LEFT REALISM

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2009

Left realism is a criminological perspective emerging in Britain in response to the rise of neo-conservatism.

The right-wing politics of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made it clear that left-leaning criminology had little impact on social policy and was going to have little significance in the future.

Some critical criminologists struggled to make their work relevant and did so by focusing on the working class as victims of street crime, state and corporate crime and women as victims of male crime.

They asserted that official studies of crime underestimated victimization of the working class and women and supported community controlled research as a method of getting at the ‘reality’ of their experience.

Social policies to reduce victimization of marginal communities, involve communities in crime prevention, return political control to local communities and increased police accountability follow from this beginning point.

Left realism can be contrasted with left idealism, which, while also believing that the structure of capitalism is the culprit in crime, tended to see working class crime as acts of rebellion or political resistance. This can be seen as a somewhat romantic or idealistic view.

British and U.S. Left Realism: A Critical Comparison 
Walter S. DeKeseredy, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario KIS 5B6, CANADA 
Martin D. Schwartz, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701, U.S.A. 
Left realism has generated enormous interest and controversy in critical criminology over the past several years both in North America and in the United Kingdom. While there are important similarities between the writings from these countries, there are also some deep differences and divisions. This article provides some explication of these similarities and differences within a critical context. - ijo.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/3/248

Realist Criminology: Crime Control and Policing in the 1990's 
Editor(s): J Lowman ; B D MacLean 
This book presents a left realist approach to crime control and law enforcement. 
Abstract: Left realism is a school of critical criminology that arose in Great Britain in the 1980's to reassert the centrality of the victim in the development of a progressive criminology. Critical realism recognizes the seriousness of street crime for its victims, acknowledges that there is public support for a core group of laws, and advocates various types of criminal justice reform and crime prevention strategies. In Great Britain, left realists conduct local crime surveys to measure patterns of victimization and policing; such research remains largely underdeveloped in North America. This book presents the case for left realism; offers a critical assessment of left realism, based on an analysis of realist criminology in Canada and Cuba and its influence on issues such as prostitution and corporate law; discusses the relationship between left realism and feminism; and explores the implications of left realism for victimology. - ncjrs.gov/app/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=154038

Essentialism, Radical Criminology, and Left Realism 
Journal: Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology Volume:25 Issue:3 Dated:(December 1992) Pages:195-230
Author(s): D Brown ; R Hogg 
This article reflects on recent radical criminological developments in Australia and Britain. The primary focus in on left realism, also known as radical realism. 
Abstract: These authors argue that the realist project, by appropriating the unifying category of crime around which to formulate policies and politics aimed to express the interests of the working class, continues elements of the essentialism of past radical criminologists. This argument is expanded upon in relation to radical criminology, left realism, and the left critiques of left realism. The article also discusses in depth the evolution of Australian criminology by describing post-war developments, the emergence of a radical tendency, and suggestions for future directions, including an assessment of the relevance of left realism in the Australian context. - ncjrs.gov/app/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=140308

Criticism and Criminology: In Search of Legitimacy 
GEORGE PAVLICH, University of Auckland, New Zealand 
Although the new criminology held a mandate to advance novel critical genres, it developed a radical program at the expense of studying the bases of its critique. In this article, I argue that by overlooking the latter, influential strands of radical criminology (e.g. left realism) have inadvertently succumbed to the lure of an insubstantial critical pragmatism. Here, critique claims legitimacy either on the basis of an ability to secure universal emancipation, or increase managerial efficiency. Both claims are problematic since contemporary knowledge-producing arenas no longer embrace the certainties driving modernity's critical genres and technical efficiency disallows fundamental critique. As such, critique has been immoderately abridged. By not paying sufficient attention to such issues, many critical criminologists have not appreciated the extent to which their favored critical genres are ill-suited to an ethos wracked by uncertainty. In trying to recover legitimate genres of critique, I refer to recent developments within critical criminology and I explore how Lyotard's work can help us to reconceive critical practices in criminology. The discussion concludes with a prologue outlining an alternative critical genre that might claim legitimacy through `paralogy.' - tcr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/3/1/29

Left realism, local crime surveys and policing of racial minorities 
Brian D. Maclean, Kwantlen College, Richmond Campus, Vancouver, Canada 
Abstract: The inner-city riots of 1980s Britain provoked an important set of debates in the progressive criminological literature about police accountability and the policing of racial minorities. Two main oppositional political strategies emerged. Following the pioneering work of Hall et al. (1978) some British criminologists supported a police monitoring strategy that proceeded on a case by case approach. In a more generalized approach, the strategy employed by the left realist school made use of the local crime survey in order to gather data on crime and policing practices that were used in public forum to make police accountable. In fulfilling this mandate, the first sweep of the Islington Crime Survey (ICS) provides an empirically grounded analysis of focused military-style policing in the Black community. These authors argue that differential policing practices, such as stop and search patterns, alienate Black youth from the police and contribute to the reduced flow of information from the community to the police vital for police effectiveness at crime control.
The premise of this paper is that while both of these positions have been conceptually useful, they probably oversimplify the more complex social response of the Black community to focused policing methods. The paper begins with a critique ofPolicing The Crisis and suggests that it was this critique that primarily motivated the left realist response. In examining the scope of this response, the paper reviews two specific models of these relationships as proposed in various publications from the realist school. It is suggested that seven hypotheses can be deduced from these models, and that data from the first sweep of the ICS allow some assessment of the empirical support for these models.
After examining the empirical evidence from the ICS, the paper concludes that while there is considerable empirical support for the analysis provided inThe Islington Crime Survey, the authors have probably not gone as far in their analysis as the data allow. A further analysis suggests that the response to military-style and focused policing, far from being uniform, is, in fact, bifurcated. In some instances, the very people who are the targets of biased policing practices demand more of the same. A model that depicts the complex nature of this response is provided. - springerlink.com/content/v42185107tw04774/

Left realist criminology: Strengths, weaknesses and the feminist critique 
Journal Crime, Law and Social Change 
Martin D. Schwartz, Walter S. DeKeseredy
Abstract Although there is an already large British literature both supporting and attacking left realism, and a growing North American interest on the subject among criminologists, there has been surprisingly little written which attempts to locate both the strengths and weaknesses of the left realist position on crime control. Perhaps the place where the left realists may be weakest is in response to a feminist critique. Actually, it is not only left realism but the socialist left in general which has been unsuccessful in providing adequate responses to the issues brought forth by feminists. This paper attempts to locate the position of left realism within the left criminology debate, and to find its strong and weak points. Further, it attempts to explicate the feminist critique, and to suggest responses critical criminologists might explore, such as those proposed by peacemaking criminology. - springerlink.com/content/n268022860827723/