Criminology Crime Prevetion

Task 1 Respond to the questions on the comparative texts on “beggars” using the perspectives of left/right realism (approx. 500) 1.1, 2.1 Q1) Marsland’s article on “how to sweep these beggars from our streets” fits the right realist approach by assuming that people have chosen to be beggars of their own ‘free will’. He shows this by saying that capitalism and poverty is not the cause of them going begging he refers to them as an ‘intolerable blot’ as he believes them to as being a nuisance and are nothing more than parasites. He says “their possessive occupation like locusts swarming on the harvest”. He argues that begging should be shamed out of existence but blames the welfare as causing the escalation in begging. As he argues that they do not possess any morals and would advocate the return of the work house as he seems to favour Victorian standards and could also be likened to ‘John Major’s’ ‘back to basics’ speech which took place a year earlier.( www.guardian.co.uk,politics,1993) It could also be said that Marsland believes the beggars to be lacking in intelligence as Wilson and Hernnstein (1985) while looking at circumstances of black Latin Americans were not caused by discrimination but the ‘fact’ that they were born less intelligent. Herrnstein and Murray (1985) extended on this by linking low intelligence with criminality. (Joyce, P. (2006) Criminal justice: an introduction to crime and the criminal justice system) Marsland also fits into the right realist approach by playing on the moral fibres of society, by describing them as not possessing the values of hard-working people and therefore creating an ‘us and them culture’. 2) How does Field’s view in Item B differ from the right realist approach? Field’s view differs dramatically from Marsland’s right realist approach as he accepts that the growth of poverty and the lack of work of many young people and their exclusion from mainstream society is a cause of them begging. In the

Bibliography: Book:  Davies, M., Croall, H. and Tyrer, J. (2010) Criminal justice. 4th edn. Harlow: Longman.  Joyce, P. (2006) Criminal justice: an introduction to crime and the criminal justice system. Cullompton: Willan Publishing. K. Stenson. and D. Cowell, Abolitionism and crime control: a contradiction in term; in the politics of crime control 1991 London Sage Websites: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/1993/oct/09/conservatives.past Class hand-out: Campbell .P. Trustee of the Howard League for Penal Reform