Transcript Crime - Cengage

Chapter 6
Deviance and Crime
Chapter Outline
• The Social Definition of Deviance and
Crime
• Explaining Deviance and Crime
• Trends in Criminal Justice
Crime in the United States
• There are roughly 2 million people in state
and federal prisons and local jails.
– This number is increasing by 50,000 to
80,000 per year.
• The U.S. has more people behind bars than
any other country on Earth.
– Over 12% more people are behind bars in
the U.S. than in China and India combined.
Polling Question
•
Do favor or oppose a 7-day waiting
period before handgun purchases?
A. Favor
B. Oppose
C. Don't know
The Social Definition of
Deviance and Crime
• Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther
King, Jr., were considered deviant and
criminal.
– Susan B. Anthony was arrested and
fined for voting.
– Martin Luther King, Jr. was repeatedly
arrested for marching for AfricanAmericans’ civil rights.
Deviance
• Deviance involves breaking a norm.
• Crime is deviance that is against the law.
• Informal punishment may involve raised
eyebrows, gossip, ostracism, “shaming,” or
stigmatization.
• Formal punishment results from people
breaking laws, which are norms enforced by
government bodies.
Classifying Deviance:
John Hagan
Three dimensions:
1. Severity of the social response.
2. Perceived harmfulness of the act.
3. Degree of public agreement about
whether an act should be considered
deviant.
Deviance and Crime
Hagan: Types of Deviance
• Social diversions are minor,
harmless acts.
• Social deviations are more
serious, somewhat harmful acts.
Hagan: Types of Deviance
•
•
Conflict crimes are deviant acts
defined by the state as illegal, but the
definition is controversial in the wider
society.
Consensus crimes are widely
recognized to be bad in themselves.
Crimes Against Women
• Until recently, many crimes against women
were largely ignored.
• Rape is still associated with a low rate of
prosecution, but is prosecuted more often
than it used to be.
• Sexual harassment is now considered a
social deviation and in some circumstances,
a crime.
White-Collar Crime
• Includes embezzlement, false advertising, tax
evasion, insider stock trading, and fraud.
• In the 1980’s
– Armed robbers netted about $400 million.
– The savings and loan scandal cost the
American public $500 to $600 billion.
White-Collar Crime
Reasons for few convictions:
1. Often takes place in private and is difficult
to detect.
2. Corporations can afford legal experts, public
relations firms, and advertising agencies
that advise their clients on how to bend
laws, build up their corporate image, and
influence lawmakers to pass laws “without
teeth”.
% Population Victimized in Preceding
12 Months
Problems with
Crime Statistics
• Many assaults go unreported because the
assailant is a friend or relative.
• Many rape victims are reluctant to report the
crime because they’re afraid they’ll be
stigmatized.
• Many crimes are not in crime indexes
published by the FBI (prostitution and illegal
drug use).
• Most white-collar crimes are excluded from
crime indexes.
Violent Crime
Property Crime
Crime Rates
• On average every hour during 2002:
– 2 murders
– 11 rapes
– 72 robberies
– 102 aggravated assaults
– 142 motor vehicle thefts
– 245 burglaries
– 800 larceny-thefts
Decline in Crime Rate: Factors
• In the 1990s, governments put more police
on the streets and many communities
established patrol systems.
• Young men are most prone to street crime
and the proportion of young men in the
population has declined.
• The economy boomed in the 1990s, when
fewer people have jobs, more crime occurs.
Decline in Crime Rate: Factors
• Some researchers noted the decline in crime
started 19 years after abortion was legalized
in the United States.
– In 1992 the population included
proportionately fewer unwanted children.
– Unwanted children are more crime prone
than wanted children because they tend to
receive less parental supervision and
guidance.
Abortions and Crime
Criminal Profiles
• 77% of all persons arrested in the
United States in 2002 were men.
• In the violent crime category, men
accounted for 83% of arrests.
• In 2001 Americans under the age of 40
accounted for 80% of arrests.
• Those 15- to 19-years-old age cohort is
the most crime prone.
