Transcript Crime and Deviance - Villanova University

Conclude Unit II (2/24)
1. Complete Code of the Streets
2. M. Harris “The Sacred Cow”
3. Crime and Deviance – ch. 9
4.
Anticipate: Review, Feagin, Mid-term
Code of the Street: Robert: Why
Does the city discourage venders?
In the overall structure of power and influence,
people like Robert are at the bottom.
The city department that issues and enforces
vendor licenses is mainly responsive to
storeowners that regard Robert as a nuisance.
What are the main priorities of the police?
Anderson suggests that no one with any power or
influences is particularly interested in having
Robert succeed; but his success is key to who
wins the battle between the “street” and “decency”
Example #2: the story of Tyree
Tyree’s Grandmother - “decent folk.”
The ‘bols’
Tyree’s situation.
Tyree’s solution.
The Outcome of Tyree’s solution: He is
now in a gang, fighting in the street; and
hanging around with the worst people.
Why doesn’t he “Just Say No”
The structure does not insure that every
person joins a gang; certainly not with
commitment, but
– It insures that enough do so that the structure is
reproduced.
– Those not in a gang, get it from all sides.
“Not an option?” Well, not quite. But there is
a special role for those who have no group.
– They are losers; they are bullied; they are
cowards; they are turkeys.
The structure of alternatives means that the
constrained choices reproduce the structure.
How do group and institutional
structures get inside one’s head?
1. If you lived at the foot of Germantown
Ave. would you join a gang? Why? Or
why not?
2. Similarly, if you were Hindu, would you
feel real loathing for cow-killers. Why? or
Why not?
3. If you worked at Auschwitz would you
gas Jews? Why? or why not?
The Persistence of Culture: a
third anthropological example
Do ideas and cultural systems persist, out
of inertia?
What are the dynamic structures of
persistence?
What groups, activities and rewards come
into play?
Harris’ “Cultural Materialism”
Marvin Harris: Cows Wars, Pigs and
Witches.
Thesis: no element of culture persists
without reasons
These reasons usually have to do with
class, economic and ecological structures.
Food (pigs, dogs, cows, people) are
exceptionally clear examples.
The “sacred cow” of India
The cow has been sacred for 2,000 yrs.
Only “untouchables” butcher or eat cows;
cow-killing produces an even more
powerful reaction than murder.
Most Indian food is cooked in butter-fat
Nearly 100,000,000 foraging cows are
everywhere.
Even cow dung is used and is treated as
pure.
Is the sacred cow a “sacred cow?”
In the West a “sacred cow” is usually used as an archetype of irrational,
hidebound, superstitious traditionalism.
The Rockerfeller view
1.
2.
3.
4.
•
Millions of people starve while millions of
cows are protected by religious superstition.
Avoiding cow-killing is:
Inefficient,
Wasteful,
Superstitious,
Traditionalism
India needs capitalist agriculture like the US
Problems with that explanation,
according to Harris
Millions of Indian villages have destroyed their
livelihood.
A sustainable economy must preserve the land
and the population,
unlike the commercial farming that created the
dust bowl.
Killing a cow creates one feast for one family in
the short run, and disaster for the community in
the not very long run.
Even when a cow is too old to calf and is past
milking, it is crucial to the ecology.
Harris’ explanation:
700,000,000 tons of cow manure per year are
crucial to preventing ecological disaster.
The non-cow-owners have a particularly strong
motive for saving even an old cow.
Unless we look at the social and ecological long
run dynamics, we cannot understand present
arrangements or suggest reasonable changes.
Mixture of functionalism and conflict theory
But why make the cow sacred?
The cultural rules that preserve the society as a
whole – particularly those that require that
people act in the public interest – usually take
this form.
Bargaining over when to kill which cows could
never preserve the society.
For all cows to be sacred for all Hindus can and
did preserve the society.
For Harris maintaining the sacred cow is crucial
to avoiding famine, ecological disaster and
social collapse
Crime and Deviance
Why are the rates of violent and
property crime so high in the US?
