Right realism, New Right, feminism and explaining ethnic and age patterns

Overview

Recall questions on right realist rational choice and Wilson and Herrnstein's biosocial theory, Murray's New Right underclass explanation, Heidensohn's control theory, the chivalry and double deviance theses, Adler's liberation thesis, Messerschmidt on masculinity, Gilroy and Phillips and Bowling on ethnicity, and why offending peaks in the teenage years.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   How do right realists explain the decision to commit a crime?

   Model answer

   Right realists treat offending as a rational choice in which the potential offender weighs the likely rewards against the risk and severity of punishment, and Felson's routine activity theory adds that a crime occurs when a motivated offender meets a suitable target in the absence of a capable guardian.

2. 2

   What role do right realists give to biology and socialisation in causing crime?

   Model answer

   Wilson and Herrnstein proposed a biosocial account in which innate traits such as low intelligence, impulsiveness and aggression predispose some individuals to offend, but only become criminal behaviour where effective socialisation, principally by the family, fails to restrain them.

3. 3

   Outline Murray's New Right explanation of rising crime, and give one criticism of it.

   Model answer

   Murray blamed a growing underclass created by over-generous welfare, arguing benefits removed the incentive to work and made fatherless families viable so that boys lacked the discipline and role models to be socialised into law-abiding adulthood; critics reply that this blames the poor for their poverty, ignores the structural loss of secure manual work, and assumes lone mothers cannot socialise children.

4. 4

   How does Heidensohn's control theory explain women's low rate of recorded offending?

   Model answer

   Heidensohn argued that patriarchy subjects women to tighter control in three arenas: domestic responsibilities and male domination restrict them at home, fear of male violence and reputational damage restrict their use of public space, and supervision by male superiors restricts them at work, so they have far fewer opportunities to offend.

5. 5

   Where do the chivalry thesis and the double deviance thesis disagree?

   Model answer

   The chivalry thesis holds that a male-dominated criminal justice system treats women leniently, so their real offending is understated; the double deviance thesis holds the opposite, that women who breach both the law and their expected gender role, such as violent women or mothers who neglect children, are punished more harshly than comparable men.

6. 6

   What is Adler's liberation thesis, and what is the main objection to it?

   Model answer

   Adler argued that as women became less confined to the domestic sphere they gained access to the same criminal opportunities as men, so female offending would rise and become more like male offending. The main objection is that female crime rates were already rising before the women's movement, and most convicted women are poor and marginalised rather than liberated.

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