Assess Sociological views on the relationship between crime and the mass media

Crime and deviance make up a large proportion of news coverage. Williams and Dickinson (1993) found British newspapers devote up to 30% of their news space to crime.

However while the mass media show interest in crime they give a distorted image of crime, criminals, and policing. For example compared to the picture of crime we gain from official statistics the media over represent violent and sexual crime. For example Ditton and Duffy (1983) found that 46% of media reports were about violent or sexual crimes, yet these made up only 3% of all crimes recorded by the police. The media portray criminals and victims as older and more middle class than those found typically in the criminal justice system. Felson (1998) calls this the age fallacy. Media coverage exaggerates police success in clearing up cases. This is partly because the police are a major source of crime stories and want to present themselves in a good light and partly because the media over represent violent crime which has higher clear up rates than property crime. The media exaggerate the risk of victimisation especially to women, higher status individuals and whites. Crime is reported as a series of separate events without structure and without examining underlying causes. The media overplay extraordinary crimes and underplay ordinary crimes. Felson calls this dramatic fallacy. Media images lead us to believe that to commit or solve crime one needs to be daring and clever – the ingenuity fallacy.

There’s evidence of changes in the type of coverage of crime by the news media. For example Schlesinger and Tumber (1994) found that in the 1960s the focus was on murders and petty crime, but by the 1990s this was of less interest. The change came partly due to the abolition of the death penalty for murder and the rising crime rates meant crime had to be special to attract coverage. There’s evidence of an increasing preoccupation with sex crimes. For example Keith Soothill and Sylvia Walby (1991) found newspaper reporting of rape cases increased from a quarter of all cases in 1951 to over a third in 1985. They note that coverage consistently focuses on identifying a sex fiend or beast. The resulting distorted picture of rape is one of serial attacks carried out by psychopathic strangers. While they occur they’re rare, in most cases the perpetrator is known to the victim.

The distorted picture of crime painted by the news media reflects the fact that news is a social construction. News doesn’t exist out there waiting to be gathered up by a journalist. It’s the outcome of a social process where potential stories are selected while others are rejected. Stan Cohen and Jock Young note news is not discovered but manufactured.

A central aspect of the manufacture of news is the notion of news values. News values are criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to make it into the news paper. If a crime story can be told in terms of these criteria it has a better chance of making the news. Key news values influencing the selection of crime stories include; immediacy, dramatisation, personalisation, higher status, simplification, novelty or unexpectedness, risk and violence. One reason why the news media give so much coverage to crime is that news focuses on the unusual and extraordinary, and this makes deviance newsworthy by definition since its abnormal behaviour.

We don’t just get our images of crime from the news media. Fictional representations from TV, cinema and novels are also important sources of our knowledge of crime because so much of their output is crime related. For example Ernest Mandel (1984) estimates from 1945 to 1984 over 10 billion crime thrillers were sold worldwide while 25% of prime time TV and 20% of films are crime shows or movies. Fictional representations of crime, criminals and victims follow what Surette (1998) calls the “law of opposites”; they are the opposite of official statistics and similar to news coverage. Property crime is under represented, while violence, drugs and sex crimes are over represented. While real life homicides mainly result from brawls and domestic disputes, fictional ones are the product of greed and calculation. Fictional sex crimes are committed by psychopathic strangers, not acquaintances. Fictional villains tend to be higher status, middle aged white males. Fictional cops usually get their man. However there are trends worth noting. The new genre of realitiy infotainment shows tends to feature young, non white underclass offenders. There’s also an increasing tendency to show the police as corrupt and brutal and less successful. Finally victims have become more central with law enforcers portrayed as their avengers and audiences invited to identify with their suffering.

There’s long been concern that the media have a negative effect on attitudes, values and behaviour; especially those groups thought to be most susceptible to influence, such as the young, lower classes and uneducated. In the 30s it was cinema, 50s, horror comics, 80s were video nasties. Recently rap lyrics have been blamed for encouraging violence and criminality. There are numerous ways in which the media cause crime and deviance, including imitation, arousal and glamorising offending. However most studies have found that exposure to media violence has a limited negative effect on audiences. However Sonia Livingstone (1996) notes despite such conclusions people continue to be preoccupied with the effects of the media on children because of our desire as a society to regard childhood as a time of uncontaminated innocence in the private sphere.