Criminal Profiles: Race
• In 2002, African Americans accounted for
26.9% of arrests but composed only 12.3% of
the population.
• Three factors:
– Bias in collection of crime statistics.
– Low class position of blacks in American
society.
– Racial discrimination in the criminal justice
system.
Polling Question
•
Have you ever been arrested?
A. Yes
B. No
Arrests by Age, 2001
Age Cohort
% of Population
% of Arrests
Under 10
10-14
15-19
20-24
14.0
7.3
7.1
6.8
0.2
5.1
21.2
19.4
25-29
30-34
35-39
6.8
7.2
8.2
12.3
11.2
10.9
40-44
8.1
8.9
Arrests by Race, 2001
Racial Group
White
Black
American Indian
and Alaskan Native
Asian and Pacific
Islander
% of Population
75.1
12.3
Arrests
70.7
26.9
0.9
1.3
3.7
1.1
Deviance and Crime
Theories
• Motivational theories identify social
factors that drive people to commit
deviance and crime.
• Constraint theories identify social
factors that impose deviance and crime
(or conventional behavior) on people.
Durkheim’s Functional
Approach
• According to Durkheim, deviance gives
people the opportunity to define what is moral
and what is not.
• Our reactions to deviance clarify moral
boundaries, allowing us to draw the line
between right and wrong.
• This promotes the unity of society and
encourages healthy social change.
Strain Theory: Merton
• Argued that cultures often teach people to
value material success.
• However, societies do not provide enough
legitimate opportunities for everyone to
succeed.
• Therefore, some people experience strain.
– Most will adhere to social norms.
– The rest adapt.
Strain Theory
Institutionalized means
Cultural
Accept
Goals
Reject
Create
New
Accept
Reject
conformity
innovation
ritualism
retreatism
Create
New
rebellion
Subcultural Theory
• Argues that gangs are a collective
adaptation to social conditions.
• Distinct norms and values that reject the
legitimate world crystallize in gangs.
Features of Criminal
Subcultures
• Delinquent youths may turn to different
types of crime.
• The availability of different subcultures
influences the type of criminal activity
to which one turns.
Features of Criminal
Subcultures
• Members justify their criminal activities.
• Illegal activities appear normal to the
members of the subculture.
• Enables criminals to clear their
consciences and get on with the job.
Theory of Differential
Association
• A person learns to favor one adaptation over
another as a result of life experiences or
socialization.
– Everyone is exposed to deviant and
nondeviant values and behaviors as they
grow up.
– If you are exposed to more deviant than
nondeviant experiences, chances are you
will learn to become a deviant.
Labeling Theory: A Symbolic
Interactionist Approach
• Deviance results not so much from the
actions of the deviant as from the
response of others, who label the rule
breaker a deviant.
• Master status: One’s overriding public
identity:
Control theory
• The rewards of deviance and crime are many.
• Nearly everyone would engage in deviance
and crime if they could get away with it.
• System of social control: Sanctions in
society by means of which conformity to
cultural guidelines is ensured.
Conflict Theories of
Deviance and Crime
• The powerful impose deviant and
criminal labels on less powerful
members of society.
• Meanwhile, they are usually able to use
their money and influence to escape
punishment for their own misdeeds.
Theories of Deviance and
Crime
Motivational Theories
Theory
Sociologist
Strain Theory
Merton
Subcultural Theory
Cohen, Cloward, Ohlin
Learning Theory
Sutherland
Theories of Deviance and
Crime
Constraint Theories
Theory
Sociologist
Labeling Theory
Becker, Matsueda,
Cicourel
Control Theory
Hirschi and Gottfredson
Conflict Theory
Spitzer
Goals of Incarceration
• In 1966, 77% of Americans believed the
main goal of prison was to rehabilitate
prisoners.
• In 1994 only 16% held that opinion.
Polling Question
•
What do you feel should be the most important
function of prison?
A. Punish people for crimes they have committed.
B. Rehabilitate people who have committed crimes.
C. Protect society by locking away criminals from
the rest of us.
D. Serve as a warning to would-be lawbreakers.
E. Make people pay back society for the crimes
they have committed.
