Chapter Six Crime and Criminal Justice

Transcription

1 Chapter Six Crime and Criminal Justice Crime and Criminal Justice o Norms, Law, and Crime Norms are rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members Laws are the norms created through a society s political system. Civil law defines the legal rights and relationships involving individuals and businesses Criminal law focuses on people s responsibilities to uphold public order Crime: the violation of the criminal laws enacted by federal, state, or local governments Misdemeanors are less serious offenses punishable by less than one year in prison Felonies are more serious crimes punishable by at least one year in prison The Problem in Sociological Perspective o Crime is the violation of law Law defines what is and is not a crime o Crime is relative to culture Varies from one culture to the next Crime varies over time o From the sociological perspective we would look at the relationship between The distribution of power and the formation of law Behaviors and law The variation in sanctions from one society to the next

2 The Scope of the Problem o Crime as a social problem Measuring the extent of the problem Aggregate number of crimes in society in a given year Crime rate the number of crimes per 100,000 population Crime is perceived as a serious problem in society o The Criminal Justice System as a Social Problem Many poor spend time in jail before trial while those with money are released on bail Plea bargaining over justice Unfair sentences for cases that go to trial Discriminatory sentencing factors Number of arrests not the seriousness of the charges affect sentencing The high recidivist rate Prisons a school ground for learning how to commit crime The Crime Problem o Most people in the U.S. think crime is a serious problem Much greater crime problem compared to other high-income nations More handgun murders than any other high-income country o Fear of crime is itself a social problem, because it limits the things people do and the places they go Crime Statistics o The FBI s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is a main source of crime statistics providing data on Crimes against property (burglary, larceny-theft, motor-vehicle theft, and arson) Crime against persons (murder and manslaughter, aggravated assault, forcible rape, and robbery) o Problems with the UCR Only includes crimes reported to police how much crime goes unreported? Only gathers statistics on street crimes committed by ordinary people, not the more elite crimes (e.g., fraud, price fixing, and toxic dumping)

3 Types of Crime o Juvenile Delinquency In 1899 the first Juvenile court was established in Illinois A new a category of crime juvenile delinquency came about o Two categories of offenses Status offenses (crime) Criminal Offenses Any violation of criminal law may lead a court to declare a minor delinquent In juvenile courts, the focus is on helping children straighten out rather than simply punish them o In the cases of serious offenses, officials may try a juvenile as an adult o When found guilty, they are held in a juvenile detention center until of legal age, when they are transferred to an adult prison to serve out the rest of their sentence Facts Juveniles between the age of commit about 17% of crimes against the person Juveniles between the age of commit about one third of property crimes Boys commit more crimes than girls but the gap is narrowing Most juvenile offenders never return to court for a second time Juveniles who commit a violent crime have committed many crimes The younger one is when charged with a violent the more likely they are to continue to commit crimes Juveniles charged with certain offenses are more likely to be rearrested than those charged with underage drinking, running away or shoplifting Girls are more likely to be rearrested than boys Staying in school reduces delinquency

4 Why is there juvenile delinquency? Gresham Sykes and David Matza the social order and delinquency o Delinquency is a function of subterranean values and freeing oneself from the social order through techniques of rationalizations and neutralizations Techniques of neutralization 1. Denial of responsibility 2. Denial of injury 3. Denial of a victim 4. Condemnation of the condemners 5. Appeal to higher loyalties Delinquent subcultures and delinquency Social control inner and outer controls and the motivation to commit crimes The effects of labeling and juvenile crime o Robbery Robbery involves both stealing and threatening another person, which makes this both a property and a violent crime This the least likely of all violent crimes to result in an arrest Victims usually don t know a robber so that identification is difficult o Property Crimes Burglary Only 14% of cases are cleared Majority of those arrested are male and under 25 Larceny-theft Includes shoplifting, pick pocketing, purse-snatching The most common of all the serious crimes tracked by the FBI Motor-vehicle theft Only 15% of cases are cleared 2/3 of those arrested are under 25 and male Arson The arson rate is holding steady Majority of those arrested are under 25 and male

5 o Street Crime: Who Are the Criminals? Age For all offenses, there is a strong link between crime and youth Gender In 1999, males accounted for 70 % of arrests for property crime For violent crime, men are arrested in 83% of the cases Women are more often arrested for larceny-theft, fraud, and prostitution For all serious crimes, the number of women arrested is increasing Social class Research shows that people of lower social position are involved in most arrests for street crime The link between class and criminality depends on the kind of crime one is talking about Race plays a large part in the crime picture several ways The deprivation faced by black youths may lead to hostility towards the police and various facets of the system Prejudice based on race may prompt people to suspect blacks on the basis of skin color o Research suggests that such biases may lead police to arrest African Americans more than whites o 2/3 of black children are born to single mothers and may be at a higher risk for criminality Asian Americans are underrepresented in street crime statistics because of higher income levels o A strong cultural emphasis on family discipline and honor