The media also exaggerate risks of certain groups of people becoming victims of crime such as young women and old people. There is therefore concern that the media may be distorting the public impression of crime and causing an unrealistic fear of crime. Research evidence supports the view that there a link between media use and the fear of crime. Similarly Schlesinger and Tumber (1992) found a correlation between media consumption and the fear of crime with tabloid readers and heavy users of TV expressing greater fear of becoming a victim, especially of physical attack and mugging. However the existence of such correlations doesn’t prove that media viewing causes fear. For example it may be that these who are already afraid of going out at night watch more TV just because they stay in more. Richard Sparks (1992) notes much media affects research, whether the media cause crime or cause fear of crime ignores the meanings viewers give to media violence. For example they may give very different meaning to violence in cartoons. This criticism reflects the Interpretivist view that if we want to understand the possible effects of the media we must look at the meanings people gives to that the see and read.

An alternative approach is to consider how far media portrayals of normal rather than criminal lifestyles might also encourage people to commit crime. For example left realists argue the mass media help to increase the sense of relative deprivation, the feeling of being deprived relative to others among poor and marginalised groups in society. Lea and Young (1996) argue in today’s society where even the poorest groups have media access the media present everyone with images of a materialistic good life of leisure, fun and consumer goods as the norm to which they should conform. The result is to stimulate the sense of relative deprivation and social exclusion felt by marginalised groups who cannot afford these goods. As Merton argues pressure to conform to the norm can cause deviant behaviour when the opportunity to achieve by legitimate means is blocked. In this instance the media are instrumental in setting the norm and thus promoting crime.

A further way the media cause crime and deviance is through labelling. Moral entrepreneurs who disapprove of a particular behaviour may use the media to pressure authorities to do something about the alleged problem. If successful their campaigning will result in the negative labelling of the behaviour and perhaps a change in the law. An important element in this process is the creation of a moral panic. A moral panic is an exaggerated over reaction by society to a perceived problem , usually driven or inspired by the media where the reaction enlarges the problem out of all proportion to its real seriousness. In a moral panic the media identify a group as a folk devil of threat to societal values. The media present the group in a negative stereotypical fashion and exaggerate the scale of the problem. Moral entrepreneurs, editors, politicians, police chiefs, bishops and other respectable people condemn the group and its behaviour. This usually leads to calls for a crackdown on the group. However this may create a self fulfilling prophecy that amplifies the very problem that caused the panic in the first place. For example in the case of drugs setting up special drug squads led the police to discover more drug taking. As the crackdown identifies more deviants there are calls for even tougher action creating a deviance amplification spiral.

Stanley Cohen (1972) examined media responses to disturbances between two groups of largely working class teenagers, the mods and rockers at English seaside resorts from 1964-66 and the way in which this crated a moral panic. Mods wore smart dress and rode scooters, rockers wore leather and drove motorbikes, though in the early stages distinctions were not so clear cut and not many young people identified themselves as belonging to a particular group. The initial confrontations started in Clacton in 1964 with a few scuffles and stone throwing. However although the disorder was minor the media over reacted. Cohen argues the media produced an inventory of what happened containing three elements. The first was exaggeration and distortion. The media exaggerated the numbers involved and the extent of the violence and damage, and distorted the picture through dramatic reporting and sensational headlines, even non events were news. The second element was prediction. The media regularly assumed and predicted further conflict and violence would result. The third element was symbolisation. The symbols of mods and rockers were all negatively labelled and associated with deviance. The media’s use of these symbols allowed them to link unconnected events. For example bikers in different parts of the country ho misbehaved could be seen as part of a more general underlying problem of disorderly youth. Cohen argues that the media’s portrayal of events produced a deviance amplification spiral by making it seem as if the problem was spreading and getting out of hand. This led to calls for an increased control response from the police or courts. This produced further marginalisation and stigmatisation of the mods and rockers as deviants and less tolerance of them and so on in an upward spiral. The media further amplified the deviance by defining the two groups and their sub cultural styles. This led to more youths adopting these styles and drew in more participants for further clashes. By emphasising their supposed differences the media crystallised two distinct identities and transformed two loose knit groupings into two tight knit gangs. This encouraged polarisation and helped to create a self fulfilling prophecy of escalating conflict as youths acted out, the roles the media had assigned them. Cohen notes that media definitions of the situation are crucial in creating a moral panic because in large scale modern societies most people have no direct experience of the events themselves and thus have to rely on the media for information about them. In the case of the mods and rockers this allowed the media to portray them as folk devils – major threats to public order and social values.

