When I decided to take this course, I had a very limited knowledge of criminology. Since I am majoring in Social Work, all my knowledge was viewed through that lens. As a result my view was very black and white, very rigid. Furthermore, due to media when I thought of crime, I thought of violent crime. Crime was exaggerated due to that, and I had a very biased viewpoint to what crime really was. My understanding and knowledge of crime was surface level, it was after taking this course that I had a more deep and insightful experience.
Since I am a Social Work major, I had a basic understanding that the criminal justice system is flawed and discriminatory. It is a system where people of color are over-represented in jails, but only make the minority …show more content…
For example, I knew that people of color were over represented in the jail system at higher rates than white people due to systematic racism, which aligns with the Differential Treatment Hypothesis. However, I did not know of the Differential Offending Hypothesis, which states that difference is due to groups being inherently violent. People are inherently bad due of their race, ethnicity, and culture (Stevenson, 2015 September 29). This made me angered and disgusted. How is it that Indigenous people are viewed as violent and criminal under the Cultural Theory due to their cultural teachings, and not because of centuries and centuries of oppression and colonization? How is that even a possibility when taking into account the treatment of Indigenous populations throughout Canadian …show more content…
However, as the course progressed I learned of the different ways of collecting crime. Crime data also comes from various other sources: unreported crime, victimization surveys, and self-report surveys. Unreported crime consist of interviews where questions as to why the crime was not reported are asked. There is many reasons for not reporting crime. It ranged from the crime not being important enough, to the police cannot help, to fear of publicity (Stevenson, 2015 September 22). Victimization reports include crime such as personal, vehicle, and household theft. With an addition to, physical and sexual assault, vandalism, break-ins, and robberies (Stevenson, 2015 September
Since I am a Social Work major, I had a basic understanding that the criminal justice system is flawed and discriminatory. It is a system where people of color are over-represented in jails, but only make the minority …show more content…
For example, I knew that people of color were over represented in the jail system at higher rates than white people due to systematic racism, which aligns with the Differential Treatment Hypothesis. However, I did not know of the Differential Offending Hypothesis, which states that difference is due to groups being inherently violent. People are inherently bad due of their race, ethnicity, and culture (Stevenson, 2015 September 29). This made me angered and disgusted. How is it that Indigenous people are viewed as violent and criminal under the Cultural Theory due to their cultural teachings, and not because of centuries and centuries of oppression and colonization? How is that even a possibility when taking into account the treatment of Indigenous populations throughout Canadian …show more content…
However, as the course progressed I learned of the different ways of collecting crime. Crime data also comes from various other sources: unreported crime, victimization surveys, and self-report surveys. Unreported crime consist of interviews where questions as to why the crime was not reported are asked. There is many reasons for not reporting crime. It ranged from the crime not being important enough, to the police cannot help, to fear of publicity (Stevenson, 2015 September 22). Victimization reports include crime such as personal, vehicle, and household theft. With an addition to, physical and sexual assault, vandalism, break-ins, and robberies (Stevenson, 2015 September