Test questions on the FINAL for Fall 2013. Everything highlighted in blue was definitely a question on the final. I forgot some of them, but I found one of these before I took the test and it really helped out. These aren’t my notes but notes that a girl from my class uploaded a couple days before the test; she said she had an a in the class. The test wasn’t that bad (it’s probably because I had some help from the previous person who did this). Definitely make sure you study the notes because he might change the test. But this should definitely help. There were no short answer questions, and he why “describe and explain” Social response • Society has a formalized way of dealing with crime called the Criminal Justice System o The scientific study of the causes of crime o Try to establish relationships between variables
Transcript
Test questions on the FINAL for Fall 2013.
Everything highlighted in blue was definitely a question on the final. I forgot some of them, but I found one of these before I took the test and it really helped out. These aren’t my notes but notes that a girl from my class uploaded a couple days before the test; she said she had an a in the class.
The test wasn’t that bad (it’s probably because I had some help from the previous person who did this). Definitely make sure you study the notes because he might change the test. But this should definitely help. There were no short answer questions, and he cancelled the classes where we were supposed to learn “Section 3” material.
GOOD LUCK!!!!
September 3, 2013
• Deviance- violation of norms
• Crime- subset of norms coded as laws and are punishable by formal sanctions
• Criminology
o Edward Sutherland defined it as:
The study of law making, law breaking, and the social reaction to law breaking
Law making
• social context of enactment or removal of certain laws
• For example opposition to some drugs is actually aimed at the
user
Law breaking
• documentation of different types of crime and asks the questions
why “describe and explain”
Social response
• Society has a formalized way of dealing with crime called the
Criminal Justice System
o The scientific study of the causes of crime
o Try to establish relationships between variables
o Crime is explained by variability and correlations between two variables
• Theory- the explanation of two or more variables and their relationship
o Has to have the notion of falsification
o Has to have empirical regularity
• UCR – Uniform Crime Report
o Summary file
o From the FBI so it is official
o Major source of crime data
o Oldest source available (1930s)
• NCVS – National Crime Victimization Survey
o Unofficial source of crime data
o Studies victims
• Sample bias
o Your sample does not accurately reflect your target
Think “who am I missing?”
• Background on UCR
o In 1924, J. Hoover starts campaign to make FBI responsible for national statistics
gathering on crime
o 6 years later it was approved and running
(through scandalous tactics)
Hoover had an ability to use info and had the Bureau at his disposal
o The UCR are crimes known to the police
Know which crimes are Index and which are non-index crimes. 2 Questions.Index crimes (8 crimes that tell us what’s going on with crime in the US)Violent Crimes1-Homicide: murder2-Rape: sexual assault3-Aggravated Assault: more serious form of assault
4-Robbery: a violent crime; the taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force and/or by putting the victim in fearProperty Crimes5-Burglary: the unlawful entry of a structure with the intent of coming a felony inside6-Larcony Theft: shoplifting; you stole something7-Auto Theft: stealing a car8-Arson: lighting of fires to destroy something (they don’t put it on the UCR chart because it’s so badly measured)*The police reporting to the UCR is voluntary (about 95% coverage in the US)
8-30-11*Economic Boom from 1992-2000*In the last 3 years, maybe 4, we’ve had more people murdered in the US than have ever died in the Arab/Israeli conflict and in the Iraq war*Almost 1000.000 rapes a year*1.3 million crimes against persons/violent crimes in 2009*Highest crime is larceny theft (almost 6,000,000)*5/100,000 people murdered in each city on average*Crime rates are always higher in a city than in rural areas*Baton Rouge’s murder rate per year is about 35/100,000 people*New Orleans ha the highest murder rate in the country and Baton Rouge has the second highestThey’re probably in the top 10 in the world*The state with the highest murder rate is Louisiana*After Katrina, the crime rates have gone through the roof because of the disorganization*Crime is cultural
*Code of silence; no one is supposed to say anythingWe’re lucky because we’ve been just an hour away from a very violent city and we’re just now starting to see effects in BR (shoes on telephone wires/gangs)*The bulk*Larceny theft is the highest index crime; the records have to categorize all crimes into one category or another no matter who small they are
9-1-11*The highest numbers of arrest are because of:Drugs: 1.66 millionThis number is much higher than in past years because of the increased laws against itDUI: 1.4 millionStarting about 1980, people started realizing the amount of deaths due to drunk drivingMADD: Mothers Against Drunk Driving; started to bring attention to the issue and pushed for higher regulations on drunk drivingLarceny theft: 1.3 millionAssaults (not aggravated): 1.3 millionDisorderly conductPublic Drunkenness: 600,000 (was higher before now because homeless people got picked up, now, they are taken to a treatment center or helped rather than arrest them)Liquor law violations (underage drinking and selling to minors): 570,000Aggravated assault: 400,000Burglary: 300,000Vandalism: 270,000Fraud:The opportunity structure for fraud has changed; there are opportunities for fraud that weren’t even imaginable a few years ago
The transition from currency to credit was when the big increase in fraud occurredThe transition from credit to virtual increased fraud again because of opportunityMost identity theft is through people physically going through your trash to get an address and a nameAnother reason why fraud has increased is the government/public sector of the economyWe wanted it to grow because of:TOPS, roads, regulations on food, inspecting the work placeYou can’t defraud a program that doesn’t exist, but since all of these programs do exist, fraud has increasedRate: Crime rate: the # of events/population at risk for experience the eventEX: # of crimes/populationCrimes are rare events, so, we always multiply it by 1,000In America, there will be 5 murders per every 100,000 peopleClearance Rate: major measure of police efficiency; the % of offenses that have been cleared by an arrestEX: (# of arrests/# of offenses) x 100= ?%The clearance rate for violent crimes is higher because police are under higher pressure and there is more evidence of these types of crimeWhy are certain crimes defined as serious?The more violence involved the more serious; if there are injuries, it’s more seriousThe greater the loss, the more serious the crimeCrimes against households are more serious than those against businesses or public establishments (burglaries)The perceived vulnerability of the victimAge: crimes against the elderly are more seriousThe relationship between the victim and the offenderCrimes between strangers are more serious than those between family, friends and acquaintancesTOP 10 MOST SERIOUS CRIMES:Bomb in a public building and 20 people were killedA man stabs his wife and she diesRunning a drug ringTOP 10 LEAST SERIOUS CRIMESHomosexual acts (winning)Being drunk in publicBreaking curfewBeing a vagrant*Official statistics: are composed of the crimes reported to the police
September 10, 2013
Official Reporting Agencies – UCR
• Crime rate
o (# of crimes / pop (at risk)) x 100,000
o In the US (2011)-> 4.7
(14,500/310,000,000) x 100,000
• Clearance rate
o The percentage of offenses that have been cleared by arrests (police report card)
o (# arrest i/ # crimes i) x 100 (it’s a percentage)
o In the US in 2011
Murder: 64.8
Forcible rape: 41.2
Robbery: 28.7
Aggravated assault: 56.9
Burglary: 12.7
Larceny theft: 21.5
Motor vehicle theft: 11.9
o Q: Asks which crime is cleared the most.
