Left-wing realist criminology is essentially a strong critique of existing theories about crime. This approach openly accepts the unavoidable reality of crime. In its view, crime consists of four elements: law and law-breaking (i.e., the criminal act and the reaction to it), the offender, and the victim.
This approach considers other theories of crime to be one-sided, biased, and incomplete because they focus only on one aspect of crime—such as the offender, the victim, law enforcement agencies, or public reaction—while completely ignoring other factors. It argues that by taking into account all these elements, its theories are more comprehensive than others. However, it does not completely reject other theories; rather, it integrates them.
Although left-wing realism strongly criticizes right-wing realism, especially the views of James Q. Wilson, there are some similarities between the two.
Both approaches recognize crime as a serious problem and do not ignore it like idealist traditions. According to both, people’s fear of crime is based on reality, whereas left-wing idealism and new bureaucratic criminology consider this fear to be unfounded.
Both approaches reject existing ideas about crime control, particularly those related to cooperation between the public and the police.
They also accept that our current knowledge about crime and the effectiveness of measures against it is limited, yet they do not dismiss the minimal benefits that can still be achieved. Both avoid overly optimistic assumptions about crime.
Both emphasize the need for further research on crime under strict observation. In their view, crime control is costly and does not yield sufficiently significant benefits.
Left-wing realism strongly insists that criminology should move forward by accepting the reality of crime. It develops its theories by recognizing the structure of crime, its forms, its social context, its trajectory over time, and the actual occurrence of criminal behavior.
The four constituent elements of crime control are: the offender, the victim, the criminal act, and the reaction to it. All four of these aspects are included in the explanation of the definition of crime. That is, no definition of crime can be complete without including the offender, the victim, and both formal and informal control; any definition formed without these will be defective, one-sided, and insufficient. According to this criminology, these four elements form a square of crime: at one corner is the offender, opposite to whom is the victim; at the third corner are the law enforcement agencies, and opposite them is the public.
The side between the offender and the victim represents the interaction between them. The side between the offender and the police represents the actions and reactions between the offender and law enforcement. The side between the victim and the public reflects their mutual interaction. The side between the police and the public represents their relationship of action and reaction. Thus, these four elements not only determine the crime rate but also explain the social relationships among them. The relationship between the police and the public determines police effectiveness; the relationship between the offender and the victim determines the impact of crime; and the interaction between the offender and law enforcement is an important factor in repeated offending. Changes in the nature of crime also affect the relationships among these four elements.
It is important to keep in mind that when we describe the crime rate as the product of these four elements, we are referring to a process. Crime rates are produced by changes among potential offenders, potential victims, the performance level of state institutions, and the public. Without including these, no explanation of crime rates is possible.
Social reaction to crime consists of two aspects: first, the definition of crime, and second, the attitude toward tolerating it. These two are often confused. The second aspect is the degree of control (that is, the actual level of control related to a specific crime). Thus, from this perspective, the definition of crime may become less tolerant, while at the same time the actual ability to control criminal behavior may decline.
It is an established fact that social control and criminal behavior are more than merely the two poles of the criminal act. Social control includes the government, the public, the police, the educational system, social services, the media, the workplace environment of factories, the family, peers, and informal control among strangers in streets and neighborhoods.
Recognizing the central capacity of informal controls—along with the public system and other institutions related to the police—in controlling crime is an important contribution of this criminology. Thus, the effectiveness of such a system depends on the mutual relationships among all these institutions. Among them, the relationship between the police and the public holds a central position, and this importance has also been acknowledged by wider circles.
No Comments