Left realists believe the main causes of crime are marginalisation, relative deprivation and subcultures, and emphasise community oriented programmes for controlling and reducing crime.
There are three main types of crime prevention policy: situational, environmental and social/ community.
Labelling theory argues that criminal and deviant acts are a result of labelling by authorities – and the powerless are more likely to be negatively labelled.
Marxist Criminologists argue that the costs of elite crime are greater than the costs of street-crime, yet the elite are
Consensus theories generally see crime as unusual, dysfunctional and believe something has ‘gone wrong’ for the people who commit crime.
They marxist theory of crime focuses on how crime is a ‘natural outgrowth of the capitalist system and how the criminal justice system works for the benefits of elites and against the lower social classes.
In the aftermath of England’s ‘summer of violent disorder’ in 2011, the British Prime Minister David Cameron was unequivocal in
Charles Murray argued that a distinct underclass had formed in Britain by the late 1980s — long-term workless, welfare-dependent, and
subcultural theorists argue that deviance occurs because of peer pressure within a subculture that has broken off from mainstream society. This post covers ‘consensus subcultural theory’ including Albert Cohen’s status frustration and Cloward and Ohlin’s three types of subculture.
The two main sources of official statistics on Crime in the UK (or rather England and Wales!) are: NB –