o Violent crimes cleared more often than property crime and so the rate is much
higher
Violent crimes usually have a witness, there is more of those types of crimes, and more man power dedicated to solving these types of crimes
o On occasion, crimes are not classified as something in the index until after it has
been solved so that as soon as it is recorded it is cleared
o Limitations of Official Statistics
Not all crimes are known to the policed
• Reporting bias - The difference between known and unknown # of
crimes
o It is not random. Varies by
Seriousness
Poor areas under report
Older people report crime more often than younger people
• Crime -> Perception of Activity -> Defined as a Crime -> Reported
-> Redefine the Crime -> Recorded
Hierarchy rule
• If more than one crime is committed simultaneously the most
serious one is the only one that gets recorded
They don’t distinguish between completed and uncompleted crime
Police reporting varies in accuracy and is voluntary
Changes in reporting practice
• For example: in the 60s it became easier to report so reporting
went up but it made it look like crime went up
29 categories of crime but there are no white collar crime or
MOST IMPORTANTLY is criminal behavior being measured or the police response to criminal behavior
Deployment of police in a particular neighborhood can make the rates look much higher
Benign neglect can make crime look lower than what it is in a particular neighborhood
• Police may feel it is too low to bother
• Police may feel it is too high and hopeless or dangerous
• Neighborhood may have a contentious relationship with the police
and may not want them around so they are less likely to call
o Crime in relation to gender
male activity 74.1/25.9
For murder 88.2 is male and 11.8 is female
Larceny theft is a bit closer 56.7 male and 43.3 female
o Crime rates in relation to Age
Mostly 15-24
• Especially 15-19
Most dangerous are males 15-19
o Crime in Race/Ethnicity
Blacks and Latinos are more vulnerable from a victim and offender standpoint
o Crime in relation to SES
Lower SES = more vulnerable to crime
o Crime in relation to Region
The southern US has more crime
o Crime in relation to zone
More crime in the center of the city
Least amount of crime in rural areas
• UCR is changing and going in to something new (allegedly)
o NIBRS - National Incident Based Reporting System
Will look like an excel sheet
More information than the UCR
Came about because of better available technology
Easier to view specific information of particular crimes
September 12, 2013
NIBRS
• National Incident Based Reporting System
• Not completed, only about 30% coverage
• Each row is a crime
• Each column will include
o Administrative segment
Incident date and time
Reporting agency ID
Other ID numbers
o Victim segment
Victim ID number
Offense type
Victim age, gender, race
Resident of jurisdiction?
Type of injury
Relationship to offender
Victim type
• Individual person
• Business
• Government
• Society/public
o Offense segment
Offense type
Attempted or completed
Offender drug/alcohol use
Location type
Weapon use
o Offender segment
Offender ID number
Offender age, gender, race
Unofficial Sources
• The National Crime Victimization Survey – NCVS
o Q: Asks which is the most detailed form of information reported for VICTIMS
o Started in 1973
o Looks at it from a victim standpoint
o Survey samples households (persons over 12) every 3 years
o Also want to find out how many people are reporting crimes
o Also checks to see if the UCR is somewhat on track
o It covers:
Personal
• Rape and sexual attack
• Robbery
• Aggravated and simple assault
• Purse-snatching/pocket-picking
Property
• Burglary
• Theft and motor vehicle theft
• Vandalism
o Advantages
Details
• Type of crime
• Time, month and location
• Victim/offender relationship
• Characteristics of offender
• Any self-protective actions taken
o Results of those actions
• Consequences of the victimization
• Type of property lost
• Whether the crime was reported to the police or not
o Reasons for reporting/not reporting
• Offender use of weapons, drugs, and alcohol
• Basic demographic info such as:
o Age
o Race
o Gender
o Income
• **don’t get this detail with UCR or NIBRS
Best source of info on the victims
o Limitations
Doesn’t include murder
Missing a few crimes
• Only a select few of crimes asked
Information can be unreliable
• People are not trained like law enforcement to notice details
Telescoping of events
• The further back in time an event happened, the more people
want to compress it closer to the time of the survey
People heap info into 5 year increments
Sample bias
• Missing people without residential telephones
• Missing info on the homeless
• The pseudo-homeless (college student)
o Hard to get a hold of
• The lower class are under represented
• Businesses are left out
o Routine Activities Theory
Victim and offenders tend to be alike because of who you are around
• Men victimize men
• Young victimize young
• Low income victimize low income
• Blacks victimize blacks
• *elderly are not going to bars and walking home alone in the dark*
o Prototypical victim of crime
Unemployed
Poor
Young
Male
Black
Single
Lives in central city
o Factors on Reporting
Economic benefit to the victim
Seriousness of the crime
• The more serious, the more likely to be reported
Car theft reported most often
Q: Asks which crime is most reported according to NCVS
• Completed 92%
• Uncompleted 57%
Larceny theft the least likely to be reported
• Most index crimes are larceny thefts
• Theft reporting rate is 29%
Aggravated assault 58% reporting
Robbery 60% reporting
Burglary 53% reporting
Rape is 48% reporting
• Stranger rape most reported
o What makes people feel or not feel a crime is serious?
