Sociology Of Crime

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Critical Criminology: Central Themes

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1)Concepts of inequality and power are integral to understanding crime
2)Crime is political
3)The criminal justice system serves the interest of the capitalist class
4)Capitalism is the root cause of criminal behavior
5)Solution = creation of a more equitable society

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Marxist Influence on development of social conflict theory

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-Bourgeoisie and Proletariat
-Capitalism results in the demoralization of the working class
-Leads to crime

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Bonger

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-Central thesis: The capitalist mode of production breeds crime
-Key proximate cause of criminality is the mental state of egoism
--Egoism is rooted in economic relations
--Ruthless competition
--People only think of their own interests even to the detriment of others
-Economic conditions play important role in crime
-Capitalism weakens social feelings leading to egoism
-One group can exploit others
-How to reduce crime: socialism, shared means of production

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Quinney: Peacemaking Criminology

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-Root cause of crime is suffering
-Making offenders suffer increases crime
-End of crime is only possible with end of suffering
-Advancing peace, diminishing suffering requires social justice
-Criminal Justice System, as is currently run, is founded on violence (fighting violence with violence)
-Must make it more compassionate
-Needs to be nonviolent
-Rejects get-tough criminal justice

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Currie: “Crime in a market society”

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Capitalism is the root cause of crime, especially the high rate of crime in US
Types of Capitalism:
Compassionate Capitalism: social solidarity, equity, community values
”Keirutsu capitalism”: paternalistic
”Contingent” or harsh brand Capitalism: Seen in US, leads to socially isolated and economically impoverished minority communities that are highly conducive of crime
Market economy:
Market society= the pursuit of personal economic gain becomes increasingly the dominant organizing principle of social life
Market economy=a moral force that robs people of their jobs, fails to care for at risk kids & families, and acquits the government from doing much about the human cost of inequality *institutional anomie*

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Currie: 7 Pathways to Crime

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1) Market society breeds violent crime by destroying livelihoods: long-term absence of opportunities --> alienation
2) Market society has inherent tendency towards extremes of inequality and material deprivation.
3) Weakens other kinds of public support: i.e. US has no universal childcare, health system
4) Withdraws public supports while simultaneously eroding informal social supports and networks of care
5) Market economies promote a culture that exalts brutal individual competition and consumption over community, contribution, productive work
6) Market society deregulates technology of violence
7) Weakens and erodes alternative political values and institutions
To alter pathways: attempt full employment, reasonable hours, expand public & nonprofit sectors, worksharing and reduction of work time policies, health and mental healthcare, public schooling, childcare & skills training programs

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Chesney-Lind: Feminist Theory

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Feminist Theory
Justice system penalizes women
Juvenile systems view girls as sexually precocious
Females are often sanctioned more harshly than males
Girls are frequently recipients of violence and sexual abuse
Objectified as sexual property
Juvenile justice system is a major force of oppression & reinforces women’s place in society
Pathway to crime: Escape from abuse
Run away from sexual victimization
Runaways often returned home by state
Once on street, they are forced to commit crimes to survive
Survival strategies are criminalized
Adult women in prison = victims of sexual assault
To fully understand female crime: Examine school settings, etc not just family

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Liberal vs. Radical Feminism

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Liberal focuses on the salience of sex role socialization and equality of opportunities- more influence early in the feminist criminology movement
Adler: Sisters in Crime--Liberation thesis
As women demand equality in legitimate endeavors, also forcing themselves into the world of crime
Criticisms: empirical research doesn’t support predictions, crime more common amongst women who didn’t achieve gender equality--those trapped in economically marginal positions, doesn’t consider structural roots of inequality between men and women (patriarchy)
Radical or “critical” feminist criminology emphasizes the structural inequality in power between men and women, focuses on the role of patriarchy

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Racial Invariance Thesis

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Structural disadvantage contributed significantly to violence for both blacks & whites
Living in ecologically disadvantaged neighborhoods increases crime regardless of race
The reason race can appear to be an individual level cause for increase in crime is concentrated disadvantage and lack of employment opportunities
Macrostructural factors such as racial segregation, economic transformation, black male joblessness, class-linked outmigration from inner city, and housing discrimination