What policies might be more
effective in lowering them?
Contrast functional and conflict
analyses
Functional vs. Conflict
Re crime and delinquency
Functional accounts see punishment as the
authoritative statement of social norms,
reducing crime.
– Thus, they regard punishment as part of a negative
feedback loop
But most conflict theories see punitive
strategies as increasing the stigma and social
disorganization on which crime and delinquency
thrive.
– Thus, they regard punishment as part of a positive
feedback loop
The Basic empirical issue
Thus, there is an essential disagreement about the
overall, net effect of increased imprisonment and of
coercive punishments such as capital punishment,
on crime:
Increased
coercive
punishment
(+ or -)?
Increased
(violent) crime
+
The reason the net effect is unclear is that the sign
of the effect of punishment on crime is empirically
masked by the size of the effect of crime on
punishment
Rates, Structures, Social Facts
In many ways the analysis of crime and
deviance takes us back to the origins of
sociology in Chicago.
Areas of high poverty have rates of crime that
are 10 or 20 times as high as areas with low
rates of poverty.
Chicago sociologists explained these rates by
social disorganization,
which they related either to norms or to
economic and social resources.
International variation
The text stresses that “patterns of criminal behavior
grow out of the structure of society rather than from
the psyches of individuals” *289
For example the rates of homicide in the US are about
10 times higher than those in Europe or Canada.
Rates of imprisonment in the US are also about 10
times higher than other advanced industrial societies
E.g. world rates
Temporal variation
Even over fairly recent periods, there have been
huge swings in the crime rate.
Homicide is one of the best-measured crimes
It showed:
–
–
–
–
A 5-fold increase 1905-1932
A sharp decrease 1932-45
A sharp increase 1965-72
A sharp decrease in the 1990’s
Why?
Recent Homicide Trends in the
United States
Why?
What might explain the two main periods of
sharp increase (1905-1932 and 1965-1972)?
What might explain the two main periods of
sharp decrease during the New Deal (1932-45)
and during the Clinton era (1990-2000)?
There is an enormous amount that we do not
know about each, but there is a certain amount
that we do know.
And we know that the simple, popular answers
are almost certainly oversimplified.
The Puzzle of the United States
In general rich and developed countries
have lower crime rates, particularly lower
rates of violent crime such as homicide.
In general, they also have less
imprisonment and less coercive criminal
justice systems
However, the United States is rich and has
a highly coercive criminal justice system
And very high rates of violent crime.
Functional theory of Crime and
delinquency
Centers on the concepts of anomie and
weakening of solidary groups.
– Higher rates of men, singles, cities, adolescents,
children from broken families…
– Anomie is a weakening of norms.
By almost any measure, the US shows
weakening of both norms and families,etc.,
and the poor areas of the US show very, very
high levels.
Social Patterns of Crime and
Delinquency
The age and sex pattern of crime and
delinquency is very similar to suicide.
Weakening of an adolescent’s tie to family,
school, community or career (job-track) greatly
increases their risk.
Network ties and gang structures further
increase it.
Racial and ethnic fractionalization contributes to
and accentuates all these processes.
A breakdown of norms accentuates them futher.
Functional theory of Crime and
Punishment
Durkheim argued that sanctions against
norm violation define the norms.
e.g. the negative feedback loop:
Violation of
norms
+
Negative
sanctions
-
But what are the side effects of negative
sanctions?
Merton’s theory of Strain and
Anomie
Merton * (p. 93; 117; 135; 141; 279-282) was
a student of Parsons.
He is still active in American sociology.
Merton argued that anomie is produced by
structural strain**, a discrepancy between
cultural goals and the availability of
legitimate means for attaining those goals.
“Structural strain” is a relative of Durkheim’s
concept of the “forced division of labor**”
resulting from inherited property.
Goals and legitimate means
In premodern societies with fixed social
position, there was no assumption that
anyone could be a material success if they
tried hard enough,
but in modern society there is such a goal
(“organic solidarity,” “American Creed,”
“American Dream”).