Cohen puts the moral panic about the mods and rockers in the wider context of change in post war British society. This was a period in which new found affluence, consumerism and hedonism of the young appeared to challenge the values of an older generation who lived through the hardships of the 30s and 40s. Cohen argues that moral panics often occur at times of social change, reflecting anxieties many people feel when accepted values seem to be undermined. He argues that the moral panic was the result of a boundary crisis where there was uncertainty about where the boundary lay between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in a time of change. The folk devil created by the media symbolises and gives a focus to popular anxieties about social disorder. From a functionalist perspective moral panics can be seen as ways of responding to a sense of anomie or normlessness created by change. By dramatising the threat to society in the form of a folk devil the media raises the collective conscience and reasserts social controls when central values are threatened. Other sociologists have also used the concept of moral panics. For example Stuart Hall (1979) adopts a neo Marxist approach that locates the role of moral panics in the context of capitalism. They argue that the moral panic over mugging in the British media in the 70s served to distract attention from the crisis of capitalism, divide the working class on racial grounds and legitimate a more authoritarian style of rule. In addition to concern about mods and rockers and mugging commentators have claimed to indentify numerous examples of folk devils across the decades, such as asylum seekers, sex abuse and single parents.

However there are several criticisms of the concept of moral panics. It assumes that the societal reaction is a disproportionate over reaction, but who is to decide how proportional it can be? This relates to the left realist view that people’s fear of crime is in fact rational. There are questions on how the media amplify some problems but not others and why moral panics do not go on increasing indefinitely. McRobbie and Thornton (1995) argue moral panics are now routine and have low impact. In late modern society there is little consensus about what is deviant. Lifestyle choices that were condemned forty years ago such as single motherhood are no longer regarded as deviant and so it’s harder for the media to create panics about them.

The arrival of new types of media is often met with a moral panic. The same is true of the internet; because of the speed it has developed and its scale. The internet has led to fears of cyber crime. Douglas Thomas and Brian Loader (2000) define it as computer mediated activities that are illegal or considered illicit and are conducted through global electronic networks. Yvonne Jewkes (2003) notes the internet creates opportunities to commit conventional crimes such as fraud and new crimes using new tools such as software piracy. Wall (2001) identifies four types of cyber crime. Cyber trespass; crossing boundaries into others cyber property. It includes hacking and sabotage, such as spreading viruses. Cyber deception and theft; including identity theft, phishing and violation of intellectual property rights. Cyber pornography; including porn involving minors and opportunities for children to access porn on the net. Cyber violence; doing psychological harm or inciting physical harm. Cyber violence includes cyber stalking and hate crimes against minority groups as well as bullying by text. Policing cyber crime is difficult because of the sheer scale of the internet and the limited resources of the police, and also because of its globalised nature, posing problems of jurisdiction. Police culture also gives cyber crime low priority because it’s seen as lacking the excitement of more conventional policing. However new information and communication technology provides the police and state with greater opportunities for surveillance and control of the population. Jewkes (2003) argues ICT permits routine surveillance through use of CCTV.

The Civil Rights Movement – The Role of Trade Unions

Whenever we think of the civil rights movement we instantly remind ourselves of individuals such as Martin Luther king, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks, and events such as the infamous “I have a dream speech” and the Montgomery bus boycott, along with other protests such as sit-ins and freedom rides.

However, these protests movements didn’t just come out of the blue, and black people didn’t suddenly just decide they had had enough and decided to protest. The civil rights movement had been developing decades before the famous events in the 1960s, and the role of the trade unions did fantastic jobs in organising and educating workers, allowing the platform that individuals such as king had to propel the movement forward.

Black workers in the old confederacy or “the south” were terribly oppressed back in the 1920s and 30s. It had been 60 years since black slaves were freed as a result of the civil war, yet they were at the bottom of society. They were always given the lowest paid jobs, their labour was exploited, and working conditions were horrendous. Many black workers in the south worked as sharecroppers on the farmland, where white employers provided land, seed and tool and black workers the labour. White landlords would then take most of the crop to sell, and black people would be left with barely enough to live on. Because of the rural nature of the south, it was difficult for black workers to organise, and it was easy for white supremacists to intimidate them, keeping them oppressed. Lynching also took place during this time, so it was almost impossible for black workers to revolt. As well as this, the south was operating under Jim Crow laws, which brought de jure segregation; this is where by law black and white people were segregated. This ensured that black people had the worst education, limiting economic opportunities. It made sure black workers were paid less than white workers, facilities such as water fountains were segregated and black people received the worst services. Police and law courts also discriminated against black people; there were no black police and jurors in courts were always white.

