Introduction to Criminology: Reflective and Final Assessment

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Introduction To Criminology Theory
Reflective and Final Assessment

Table of Contents
TASK 1: REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING (REFLECTIVE ASSESSMENT)............................................2
Classicism and Positivism.....................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................... 2
Conclusion............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES - TASK 1............................................................................................................... 5
TASK 2: ESSAY (FINAL ASSESSMENT)........................................................................................6
Essay Question: Compare and Contrast the Ideas Associated With 'Left Realism' and 'Right
Realism'................................................................................................................................ 6
Introduction......................................................................................................................... 6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 10
REFERENCES - TASK 2............................................................................................................. 12
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TASK 1: REFLECTIONS ON LEARNING (REFLECTIVE ASSESSMENT)
Classicism and Positivism
Introduction
Classicism and Positivism are two key schools of criminology (Tierney and O’Neill 2013).
Both the schools focus on defining crime and ways of stopping or deterring the deviant
behaviour. However, both the schools endorse and propose philosophies that are the polar
opposite of each other. Classicism considers free will and rational action as the basis of
defining crime, causation of crime and opposing crime while the Positivism takes a scientific
approach of comprehending crime and deviant behaviour (Tierney and O’Neill 2013). It
includes three different approaches for comprehending the deviant behaviour and crime.
These approaches are Sociological approach, Psychological approach and Biological
approach (Tierney and O’Neill 2013). The essay explores both the key schools of criminology
and their salient aspects and philosophies.
Before the emergence of the Classicism in the late 16th and the 17th century, the society and
law and order can be considered to be in a primitive stage. The religion was the dominant
factor in the understanding and workings of both society and Law and Order. Divine
Appointment was the source of authority while the state depended on violence as a tool for
dominating the masses (Tierney and O’Neill 2013). The punitive measures in this duration
were arbitrary, expressive and barbaric. After this era, came the era of enlightenment due
to significant and swift shift from agriculture to industry and the societal migration from the
country to the city (Tierney and O’Neill 2013). This era spanning from the 17th to 19th century
saw to above-stated changes along with the focus of science and rationale for defining
events and incorporating legal limits to the use of power. The state started functioning
through consent instead of the divine authority while the populace was accorded
inalienable rights (Tierney and O’Neill 2013). The model involved a type of social contract
that empowered the government to protect while the populace sacrificed a portion of their
freedom to seek protection (Tierney and O’Neill 2013).
The school of Classism took shape with the work of Cesare Beccaria in the 18th century
(West 2017). Beccaria’s in his work ‘On Crimes and Punishment’ published in 1764 observed
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that the social contract was selfish and favoured the state/ government (West 2017). He
argued the need for limiting the power of law while focusing on curbing the actions that
enhance the crime rate. He argued in favour of a criminal justice system where the
offender’s rights are protected and represented and against the use of torture (West 2017).
The work of Cesare Beccaria was endorsed and further developed by Jeremy Bentham who
was one of the founders of the concept of ‘Utilitarianism’ (Hovenkamp 2015). Both Beccaria
and Bentham provided the premise of classicism as the classical response to crime. They
suggested that the state should be focused on promoting happiness and that the
punishment is inherently negative and hence against the concept of ‘Utilitarianism’.
Bentham further expanded on times when the punishment should not be used such as
when its cost is higher than the resulting benefit, is unable to deter, and when the act has
caused no harm (Hovenkamp 2015; West 2017). They suggested that utility and rationality is
the basis of crime and the natural inclination of people is hedonistic. Also, whenever there’s
an occurrence of crime, the social contract between the state and people breaks down.
They stressed on the need for cost-benefit analysis on while considering punitive actions
along with its being proportional to the crime committed. They suggested that the focus of
the crime control should be on offence; law should be equally applicable irrespective of
station and class; favoured prison as a punishment to deter crime (Hovenkamp 2015; West
2017).
