial discrimination. In particular, Lee and Young
Speaker 1: say about the problems of the young and ethnic minoritized
Speaker 1: groups who feel marginalized by society. Left realists argue that
Speaker 1: urban crime, for example, graffiti, theft, violence, and drug use,
Speaker 1: is a response to feelings of marginalization, exclusion, and relative deprivation.
Speaker 1: So what do they believe should happen well, The left
Speaker 1: believe that there should be key educational programs aimed at
Speaker 1: improving educational success and reducing exclusion in inner city areas.
Speaker 1: For example, schemes like Shore Start or the Perry Preschool Project,
Speaker 1: both of which showed the interventions in an early age
Speaker 1: that's children under the age of five and childcare can
Speaker 1: lead to significant reductions in criminal and deviant behavior in
Speaker 1: later life. In the Perry Preschool experiment, the cohort who
Speaker 1: received weekly parental advice plus regular professional childcare were half
Speaker 1: as likely to end up in prison as the control group,
Speaker 1: who were also from deprived neighborhoods that did not receive
Speaker 1: the intervention. Leftrealists also believe that inequalities in wealth and
Speaker 1: income need to be reduced by using more generous welfare benefits.
Speaker 1: We need minimum pay legislation such as the National Living
Speaker 1: Wage to ensure that people have paid a fair wage
Speaker 1: so that they are not tempted to become welfare dependent,
Speaker 1: and the benefits for those that are struggling, such as
Speaker 1: single parent families, should be increased to ensure that no
Speaker 1: one feels the need to commit crime or theft or
Speaker 1: fraud in order to survive. The left also believe that
Speaker 1: we need much better community policing. Kinsey put forward the
Speaker 1: idea of community policing, whereby neighborhoods have officers who are
Speaker 1: regularly patrolling the same areas, forging strong relationships with people
Speaker 1: in an area to improve confidence in the police. Kinsey
Speaker 1: argues that because of the often heavy handed approach taken
Speaker 1: by the police, local communities will not give the police information.
Speaker 1: Lacking the information that is necessary to solve crime, the
Speaker 1: police resort to new policing methods. They drift towards what
Speaker 1: Kinsey call military policing. Without the support of the community,
Speaker 1: the police have to resort to tactics such as stopping
Speaker 1: and searching large numbers of people in an area, or
Speaker 1: using surveillance technology to find suspects. Kinsey argues that the
Speaker 1: key to police success lies in improving the relationships with
Speaker 1: the community so that the flow of information on which
Speaker 1: the police rely increases. To achieve this, Kinsey proposes that
Speaker 1: minimal policing should be used. Kinsey believes that some areas
Speaker 1: are over pleased, such as minor drug offenses, whereas some
Speaker 1: crimes are under police. In other words, he believes that
Speaker 1: the police and the state devote too much of their
Speaker 1: time and energy to dealing with certain types of crimes
Speaker 1: and not enough to others. Crime can only be reduced
Speaker 1: with the assistance of local communities, but the military style
Speaker 1: policing of inner city communities, particularly black communities, has alienated
Speaker 1: local populations. For example, stop and search statistics in urban
Speaker 1: areas suggest that police forces use racial profiling in their
Speaker 1: attempt to identify criminality, and this has led to accusations
Speaker 1: of institutional racism. Lee and Young argue that the police
Speaker 1: need to regain the confidence of local communities so that
Speaker 1: people feel comfortable providing them with the information about crime
Speaker 1: that they need. Left realists also believe in restorative justice.
Speaker 1: Restorative justice involves encouraging offenders to take responsibility for their
Speaker 1: actions and is supported by all Left realists such as
Speaker 1: Lee and Young. Offenders are expected to repair the harm
Speaker 1: they have done by apologizing to their victims and giving
Speaker 1: something back to the community. The restorative justice team will
Speaker 1: organize a meeting between the victim and the offender. If
Speaker 1: both are open to the process of discussing the crime
Speaker 1: and its impact on the victim, than they will meet
Speaker 1: at the moment. Offenders rarely hear face to face impacts
Speaker 1: of what their crime has done to their victims, and
Speaker 1: this can have a lasting psychological effect on the offender.