Circumstances in the north for black workers were better, however far from ideal. Although segregation wasn’t enshrined in the law like in the south, black northerners suffered from de facto segregation, where job discrimination took place, for example blacks were the last to be hired and first to be fired. Black workers were given the lowest paid jobs and had limited opportunities to better themselves; there were hardly any black higher education institutions.

Trade unions played a vital role in raising black awareness of potential black political and economic power. Under pressure from the economic depression, trade union memberships rocketed. New unions were set up such as the Food, Tobacco, agricultural and allied workers union. These unions were grassroots unions, and played a role in promoting mass meetings that discussed voter registration and citizenship. These discussions were fundamental; blacks in the north did have the vote, however because of apathy many blacks didn’t use their vote to try and better themselves. In the south, federal pressure forced the states to allow blacks to vote, however they didn’t stop states having literacy tests that determined whether people could vote. Black peoples poor education meant they inevitably failed these tests so couldn’t register to vote. For whites who failed the tests, there were grandfather clauses where if they could prove someone in their ancestry had voted before, then they could register. At this time, only 3% of black people could vote in the south.

Asa Phillip Randolph was an important figure in the black trade union movement. In his youth he had set up grassroots trade unions, such as the union of elevator operators and the National Brotherhood of Workers of America, a union which organised amongst African-American shipyard and dock workers in the Tidewater region of Virginia. The union dissolved in 1921, under pressure from the American Federation of Labour, to which white employers had complained to.

He then went on to set up the first all black labour unions, the brotherhood of sleeping car porters in 1925. At the unions peak in the 1940s the union had 15,000 members. Its head quarters in New York were described as “the political headquarters of black America, where young black leaders met.” The unionisation of black workers contributed to assertiveness, it boosted their morale and gave them a class consciousness. The brotherhood of sleeping car porters broke down barriers to worker exploitation where because of high union memberships and change to federal law the Pullman Company finally began to negotiate with the Brotherhood in 1935, and agreed to a contract with them in 1937. This gained employees $2,000,000 in pay increases, a shorter workweek, and overtime pay.

As a trade unionist A Phillip Randolph applied pressure to federal government to force through change for more equal opportunities for black workers. He threatened that if the then president Roosevelt that he would organise a march on Washington in protest. Because of the might of the union threat Randolph represented and Roosevelt’s failure to dissuade Randolph, Roosevelt set up The Fair Employment Practices Committee. This was an organisation that ensured fair job opportunities for federal employment. This shows how trade union membership can help achieve a better deal for workers.

Randolph also organised bus boycotts, and although they failed, they went on to inspire the famous Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama, which many people see as the start of the civil rights movement. The confronting but non violent actions of trade unions went on to inspire black leaders such as Martin Luther King.

Unfortunately, in the 1930s most black workers were not unionised. Reasons for this include the rural nature of the south meant isolated black communities didn’t have a broad large scale union to join. The violent actions of the white supremacists and hostility of the white population intimidated blacks into accomodationism, where black people just conformed and didn’t do anything to try and better themselves such as join of union because they feared a hostile reaction. The low economic and educational status of black people was low, so unions were poorly funded and leaders struggled to make their voices heard. I believe that if the majority of black workers were unionised, then because of high organisation solidarity a lot of the barriers that were broken down during the 60s would have been broken down quicker and more effectively.

In summary, the trade union movement helped to increase solidarity, which was vital during the struggles in the 60s where workers faced many hardships. Trade unions increased activism and encouraged protest actions, which contributed to the mass movements in the 60s. Trade unions also raised black awareness of potential black political and economic power. For example unions organised economic boycotts, where black people would boycott buying from shops that refused to employ black workers. They promoted meetings to discuss equality where workers were educated on how to successfully and effectively initiate protests.

Overall, trade union movements gave the platform for the civil rights movement, and we can learn lessons from it today in our fight against the inequalities of capitalism.

How far was Churchill personably responsible for maintaining national morale?

When Churchill took over from Neville Chamberlin it was at a time when national morale was low, particularly because of the Norway campaign, where although the British sent a task force to prevent invasion in Norway they were swiftly defeated by the Germans. This significantly cut national morale as the public became aware of the well disciplined and advanced nature of the German forces.

Churchill’s appointment in itself was a morale boosting act. Churchill was in political wilderness previously and had not held office in the previous national government, thus he was not associated with their failures. Throughout the 1930s Churchill had criticised appeasement and called for rearmament, this was significant to boost morale at the time of his appointment as the nation recognised he had the right ideas all along. MPs also felt a morale boost at the appointment of Churchill because most agreed that his bullish qualities and self belief meant he had the character for the job.