The Positivism school of criminology emerged in the 19th century and is often a critique of
the classic school (Joyce 2013). The increased availability of crime data and the prominent
role of natural sciences in the 19th century were the basis of the positivism. Positive school
based its philosophies on scientific approach for analysing and explaining the crime and
deviant behaviour (Welch 2013). Crime analysis with a focus on determining the
differentiating factors between the offenders and innocent through scientific approaches
such as biological, Sociological and Psychological was the basis of Positivism (Taylor et al
2013). The three aspects of Positivism were Determinism, Differentiation, and Pathology
(Young 2013). Determinism disregards rational decisions as to the sole cause of crime
instead it considers factors like psychological, sociological and biological as the cause of
crime. Differentiation indicates that offenders can be identifiably differentiated from the
innocent and can be categorised based on their biology, values, and personality (Whitehead
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2015). Pathology indicates that deviant behaviour is fundamentally incorrect and needs to
be addressed through sociological and psychological mechanisms (Young 2013; Taylor et al
2013). The lack of corrective measures or crime control measures is a source of the major
criticism of this school of criminology. Also, the critique received by the biological positivism
that was promoted and supported by various theorists like Charles Goring in 1913, Sheldon
and Glueck in 1950 and Cesare Lombroso, led to it being mostly discredited although it has
seen to re-emerge post-1980 (Young 2013; Taylor et al 2013). Biological Positivism considers
biological and physiological characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, etc. as the
indicator of deviant behaviour.
Conclusion
The classicism and Positivism schools of Criminology evolved during the era of
enlightenment and accorded a significant influence on the law and order policies. The
classicism considers offenders to be similar to innocents and that the offenders are prone to
deviant behaviour after analysing cost and benefits of their actions while Positivism
considers criminal to be fundamentally different from innocents and that the criminals are
influenced towards deviant behaviour due to their inherent inferiority (Young 2013; Taylor
et al 2013; Hovenkamp 2015; West 2017). Classism considers any behaviour outside the law
to be a crime while Positivism is of the view that only something inherently evil and
anchored by humanity should be considered crime. Classicism considers punishments to be
a deterrent to crime applicable equally while Positivism considers the punishment to be
rehabilitative and applicable according to individual scenarios irrespective of the nature of
the crime. Both Classicism and Positivism form the basis of modern-day criminology and
many of its concepts are developed for defining crime and deviant behaviour as well as
crime control (Young 2013; Taylor et al 2013; Hovenkamp 2015; West 2017).
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REFERENCES - TASK 1
Hovenkamp, H. (2015). Progressive Legal Thought. Wash. & Lee L. Rev., 72, p.653.
Joyce, P. (2013). Criminal justice: An introduction. Routledge.
Taylor, I., Walton, P. and Young, J. (2013). The new criminology: For a social theory of
deviance. Routledge.
Tierney, J. and O’Neill, M. (2013). Criminology: Theory and context. Routledge.
Welch, M. (2013). Corrections: A critical approach. Routledge.
West, R. (2017). Classical Criminology. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social‐
Theory, pp.1-4.
Whitehead, J.T. (2015). Juvenile justice: An introduction. Routledge.
Young, J. (2013). Working-class criminology. In Critical Criminology (Routledge
Revivals) (pp. 79-110). Routledge.
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TASK 2: ESSAY (FINAL ASSESSMENT)
Essay Question: Compare and Contrast the Ideas Associated With 'Left Realism'
and 'Right Realism'
Introduction
The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the emergence of Right Realism as a set of
philosophies/theories concerned with the prevention and control of crime (Hall and Winlow
2015). It was significantly influenced by the prevalent political-ideological perspective of the
time known as Thatcherism. Thatcherism originates from the teachings and ideals of
Margaret Thatcher, the prime Minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990 (Hall and Winlow 2015).
The government stance of dealing with the global economic environment through the
expense cut-down led to a change in the methodology of dealing with social problems. The
Right Realists argued that the conventional methodology of investing in the social welfare
system as a tool for improving the root causes of social issues such as poverty that in turn
decreased the crime rate was not working indicated by the rising rate of crime. The Right
Realism considered crime an act of individual free will and advocated harsh punishments for
the crime instead of rehabilitation (Lee 2013). The Right Realism focused on dealing with the
crime instead of dealing with the cause of crime by installing a punitive approach as the
crime deterrent. Left Realism, on the other hand, is the polar opposite of Right Realism. It
emerged in the mid-1980s and originated from the Left idealism (Downes et al 2016). Its rise
was due to the perceived failure of the Leftist ideology in dealing with crime providing the
Right Realism with an opportunity to gain the monopoly in the political approach to the law
and order and crime control. The Left Realism presents an alternate and contrary view to
Right Realism by suggesting that crime is a result of a combination of individualism and
relative deprivation (Walklate 2015). This combination of individualism and relative
deprivation creates widespread anti-social behaviour and aggression giving rise to the
activities of criminal nature (Walklate 2015). The Left Realists rejected the past
criminological theories and Right Realism philosophies/theories such as individualism and
labelling theory as unrealistic for handling and defining crime (Downes et al 2016). The essay
explores both the Right Realism and Left Realism approach while comparing and contrasting
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the ideas associated with them in the context of three basic aspects of criminology namely
the definition and causes of crime and responses to crime.
