Reflecting on the adaptation from F.Field An Agenda for Britain'

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Beggars

Question 1

After reading item A, ‘How to sweep these beggars from our streets’, it is evident that David Marsland is very much arguing in favour of issues relating to right realism.

Right realism began in the1970’s and 1980’s in the United States as part of the general dominance of new right ideas. In terms of crime and deviance, right realism can be seen as a response to the increasing development of the underclass (groups of people who are so deprived that they fail to enter a class).

Right realists were also reacting against idealist conceptions of crime; they argued that crime was a reaction against the social democratic assumptions of the post-war years, and that it was not a result of poverty but a decision made by the individual of their own free will.

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According to right realists the Welfare State created a monster in that it created dependency; individuals in society began to fail to take responsibility for themselves, thus resulting in a moral decline.

In David Marsland’s article he challenges the most fashionable explanation of begging, stating that it is neither a result of capitalism nor poverty, this can be supported by Wilson’s criticism of the thesis in which he argues that affluence and prosperity may go hand in hand with rising crime:

“…one might well have answered that crime could best be curtailed by reducing poverty, increasing educational attainment, ...

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