Belief in Capital Punishment: % “for”
Moral Panic
• Between the early 1970s and the present the
U.S. was gripped by moral panic.
• The government declared a war on drugs,
imprisoning hundreds of thousands of
nonviolent offenders.
• Many states passed a “three strikes” law to
put three-time violent offenders in prison for
life.
• Support for capital punishment grew from
38% to 80% between 1965 and 1994.
Capital Punishment:
A Questionable Deterrent
• Murder is often committed in a rage.
• More than 20,000 murders take place in
the United States every year.
– Only about 250 death sentences are
handed out.
– A murderer has a 1.25% chance of
being sentenced to death.
Capital Punishment
• A typical execution costs the taxpayer
up to 6 times more than a 40-year stay
in a maximum-security prison.
• Nearly 40% of death sentences since
1977 have been overturned because of
new evidence or mistrial.
Quick Quiz
1. Sociologist John Hagan classifies
types of deviance and crime along
which of the following dimensions?
a. severity of the social response
b. perceived harmfulness of the act
c. degree of public agreement about
whether the act should be
considered criminal or deviant
d. all of these choices
Answer: d
• Sociologist John Hagan classifies various
types of deviance and crime along the
following dimensions:
– the severity of the social response
– the perceived harmfulness of the
deviant or criminal act
– the degree of public agreement about
whether the act should be considered
criminal or deviant.
2. Which of the following behaviors is not
considered a white-collar crime?
a. embezzlement
b. burglary
c. tax evasion
d. insider stock trading
e. copyright infringement
Answer: b
• Burglary is not considered a whitecollar crime.
3. Crime statistics underestimate the actual
incidence of crime because:
a. many criminal acts are not reported to the
police
b. self-report surveys target only
perpetrators not victims
c. many crimes are not incorporated into
major crime indexes
d. many criminal acts are not reported to the
police, and many crimes are not
incorporated into major crime indexes
Answer: d
• Crime statistics underestimate the
actual incidence of crime because many
criminal acts are not reported to the
police, and crimes are not
incorporated into major crime
indexes.
4. Most sociologists agree that the
disproportionately high arrest, conviction,
and incarceration rates of African Americans
are due to:
a. community policing in ghettoes
b. low class position of blacks in society
c. racial discrimination in the criminal justice
system
d. the low class position of blacks in
American society, and racial
discrimination in the criminal justice
system
Answer: d
• Most sociologists agree that the
disproportionately high arrest,
conviction, and incarceration rates of
African Americans are due to the low
class position of blacks in American
society, and racial discrimination in
the criminal justice system.
5. Strain theory explains crime and deviance in
terms of:
a. the lack of legitimate opportunities to
achieve material success
b. exposure to more deviant than nondeviant values during socialization
c. the responses of others who define some
actions as deviant and others as normal
d. the imposition of labels by the rich and
powerful on the less powerful
Answer: a
• Strain theory explains crime and
deviance in terms of the lack of
legitimate opportunities to achieve
material success.
6. The theory of differential association explains
crime and deviance in terms of:
a. the lack of legitimate opportunities to
achieve material success
b. criminal subcultures that collectively
adapt to social conditions and reject
mainstream values
c. exposure to more deviant than nondeviant values and behaviors during the
socialization process
d. the responses of others who define some
actions as deviant and others as normal
Answer: c
• The theory of differential association
explains crime and deviance in terms of
exposure to more deviant than nondeviant values and behaviors during
the socialization process.
7. The view that deviance results not just
from the action of the deviant but also
from the responses of others is known
as:
a. labeling theory
b. strain theory
c. the theory of differential association
d. subcultural theory
e. control theory
Answer: a
• The view that deviance results not just
from the action of the deviant but also
from the responses of others is known
as labeling theory.
8. Which of the following are regarded as
a function of prisons?
a. rehabilitation
b. deterrence
c. revenge
d. incapacitation
e. all of these choices
Answer: e
• Rehabilitation, deterrence, revenge,
and incapacitation are regarded as a
function of prisons.