Personal
• The more injury the more serious
Property
• The more that was lost, the more serious
• Depends on the establishment
o Burglaries against households are regarded as more
serious than crimes against businesses
Perceived vulnerability of the victim
• Age
o Crimes against the elderly are more serious
• Victim/offender relationship
o Crimes between family are less serious than those
involving strangers
• Crime Trends
o Murder
Had a relatively sharp increase between 1962-1974 (Dramatic increase 60’s-70’s)
• Some leveling in the 70s to 80s
Rise in the 80s
In the 90s there was a huge decline in murder (The Great American Decline)
• From 1992-2000
• Huge economic boom at this time
Still declined after 2000 just slower and went back down to where it was in 60s
In the 1700s up to mid 1800s it was 10x as it is now
*Humanoid 5000 years old found frozen murdered*
o Violent crimes (totaled)
Leveled in the 70s
Spike in the 80s because of the crack cocaine epidemic
Declined during the 90s
September 17, 2013
• Crime trends continued
o In the 1960s
Civil Rights Movement
• MLK was killed
Anti-War Movements
• Kent State went into their quad and demonstrated , National
Guard showed up and fired on the crowd of students
• Shocked the nation. US soldiers firing on American students..
Women’s Movements
Drug market opening up further
Population Increase
• Baby Boomers
Time of social change which brought about conflict
• Riots
It became easier to report to the UCR through technology
*The effect of the Baby Boom population (most important factor)
• More people in the high risk category 15-24
o Prior to industrialization a family was an economic unit
o During industrialization it moved economic opportunities
away from the home
o It causes transition.
o More responsibilities ensue and VERY quickly
Abrupt transition from youth to adulthood and crime is too costly and not reinforced by peers into the same thing
• With that in mind…
o People had their lives on hold because of the Great
Depression that lasted near 10 years and 4 years from WW@
o Right after WW2 in the late 40s and the Great Depression
right before that people wanted to get things moving again
o Jobs were plentiful and things were looking up
o People started having babies around 1947 one after the
other like Pez until about 1960
o Pictures of the 50s were centered around kids
• Baby boomers entered the crime prone age group when the rates
went up and when they left that age group, the crime rate started to go down
o Crime rate gone down since the 1960s but imprisonment rate has gone up
• Race and Crime
o Differences exist between victims and offenders
o Black communities in the US are struggling with a huge crime problem
(particularly violent crime)
o 14% (black people) of population accounting for 50% of the murders
Disproportionately high
If the blacks proportion was the same as whites, crime would
be cut in half
The rate is extremely high (rate takes population into account)
o Arrest Rates by Race 2009
Homicide 2.1 W 12.3 B
Robbery 19.3 W 143.2 B
Rape 4.8 W 13.7 B
Agg. Assault 93.9 W 287.5 B
Burglary 69.8 W 191.2 B
Larceny 322.1 W 787.6 B
Auto 17.5 W 59.6 B
o Claude Brown Article
“A Man Child in Harlem” in the Atlantic Monthly
Author grew up in Harlem in the 50s and left and then he went back in the late 80s early 90s and then wrote this article
• Crack era
Makes the point that Harlem at one point was the promise land for Blacks
Escape cotton plantations and go there to live harmoniously with other Blacks
About other Harlem like places in the northern region
Identifies the Man Child as someone between 13-18 years of age 2nd or 3rd generation ghetto dweller living in the projects (section 8 homes)
This Man Child that he goes back and sees is much smarter and sophisticated but also much more likely to commit murder – a paradox he wants to understand and explain
Wants to know what changes took place within the people
• The Man Child has become obsessed with materialism (a broad
shift honestly in the 80s across all peoples)
o Name brands
Starter jackets, Nike runners
Someone would be killed just to get it
o Consumerism was a focused
• Unfortunately despite the emphasis on the brands and the need to
have them, the capacity to afford them shrank dramatically
Changes on the community level
• Institutions that once held the community together were either
gone or abandoned
o Gas stations, small businesses, playhouses, the Apollo
Theater almost gone (saved at the last minute)
o The landscape was so much different
• The loss of the Black Muslim organization
o Once had a powerful influence
o Powerful message
Dress well
Get a job
Support your family
• The Fagens were gone
o Character in Oliver Twist
He was sneaky and non-violent
He set up a place for kids where they can get meals and have a family but he taught them to pick pocket and bring whatever it was back to him
Was a thief, but a sympathetic character
People telling others to stop the violence
• There was a glory in the violence
o The gun was part of the glory
o It was cool to kill
o People were killed without a second thought
U Popped someone (sounds trivial)
• Going to jail used to be stigmatized but not when he went back
o When he went back it was something to look up to
o A rite of passage
o So much so that it was reflected in style of clothes
• Much more cold blooded than what he had grown up in
o As a result, the kids who survived that life were a lot
tougher and smarter than he was
The article explains the What?
