Lecture over crime and social problems.

1. Chapter 6
Crime, Violence,
and Criminal
Justice

2. Norms, Law, and Crime
• Norms are rules and expectations by
which a society guides the behavior of its
members.
• A law is a norm formally created through a
society’s political system.
– Civil law defines legal rights and relationships
involving individuals and businesses.
– Criminal law defines everyone’s
responsibility to uphold public order.

3. Norms, Law, and Crime
• Crime is the violation of a criminal law
enacted by the federal, state, or local
government.
– Misdemeanor: a less serious crime punishable by
less than a year in prison
– Felony: a more serious crime punishable by at least
one year in prison
• 55% of people in the U.S. think dealing with
crime is a “top priority” for our society.
– Fear of crime is itself a social problem because it
limits the things people do and the places they go.

4. Crime Statistics
• Crime against property is crime that involves
theft of property belonging to others.
– burglary, larceny-theft, motor-vehicle theft, arson
• Crime against persons is crime that involves
violence or the threat of violence against
others.
– murder and manslaughter, aggravated assault, forcible
rape, and robbery

5. The annual FBI Uniform
Crime Report includes only
reported street crimes.
It does not include “elite
crimes” such as business
fraud, insider stock trading,
corruption, price fixing, and
illegal dumping of toxic
wastes.
The UCR underestimates
the actual extent of street
crime and gives a biased
picture of the typical
criminal.

6. Violent Crime: Patterns and Trends
• Violent Crimes:
– 12% of all serious offenses
– increased quickly from 1960 until the early
1990s
• Why a recent drop in violent crime?
– Strong economy
– Drop in use of crack cocaine
– Hiring of more police
– Tougher sentencing

7. Violent Crime: Murder
• Rate has been falling since 1993
• Murder victims:
– 78% are male
– 51% are African American
– 46% are white
• Arrests made in 63% of all murders
• 78% of all murder victims knew the
offender; in 23% of the cases, they were
related.

8. Violent Crime: Murder
• Many cases of homicide include a history
of the killer stalking the victim.
– Stalking is defined as repeated efforts
by someone to establish or reestablish
a relationship against the will of the
victim.
– 75% of stalking victims
are women.

9. Violent Crime: Forcible Rape
• Nationally, only 28% of women who
are raped make a report to the police.
• Most attackers know their victims, but
arrests are made in only 21% of reported
cases.
• Statistics include attempted rape and male
rape victims, but not sex with a minor
(statutory rape).

10. Violent Crime:
Aggravated Assault
• Aggravated assault accounts for
63% of all reported violent crime.
• The majority of both victims and
offenders are men.
• Arrests are made in 51% of the reported
cases.

11. Violent Crime: Robbery
• Involves stealing and threatening
another person; a property and a
violent crime
• Least likely of all violent crimes to result in
an arrest; just 29% were cleared in 2012.
• Offenders:
• 87% male
• 62% under age 25
• 55% African American
• 43% white

12. Property Crimes: Patterns and Trends
• Seven times as many property crimes as
violent crimes
• A property crime occurs every four
seconds.
• Annual losses: $16 billion
• Arrests made in 18% of reported cases

13. Property Crimes: Burglary and
Larceny-theft
• Burglary
– only 11% of cases are cleared
– Majority of those arrested are male
(84%) and under 25 (55%)
• Larceny-theft
– 16% of cases cleared
– Comprise 60% of all crimes tracked
by FBI
– 43% of arrests were females
– includes shoplifting, purse-snatching

14. Property Crimes:
Motor Vehicle Theft and Arson
• Motor Vehicle Theft
– Only 7.4% of cases are cleared
– Losses in 2012: $4.3 billion
– Offenders:
• 50% under 25; 81% males
• Arson
– 19% of cases cleared
– Average loss of about $13,000
– Offenders:
• 57% under age 25; 82% males

15. “Street” Crime: Who Are the Criminals?
• Age: young; arrest rates peak in the late teens
• Gender: Males accounted for 63% of arrests for
property crime and 80% of arrests for violent
crime.
– Women show up most often for larceny-theft (43% of
arrests are of women), fraud (41%), embezzlement
(48%), and prostitution (68%).
• Social class: Crime rates are high in low-
income neighborhoods but most crime is
committed by a small number of repeat
offenders.

16. • Race and Ethnicity:
– Most “street crime” arrests involve white
suspects.
– In proportion to population share (13%),
African Americans are more likely than whites
to be arrested
• Black males are six times more likely than white
males to spend time in jail.
• One-third of black men in their twenties either in jail,
on probation, or on parole
“Street” Crime: Who Are the Criminals?

17. • Why does race play a large part in the street
crime picture?
– Deprivation faced by black youths may lead to
hostility towards police and distrust of “the system.”
– Prejudice based on race may prompt people to
suspect blacks on the basis of skin color.
– 72% of black children are born to single mothers.
• Asian Americans underrepresented in street
crime statistics: higher income levels and strong
cultural emphasis on family, discipline, and
honor.
“Street” Crime: Who Are the Criminals?

