Reflections on Realism

1. Reflections on Realism CC400

2. The complexities of the changing socio-economic conditions during the 1970s in Britain contributed to the emergence of radical realist criminology in the 1980s.

3. In the field of ‘law and order’, the problem of crime and its control had begun to take on new dimensions and significance.

4. On one side there had been a persistent rise in the number of recorded offences; increasing almost five-fold between 1960 and 1980, and on the other side, most of the principle agencies involved in the criminal justice process appeared increasingly unaccountable, inefficient and costly.

5. There was a growing problem of delivering the required services to an increasing number of victims of crime. The police, in particular, who were popularly seen as being in the front line of the ‘fight against crime’, were identified as the primary agency for reorganization.

6. Consequently, much of the effort expended during the early 1980s by policy makers and criminologists was aimed at improving police performance and increasing accountability.

7. Subsequently, other agencies – prison officers, probation officers, and to a lesser extent, the judiciary, came under review.

8. During the 1980s crime continued to rise in Britain while the leading agencies, despite attempts to change their organization and practices, continued to present serious problems in terms of performance and accountability.

9. Victimization studies showed the impact of crime as uneven.

10. It falls disproportionately on the powerless and more vulnerable sections of the population and serves to compound the growing economic and social inequalities that rose dramatically through the 1980s.

11. Paradoxically, it is the more disadvantaged groups who pay a disproportionate amount of the cost of financing an increasingly costly criminal justice system. The growing problems associated with crime and its control created new situations and challenges for criminologists.

12. The priority accorded to the issue meant that it became more difficult to remain purely contemplative and politically engaged. Developing consistent and viable alternative methods of crime control can be a daunting task.

13. But these challenges were compounded in Britain during this time period by the swings and variations in government policies. The Thatcherite policy was diverse, uneven, and at times even contradictory.

14. For example: the ‘get tough’ policies, which were widely publicized at the beginning of the decade (1980s), were substantially reviewed.

15. Although punitiveness remained an essential ingredient of conservative policies, it was increasingly conditioned by fiscal concerns as well as the development of more ‘privatized’ and corporatist responses in some areas.

16. The net effect of these different and competing strands was the production of a peculiar mix of policies.

17. There has been a toughening up of responses to certain categories of offenders and a softening of others.

18. By the same token increased prison sentences for some have been accompanied by the increased use of cautioning and diversion for others.

19. Often implicit in these bifurcated strategies are contradictory assumptions concerning the aetiology of crime and the dynamics of intervention.

20. A massive prison-building program occurred in a period that had witnessed a levelling off in the custodial population.

21. Funding for the police increased 60 percent over a decade in which police performance dropped consistently and against a background of official publications which stressed that extra police and resources were likely to provide minimum advantages in terms of crime control.

22. Most remarkably, despite the massive increase in public and private expenditures on crime control during the 1980s, crime continued to rise to unprecedented levels.

23. Thatcherism itself, however, was only one particular manifestation of an international political shift which placed various ‘new right’ administrations in power in a number of western countries during the 1980s.

24. Some countries, like Britain, experienced a peculiar political transformation in which the power of the parties of the center has declined as well as those on the Marxist left.

25. These created new political alignments and a sharpened opposition between right and left social democratic parties.

26. These changing political configurations translated into criminological discourse, which in the process became re-politicized.

27. Alongside these political changes, which set new agendas in criminology, there was a general crisis in criminology theory.

28. This crisis had at least four dimensions: The first was what was referred to as an aetiological crisis.

29. 2 The second dimension involved a crisis of identity – a profound uncertainty about its own development and its future direction.

30. 3 The third level of crisis arose from its underlying androcentrism and the inapplicability of a wide range of existing criminological theory to women.

31. 4 The final dimension related to the low level of policy relevance of much criminological investigation.

32. The growing realization through the decade that these limited policies, with their weak theoretical base, were not providing an adequate response to the problems of crime and its control encouraged the development of alternative approaches which offered a broader focus and firmer foundation.

33. Radical realism, in Britain, was an attempt to respond to this challenge. First, the perceived seriousness of crime is such that it requires a response which goes beyond piecemeal engineering and short-term adjustments.

34. 2 The term ‘radical’ is meant to convey the construction of a political response which was not subsumed within the traditional liberal-conservative consensus.

35. 3 Thirdly, it was radical in the need for a more comprehensive theoretical framework which could uncover the underlying processes that produced these problems and provide a more solid basis for designing interventions.

36. 4 It considered itself to be radical in the sense that it drew freely on a tradition of critical theorizing which aimed to demystify and dereify social relations.

37. The term ‘realism’ is meant to indicate the creation of a criminology which while remaining ‘radical’ was simultaneously competing and applied.

38. It is a criminology which expresses a commitment to detailed empirical investigation, recognizes the objectivity of crime, faces up to the damaging and disorganizing effects of crime, and emphasizes the possibility and desirability of engaging in progressive reform.

39. There has also been during this time period (1970s and 80s) new influential neo-conservative criminologist who have fed directly into the policy programs of ‘new right’ administrations.

40. They are referred to as ‘new realists’ and, for example, in America, they have significantly influenced criminal justice policies (think of James Q Wilson (1983) and Ernest van den Haag (1975).

41. One way of thinking of right and left realism is RIGHT = order/justice and LEFT = justice/order

42. Left and Right Realism Although there are some points of overlap between the ‘new realists’ and the ‘radical realists’, these two approaches represent distinctly different theoretical and political positions.

43. They share a concern with the corrosive effects which crime can have on communities and with the formulation of workable policies, but they are ultimately oppositional and competing positions.

44. They differ in a number of important respects. First, the new realists tend to take conventional definitions of crime for granted.

45. Radical realists on the other hand, although adopting the general categories of crime as their point of departure, are not constrained by either commonsensical definitions nor by official modes of prioritization.

46. Rather, the issue of ‘seriousness’ and significance of different crimes is seen as the object of investigation. By the same token it employs a much wider frame of reference than ‘new realism’ which concentrates almost exclusively on street crime.

47. Radical realism has, through the use of victimization surveys, sought to broaden the parameters of enquiry and began to examine a range of ‘white collar’ and occupational offences.

48. There are also substantial differences in the type of explanations offered – particularly to the question of causality. New realists offer essentially, a behaviouristic theory of conditioning.

49. Crime is, from this perspective, ultimately a function of trans-historical ‘human nature’. As a result, their analysis lacks a social economic context and may be considered excessively individualized.

50. The relation between the individual and society and the role of socioeconomic processes in structuring choices and opportunities is conveniently played down.