Nevertheless, Merton suggested, if there is (a
perception of) highly unequal opportunity,
that leads to pressure either to shift goals or
to adopt illegitimate means
Merton’s typology
Goal Means Concept
+
+
Conformist
+
Ritualist
+
±
±
Innovator
Retreatist
Rebellion
Example
Executive
Librarian who guards books; bureaucratic
personality
Drug dealer; Enron executive
Alcoholic or addict
Someone who rejects both goals and
means and works to substitute new
ones.
Strain the American Creed and the
Forced Division of Labor
The concept of structural strain is that American
values promote the idea that everyone, regardless
of “choosing the right parents,” should have an
equal opportunity to become a success. (The
American Creed)
However, Merton argued, the reality is that since
some children grow up in gated communities, while
others grow up hungry and homeless, they do not
have equal opportunity. (The forced Division of
labor)
Conflict Theories of Crime
There is a very strong (negative) association
between social class and most forms of crime.
Part of that relation may result from differential
enforcement (e.g. having a good lawyer).
Part may result from the different constraints
under which people make choices: E LA v. 90210
There is virtually universal adolescent deviance,
but not all adolescents are labeled as criminals
and locked into lives of crime.
How could crime control
promote further crime?
For example, a recent Scientific American Article
on US crime suggests that the high
imprisonment rates in the US may actually
increase crime rates
– By further stigmatizing people
– disorganizing communities,
– And serving as schools of crime.
Moreover, if the central problem is inequality and
inequality of opportunity, there are many ways
that the criminal justice system might reinforce it.
Either of these processes might produce
addictive, cancerous feedback.
Review of conflict themes
We have seen that race and social class are
associated with cumulating disadvantages in
many ways.
E.g. 187; networks, Code of the Street
These phenomena can be accentuated by
deviant solidary groups,
and the criminal justice system may produce
stigma and a “record” that further amplifies the
process.
Labeling theory
Labeling theory argues that many forms of
labeling by schools, courts, and mental
hospitals actually increase deviance.
The label becomes a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Primary deviance” *p.284 is then
compounded by “secondary deviance”*
Secondary deviance is that caused by the
label or attempt at control
Secondary deviance creates a positive
feedback
Schools for Crime
Prisons and reform schools usually do
not improve inmates’ character or life
chances.
Antagonism with guards and officers
creates a deviant reference group.
Stigmatization and lowered life chances
weakens any bond to the rest of the
society.
99% will get out. What will they be like?
The Vicious cycle
at the micro-level
Conflict theories stress ways that crime may
be part of a vicious cycle of powerlessness
and lack of resources.
+
+
Lack
crime
criminal
+
of resources
lack of defense
record
+
Secondary deviance
The Macro Vicious Cycle
Some theorists suggest that the society
can be caught in a vicious cycle in which
the more we imprison, the more we need
to imprison.
Crime
imprisonment
social disorg.
+
+
Many societies have+ gotten caught in a
cycle of increased coercion and crime.
Disorganizing communities
From 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 people are in
the criminal justice system.
In many poor communities it goes over 1/3
of the adolescent male population,
Each person incarcerated then affects
about 10 other people – e.g. young
women who are not going to be able to
find a husband.
Chambliss: The Saints and the
Roughnecks
Appearance:
The upper status saints appeared to be
model students who were not in trouble
with the law
The lower status roughnecks had
miserable academic records and most of
them ended up with police records as well.
It appeared low social class
delinquency
Chambliss’ account of the reality
The saints committed more and more serious
crimes and an equal number of academic
infractions.
Their demeanor, network and parents’
protection kept them from being labeled
They had cars.
And so, he suggests, the real difference was
class.
Reality: low social class
labeling and stigma
For next time
Read Feagin
Review ch. 1-5, 9, Murray & Feagin for the
Mid-term
Look at the review questions for the mid
term,
Which is scheduled for Friday 2/28