left realism essay

Left Realist Criminology

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Last Updated on July 15, 2024 by Karl Thompson

Left Realism was developed by Jock Young, John Lea and Roger Matthews as a response to the increasing influence of Right Realism .

Left Realism is Left realism is a fusion of anomie theory, radical criminology and symbolic interactionism.

It is realist because it focuses on practical ways of solving crime, unlike Interactionism and Radical Criminology which it sees as too idealistic and having unrealistic ideas about how to solve crime.

It is left wing because it focusses on the structural inequalities of class, race and gender. It still acknowledges the practical force of crime on society and especially the heavy impact on the poor, ethnic minorities and women. 

Key ideas of Left Realist Criminology:

Left Realism – Causes of Crime

Young (1997) argues that you have to be tough on crime, but this does not just mean being tough on criminals, it means being tough on trying to change the social factors which have a long term impact on crime rates and ensuring that the criminal justice system promotes social justice.

Relative deprivation

Left Realists draw on Runciman’s (1966) concept of relative deprivation to explain crime. This refers to how someone feels in relation to others, or compared with their own expectations.

Marginalisation

This is where people lack the power or resources to fully participate in society. According to Left Realists marginalised groups lack both clear goals and organisations to represent their interests. Groups such as workers have clear goals (such as wanting better pay and conditions) and organisations to represent them (such as trades unions), and as such they have no need to resort to violence to achieve their goals.

‘Multiple Aetiology and The Square of Crime’

Left Realists argue that crime is caused by several different factors. They call this multiple aetiology. Crime is a product of formal and informal rules, actions of offenders and of reaction by victims, the state and its agencies, it is therefore important to understand why people offend, what makes victims vulnerable, the factors that affect public attitudes and responses to crime and the social forces that influence the police. This can be done by drawing together a number of different agencies in the community, who should all work together to solve crime.

Left Realism – Solutions to Crime

Left realist solutions to crime emphasis Social and Community Crime Prevention strategies which focus on individual offenders and the social context which encourages them to commit crime.

Early Intervention

One of the best-known intervention programmes aimed at reducing criminality is the Perry pre-school project for disadvantaged black children which took place in Michigan, USA. IN this programme a group of 3-4 olds were offered a two-year intellectual enrichment programme, during which time the children received weekly home-visits.

Community Based Approaches to Reducing Crime

Improving policing.

A third strategy for reducing crime according to left realists is to improve policing. They argue that over 90% of crimes are cleared up by the police as a result of information from the public, however research suggests that public confidence in the police has declined.

Two practical examples of Left Realist Policies

Left Realism inspired new and confusing configurations of streets to make it difficult for kerb crawlers to cruise in search of prostitutes.

Evaluations of Left Realism

HOWEVER, if done properly, community prevention measures can save hundreds of thousands of pounds, by ‘turning’ a potential criminal into an employed tax-payer.

Michel Foucault and David Garland interpret the these strategies as being about surveillance and control rather than real social change which prevents crime.

Signposting – Related Posts

Left Realism is taught as part of the compulsory module in Crime and Deviance , usually delivered in the second year of study.

Sage Encyclopedia of Criminology (2010) Left Realism .

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Jock Young and the Development of Left Realist Criminology (2015)

2015, Critical Criminology

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The renewal of the Left realist tradition in criminology is vital for a critical understanding of crime and criminal justice in the context of a dominant neoliberalism. Left Realism presented two core components: the local democratic community control of policing and crime prevention and the analytical 'square of crime'. Two strategies for renewing the tradition are contrasted: the re‐elaboration and updating of the core concepts or the incorporation of new themes – specifically critical realist philosophy – from outside the original paradigm. While these two are not mutually exclusive I argue that most of the proposed critical realist innovations are already present in the core concepts of Left Realism and that it is here, in the focus on struggles for local democracy and in the deconstructive tradition of the 'square of crime', that the future for Left Realism lies.

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Jock Young and the Development of Left Realist Criminology

• Published: 22 March 2015
• Volume 23 , pages 165–177, ( 2015 )

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This article traces Jock Young’s contribution to the development of Left Realist criminology beginning with the political interventions of the mid 1980s progressing through the development of the ‘square of crime’ as the conceptual framework for a Left Realist research programme to some of the final formulations in his later works. The emphasis of the article is less on critical receptions of Left Realism by the wider criminological community than on demonstrating the consistency of Jock’s commitment to following through the implications of the Left Realist paradigm.

