Transcript Reactions to Delinquency

Reactions to Delinquency
It’s all about Power
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Power varies by race, class, gender, age, religion
Historically dominant groups in the US:
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White
Upper Classes
Men
Older
Protestant
Reactions to Delinquency
It’s all about Power
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Power varies by race, class, gender, age, religion
Historically dominant groups in the US:
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White
Upper Classes
Men (protecting women)
Older
Protestant
Morality exists on a spectrum, nothing is inherently bad. Morality varies
by:
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Culture
Subgroups
Geography
Time
Reactions to Delinquency
It’s all about Power
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Historically dominant groups in the US:
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Morality exists on a spectrum, nothing is inherently bad. Morality varies
by:
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White
Upper Classes
Men
Older
Protestant
Culture
Subgroups
Geography
Time
People work to make their world reflect their beliefs (e.g., Moral
Entrepreneurs)
Reactions to Delinquency
Powerful are more Capable of Making Morality
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Perspectives of less powerful are ignored and undermined
Powerful codify beliefs into law
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Cars that go boom
Prayer at school
Child labor
Drug laws
Milk in school
Property taxes to fund schools
Drinking
Dress codes
Training wages
Gangs vs. groups
Reactions to Delinquency
Powerful are more Capable of Making Morality
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Powerful can manipulate legal processes
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Symbolic Crusades
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Targeted Enforcement
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War on Drugs
Gang elimination
War on Welfare
Satanic Cults
Loitering
Statutory Rape
Breast Exposure
DWB
Curfew Laws
Beating the Rap
Lighter Sentences
Reactions to Delinquency
In US Individualist Capitalism, the more marginalized the group, the
greater the enforcement of laws against it. Threats to business and
industry are taken most seriously…
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Property laws are strictly enforced
Corporate crime is lightly sanctioned versus individual crime
Business and Industry deaths are acceptable
Drug laws are entrenched in liability issues and often supported to
make more productive workers
Smoking laws
Controlling gangs and homeless for tourism
Ownership of a name
Reactions to Delinquency
Powerful escape ideology of crime
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Marginalized fit “ideology of crime”
Young Black Males
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Typical image of criminal
Invokes fear
Treated more harshly to protect social order
Mitigating circumstances
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Female (“she’s suffered enough”; not a competing group)
White (“not your typical criminal”)
Upper class (“pillar of the community”)
Any others?
Reactions to Delinquency
Who and what is considered delinquent will change as…
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ratios of different groups change
power moves to new groups
the beliefs of the powerful change
Reactions to Delinquency
Labeling theory
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Labeling theory exposes the effects of sanctioning on persons
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Who is labeled?
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Persons who commit delinquent acts and are caught
Persons who fit certain profiles, marginalized
Belief that labeled persons are bad leads to efforts to control and/or
avoid those persons
Reactions to Delinquency
Labeling theory
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Belief that labeled persons are bad leads to efforts to control and/or
avoid those persons
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Who reacts? Professional vs. Amateur Labelers
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Police
Parents
Friends
Neighborhood
Teachers
Etc.
Reactions to Delinquency
Labeling theory
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Who reacts?
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Police
Parents
Friends
Neighborhood
Teachers
Etc.
How do they react?
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Closing structural opportunities
Altering interaction in personal networks
Changing the ways they treat the individual
Reactions to Delinquency
Labeling theory
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How do they react?
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Closing structural opportunities
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Altering interaction in personal networks
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Changing the ways they treat the individual
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Effects:
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Alter self-concepts toward self as delinquent
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Open more possibilities of interacting with delinquents
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Make secondary deviance more attractive and likely
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Marginalized are Labeled
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The delinquent who is never caught, and is not marginalized, is likely to
escape these processes.