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Colvin: Crime & Coercion

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Differential coercion theory
Different degrees of coercion produce criminal or noncriminal behavior
Compelling through force/intimidation or impersonal economic/social forces
Other element is consistency
Noncoercive, consistent control
Noncoercive, erratic control
Coercive, consistent control
Coercive, erratic control <--most likely criminal
Increased coercion = increased criminal involvement-most at risk when harsh & erratic
Impersonal & interpersonal coercion tied to inequality, especially high in US

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Steffenmeier & Allan:
Towards a gendered theory of female offending

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Contextual differences
Females more likely to kill after prolonged period of abuse, fear for lives, exhaustion of all alternatives
Males more likely murder-suicide, family massacres, stalker, and murder in response to spouse’s infidelity

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Messerschmidt

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Masculinities and Crime
Challenged traditional and feminist criminology
How is “being male” related to crime?
Feminists have a stereotype of men--see criminality & masculinity as intertwined
Sociology of masculinity:
Gender intersects with race and class to create different masculinities

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Sampson & Wilson

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Community-level patterns of racial inequality give rise to the social isolation and ecological concentration of the truly disadvantaged, which in turn leads to structural barriers and cultural adaptations that undermine social organization and ultimately the control of crime
Racial invariance thesis
Concentrated disadvantage leads to crime: mechanisms are structural social disorganization and cultural social isolation
Social structural dimensions: prevalence and interdependence of social networks in a community (formal & informal) and span of collective supervision that the community directs towards local problems. concentrated poverty areas lack contact/interaction with individuals and institutions representing main stream society
Social cultural dimensions: structurally disorganized communities are conducive to value systems and attitudes that legitimate/tolerate crime and deviance

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Macrostructural factors that contribute to neighborhoods of concentrated poverty

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racial segregation, economic transformation, black male joblessness, class-linked out-migration from the inner city, housing discrimination, de-industrialization

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Cognitive landscape

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ecologically structured norms re: appropriate standards and expectations of conduct
In structurally disorganized slums/ghettos, crime, disorder and drug use are not fervently condemned and then become expected

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Sampson on Immigration

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Latino paradox- lower crime with higher diversity and immigration
Protective pattern- lower rates of crime in immigrant mex americans than whites or blacks
Immigrant neighborhoods very low violence

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Velez

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**much less crime by first generation immigrants, crime rates increase as more generations in the US

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Difference between black & latino neighborhoods re crime

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Racial invariance thesis: lower rates of killing in latino neighborhoods vs black neighborhoods should be because lower levels structural disadvantage of latino neighborhoods
Differences:
1) lower levels of concentrated disadvantaged
2) greater prevalence of immigrants (lowers crime rates), better relationships with economic officials, police department, politicians,
3) greater spatial proximity to advantaged white neighborhoods

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Latino Paradox:

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Mexican immigrants = lower rates of violence compared to 2nd generation and 3rd generation mexican americans
Especially true in concentrated immigrant areas
Lower crime = higher diversity and immigration?

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Relationship of black, white, latino neighborhoods to crime

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Black middle class neighborhoods higher violent crime than white middle class neighborhoods (spatial externalities)
Latino neighborhoods less violent crime than black & white neighborhoods due to latino paradox

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Disadvantages of black middle class neighborhoods re crime:

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Spatial externalities
Lack of proximity to resources

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Statistics about ecological dissimilarity:

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Vast majority of whites live in non-poverty areas compared with less than a fifth of poor blacks
10% of whites live in extreme poverty areas compared to 50% of blacks
The “worst” urban neighborhoods in which whites live are better than average black community

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Reasons for spatial inequality:

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Macrostructural factors such as racial segregation, economic transformation, black male joblessness, class-linked outmigration from inner city, housing discrimination

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Richmond-Ryder Article about cognitive maps

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Henry Horner Homes: located at the Near West Side of Chicago
The redevelopment seeks to demolish and rebuild some of the homes and relocate certain residents in the process. However, based on building locations and where gangs are located, residents have formed cognitive maps where some buildings are safe for them and some are not, and many are afraid to move

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Genocide legal definition:

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In the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

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Who coined the term genocide:

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Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, to League of Nations re: Armenian Genocide

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Document that Outlines What Genocide Is:

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United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2

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Chirot & Edwards types of genocide

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Convenience
Revenge
Fear
Purification

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N. Kristof articles

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Bystander effect- US supports measures to fight genocide but aren’t pressuring government to do anything
People are more likely to give help to a single conscience-pricking baby or puppy than to be moved by large # statistics--need to put a face on atrocity to arouse sympathy & awareness

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What is Darfur genocide?