18. Juvenile Delinquency
• Juvenile delinquency is violation of the
law by young people.
• The goal of the juvenile justice system is
to protect the community and serve the
best interests of youthful offenders.
• For serious offenses, juveniles can be
tried and sentenced as adults, but since
2005, they cannot be sentenced to death.

20. Hate Crimes
• A hate crime is a criminal offense against
a person, property, or society motivated by
the offender’s bias against a race,
religion, disability, sexual orientation, or
ethnicity or national origin.
• 45 states and the federal government
mandate additional penalties for offenses
that meet the criteria of a hate crime.
• Many hate crimes are not reported.

21. White-Collar Crime
• Illegal activities committed by people of
high social position during the course of
their employment or regular business
activities
• Edwin Sutherland (1940):
– White collar crimes are more common than
people imagine.
– They often receive little public attention.
– Cases are usually heard in a civil court, and if
convicted, offenders rarely go to jail.

22. Corporate Crime
• Unlawful act committed by a corporation or
by persons acting on its behalf
• Gross negligence: knowingly producing a
faulty or dangerous product.
• The cost of white-collar and corporate
crime is far greater than the costs of all
property crimes in a year.

23. Organized Crime and Victimless Crime
• Organized crime is a business operation
that supplies illegal goods and services
such as gambling, sex, or drugs.
– Organized crime has become multinational.
• Victimless crimes refer to offenses that
directly harm no one but the person who
commits them, such as gambling and
prostitution.
– They can, and do, cause harm.

24. Violence
• Violence is behavior that causes injury to
people or damage to property.
• Violence becomes a social problem to the
extent that people define it that way:
1. What do the actors intend by their
actions?
2. Does the violence conform to or
violate social norms and values?
3. Does the violence support or
threaten the social order?
4. Is the violence committed by or
against the government?

25. Violence
• Institutional violence,
violence carried out by
government
representatives under the
law, is widely supported.
• People are quick to condemn anti-
institutional violence, violence directed
against the government in violation of the
law.

26. Serious Violence: Mass Murder
and Serial Killings
• Mass Murder: intentional, unlawful killing of four
or more people at one time and place.
– occur in schools, businesses, or homes, where people
assume they are safe from violence
– Mass murderers are almost always men.
• Serial Murder: the killing of several people by
one offender over a period of time.

27. The Mass Media and Violence
• Most researchers agree
that watching violence
may
– encourage people to be
more violent.
– desensitize people to
violence.

28. Youth Gangs and Violence
• Youth gangs are groups of young people who
identify with one another and with a particular
territory.
• Youth gangs can be:
– nonviolent groups.
– those who sometimes clash over turf.
– all-out criminal organizations.
• Typical violent gang members
– come from poor, single-parent families.
– are from neighborhoods characterized by high crime
rates, drug abuse, and limited job opportunities.

29. Drugs and Violence
• Drugs contribute to violence by distorting
judgment and reducing inhibitions.
• Some drugs are addictive and cause
cravings so strong that people may turn
violent in their search for the next high.

30. Guns and Violence
• Many people blame the problem of crime
on the easy availability of guns.
– 34% of households have at least one gun.
– 37% of these weapons are handguns.
• Gun violence is the
leading cause of death
for African American
and Latino males aged
15 to 34.

31. Guns and Violence
• Liberals:
– restrict availability of handguns
– require trigger locks
– ban military-style assault rifles
• Conservatives:
– Stand by Constitutional right to “keep and bear arms”
– Widespread gun ownership may help to reduce crime
by deterring would-be criminals.

32. The Criminal Justice System
• Society’s use of due process, involving
police, courts, and punishment, to enforce
the law.
• Due Process: The criminal justice system
must operate within the bounds of law.

33. Police
• Police make choices about what warrants
their attention.
• Smith and Visher found the following
factors guide police in arrest decisions:
1. How serious is the crime?
2. What does the victim want?
3. Is the suspect cooperative?
4. Does the suspect have a record?
5. Are bystanders watching?
6. What is the suspect’s race?

34. Courts
• 97% of criminal cases are settled through
plea-bargaining, a negotiation in which
the state reduces a defendant’s charge in
exchange for a guilty plea.
• Relying too heavily on plea bargaining can
take away a defendant’s constitutional
right to a trial.

35. Punishment
Justifications for a society to punish its wrongdoers:
– Retribution, moral vengeance by which society inflicts
on the offender suffering comparable to that caused by
the offense.
– Deterrence, using punishment to discourage further
crime.
– Rehabilitation, reforming an offender to prevent future
offenses.
– Societal protection, protecting the public by using
incarceration or execution to prevent an offender from
committing further offenses.

36. Does Punishment Work?
• Increasing criticism of mass incarceration,
with an unprecedented 2.3 million people
behind bars.
– Conservatives:
Concerned about high
costs ($30,000 per
inmate per year)
– Liberals: Concerned
about violence of prison
life, breaking up families,
targeting of minorities.