6 White Collar Crime Edwin Sutherland pioneered the study of white-collar crime and coined the term white collar crime and defined it as crime committed by someone of respect and high social status in the course of their occupation White-Collar Crime o Unlawful activities committed by people during the course of their employment or regular activities Two types of white collar crime Crimes committed on behalf of a corporation Crimes committed against a corporation White collar crimes cost over $200-$400 billion annually White collar crime in part is a function of a criminogenic corporate culture o The culture shapes the pattern of behavior among corporate actors Donald Cressey s study of embezzelers 1. Unsharable financial problem 2. Opportunity to commit crime 3. Rationalization techniques Increase in the number of women and white collar crime Increase in computer crime o A recent trend in white-collar crime involves computers - both hackers and thefts White collar offenders receive lesser sanctions from the criminal justice system When white-collar offenders are caught, their cases are usually heard in a civil court - and they rarely go to jail o Corporate Crime An unlawful act committed by a corporation or others operating on its behalf (e.g. environmental pollution, gross negligence) Most of these offenses are tried in civil courts so that no individual is charged with criminal behavior o Professional Crime Professional offenders pursue criminal activity as a career/livelihood Professional offenders have the following characteristics o In-group loyalty solidarity o Scorn for the values of the straight world and strong criminal identification o Specialization of criminal skills

7 o Organized Crime A business operation that supplies illegal goods and services (e.g., gambling, sex, or drugs) Has a long history in the U.S. Members of organized crime carry out their criminal activities in some organizational structure and way Mafia fact and Myth Immigration and a pattern of ethnic succession in organized crime The structure of organized crime Hierarchical bureaucratic structure Provides illegal and legal services with high public demand Political corruption Use the threat of violence and violence as a means of social control Conflict theorist see organized crime as serving the interests of the elites o Political Crime Crimes to change or maintain the social order Assassination Manipulating foreign governments Domestic surveillance Crimes to change the social order Treason Sedition Terrorism Revolution o Hate Crimes A criminal offense against a person, property, or society motivated by the offender s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin Because hate crimes are not always reported, their true extent is probably far greater than criminal statistics indicate o Victimless Crimes Offenses that directly harm no one but the person who commits them (e.g., gambling and prostitution) Laws regulating victimless crime vary from place to place

8 The Criminal Justice System o Plea bargain and due process and justice o Class Justice and white collar offenders and street offenders Social class and equal justice o Race and Gender Racial bias from the street to prison Racial bias and capital punishment Gender bias and capital punishment o Prisons The lack of rehabilitative services in many prison systems The brutalizing effect of prisons and crime Prisons as a school of higher education for teaching crime The Criminal Justice System o Two changes in police policy have helped bring down the nation s crime rate Community policing Zero tolerance o Courts In principle, the U.S. court system is an adversarial process by which the prosecutor presents the state s case against the suspect and the suspect s attorney presents a defense The reality of justice however, is something much different. o 90% of criminal cases are settled through plea-bargaining o While plea-bargaining saves the time and expense of a trial, efficiency doesn t always produce justice The Criminal Justice System o Police make choices about what warrants their attention In a five city study, Smith and Visher found the following factors guided police in arrest decisions: How serious is the crime? What does the victim want? Is the suspect cooperative? Does the suspect have a record? Are bystanders watching? What is the suspect s race?

9 Punishment o There are four justifications for a society punishing its wrongdoers Retribution Deterrence Rehabilitation Societal protection o In recent years, the greatest debate concerning punishment has centered on the death penalty The U.S. is one of the few high-income nations that puts convicted offenders to death Social Policy o Models for dealing with offenders Retribution for criminal behavior Restitution for criminal behavior Deterrence and criminal behavior o Prison sentences and crime o Scared straight program and crime o Rehabilitation o Probation o Imprisonment and programs Parole Furloughs Halfway houses Honor farms Diversion o Incapacitation o Longer sentences o Three strikes and you are out o Weed and Seed programs o Capital punishment/and public attitudes towards capital punishment