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Lea, J. Jock Young and the Development of Left Realist Criminology. Crit Crim 23 , 165–177 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-015-9273-8

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Left Realism

Last updated 22 Nov 2017

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Left realists, like Lea and Young (1984), have their roots in Marxism and radical criminology yet criticise Marxists for their "left idealism".

Their argument with traditional Marxists and others on the left is that:

• Crime and the fear of crime are very real social problems that should be taken seriously, and actually most victims are working class
• Therefore, sociologists should consider solutions to all crime and not view only white-collar and corporate crime as a problem

They identify a number of causes of crime, including subcultures , marginalisation / social exclusion and, most importantly, relative deprivation .  

Relative deprivation

Relative deprivation refers to inequality: the idea that people are deprived (materially or otherwise) compared with others in society.  

Left realists suggest that this, together with marginalisation and subcultures, is a significant cause of crime.  This perspective differs from a more traditional Marxist view that poverty (and therefore capitalism) causes crime; they argue that people were better off in the 1980s (when they were writing) than they were in the 1930s, yet crime was much worse in the 1980s. The difference is not that people are poorer, but that they live in close proximity with people who are much richer.  Although the divide between rich and poor was greater in the 1930s, those in poverty were less aware of the lives of the wealthy because society was more socially segregated.  Today, particularly in cities, people on the poverty line may well live on the next street to the very rich.  

This conspicuous inequality could be a significant cause of crime, according to left realists. It was also a key factor in social exclusion : people feeling they did not have a stake in society, were on the margins, and in the formation of subcultures . Both were factors in criminality. Left realists also argue that the process of globalisation (see globalisation and crime below) has exacerbated this problem by exporting many manufacturing jobs to the developing world, and increasing unemployment and social exclusion in post-industrial countries like the UK.

Left realists favour police reform to create a more consensual force that would better represent the population it polices. If there were genuine consensus policing and the public had more confidence in the police, they would report more crimes. The public would work with the police rather than feel threatened by them and ultimately this would improve the policing for communities and reduce crime.

A significant part of the reform was the inclusion of more democracy in the police. Interestingly, David Cameron's coalition government introduced elected police and crime commissioners , first elected into position in 2012. Although that was not exactly what left realists proposed - they preferred directly-elected police authorities - the rationale behind the new post was very similar, despite coming from a different political perspective.

Ultimately the left realist propose that social order will come from a fairer, more equal society. They argue that this is not just the responsibility of the police or the government but of everyone; and partnerships between a wide array of agencies and individuals need to exist in order to reduce the problem of crime. This philosophy was at the heart of much police and crime policy under the Tony Blair government after 1997 and can be summed up by his famous soundbite: "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime."

Evaluating Left Realism

• One problem with left realism is that its central proposal is arguably still quite idealistic rather than realistic . Yes, a fairer, more equal society might well have less crime than the one we currently live in, but is that any more realistic a proposal than more traditional Marxists who argue that we need a revolution?
• If social exclusion and marginalisation cause crime then it might be expected that women would commit more crimes than men in a patriarchal society, and yet this is not the case. Feminists, therefore, would criticise left (and right) realism as being "malestream" for ignoring gender as a factor.
• While the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government introduced directly-elected police and crime commissioners in 2012, there is no evidence to suggest that this increased public support for or confidence in the police. The average turnout was 15% for the elections in 2012; and while it increased to 26% in 2016, there were still areas where turnout was as low as 17%. The 2012 election was held on the same day as the Welsh Assembly and English local government elections which artificially increased the turnout. The reality is that the public have little or no interest in the police and crime commissioners and most could not name them or say what party, if any, they represented. In some towns nobody cast a vote for a commissioner at all. This reform has not changed the relationship between the public and the police in the way left realists hoped.
• Left realism
• Right realism

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Left Realism Theory Analysis Essay

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The Left Realism Theory was propagated by a group of academics in the United Kingdom in 1984, namely Richard Kinsey, John Lea, Roger Matthews, Geoff Pearson, and Jock Young. In the same year they wrote the book ‘What is to be Done About Law and Order?’ They said that criminology errs in assuming crime is not connected to social and economic problems in a society. Their work puts forward the suggestion that the poor are abused by capitalists and also by members of their own class leading to discontent and then crime. It also states that solutions offered when crime occurs only serves to make crime worse (Burke, 2005).