37. Restorative Justice and
Community Based Programs
• Restorative justice is a response to crime
seeking to restore the well-being of the
victim, offender, and larger communities
lost due to crime.
• Correctional programs located in society
as a whole rather than behind prison walls:
– Probation
– Shock Probation
– Parole

38. The Death Penalty
• 18 states have abolished the death penalty; six
have done so since 2006.
• Between 1977 and 2014,
– more than 8,000 people were sentenced to death.
– 1,359 executions were carried out.
• Trend is downward:
– 2013: 80 death sentences and 39 executions
– 47% of all death row prisoners are in Texas,
California, and Florida.
• 65% of U.S. adults support death penalty in
cases of murder.

39. Biological Causes of Crime
• Early research into biological causes:
– Cesare Lombroso (1876)
– William Sheldon (1949)
– Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1950)
• 1960s: Genetics and criminal behavior
• 2000s: Neurocriminology
• Biological theories do not provide an
adequate understanding of criminal
behavior.

40. Psychological Causes of Crime
• Personality traits play a part in criminality.
• Problems with this approach:
– Many serious crimes are committed by people
who are quite “normal”
– psychological theories consider only the
individual, not how society defines them

41. Structural-Functional Analysis:
Why Society Creates Crime
• Emile Durkheim: the Functions of Crime
– Crime affirms a society’s norms and values.
– Recognizing crime helps everyone recognize the line
between right and wrong.
– Reacting to crime helps bring people together.
– Crime encourages social change.
• Crime is a creation of society, not individuals.
• Crime is a normal and necessary element of
society.

42. Structural-Functional Analysis:
Why Society Creates Crime
• Robert Merton: Strain theory
– Crime is a product of society itself.
– Patterns of rule-breaking depend on whether
or not
• people accept society’s goals.
• society provides the opportunity to reach these
goals.
– Five specific outcomes: Conformity,
innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion

43. • Cloward and Ohlin: Opportunity structure
– Becoming a criminal depends on the
presence of illegitimate opportunity.
– Patterns of conformity and criminality depend
on people’s relative opportunity structure.
Structural-Functional Analysis:
Why Society Creates Crime

44. • Travis Hirschi argues that social ties
discourage crime.
• Social ties that operate to control crime:
– attachment to other people
– access to conventional opportunity
– involvement in conventional activities
– belief in the rightness of cultural norms and
values
Structural-Functional Analysis:
Why Society Creates Crime

45. Symbolic-Interaction Analysis:
Socially Constructing Reality
• People learn criminal behavior from their
surroundings.
• What is defined as a crime and who is
defined as a criminal result from a highly
variable process of social definition.

46. Symbolic-Interaction Analysis
• Edwin Sutherland: Differential
Association Theory
– Learning takes place in social groups.
– Deviance depends on extent of contact with
those who discourage conventional behavior.
• Howard Becker: Labeling Theory
– The only real definition of “rule breaking” is
behavior that people label that way.
– No action is right or wrong in any absolute
sense.

47. Symbolic-Interaction Analysis
• Lemert: Primary vs. Secondary Deviance
– How individuals can be changed by the labels
people apply to their behavior.
– Primary deviance (skipping school, underage
drinking) may have only passing significance.
– Reaction of others to primary deviance can
provoke secondary deviance and the individual
begins basing choices on this “deviant
identity.”

48. Symbolic-Interaction Analysis
• Erving Goffman: the Power of Stigma
– A stigma is a powerful negative social label
that changes a person’s self-concept and
social identity.
– Once stigmatized, an individual may find that
conventional friends disappear.
– A criminal prosecution can be a powerful ritual
that stigmatizes an individual.

49. Social-Conflict Analysis:
Crime and Inequality
• Karl Marx: Class and Crime
– Social problems in terms of class conflict
– Crime as a product of social inequality
– Solution to the crime problem: Eliminate
capitalism for a more egalitarian system.

50. Feminist Analysis:
Crime and Gender
• With less access to good jobs and
positions of power, some women see
crime as a means of coping with their
exploitation and as a way to make a living.
• Police are far more likely to arrest women
working as prostitutes than men who pay
for sex.
• Women are at high risk of sexual violence.

51. Politics and Crime: Constructing
Problems and Defining Solutions
• Conservatives claim
– that people raised in strong, law-abiding
families are unlikely to commit crime.
– in tougher laws, more aggressive policing,
and harsher penalties to combat crime.
– that crime can be controlled when parents
teach children to make the right choices in a
world of pressures.

52. Politics and Crime: Constructing
Problems and Defining Solutions
• Liberals claim
– many people live in situations that pressure
them to break the law.
– that crime is caused by a harmful
environment, particularly by living in poverty.
– that jobs are the key to a drop in the crime
rate.

53. Politics and Crime: Constructing
Problems and Defining Solutions
• The radical left claims
– that economic insecurity is the real violence
carried out against people every day.
– the solution begins with a restructuring of the
economic and political system.
– that a more egalitarian social order can make
a real claim to justice.