Right Realism considers its approach to crime to be more realistic. They consider deviance
and crime to be real social issues that need practical remedies. They focus on visible crimes
and relevant government statistics like the British Crime Survey of the 70s and 80s as the
basis of their reasoning (Lee 2013). The visible crimes such as burglary or street crime were
considered to be the primary cause of societal fear to the crime since their frequency is
much prominent in the societal setting (Duggan and Heap 2014). Also, these form a major
part of government statistics as these are reported more often by the general populace, the
primary victim of the visible crimes. The criminal act such as victimless crimes are harder to
detect hence their percentage is much lower in the official statistics as compared to the
actual scenario. The use of the government/ official statistics can be considered to be a
significant weakness of Right Realism (Duggan and Heap 2014).
The Left Realism also agrees about the reality of crime and the continuous increase in the
crime rates. However, contrary to Right Realism Left Realists consider the factor leading to a
crime that was completely overlooked by the Right Realism (Muncie 2014). Their focus is on
the victims of the crime and they argue that the populace suffering from relative deprivation
suffer more from crimes as compared to the affluent. They further argue that the official
statistics is not an ideal or realistic source of crime data. Their reliance is on the victim's
survey since they consider many a crime often go unreported hence are not a part of the
government statistics (Matthews 2014). The Left Realism is often criticised for their
perpetual focus on victims rather than criminals. As is the case with the Right Realism, Left
Realism also focuses on visible crimes. Contrary to Right Realists, Left Realists consider that
the crime needs to be addressed by the criminal justice process by considering all the
aspects of the crime such as the criminal justice system, victims, criminal, and the general
populace (Matthews 2014). The Left Realism is criticised for its reliance on victim’s survey
due to which crimes like domestic violence, victimless crimes, and female perpetrated
crimes are ignored since they are not usually a part of the victim's survey (Muncie 2014).
Cause of crimes has always been a focal point of criminological debate. The Right Realists
consider crime to be an individual’s act of free will in which they choose to engage in
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criminal activity. They do not consider the economic or social factors as a cause of crime
(Gilling 2013). Right Realist James Q Wilson in his work ‘Thinking about Crime’ rejects
homelessness, poor education, deprivation, unemployment and poor housing as the causes
of crime (Reiner 2016). In support of his argument, he considers the 1960s that was the
longest sustained period of economic prosperity in the USA. This era saw the
implementation of large scale programmes that were focused on increasing and tracking
welfare, equality in education and opportunities, and youth exclusion. Wilson indicates that
1960s saw the rise of crime at a sustained rate validated by the crime statistics of both USA
and UK, in spite of the above stated large scale programmes validating his earlier argument
about rejecting certain perpetrated causes of crime (Reiner 2016). He argued that the
principal causes of crime are social breakdown and malaise. He suggested that the society is
divided into two categories one of which was affluent but worried about becoming the
target of crime while the second category was pathological and predatory and the
perpetrators of crime (Reiner 2016).
Another cause of crime suggested by the Right Realists were the biological factors presented
by Right Realists Herrnstein and Wilson in 1985 (Brooks 2016). They suggested crime needs
to considered in the context of biological factors since certain individuals are prone to
criminal behaviour that's promoted by their circumstances although not everyone is
affected in this manner and only a limited few will be influenced by deterrence (Brooks
2016). This was further elaborated by Herrnstein and Murray in ‘The Bell Curve’ in 1994 by
exploring intelligence as a factor in the criminal behaviour of the individual (Brown 2017).
They suggested the lower IQ is the predominant indicator of potential criminal behaviour
and stressed on the importance of intelligence as compared to class in the determination of
poverty and crime. They disregarded poverty and social class as unimportant as causes of
crime (Brown 2017). This was further elaborated and supported by the right realist Charles
Murray in his work ‘The Underclass’ (Jefferson 2013). He categorised poor individuals in two
categories; one category was of people that were hardworking, honest and had some
intelligence and moral sense while the other category has people that are indicated by their
behaviour that included lack of care for their homes, inability for sustained employment,
drinking problems, children not going to school, and were the source of a majority of social
issues (Jefferson 2013). He argued that the socially and economically poor should be feared
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and instead of providing the support that worsens the issue they should be contained and
controlled. He argued that the major issue and underlying cause of the crime were being
welfare centric since it promotes irresponsibility, breaking down of traditional institutions,
lack of socialisation for children, lack of male role models, welfare dependency, allowing the
criminals to live off the societal aid, and lack of control (Jefferson 2013). This argument was
also supported by Bennet, Dilulio, and Walters in their work ‘The Body Count’ in 1996
(Webster and Doob 2012).