10 Looking at the Problem Theoretically o Biological Causes of Crime Cesare Lombroso pioneered theory that criminals were physically different from law-abiding citizens Identified certain traits of lawbreakers: low foreheads, protruding ears, excessive hairiness His work was flawed because he failed to see that physical traits found among prisoners were also found in the general population In the mid-20th century, William Sheldon found that males with athletic builds (mesomorphs) were more likely to become criminals than fat, round people (endomorphs) or thin, wiry people (ectomorphs) Results were confirmed by the Gleucks (1950) They cautioned that rather than a muscular build causing criminal behavior, probably athletic boys become more independent and less sensitive to others XYY chromosome theory: Men with an extra Y chromosome may have an increased chance of becoming criminals o Some geneticists think we may eventually be able to identify criminals before they commit crimes The evidence linking criminality to any genetic trait is not conclusive o Psychological Causes of Crime Like biological research, the psychological study of crime also focuses on individual traits; in this case, abnormal personalities Peckless and Dinitz explained delinquency in terms of a boy s degree of moral conscience Non-delinquent boys felt more strongly about right and wrong One problem with this approach is that many serious crimes are committed by people who are quite normal A second problem is that psychological theories consider only the individual, not how society defines them

11 o Sociological Causes of Crime Structural-Functional Analysis: Crime is Useful Crime a normal part of society Crime as a function of the core values of society o Competition o Success o Achievement Emile Durkheim: the Functions of Crime o Crime affirms a society s norms and values o Recognizing crime helps everyone recognize the line between right and wrong o Reacting to crime helps bring people together o Crime encourages social change o Durkheim explains that crime is normal for society Robert Merton: Strain theory o Cultural goals and the legitimate means to achieving them Functionally adapting to strain by: Innovating Ritualistic behavior Retreatist behavior Rebelling o Crime is a product of society itself o He suggests that patterns of rule breaking depend on how society s goals affect different categories of people, who do not all have the same opportunities to achieve those goals o There are five outcomes of this situation conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion Cloward and Ohlin: Opportunity structure o Becoming a criminal depends on the presence of illegitimate opportunity o Patterns of conformity and criminality depend on people s relative opportunity structure Illegitimate opportunity structures and crime Different opportunity structures legitimate and illegitimate lead to different forms of crime

12 Travis Hirchi argues that social ties discourage crime o Control theory and inner and outer controls and variations in criminal behavior o He identifies four kinds of social ties that operate to control crime: Attachment to other people Commitment to conformity Involvement in conventional activities A belief in the rightness of cultural norms and values

13 Symbolic-Interaction analysis: Labeling Crime Focuses on how and why society defines some people who break the law as criminals while paying little attention to others o This perspective - what becomes a crime and who becomes a criminal - is part of a process of social definition that changes from time to time and from place to place Howard Becker: Labeling Theory o Crime and all forms of rule-breaking results not so much from what people do, as from how others respond to those actions Edwin Lemert: Primary and Secondary Deviance o Explored how individuals can have their lives changed by the labels others apply to them o Primary acts of deviance (skipping school, underage drinking) may have only passing significance o The reaction of others to primary deviance can provoke secondary deviance - when the individual takes on a deviant identity Erving Goffman: the Power of Stigma o A stigma is a powerful negative social label that radically changes a person s self-concept and social identity o Once stigmatized, an individual may find that conventional friends disappear o A criminal prosecution can be a powerful ritual that stigmatizes an individual William Chambliss and the study of two groups of high school students the saints and roughnecks at Hannibal o Social class and labeling o Social class and behavioral visibility o Social class and styles of interaction Irving Piliavan and Scott Briar study on the interaction patterns between police and suspects o Police operate within a symbolic system in exercising discretion and the law

14 Conflict Theory Crime as a function of conflict and competition between the elite and the masses o Law is shaped and controlled by the elites to further their interests o Law as a means to control workers o Law as a means to mask injustices Karl Marx: Class and Crime o Understood social problems in terms of class conflict o Crime was seen as a product of social inequality o Solution to the crime problem is to eliminate capitalism in favor of a more egalitarian system Feminist theory: Gender and Crime o Socialist feminists believe that the solution to crime begins with eliminating capitalism o All feminists agree that subordinating women to men forces them to look to crime as a means of coping with their exploitation and enabling themselves to make a living

15 Politics and Crime: Constructing Problems and Defining Solutions o Conservatives believe that people raised in strong, law-abiding families are unlikely to commit crime Most conservatives favor tougher laws, more aggressive policing, and harsher penalties as ways to combat the crime problem. They believe the key to controlling crime is parents teaching children to make the right choices in a world of pressures o Liberals believe that many people live in situations that pressure them to break the law Crime is caused by a harmful environment, particularly living in poverty To liberals, jobs are the key to a drop in the crime rate o The radical left believes the real crime of society is tremendous economic inequality The radical solution begins with a restructuring of the economic and political system toward a more egalitarian social order that can make a real claim to justice Suggestions for reform o Clear laws based on consensus o Swift justice o More rehabilitation programs o Harsh penalties for repeaters o Task force to investigate organized crime o Harsher penalties for corporate offenders o Prison reform o Unbiased studies of the criminal justice system o The future of the crime problem and the criminal justice system