o The Why
William Julius Wilson
Wrote an article
• Trying to explain the decline in the Black inter cities
• Gets away from the simple cause and effect
• Explains the history of Black/White relations
o 3 stages
o Q: Asks how many stages William Julius Wilson uses to
describe the history of B/W relations
September 19, 2013
Why did this change in such a short period of time?3 Theories that address the decline (urban decay) in inner cities:William Julius Wilson: (his book is called the Declining Significance of Race; his argument is that race is what got us here, but it’s not what is keeping us here; it’s not just race that trapped the lower class there, they’re just so far isolated from the rest of the class system and society)He’s a prominent sociologistHe’s at Harvard right nowHe was in the top 25 most influential people at one timeHis idea gets away from simplistic cost and effectHe says there’s a history to this; if you understand the history of black/white relations, you’ll understand where we are nowThere are three stages of black/white relations in American History (each of these stages are distinct because of: the system of production (economy: refers to the distribution of wealth and resources) and the political arrangement at that period (distribution of power)):Plantation Economy and Racial Caste Oppression: before the civil war; antebellum period; during this period, it’s pre-industrial period, there was a white elite that owned the means of production; you had a split labor market that was split along racial lines; blacks were consigned to a cheap labor pool; a way to get stuff built or done and not have to pay much; paternalistic race relations between blacks and whites (the dominance of one party (whites) and the subservience of the other (black)); there wasn’t a lot of geographical difference between where blacks and whites lived at this time; although there wasn’t a lot of physical distance, there was a great deal of social distance; they didn’t socialize with each other or intermarry; they had clearly defined symbols of racial etiquette; they had very specific ways and rules on how whites and blacks should relate to each other; this period is not characterized by conflict; it was brutal and characterized by oppression but not by conflict; they weren’t competing for resources, at least not compared to what happens laterIndustrial Expansion and Race Conflict: Industrial PeriodIt scrambles the whole labor market; it gets rid of jobs that were already there and creates new jobs and levels of management; it’s called a complex division of laborIt creates competition for these jobs especially at the lower levelsWhite labor becomes the most powerful because they start to unionize and they have money and the population; they use that power to preserve, maintain, and keep the best skilled and unskilled jobs for themselves; they did this through political and legislative means; they had the Jim Crow Laws (this kept the blacks from getting the jobs); this was the height of the period of lynching; race riotsThis was the period of racial antagonism and racial conflictIt was a fight over scarce resources needing jobsBlacks are now experiencing more and more conflictProgressive Transition from Racial Inequality to Class Inequality1960sModern PeriodTwo tings happened in the 1960s that influenced the lives of blacks:Civil Rights Movement: the purpose was to dismantle the legal and political barriers put up in stage 2; we began to pass legislation that made it illegal to discriminate based on race
o Stage 3
The progressive transition from racial to class inequalities
1960s 2 things happened:
• Civil Rights Movement
o Lift legal barriers put up in stage 2
• Beginnig with the War on Poverty was the expansion of the
government sector
o Under President Johnson
o Created immediate jobs but also trickled down and opened
up private sector jobs and both races benefited
o Blacks moved out of the inner city (the upper half moved;
those who could) to the suburbs
o Those who could not (the bottom half) were left behind
without role models and small business owners etc.
The underclass (coined by Wilson)
o The underclass were isolated and really poor
o Poverty was concentrated or the ‘Concentration of Poverty’
within the inner city
o Created Social Isolation (coined by Wilson) from anything
positive
o Wilson said they could go for weeks without coming into
contact with a person from the Middle Class, let alone know what that meant
o Essentially lost their connection with mainstream society
o Wilson called his first book “The Declining Significance of
Race”
Why? He said race was not as important as social class
What has trapped people in the center of the city is social class
Doug Massey (still under ‘The Why’)
• Contrasted Wilson
• It is about race and always has been
• Boils down to residential segregation
o We have this feature in our society that we have
segregated neighborhood (actually greater in the North than the South)
o Look at by tracts and blocks
Blocks with tracts
o Smaller finer tracts and blocks in the South
like a checkerboard
o Huge swaths of either Blacks of Whites in the North
• Race is the root of the problem
• Segregation maintained by:
o Outright threat and intimidation
Less common today
Harder to get away with
o Residential steering – the tendency for real estate agents
to steer people towards particular areas
o Tendency for people to group together based on
similarities
o Redlining
Technically illegal
Property value too low so bank refuses to loan and you cannot get insurance in that area
o White Flight
When neighborhoods become between 5-7% black and whites have a massive exodus
• Massey says other races are segregated but never more than
50% polish, Italian, etc.
• When it is a black neighborhood it is 95% to 100% black
• It is not the segregation of blacks that is the problem, it is the high
poverty and unemployment so you get a Concentration of Poverty which leads to social isolation
o 9% of Whites in poverty
o 30% of Blacks in poverty
• Read Shihadah and Flynn article
• Economic Implications of Social Isolation
o Concentration of Poverty means people aren’t there to
show you how to thrive
o What’s the difference between the successful and
unsuccessful?
o Richard G say successful people have a predominance of
weak ties
Meaning you will have more non redundant information
September 24, 2013
Social isolation (continued)…
*Read Elijah Anderson article*
• Massey says “It is race.”
• Blacks culturally isolated
o Diversion evolution-
Culturally become different when isolated from whites
o Language is cultural, and culture becomes different when isolated – ebonics
Especially under class blacks
o Education
Kids in those settings are under enormous pressure for academic failure
• Made fun of for being smart
• Suppose to not be successful
• Academic success is celebrated elsewhere
• Elijah Anderson
o Found that among young men with otherwise few opportunities demonstrate
their success in other ways
Turning to their peers for approval
A certain walk
Maintaining an image of physical prowess
• “Don’t mess with me or ill kick your ass”
o If that is all you got, you will defend it.
Fight or die for it
a cultural phenomenon
o this “respect” is that even people with a non-violent predisposition will put on
a mask of toughness
o Two types of orientations (people studied came up with terms)
Decent
• The vast majority are decent
• Street people set the tone
• Decent will take on street disposition in order to survive
o Even women
Street
o Even women in that context
The baby club
• A rite of passage for women is to have a baby
• Even outside of marriage
• Celebrated
• Seen as upward mobility in contrast with middle class
• Women without babies are not allowed into that class
o True it is just a style of clothes
But the minute it is viewed negatively by mainstream society it becomes a disadvantage
o Music, style, language all becomes a sign of social isolation
o Offered a huge service to sociology
He made it okay for researchers to look at the idea of culture
(BACKGROUND) In the 1960s a senator talked about the decline of inner cities
• The pathology of decline
• Talked about the decline of the black family structure
• At the same time the idea of the culture of poverty came about
o People are poor because of their culture
Don’t know how to defer gratification, save money, etc. (fundamental protestant idea)
• He got slammed for this (this was before Elijah Anderson)
o Blaming the victim
Anderson made it politically correct to look at culture
o Political Isolation
Black communities suffer from it
The most successful were the ones who were able to take advantage of coalition politics
• Two groups can become powerful when they create coalitions
• Basis in geology
o May live in close proximity and not get along on any
issue but will get together to fight a particular idea
• So when you create segregated black community, who will
they form a coalition with
o People outside of the neighborhood have no interest in
what goes on in that particular neighborhood
• When you create an all-black neighborhood you create zones
of political weakness
• So when other politicians have to put up a garbage dump or
low income houses they put it in black districts because they are going to get the least amount of flack
• It would be better to create a coalition with whites because
they will reap the benefits
• BTW there are 42 street gangs in Baton Rouge (totally random)
• Jack Kasarda on Social Isolation
o You have to look at the changing structure of the city
Not just bigger it is different
19th century city
• Limited to living next to your place of work (no highways,
busses, trains within the city)
• Build residences near place of work
o Work/residence enclave
• Within some reasonable pedestrian..