Churchill’s popularity with the public was a key factor in maintaining national morale. Historian Michael Lynch had found that his popularity with the public at times was as high as eighty eight percent, and even in his darkest moments never dropped below seventy eight percent. This is significant because it shows that the public were happy with Churchill as prime minister and they thought he was doing an adequate job, thus maintaining morale.

Churchill also had the ability to maintain morale by his skills in speeches. While his cabinet saw his speeches as emotional bravado, Churchill’s self confidence meant he convinced most of his cabinet and the population that it was better to fight on and hope America would be persuaded to join the war to support Britain. This was significant as rather than being a weak leader and putting doubts in people’s minds, Churchill was able to unite the country towards the war effort thus maintaining national morale.

However despite his ability to unify the nation Churchill also had his faults. Churchill has been described to be dictatorial and interfering in other governmental departments. This could be seen as morale damaging because Churchill’s nature could have led to alienation within government, leading to wider public doubts about his effectiveness as leader. This was similar with Churchill’s liaisons with army generals as he thought he knew more about tactics and strategy then the generals did. Similarly this could have alienated generals causing divisions in the army and working to damage national morale with the army such divided.

Churchill was also lucky in the composition of his cabinet in maintaining national morale. Deputy prime minister Clement Attlee was an effective organiser serving to organise the cabinet to make government efficient. Thus worked in Churchill’s favour to boost morale because it appeared Churchill had government in order, but this meant Churchill himself was not personally responsible for boosting morale.

Similarly Labour politician Ernest Bevin was responsible for maintain morale in the underlying structures of government. He fought against communist infiltration in the party and in unions. This served to keep the labour forces of the nation united and maintained national morale by keeping labour directed to the war. Historian Michael Lynch found Bevin had the enormous task of British industry to meet the demands of the war. This involved him negotiating with bosses, managers and trade unions to reach compromises that adequately rewarded workers. This served to maintain morale because as the workers felt better rewarded and paid it maintained morale.

In conclusion, on the face of government Churchill’s skill in self sufficiency, charisma and self belief served to maintain morale by providing a leadership that united and gave the nation a sense of hope and unity against foreign enemies. However it can be argued that in the underlying structures of government Churchill’s dictatorial nature threatened to tear parts of the country apart. It was also the underlying structures in Churchill’s colleagues that meant he appeared a more effective leader. Thus while Churchill appeared to maintain morale, his personable responsibility only stretched as far as his personality traits of charisma and self belief.

Assess the value of the left and right realist approaches to crime and deviance

Right realism sees crime, especially street crime as a real and growing problem that destroys communities, undermines social cohesion and threatens society’s work ethic. Right realist views correspond with conservative governments as they see it as a workable solution to curb rising crime. It’s led to a shift in thinking, away from researching the causes of crime and towards a search for practical crime control measures. They view the best way to reduce crime was through control and punishment rather than rehabilitating offenders or tackling causes of crime such as poverty. Right realism reflects this political climate. They criticise other theories for failing to offer any practical solutions to the problem of rising crime. They regard theories such as labelling and critical criminology as too sympathetic to the criminal and hostile to law and order. Right realists are less concerned to understand causes of crime and more concerned to offer realistic solutions. Although their main emphasis is on practical crime reduction, they do offer explanation for causes of crime.

Right realists reject the idea put forward by Marxists and others that structural or economic factor such as poverty and inequality are the causes of crime. For example against Marxists they argue the old tend to be poor but have a low crime rate.

Wilson and Herrnstein (1985) put forward a biosocial theory of criminal behaviour. They argue crime is caused by a number of biological and social factors. Biological differences between individuals make some people innately predisposed to commit crimes then others. For example personality traits such as aggressiveness, extroversion, risk taking and low impulse control put some people at greater risk of offending. Herrnstein and Murray (1994) argue the main cause of crime is low intelligence, which they also see as biologically determined.

However while biology may increase the chance of an individual offending effective socialisation can decrease this risk as it involves learning self control and internalising moral values of right and wrong. Right realists argue the best agency of socialisation is the nuclear family. Charles Murray (1990) argues crime is increasing because of a growing underclass who is defined by deviant behaviour and who fails to socialise properly. Murray argues the underclass is growing as a result of welfare dependency. Murray argues the welfare states “generous revolution” since the 60’s has allowed more people to become dependent on the state. It’s led to decline of marriage and growth of lone parent families as women and children can live of benefits. This means men no longer have to take responsibility for supporting families so they no longer need to work. However lone mothers are ineffective socialisation agents for boys. Absent fathers mean boys lack adequate male role models. Thus young males turn to other often delinquent role models on the street and gain status through crime rather than supporting families through a steady job. Murray argues the underclass is not only a source of crime. Its very existence threatens society’s cohesion by undermining the values of hard work and personal responsibility.