They focused on two main areas in their study. The first was rejecting theories that either concentrate too much on control agencies or concentrate too much on the criminal in trying to ‘understand’ them as being victims of labeling or political reaction to the well-to-do. The second tried to fuse earlier perspectives into a newer, more realistic approach by including other facets of crime such as its social origins (how a criminal develops) or its effect on its victims (Burke, 2005).

In their argument they mentioned three main policies of left realism; demarginalisation, pre-emptive deterrence and the minimal use of prison. In demarginalisation, they advocate for an alternative to prison sentences so that the offender is not completely severed from society. Methods to assist in doing so include giving community service sentences, victim restitution – where the victim is compensated in one way or form or simply releasing the offenders from prison. Pre-emptive Deterrence policy chooses to seek ways to avoid, anticipate or prevent crime in manners other than the usual threat of punishment or having law enforcement. It tries to stress the importance of community organisation toward achieving that goal. The Minimal Use of Prison policy states that prisons should exist to accommodate only those deemed to be the most dangerous to society. It contends that prisons fail to adequately rehabilitate criminals and eventually function either to harden the inmates or break their self esteem leaving them too hopeless or inadequate to serve their communities or themselves (Burke, 2005).

In society today left realism opens the door to looking to new ways of looking at criminology and understanding and controlling crime. An example is that it gives us what is referred to as the square of crime. The conventional triangle of crime had the offender, the victim and the state. The square has now included the civil society. It divides them into two groups with the offender and victim known as the actors at one side and the reactors the (state and civil society) at the other. Any change in one of the four affects the others. It also attempt to explain crime as a result of political or economical disparity among the working class who feel deprived and usually fail to get any redress from those who wield and monopolize political power.

It tries to perceive the criminal as not someone who is breaking the law merely because he wants to or he can but as a person who refuses to conform to society’s mistreatment of his rights. The criminal here is seen as superior to the non-criminal who does nothing to ‘fight back’ against the oppressors. Left realism also tries to show crime can also be a group or cultural response as opposed to an individual choice. An example is when riots occur because a group of people feel they have been denied a social, economic or political right and lack an outlet through which these feelings of dissatisfaction can be expressed.

Roger H. Burke (2005). An Introduction to Criminological Theory: Second Edition . New York, Willan Publishing

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EXEMPLAR A/A* ESSAY Left Realism- Crime and Deviance Essay

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Left realism and crime – revision notes with evaluative points

Left realists aim to provide solutions to the problem of crime.

• Kinsey, Lea and Young (1986) argue that the police need to spend less time policing and controlling crime, and spend more time just investigating crime
• Left realists argue that policing must be made more responsible for and become more involved with local communities and must deal with more local concerns
• They should improve their relationship with local communities by spending more time investigating crime and by changing their priorities
• Crime control should involve a multi-agency approach which includes agencies as well as voluntary organisations.
• Another left realist solution is to tackle structural issues as the causes of crime that primarily lie in the unequal structure of society
• and major structural changes are needed in order to reduce the levels of offending
• Strong communities need to be built, there should be neighbourhood policing and a more community control when it comes to policing.
• Young et al argues that we need to deal with the social inequalities of society such as the unfairness of rewards and the inequality of opportunity. For example to provide decent housing and jobs.

Evaluation of Left Realism and crime

(+) It succeeded in drawing attention to the reality of street crime and its effects.

(-) Henry and Milovanovic argue that it accepts the authorities’ definition of crime as being street crime that is committed by the poor. Marxists also argue that it ignores the importance of corporate and white-collar crimes which is often much more harmful.

(-) Left realists rely on quantitative data from official statistics for their research. Interactionists would argue that we instead need to look into qualitative data in order to reveal the meanings behind the actions committed.

(-) The theory is too soft on the criminal as it doesn’t explain how the criminals should be dealt with.

(-) It focuses too much on inner-city high crime areas which gives an unrepresentative view, making crime appear as a greater problem than it is.

(-) The theory of relative deprivation has been criticised for being overly deterministic as relative deprivation doesn’t always lead individuals to crime.

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