• When the city grew it would grow in another block with another
enclave
• When technology came about it introduced
o Trollys
o Roads
o Automobiles in the early 20th century
o Subways and trains
• So now you do not have to live where you work
• Created population deconcentration
• Not just that you could now drive it became socially and
economically incorporate the surrounding areas
o You were still a part of that city
• Population deconcentration
o The more money you had the further u moved out
Income gradient
• At the same time the city began to industrially reorganize
o Low skill manufacturing began to move out to the
suburbs
Because you are processing materials you need horizontal space
Land was cheap
Plenty of opportunity and space
o High skill industry are processing information and it
does not matter about horizontal space
They bought a small piece of land in the city and built vertically
o This process is called industrial drift
o The poor inner city would take the plentiful jobs, save
up, and move a little further out and repeat before industrial drift
The immigrants would replace those who relocated
o (Eventually low skill jobs moved even further overseas)
o Eventually, the low skilled people are left in the center
of the city but the low skill jobs are further out creating spatial mismatch
o That is why you get high rates of unemployment and
poverty
o Making matters worse, all of our solutions are
geographically based
Welfare offices are placed in the center of the city
Low income houses are placed in the center city
Forces the poor to remain in the inner city
o Geographically mobility equals social mobility
The more you can move around, the more you can move up the ladder
Wilson, Massey and Kasarda all have this theme
• Links the three perspectives together
• Ethnicity and Crime (Latinos and crime)
o In 6 years (2000-2006) they grew from 35 mil to 44 mil
o From to 2000 to 2006 they grew from 12.5% to 14.8%
o By 2030 it is expected that they will be at 25%
o Professors prediction by 2050 there will be more Hispanics in the US than in
Mexico
o In those 6 years their population grew 25%
o Half of the population growth within those 6 years were latinos
o 2006 is when the big boom of immigration ended because that is around
when the recession began
o In 2006, they counted for 20.8% of births
o Big growth happened in the 1990s
The biggest growth happened in the south
o Most are Mexican origin (around 65%), next are from central or south
America (about 20%), the rest are Puerto Rican, Cuban or other
Jack Kasarda: he said it all boils down to the changing nature of the city; how cities have changed; cities aren’t just bigger, they’re actually different.Any time they built a work area, they then had to create a residence area right next door because they didn’t have a way to commute to work; when the city grew, they built another work and residence enclavePopulation Deconcentration: as transportation became more easily available and people had more money, the more they moved farther away from the businessImmigrants would move in to the work/residence enclave, start making more money then they would filter out once they started doing better for themselves; those jobs were plentifulThe structure of the city began to change. Industrial Drift: Industrial jobs began to move out to the suburbs; high skill jobs moved in to the center of the city; low skill jobs moved out to the suburbsPlants (Ford, cars) needed a lot of room to spread out; you need wide tracks of land, little traffic, huge parking lots, access to workers (they built horizontally), but if your business is a medical office or a law office, you’re offering services; it doesn’t cost anything to transfer things up and down so they began to build verticallySpacial Mismatch between where the low skill jobs are and where the low skill people are; all of the forms of assistance (welfare offices) pull people to where they shouldn’t be.Geographic Mobility=Social Mobility (moving around = moving up)If you limit people’s geographic mobility, you limit their social mobility (people limit their geographic mobility all of the time when they decide to stay in their home towns and states because they want to be close to their family)There are less jobs around so competition for low skill jobs is a lot higher; the main competition is coming from Latino immigrants
Immigration in Crime (but we’re really talking about Latinos)Southern states have the most growth from HispanicsSocioeconomically (poverty, education and incomes) they’re on the low end of the spectrumThey’re between whites and blacksIn crime, the homicide group is between blacks and whites but closer to whites in 2002History between blacks whites and HispanicsMigration: the process is quite complexThe reasons for moving: Push Factors: people pushing them out of the country; an impressive political regime; warPull Factors: people pulling people the US; economy boom; good schoolsIndividual Factors: micro-factors in a person’s life; they want to build a house; they want to send their kids to school; they want to start a businessIt’s more complicated than people just thinking that the grass is greener on the other sideThe border(1853): it’s unique; it’s freaking huge; you have the richest country in the world on one side and one of the poorest on the other; it’s old it was a physical reality, but it wasn’t a social reality until much later; the dividing line really didn’t have meaning until 1924; this is when we got border patrol; when railroads started crossing between the two countries, people started saying well maybe we should protect our borderWhen we have a lot of laws, we have a lot of illegal immigrants and not so many legal immigrants, but when we loosen our laws, it’s the oppositeThere was a rise in nativism in the 1920s (people putting flags in their lawn); when that happened, we started to limit the number of people to come into the country, but our agriculture industry needed the workers or they would collapseIn 1924, it was the formation of the Border Patrol, but Hispanics still came over because the agricultural industry needed them.
