Left Realism

One impact that caused the emergence of the left realism thought was the impact of feminism on radical theorising. For example, the rise in concern around sexual and domestic abuse that feminism identified and creating effective policy as a response to these problems. Another reason we see the emergence of left realism is due to what was changing political circumstances.

Left realists criticise much of radical criminology as being left idealism. Left idealism claimed that crime occurs in the working class because of poverty and crime was a way of trying to gain back equality in society. Left realists thought that blamig the poor was like blaming the victim and we should be more occupied by crimes by the powerful. Crimes of the poor tend to be petty, the CJS functions in a way though that it protects the interests of the wealthy.

It argued the left idealism has four key problem ideas of utopianism, romanticism, naive anti-empiricism and naive abolitionism. What they meant by utopianism was that left idealism assumes that it is possible to have a crime free future. They see this possible because of political change where left realism sees this as only possible if there is pratical policy that is introduced to improve life. Romanticism refers to ideas from left…