Speaker 1: Restorative justice is an example of what Braithwaite calls reintegrative shaming.
Speaker 1: This encourages the offender to be sorry and ashamed for
Speaker 1: their actions. The re more shown by the offender makes
Speaker 1: it easier for society and the victim to distinguish the
Speaker 1: offender from the actual offense and to forgive and readmit
Speaker 1: the wrongdoer back into mainstream society. In two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: the UK government funded a seven year research program looking
Speaker 1: into the effectiveness of restorative justice. It found that the
Speaker 1: frequency of reoffending had decreased, and the government had saved
Speaker 1: nine pounds for every one pound spent on restorative justice.
Speaker 1: The final solution for left realist is rehabilitation. Left realists
Speaker 1: propose a very different prison system to what the right
Speaker 1: believer is. Instead of punishment and retribution, the left suggests
Speaker 1: that criminals should actually be well cared for in order
Speaker 1: to resocialize them ready for release. Rehabilitation means giving criminals
Speaker 1: education qualifications, work skills, counseling therapy, addiction therapy, life experiences,
Speaker 1: and opportunities. This solution uses Young's theory that many criminals
Speaker 1: have faced exclusion from mainstream society, and thus they believe
Speaker 1: they have to be fixed to include them back into society.
Speaker 1: This means giving them the skills that they need to
Speaker 1: be like everybody else, rather than the remaining on the
Speaker 1: margins of society. Left realists argue that many criminals are
Speaker 1: themselves victims starting in their early childhood. Forty one percent
Speaker 1: of prisoners had experienced domestic violence as children, twenty four
Speaker 1: had been in the care system, forty percent had a
Speaker 1: relative who had been in prison, and sixty three percent
Speaker 1: have been excluded from school. Forty two percent of those
Speaker 1: had been permanently excluded from school. This shows that people
Speaker 1: who do go to prison have had the most difficult
Speaker 1: upbringings and most prisoners should be seen as victims themselves,
Speaker 1: so in need of care and rehabilitation rather than punishment
Speaker 1: and further exclusion. In some prisons, treats such as outings
Speaker 1: or going to a theme park or a week looking
Speaker 1: after a puppy have been used to teach inmates nearing
Speaker 1: the end of their term in prison about caring and sharing.
Speaker 1: In addition, lefrealists suggests that the prison system should be
Speaker 1: avoided since people who do go to prison often have
Speaker 1: family who are damaged by the removal of a loved one. Therefore,
Speaker 1: they believe that prison should only be there for the
Speaker 1: worst offenders. There are estimated to be ninety thousand children
Speaker 1: in the UK with a parent currently serving time. The
Speaker 1: prison population in England Wales currently sits at roughly ninety
Speaker 1: five to ninety seven thousand prisoners. We have room for
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand prisoners in total. Over the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: the prison population has generally increased significantly, from around sixty
Speaker 1: thousand in the early two thousands to the current record levels.
Speaker 1: Although there was a temporary drop during the COVID nineteen pandemic,
Speaker 1: numbers have since risen again. Overall, the long term trend
Speaker 1: shows a clear increase in imprisonment, reflecting tougher sentencing, longer sentences,
Speaker 1: and a greater use of custody. However, ultimately, the left
Speaker 1: realist would suggest that the prison system does not work,
Speaker 1: particularly when we look at the reoffending rates. To understand
Speaker 1: the major criticisms of the left realist approach, then do
Speaker 1: listen out for episode nine, which is the right realist approach.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and if you've yet to listen
Speaker 1: to episodes one to seven, please do go back and
Speaker 1: listen now. Thank you.