In 1929, the great depression hit and immigration went down and they restricted laws even more because we didn’t have enough jobs for our own peopleWhen America entered the 2nd world war, we didn’t have enough people to work in the factories making airplanes and supplies because they were stuck working in the fields, so, they moved to the factories and brought more immigrants in to work in the fields
9-20-11In the 1920s, the US Border patrol was formed; this was the first time that it was a real organized effort to do thisIn the 1930s, there was a drop in the number of jobs available so they tightened the border and sent them back homeWW2, in and after, there was a huge boom of the economy because the Americans working in the field wanted to leave the field to work in factories for more money so we needed immigrants againCertain segments of the private sector always want immigrants, but at some points there wsa a strong feeling of nativismIn the 1950s, the Cold War was going on; we were afraid of communists; “duck and cover”Bracero: trying to strike the balance between both interests, the agricultural growers and the INSThe INS (the people responsible for documenting immigrants and they’d come into migrant fields and arrest the workers, then they’d pick them up, take them to the border, have them sign legal immigration papers then bring them back to the fields)In the 1960s, the US turned their attention back homeThey began to change our immigration policy to a new system because we were about “equality and freedom”So, we set a quota of 20,000 people to come over a year from each countryIt was a limited de facto across the Mexican border (100 of thousands would come each year so this was huge that not many people coukd come now.1965 Immigration Act: it was not really an immigration act, it was a civil rights actJust when the caps came in Mexico, the economy begins to go downThis was the period when undocumented immigration began to riseBetween 1965 and 1985: something close to 80% of people crossing the border were illegalImmigration across the border was most often a circular process (they would come to the US to make money to build a house or to send their kids to school and then they’d return home to Mexico)This wasn’t a period when you saw a huge increase in the Latino population in the US because most of them only came for a little whileImmigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986: the big security threat was the communist insurgency in Latin America (Guatemala and Nicaragua); the message put out was that America was under attack and so the IRCA really tightened border enforcement (this is when the first idea of a fence came up); this is when it was first defined as a national security issue; they brought in military to make it a lot harder to crossThis wasn’t just about securing the immigrants. We criminalized the hiring of immigrants, also.The immigrants then started to come here and stay because they were afraid that they would never be able to come back if they leftIn the 1990s, most immigrants were coming through El Paso and San Diego, so, they walled off a large point of each area and only official business could go through there. Instead of trying to come through there, they started coming through other points. They settled in nontraditional areas (not the southwest for Mexicans); this is when Latino immigration changed from a local event to a national phenomena; EL Paso–Operation BlockadeSan Diego-Operation Gate Keeper
1-They blockaded the border at el paso and san diego2-the southern economy and other economy across the US were doing well3- The economy sucks in California and they put forth a proposition restricting the lives of immigrants (we don’t like you, get out)4-The political economy in California was getting pretty ugly for immigrants. Passed prop 187 which basically said get the fuck out
Robert Samson made the claim that crime dropped in the 1990s because it was a period of massive immigration across the borders; they settled in areas where they know people and are comfortable makes them less likely to commit crime; they have a way to suppress crimeThe blacks have the highest homicide rate and the Latinos that live in a new destination that isn’t where most Latinos live have the second highestPrejudice: anti-black or anti-asian is caused by a large population of minority in the areaAlthough many Latinos in new destinations are struggling, the paper was Shilhadeh and Lisa, shows that where you have a strong catholic presence it helps bring the crime rate down because it helps organize the groupsImmigrants were the ones who stopped the decline in homicide in the united states. They did not lead the decline the blacks didThe new immigrants live in a different social class than the old. They are potential victims and offenders.The place you live makes all the difference in the world.
October 1, 2013
• Earlier theories of crime
o Demonic Perspective
Late 1600s
Causes and cures of criminal behavior is in the realm of the supernatural
Crime is a sin
A transgression against the will of God
Will succumb to evil in two ways
• Through temptation
o Weakened or seduced by the devil to do sin
o Still choice available – just chose wrong
• Through possession
o A person is taken over by an evil spirit
o Because they are taken over, the choice is gone
In this perspective crime is a violation against the will of God and since God is everything, than everything is harmed by crime
• Not just between victim and offender (more modern way of
thinking)
Early components
• Trial by torture or by ordeal
o If they live they must have been innocent, if they died they
must have been guilty
o Theory: if you were innocent God would fortify you to
withstand the pain. If you were guilty God would forsake you
• Back then the human body had little importance compared today.
It was just a shell for the soul
All crime were subject to severe punishment
• Was not differentiate by seriousness of crimes for punishment
The function of punishment was to put you back in your place as a servant of the divine
• To remind you of the supreme reality of God’s will
Not as far removed from today as it seems
• Some believe that crime is the work of the devil
• The answer is conversion and prayer
System of Logic
• An appeal to Authority
o Idea that if a person in authority says it, than it must be
true
o An example of a logical fallacy
o If it is in the Karan, The Bible, etc. it must be true
o The Classical Perspective
Late 1700s
Deviance as Rational Hedonism
• An understanding of rational decision to maximize pleasure and
minimize pain
Modern perspective on crime
Cesare Beccaria is the guy associated with this
• Started with classical assumption that humans try to maximize
pleasure and minimum pain
• Humans are rational and calculating creatures
• Crime is a rational choice
o To maximize pleasure and minimize pain
• Therefore crime is no different from any other type of behavior
with the same point
• Utilitarian Calculus
o Utility of a decision + and a – (cost and the benefits) (pain
or pleasure)
o Calculation of cost and benefits
• Europe moved from a futile economy to a capitalist economy
o Moved from farms to the cities
o Cities became a heterogeneous mix of people
o Lacked a common history
o No common structure of beliefs
o Tradition had little meaning
o Theological power began to decline as a result
o A rise in the power of the individual
Now has value
o The notion of self-interest is good and a guiding framework
o Relations between people becomes rational and
calculating
o So crime begun to be treated the same way
o Now punishment has to be rational to fit the crime
o So if a crime has 5 units of pleasure, punishment is 6 units
of pleasure
o Ignore the actors, focus on the act of crime
• Deductive Reasoning Process
• Idea of deterrents
o Idea that underlies our current criminal justice system
o The Pathological Perspective
It’s a sickness
• There is something wrong with the actor
• Crime is not a sin any more than a birth defect
• Not chosen any more than cancer or the flue
Started by a guy name Cesare Lambroso
• Army doctor
• Argued that some people are born as evolutionary throwbacks
o Primitive
o Cannot handle the demands of this life
o Fall by the wayside and become vulnerable to crime
o Atavism
Certain characteristics of a person are a throwback to an earlier evolutionary period
o Evidence of this primitiveness could be found in physical
stigmata
o Studied prisoners and tried to find physical similarities to
identify people more likely to commit crime
Unusual head shape
Receding hairline
Long arms
Big ears
Large jaw
o Evidence of more than 5 meant that you were a born
criminal
• Brought to the table
o The idea of determinism
Cause and effect
Something happens for a reason
There is a reason why people commit crime
Darwin influence
o The idea of positivism
Crime could only be understood through a science
• Controlled observation and experimentation
Inductive Reasoning
• So in the early 1900s
o People began to infer that certain races were born inferior
o In the 1960s
They tried to find the genetic marker to crime
XYY
• They thought that having this extra chromosome could be a cause
for a crime
• (know the definition of robbery for exam 1)
o the act of illegally taking something that belongs to someone else by force,
threat, or violence
THIS IS THE END OF SECTION ONE
October 10, 2013
• Q: What goes with Relative Deprivation? A: Anomie
• The Theory of Anomie and Relative Deprivation
o Robert Merton
o Focuses on the impact of stratification on crime
o Stratification- the uneven distribution of the material conditions for existence and
the means by which these are produced; the uneven distribution of the currency of exchange; inequality of wealth
o On the other hand we have this ideology of egalitarianism (or equality) and
opportunity
The idea that anyone can do it
o According to Merton this is a contradiction
That’s why this is also called strain theory
o Success goals
Emphasize and celebrate it
Social mobility
Wealth
Occupational prestige
o Means
education
Opportunity
• Contacts and networks
Access to credit
o Anomie
A weakened attachments to the norms (rules)
o Crime
Subjectively(emotionally) acceptable
Crime is a result of the way society is structured
• The structure of society channels you in certain directions
Why do some groups experience higher crime rates? Structure!
