Realism AND Rational Choice PDF

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REALISM AND RATIONAL CHOICE...

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Criminology

REALISM AND RATIONAL CHOICE

In philosophical terms ‘realism’ refers to the doctrine that there is a reality beyond our perception or classification of it. In other words, that how we name things, what we believe about them, what associations they carry for us has no impact on the real nature of the things themselves. For example, I see a colour as green and you see it as blue – this is merely a disagreement between us about how to cor rectly label the colour. It does not mean that we are observing two dif ferent real things. What this example shows is that our labels, beliefs, classifications of the world are only approximations: they do not capture reality perfectly. However, a central tenet of realism is that over time our approximations of the objective world will continuously improve. RATIONAL CHOICE

In criminology ‘realism’ has come to be associated with a view that ‘crime’ is the consequence of identifiable real-world causes: the realist’s concern is not with how crime is labelled or defined but in the causal forces that lead to its perpetration. ‘Right’ realists – inspired by James Q. Wilson (1985) – argue that crime is caused by a lack of individual self-control. People commit crimes because such activities offer immediate gratifications – financial or material rewards or emotional ones – and individual criminals lack the internal restraints that pre vent most of us from acting out our criminal impulses. ‘Left’ realists, inspired by Jock Young (see Young, 1992), argue that crime is caused by the interactions between four sets of social actors: the police (and other agencies of social control), the public, the offender and the victim. According to Young, the efficacy of policing is determined by the relationships between the police and the public and the impact of crime is determined by the relationships between the victim and the offender. Moreover, the public themselves sustain the informal economy that motivates burglary, for example, whilst the state’s criminal justice and welfare policies are the major factor behind recidivism. See also: critical criminology; environmental criminology; idealism; social control Further reading: Wilson (1985); Young (1992)...