Rational choice theory assumes individuals have free will and the power of reason. A rational choice theorist such as Ron Clarke (1980) argues the decision to commit crime is a choice based on a rational calculation of the likely consequences. If the perceived rewards of crime outweigh the perceived costs of crime then people will be more likely to offend. Right realists argue currently the perceived costs of crime are too low and thus the crime rate has increased. For example they argue there’s often little risk of being caught and punishments in any case lenient. Marcus Felson (1998) uses routine activity theory. Felson argues for a crime to occur there must be a motivated offender, a suitable target and absence of a capable guardian. Offenders are assumed to act rationally so the presence of a guardian is likely to deter them from offending. Felson argues informal guardians such as those provided by the community are more effective ones than ones such as the police.

Right realists don’t believe it’s worth trying to deal with causes of crime such as poverty as they can’t easily be changed. They seek to devise practical measures to make crime less attractive. Their main focus is on control, containment and punishing offenders rather than eliminating the underlying causes of their offending or rehabilitating them. Wilson and Kelling’s (1982) article on broken windows argues it’s essential to maintain the orderly character of neighbourhoods to prevent crime taking a hold. Any sign of deterioration such as vandalism must be dealt with immediately. They advocate zero tolerance policy towards undesirable behaviour such as begging. The police should focus on controlling the streets so law abiding citizens feel safe. Crime prevention policies should reduce rewards and increase costs of crime to the offender, for example by target hardening with greater use of prison and maximising their deterrent effect.

However right realism is criticised both for explanations of crime and its solutions. Right realism ignores wider structural causes such as poverty. It overstates offender’s rationality and how far they make cost benefit calculations before committing a crime. While it may explain some utilitarian crime it may not explain violent crime. Its view that criminals are rational actors freely choosing crime conflicts with its view that their behaviour is determined by their biology and socialisation. It also over emphasises biological factors, for example Lilly et al (2002) found IQ differences account for less than 3% of differences in offending. Right realists are preoccupied with petty street crime and ignore corporate crime which may be more costly and harmful to the public. Advocating a zero tolerance policy gives police a free rein to discriminate against ethnic minority, youth ect. It also results in displacement of crime to other areas. Jones (1998) notes that right realists policies in the USA failed to prevent the crime rate rising. It over emphasises control of disorder rather than tackling underlying causes of neighbourhood decline such as lack of investment.

Jock Young argues left realism developed as a response to two main factors; the need to take the rising crime rate seriously and to produce practical solutions and the influence of right realism on government policy. Like Marxists left realists see society as an unequal capitalist one. However unlike Marxists left realists are reformist and not revolutionary socialists; they believe in the gradual social change rather than the violent overthrow of capitalism as the way to achieve greater equality. They believe we need to develop explanations of crime that will lead to practical strategies for reducing it in here and now, rather than waiting for a revolution and a socialist utopia to abolish crime.

The central idea behind left realism is that crime is a real problem and one that particularly affects the disadvantaged groups who are its main victims. They accuse other Marxists against not taking crime seriously. Traditional Marxists have concentrated on the crimes of the powerful such as corporate crime. Left realists agree this is important but argue it neglects working class crimes and its effects. Neo-Marxists romanticise the working class criminals as latter day robin hoods, stealing from the rich as an act of political resistance to capitalism. Left realists argue working class criminals mostly victimise other working class people; not the rich. Labelling theorists see working class criminal’s victims of discriminatory labelling by social control agents. Left realists argue this approach neglects the real victims – working class people who suffer at the hands of criminals. Part of the left realists project is to recognise there has been real increases in crime since the 1950’s, especially working class crime. Young (1997) argues this has led to an aetiological crisis, a crisis in explanation, for theories of crime. For example critical criminology and labelling theory tend to deny that the increase is real. They argue instead it’s the result of an increase in reporting of crime or an increasing tendency to label the poor. Thus the increase in crime statistics is just a social construction, not a reality. However left realists argue the increase is too great to be explained in this way and is a real one; more people are reporting crime because more people are falling victim to crime. As evidence they cite the findings of victim surveys such as the nationwide British crime survey and many local surveys. Taking crime seriously also involves recognising who is most affected by crime. Local victim surveys show that the scale of the problem is greater than official statistics. They also show disadvantaged groups have a greater risk of becoming victims, for example unskilled workers are twice as likely to be burgled then other people. Thus understandably disadvantaged groups have a greater fear of crime and have a greater effect on their lives. For example fear of attack prevents women going out at night. At the same time these groups are less likely to report crimes against them and the police are often reluctant to deal with crimes such as domestic violence, rape or racist attacks.