• Structural theories explain group differences
• Q: What is the fourth box from the left? A: Anomie
• Side notes
o IQ scores have been improving over time
Back around 1905 their scores if they took our test their average would be 70
If we took their test today the average would be 130
Back then they thought less abstractly, more concretely as result of the structural changes of our society
Moral thought and conversation is impossible to have without the ability to think abstractly
Nature vs. Nurture is bull by the way
• There are things at the end of our genes (I think they are
telomeres) that turn off or on certain genes as a result of our environment and can stay on and be passed for many generations
October 15, 2013
Does the theory account for real life? Does is count for empirical regularities? ? (empirical meaning measurement and regularities meaning over and over)
o Q: Asks which is not talked about in theory of anomie and relative
deprivation? A: Ageo Empirical regularity #1: Urban vs. Rural. Urban areas have higher crime
rates than rural areas (more crime in cities than in the country).
Go back to the core of the theory. Maybe in rural areas, there is not as much of a means deficiency. It is because there are huge amounts of inequality in urban areas. There is also a greater drive to succeed in the city. There are greater pressures for success and keeping up with all of the other people, and to move up the ladder.
o Empirical regularity #2: Minorities vs. Majorities. Minorities have greater
crime rates than the majorities.
They have less resources. Means deficiency.o Empirical regularity #3: Men vs. Women. Men have greater crime rates
than women.
They have way more pressure to be successful. They are measured by their success, and are socialized to be the breadwinner of the home. They are under enormous pressure to succeed. They are characterized by their job. We measure men by their occupation and what they do. It’s the first thing we do. When a man loses their job, they don’t just lose a paycheck, they lose their social identity and who they are. It is a very disorienting experience. Women and men still have fundamentally different roles and it has an impact on crime. These are social expectations. We expect men to work and to provide and we expect women to keep the place clean. Norms are rules. Values are expectations.
Biological Clock: something women feel in their late 30’s. There is a biological limit on child bearing. The reason they feel it at that age, however, it not a biological thing, it is a social thing. It is the pressure of the social expectation, and those expectations are very strong and powerful. We can extend this to the idea about female crime and why there is so little of it. Why are there more women committing crime today than ever before? Because there are more women. The percentage however is the same. 90% of robberies are committed by men. The only crime in which there is more women committing is
shoplifting and that is because of the consumer role. Crime still reflects social expectation. Lets look at robbery: little boys fight and take each other’s stuff on the playground. –That’s a robbery. Robbery is a natural extension of what men do, but robbery is fundamentally incompatible with the female role.
Who keeps the rules on a day-to-day basis? Usually the mother. Women are what we call the moral sensible. They are the rule keepers. Teenage boys are the most dangerous group. They are of the gender and the age that are most likely to commit crime.
The gender difference in crime is alive and well.
There is proof in the rise of women’s independence in the rising rate of divorce. Almost always, the women get the children, which drive them to poverty. If a woman leaves their kids, we ask, “What women would want to leave their kids?” and that reflects gender expectations. Easier for a women to assume the role of mother exclusively than it is for a man to assume the role of father exclusively.
Questions about Merton’s Theory:
1. What is the aim of Merton? What is his goal of this theory?o He’s not interested in studying WHY crime happens. He’s interested in group
differences in criminal behaviors; why some groups experience greater pressures to deviate than others.
2. What are the two structural differences in crime producing? What are the two things you must have for crime rates to go up?
o You must strongly emphasis success goals and you must have a means
deficiency. 3. What is Anomie?
o A weakened attachment to the norms (rules). Ex. If you get into a really hard
section of the class when your friend got into an easy one, you don’t feel like its fair, so you cheat. If you were given an equal playing field, you would play by the rules.
4. What is the difference between relative and absolute deprivation?o Sociologists have emphasized that deprivation is related to crime, but for
Merton he says it is not that simple. He focuses on the idea of what is called relative deprivation. This word came from a study during WWII by a man named Stouffer. The study was The American Soldier about their moral and their job satisfaction and how satisfied of their life were they. They compared the southern black soldier with a northern black soldier. The northern black soldier was doing better in absolute objective terms, meaning they tended to have a higher rank, had more responsibility, more pay, better promotional prospects. —All of these concrete things, showing that they were doing better than a southern black soldier. Despite all of that,
the southern black soldier had a higher moral, and was generally happier. This was a puzzling finding leading to a conclusion. One’s happiness doesn’t depend on some fixed concrete amount. One’s happiness and satisfaction of life depends on the standard of comparison; to whom are you comparing yourself. The northern black soldier is comparing himself to whites, who get more in life. The southern black solider is not comparing himself to white. They were living in two separate worlds. Whites were not in their comparison group during that time in the south. The southern black soldier is comparing himself to his southern black civilians back home, and compared to the southern black civilian back home, he is doing pretty well. He has shoes, a rank, a uniform, food, and he isn’t doing too bad. Northern black soldier is not only comparing himself to whites, but also to his fellow black civilians back home, and realize he is not doing that well. During WWII, it was a huge boost to the industrial base in the economy, which was in the north. So these guys were getting training and working with many economic opportunities, while the soldiers were stuck in the mud. The southern soldiers didn’t have these opportunities, so they were doing well where they were. So, Stouffer coined the term “Relative Deprivation.” It depends on your reference group. In 7 words, relative deprivation is the felt dissatisfaction in comparison with relative others.