The Left Realism considers structural and individual factors as the causation of crime
(DeKeseredy and Donnermeyer 2013). The structural factors include deprivation, Poverty,
and the context while the individual factors include the individual circumstances of the
offender, the influence of victimisation and the labelling process (DeKeseredy and
Donnermeyer 2013). The left realist in contrast to the right realists argues that all the above-
mentioned aspects need to be considered while seeking causation of the crime rather than
offender centric view which is a right realism approach. The left realists Young, Lea &
Matthews proposed the ‘Square of Crime’ as the tool to understand crime and seek its
causation (DeKeseredy and Donnermeyer 2013). They argue that the comprehending the
interplay between the macro and micro factors is a necessary aspect of seeking the
causation of crime and its handling and control. They argue that the social relationship is a
critical aspect of the causation of crime (DeKeseredy and Donnermeyer 2013). The Square of
Crime indicates the interrelationship between the Criminal Justice System, General Public,
Victim of the crime and the offender (Gilling 2013).
The contrast between right and left realism further extends with left realists like Lea and
Young’s arguments in favour of relative deprivation (Lea 2015). They argue that relative
deprivation can be considered and found effective in explaining every type of crime and can
be considered significant causation of crime (Lea 2015). The level of deprivation an
individual feels as compared to others can be considered to be principle causation of crime
that's found to be relevant across the social structure. The concept of relative deprivation
counters the argument of right realism regarding the increase in crime in spite of increased
prosperity as the basis of their argument of crime to be based on individualism and
behaviour (Lea 2015). However, left realists concede that relative deprivation increases with
an increase in individualism and while defining the characteristics of individualism the left
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realism contrast with the right realism. Left realist characterises individualism by aspects like
communal fragmentation, focus on individual self-interest, exclusion and marginalisation
(Lea 2015).
The primary contrast in the Left and Right Realism becomes apparent in their arguments in
the ways of responding to crime. The right realists argue that while responding to crime the
focus should be realistic and practical and it should remain on controlling and reducing the
crime instead of the causation of crime (Matthews 2014; Pavlich 2019). They support
stringent punitive measures as the tools for controlling and reducing the crime. Wilson
argues that we need to accept the existence of ‘Wicked’ people and focus on separating
them from the innocent (Matthews 2014; Pavlich 2019). He further stipulates that failure to
take action against the offenders promote the criminal behaviour in the mind of others
thereby promoting the benefits of crime and criminal behaviour. The right realism supports
the promotion of traditional institutions like marriage as well as traditional families as a
measure of reducing the crime rate (Matthews 2014; Pavlich 2019). On the other hand, the
left realists like Lea and Young through their work ‘What is to be done about Law and Order
– Crisis in the Eighties’ stress on focusing on all the aspects of ‘The Square Of Crime’ to deter
the crime (Hallsworth 2013; Gilling 2013). They argue that the focus should be on both
causes and the impact to control and reduce crime. They argue in favour of addressing the
deprivation as a tool for reducing relative deprivation and supporting the victims of crime
(Hallsworth 2013; Gilling 2013). Their suggestion is choosing a multi-agency approach to
respond to crime to handle the above-stated aspects of crime. They argue in favour of
rehabilitation against punitive actions like prison terms. They suggest reducing the use of
prison while allowing and promoting the interaction and partnership of law and order
agencies like police with the general public (Hallsworth 2013; Gilling 2013).
Conclusion
It can be surmised from the above discussion that the Left and Right Realism in spite of the
similarities in the two approaches such as acceptance of crime as a real and important issue
and focus on defining crime and its causes and the response to crime, the two approaches
are clearly in contrast with each other. This contrast is apparent all the three parameters
defined at the start of the essay; defining the crime, causation of crime, and response to
crime. The Right realism seems to focus mostly on the punitive measures as a tool for
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controlling and deterring crime while the Left realism approach was more towards seeking
causation of crime and reducing the causation of crime like relative deprivation to reduce
and control crime (Hallsworth 2013; Gilling 2013; Matthews 2014; Pavlich 2019).
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