The second part of the left realist project to take crime seriously involves explain the rise in crime. Lea and Young (1984) identify three related causes of crime; relative deprivation, subculture and marginalisation.

Lea and Young argue crime has roots in deprivation. However deprivation itself is not directly responsible for crime. For example poverty was high in the 1930’s but crime low. Contrastingly since the 50’s living standards have risen but so has the crime rate. W.G. Runcimans (1966) uses the concept of relative deprivation to explain crime. It refers to how deprived someone feels in relation to others or compared to their own expectations. It can lead to crime when people feel resentment that others unfairly have more than them and resort to crime to obtain what they feel they’re entitled to. Leas and Young explain the paradox that today’s society is both more prosperous and crime ridden. Although people are better off they’re now more aware of relative deprivation due to media and advertising which raises everyone’s expectations for material possessions. Those who can’t afford them resort to crime instead. However relative deprivation doesn’t necessarily lead to crime. Young (1999) argues it’s a combination of relative deprivation and individualism. Individualism is a concern with the self and one’s own individual rights rather than those of the group. It causes crime by encouraging the pursuit of self interest at the expense of others. Left realists argue increasing individualism is causing the disintegration of families and communities by undermining the values of mutual support and selflessness on which they’re based. It weakens the informal controls that such groups exercise over individuals, creating a spiral of increasing antisocial behaviour, aggression and crime.

For left realists a subculture is a group’s collective solution to the problem of relative deprivation. However different groups may produce different sub cultural solutions to the problem. For example some turn to crime to close the deprivation gap while others find religion offers them spiritual comfort and what Weber calls a theodicy of disprivilege; and explanation for their situation. Such religious subcultures may encourage respectability and conformity. Key Pryce (1979) found in the black community is Bristol identified a variety of subcultures or lifestyles including hustlers, Rastafarians, saints and working class respectable. Left realists argue criminal subcultures still subscribe to values and goals of mainstream society such as materialism and consumerism. For example young (2002) notes there are ghettos in USA where there is full immersion in the American dream. However opportunities to achieve goals legitimately are blocked so they resort to street crime instead.

Marginalised groups lack both clear goals and organisations to represent their needs. Groups such as workers have clear goals, such as better pay and organisations such as trade unions to pressure employers and politicians. Thus they have no need to resort to violence to achieve such goals. Contrastingly unemployed youth are marginalised. They have no organisation to represent them and no clear goals, just a sense of resentment and frustration. Being powerless to use political means to improve their situation they express their frustration through criminal means such as violence and rioting.

Young (2002) argues we are now living in a stage of late modern society, where instability, insecurity and exclusion make the problem of crime worse. He contrasts today’s society with the period preceding it, arguing the 50s were the golden age of modern capitalism. It was a period of stability, security and social inclusion, with full employment, a comprehensive welfare state, low divorce rates and relatively strong communities. There was general consensus about right and wrong and lower crime rates. Since the 70s instability, insecurity and exclusion have increased. Deindustrialisation and the loss of unskilled manual jobs have increased unemployment and poverty, especially for the young and ethnic minorities, while many jobs are now insecure short term or low paid. These changes have destabilised family and community life and contributed to rising divorce rates as new right government policies designed to hold back welfare spending on the poor. All this has contributed to increased marginalisation and exclusion of those at the bottom. Meanwhile greater inequality between rich and poor and the spread of free market values encouraging individualism has increased the sense of relative deprivation. Young notes the growing contrast between cultural inclusion and economic exclusion as a source of relative deprivation. Media saturated late modern society promotes cultural inclusion; even the poor have access to the medias materialistic, consumerist cultural messages. Similarly there’s greater emphasis on leisure which stresses personal consumption and immediate gratification and leads to higher expectations for the good life. At the same time despite the ideology of meritocracy the poor are systematically excluded from opportunities to gain the glittering prizes of a wealthy society. Young’s contrast between cultural inclusion and economic exclusion is similar to Merton’s notion of anomie – that society creates crime by setting cultural goals such as material wealth while denying people the opportunity to achieve them by legitimate means such as decent jobs. A further trend in late modernity is for relative deprivation to become generalised throughout society rather than being confined by those at the bottom. There is widespread resentment at the undeservedly high rewards that some receive. There is also relative deprivation downwards where the middle class who have to be hard working and disciplined to succeed in an increasingly competitive work environment resent the stereotypical underclass as idle, irresponsible and hedonistic, living of undeserved state handouts. The result of the trend towards exclusion is that the amounts and types of crime are changing in late modern society. Firstly crime is more widespread and is found increasingly throughout the social structure, not just at the bottom of it. It’s also nastier with increase in hate crimes, often the result of relative deprivation downwards, for example attacks against asylum seekers. Reactions to crime by the public and state are also changing. With late modernity society becomes more diverse and there’s less public consensus on right and wrong, so that the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour becomes blurred. At the same time informal controls become less effective as families and communities disintegrate. This, along with rising crime, makes the public more intolerant and leads to demands for harsher formal controls by the state and increased criminalisation of unacceptable behaviour. Late modern society is thus a high crime society with a low tolerance of crime.

