ABSTRACT
Left realism thus takes into account the immediate fears that people have and seeks to deal with them. Left realism, however, draws on the lessons of anomie theory and proposes that young second-generation African-Caribbeans in Britain commit more crime than other ethnic groups because they have been fully integrated into the surrounding culture and have consequently been led to expect a fair slice of the economic cake. Central to the left realist crime control strategy is the proposition that crime requires a comprehensive solution where there must be a ‘balance of intervention’. To control crime from a realist perspective involves intervention at each part of the square of crime: at the level of the factors which give rise to the putative offender, the informal system, the victim, and the formal system. Left realism was extremely influential with the ‘New’ Labour Government elected in 1997.