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In the ongoing genocide, African farmers and others in Darfur are being systematically displaced and murdered at the hands of the Janjaweed, a government-supported militia recruited from local Arab tribes

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Who are the victims and who are the perpetrators of Darfur genocide?

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victims = black african darfurians
perpetrators = sudanese government & janjaweed

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How many people have been killed in darfur genocide? Displaced?

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More than 400,000 black african darfurians killed
2-3 million black african darfurians refugees & in IDP camps

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Hagan & Rymond-Richmond explanation for Darfur Genocide

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Racial and ethnic hatred

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Current situation in Darfur presented in lectures?

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ICC filed 10 charges fo war crimes against Omar al-Bashir in 2008, 3 charges for genocide
2009: warrant for arrest issued
2010: Bashir reelected as president
As of today: charges against Hussein, Harun, Kushaybi, Garda, Nourain, Jamus

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Hagan & Rymond-Richmond: percentage of refugees reporting they were raped vs. percentage of refugees reporting that other villagers were sexually victimized

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7% refugees report being raped
29% report that other villagers were sexually victimized in the attacks

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What is the importance and legal precedence of examining racial epithets?

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In genocide cases Akayesu (Rwanda) and Jelisi (Bosnia), decisions emphasize the importance of the spoken word as evidence of genocide

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Suggestions presented in required readings and lectures re: ending genocide and preventing further atrocities against Darfurian women?

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1) Charge president Bashir with genocide including rape as a form of genocide
2) Enforce sudanese laws against rape
3) Eliminate laws that pregnancy outside marriage is illegal
4) Campaign to stop stigmatizing raped women
5) More African union peacekeepers
6) Make conditions in the refugee and IDP camps better (protection for women collecting water & firewood, eliminate physical and sexual violence)
7) empower women as community leaders/ peace builders
8) assist refugees and IDP in safely returning home
9) Eliminate public order 1991/ criminal order 1991

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Wilson & Kelling: Broken Windows Theory

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Central premise: unchecked social disorder or public incivility is the cause of serious crime
disorder and crime linked at macro level in 3 stage developmental sequence:
1) “disorderly people” are allowed to take over public spaces”
2) “decent” people become fearful and change their behavior- retreat to their homes or move out of the neighborhood
3) escalating disorder sends the message “no one cares” about how people behave

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Evidence for Broken Windows Theory:

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Zimbardo’s automobile experiment
people didn’t immediately steal car parts but once a window was smashed people started taknig all the parts

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Sampson and Raudenbush

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What triggers perception of disorder- graffiti or Race? implicit bias?
as concentration of poor PoC increases, all races perceive greater disorder
Evidence: disorder plays a role, larger factor is race

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Brook

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Too little evidence that broken windows was responsible for crime drop
Could have been legalization of abortion
Also sometimes crime just drops

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Harcourt

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Broken Windows theory support is contrary to evidence

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Currie: Prison myths

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1) The myth of leniency- “High levels of violence in US means we’re lenient with criminals”
US has highest imprisonment rate of developed world
2) The myth of efficacy= “prison experiment has been a great success”
What is meant by “success” or “prison works”?
Compared to what?
3) The myth of costlessness “prison costs nothing compared to cost of not being incarcerated/prison pays”
costliest crimes are the least likely to be prevented by increases in imprisonment

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Currie: Alternatives to CJS- 3 tasks

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1) invest in rehabilitation
drug treatment, graduated reentry for juvenile offenders, reintegrate
2) rethink sentencing
absence of critical evaluation of who’s being incarcerated: is incarceration for drug crimes appropriate
3) reduce violence
shift criminal justice resources to community-oriented policing strategies; get guns of street, target open-air drug market, drug gangs, hot spots

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Gentrification (McDonald)

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Definition: High income people replace low income people in central city neighborhoods & when that turnover is accompanied by capital reinvestment in the neighborhoods housing stock
Relationship to crime:
Eventual eduction in personal crime rate, renovation of old buildings, newcomers have more political clout
No significant effect on property crimes, just displacing crime to other neighborhoods, frequently don’t find long-term declines in crime