The final part of the left realist project is to devise solutions to the problems of crime. They argue we must improve both policing and control and deal with the deeper structural causes of crime. Kinsey, Lea and Young (1986) argue police clear up rates are too low to act as a deterrent to crime and that police spend too little time actually investigating crime. They argue that the public must become more involved in determining the police’s priorities and style of policing. The police depend on the public to provide them with information about crimes. However the police are losing public support, especially in inner cities and among ethnic minorities and the young. Thus the flow of information dries up and police instead rely on military policing such as swamping an area and using random stop and search tactics. This alienates communities who see the po9lice victimising local youth and it results in a viscous circle; locals no longer trust the police and don’t provide them with information, so the police resort to military policing. Left realists argue that policing must therefore be made more accountable to local communities and must deal with local concerns. Routine beat patrols are ineffective in detecting or preventing crime and stop and search tactics cause conflict. The police need to improve their relationship with local communities by spending more time investigating crime, changing priorities and involve the public in policing policy. Left realists also argue that crime control cannot be left to the police alone – a multiagency approach is also needed. It involves agencies such as local councils, social services and the public.

However left realists do not see improved policing and control as the main solution. They argue the causes of crime lie in the unequal structure of society and major structural changes are needed if we want to reduce levels of offending. For example young argues we must deal with inequality of opportunity and the unfairness of rewards, tackle discrimination, provide decent jobs for everyone, and improve housing and community facilities. We must also become more tolerant of diversity and cease stereotyping whole groups of people as criminal.

Left realists have had more influence on government policy than most theories on crime. They have similarities with the new labour stance of tough on crime, tough on causes of crime. For example new labours firmer approach to the policing of hate crimes echo left realist concerns to protect vulnerable groups from crime. However Young sees these policies as nostalgic and doomed attempts to recreate the golden age in the 50s. Young criticises the record of governments including new labour. He argues they have largely only addressed the symptoms such as anti social behaviour; they have been tougher on tackling crime than crimes underlying issues such as inequality.

Left realism has succeeded in drawing attention to the reality of street crime and its effects on victims of deprived groups. However it has been criticised. Henry and Milovanovic (1996) argue that it accepts the authority’s definition of street crime being committed by the poor instead of defining the problem as being one of how powerful groups do harm to the poor. Marxists argue it fails to explain corporate crimes which is more harmful even if less conspicuous. Interactionists argue that because left realists rely on quantitative data from victim surveys they cannot explain offenders motives. Instead we need qualitative data to reveal their meanings. Their use of sub cultural theory means left realists assume that value consensus exists and that crime only occurs when this breaks down. Relative deprivation cannot fully explain crime because not all those who experience it commit crime. The theory over predicts the amount of crime. Its focus on high crime inner city areas gives it an unrepresentative view and makes crime appear a greater problem then it is.

There are both similarities and differences between the two types of realism. For example both left and right realists see crime as a real problem and fear of crime as rational. On the other hand they come from different ends of the political spectrum; right realists are neo conservative while left realists are reformist socialists. It’s reflected in how they explain crime; right realists blame individual lack of self control while left realists blame structural inequalities and relative deprivation. Likewise political differences are reflected in their aims and solutions to the problem of crime; the right prioritise social order achieved through a tough stance of offenders while the left prioritise justice achieved through democratic policing and reforms to create greater equality.