Feminist Realism: a Synthesis

Abstract

Left realism¹ emerged in the mid-1980s as a criminological theory of the Left. Its genesis was in the political conjuncture of neoliberalism and the New Left. In this period, throughout the developed world, conservative governments emerged, committed to laisser-faire economics and law and order politics, to incentives for work and punishment for crime. On the Left a libertarian current, inherited from the 1960s, took a diametrically opposite viewpoint on crime and policing. Realism sets itself up against both these positions. Its intellectual and political influence has been greatest in Britain (Matthews and Young, 1992; Lea and Young, 1993; Young, 1997) but parallel work is evident in the United States (see Currie, 1985; DeKeseredy and Schwartz, 1996) and in Canada (see Lowman and Maclean, 1992). This chapter will begin with a brief introduction to left realism and then turn to analyse its main principles in relation to our grid of questions. It will conclude by exploring the possibility of some synthesis between radical and left realism. That is a feminist realism which will take from the more positive insights of both theories and learn from the problems encountered by both.