Right realism sees crime, especially street crime, as a real and growing problem that destroys communities, undermines social cohesion and threatens society's work ethic., especially in the US, and one of the key right realists is James Q. Wilson. It can be argued that these views have also influenced British governments throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and possibly even today. It has also provided justification for widely adopted policies such as 'zero tolerance' policing. Right realists argue that it is pointless to try and eliminate the 'root causes' of crime, such as poverty and educational underachievement. Instead, they believe focus should be on searching for practical crime control measures. This is achieved through taking a tough stance towards offenders and through control and punishment, rather than rehabilitating offenders or tackling causes of crime. Right realists criticise other theories of crime for failing to offer any practical solutions to stop the rising crime rate.
For right realists, the best agency of socialisation is the nuclear family. The right realist Charles Murray (1990) argues that the crime rate is increasing because of a growing underclass who fail to socialise their children properly. According to Murray this underclass is growing in both the US and UK as a result of welfare dependency. This has led to a decline of marriage and increase in lone parent families, as women can survive off benefits. However, Murray says lone mothers are inadequate socialisation agents, especially for boys (who hold biggest proportion of crime). Boys lack paternal discipline and appropriate male role models. As a result, young males turn to others in the same position for help and gain status through crime. However, this is rejected by Jane Mooney (1998) who claims 'there is not a single substantial scrap of evidence' that there is a link between single parenthood and crime. As the Item says, right realists advocate increasing the costs of crime and...