o The crime rates in India are lower than ours. They society is based on the
Caste system. The caste system is essentially a closed system, with no mobility; no moving up and down. It is thousands of years old. The people at the top are the “Brahmans;” they had the most money, opportunities, and happiest life. The ones at the bottom are called the “Untouchables.” This was how it was, and there was no point in trying to change it. There is a lot of absolute deprivation in India, but no relative deprivation. There was no point in comparing oneself to a Brahman because you never would be one.
o There were race riots in the 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement, but why
not in the 1950’s? The Civil Rights Movement said that it was ok for blacks to compare themselves to white, which increased relative deprivation. In absolute terms they were doing better, but when they started to look around at the difference in relative terms, they were unhappy.
o Same thing with Germany. Used to be divided between East and West. To
divide the two they had a wall, the Berlin Wall. They closed themselves off to the West, and were not allowed to leave. Why? Because they didn’t want their citizens to have relative deprivation. That all around the Soviet Union was serious. If you tried to cross the wall, you would be shot. When the wall came down, people came over from East Germany to the West, and saw how they were living in houses, and there were stores with things in them and the relative deprivation began to grow up. They saw how they were living, and the crime rate also began to go up, even though they were getting richer in absolute terms. They were the same people, but living so differently, which caused the relative deprivation. Political moral combat with the Soviet Union,
when they launched a satellite. We were in a space race with the Soviets, so then in 1969 we beat them to the moon.
October 17, 2013
5) Anomie is a shared problem?
• Feelings of anomie become intensified when they are shared with other people who feel
the same way
o “Society is set up to screw people like us” confirmed by stories who feel the same
• Fraternal deprivation
o You can be doing well in life but then you find out other people like you are not
doing so well and now you can feel a tremendous sense of anomie and relative deprivation
o Powerful driving forces
• 6) What is the historical side to Anomie and Deprivation? (What are the long term
consequences?)
o They develop a subcultural adaptation
The criteria gets changed so that success is still attainable
o Cohen did a study called Delinquent Boys
He wanted to know the adaptations that lower class boys make as a measuring rod to middle class in the school system
Lower class youth come ill prepared to meet the criteria set by the middle class so they start out at a disadvantage
So they change the measuring rod to come up with something that is achievable
Being a good fighter, a ladies man, a good hustler, street wise <- alternative success goals (an alternative solution)
Those qualities are next to useless in middle class society, it doesn’t help it hurts and makes the disadvantage even wider later
It is called a social disability because they are ill prepared to handle the requirements of middle class society
Then it comes full circle in the strain theory
• 7) What’s the remedy? (always talking about policy)
o Go back to the core or the beginning of this theory
o Deemphasize material success goals
Not consuming but creating
o Even out deficiency
Improve public schools (like head start program)
Job training
Close gap in any way between rich and poor gap
Sociocultural gap between rich and poor
• Don’t rub elbows in any domain (stores, schools, vacations, etc)
Proportion of poor children 1 out of 4 children are born into poverty
Immigration trends
Robbery
• Q: Which is not a reason robbery is a serious crime? A: Amount of money is high
• Why is it so serious?
o Violent
o Fear
o Theft
o Threat of physical force
o Its unexpected
o It is premeditated
• Armed Robbery 59%
• Strong- Arm 41%
• Likelihood of injury
o More often in strong arm
o People are more likely to fight back if there is no weapon
o Usually an inexperienced street thug
• 1/3 of all robberies result in injury
• T/F: about one quarter of injuries from robberies requires some kind of hospitalization.
A: F
• 10% of total cases the injury requires some kind of hospitalization
• 2% of all injuries are serious and require a stay in the hospital of one day or more
• 1.5 deaths for every 1000 robberies
• Any kind of an injury is likely, but a serious injury or death is very rare
• In the US for every 100,000 there are about 140
• 400,000 reported every year
• It is not uniformly distributed across the city
• Robbery rate increases in city size
• Urban phenomenon
• It peaks around 5 and subsides around 3 or 4 in the morning on weekdays
• The average loss in a robbery is $1350
• The average bank robbery nets $4400
• The profile of the armed robber
o 15-24 with a peak age of 17
o Male 90%
o From the underclass
o From inner-city
o Single
o unemployed
o high school dropout
• robbers as a group tend to not specialize in robbery
• criminal career is typical
o start out by stealing (property)
o get involved in violent crime (get in fights)
o combine the 2 for a robbery
• Victim characteristics
o 15-24
o Men
o Underclass
o (very similar to offender)
• Dynamics of robbery
o Thrill
o Older members challenge younger members
o Way to acquire status
o Exert power and engage in violence
Some people in life enjoy violence and to control others through violence – robbery fills the need
October 22, 2013
Robbery continued
• Sequential probability of success…?
• Cons
o High probability of arrest
Since participating in a robbery is not usually a one-time thing, the collective rate of success is very low
The sequential/cumulative probability of success of robbery is very high
• Rate of success is low
Big draw back
Clearance rate 25%
o Fear of fear
Fear can become so unpleasant and debilitating that it affects their performance
Many people who have been robbed report that the robber himself was scared and shaking
Fear of the victim
• May have a weapon, yell, etc…
• How do they manage risk and their fear of their victim?
o In their choice of partners
Have heart, courage, not concerned with physiological makeup
Posture of toughness
Someone with speed, physically quick
Someone who should be solid; someone who won’t snitch
o Selection of Victim
Their selection has to balance two competing things
• Need a victim that is lucrative that will pay off
• One that is least likely to resist (soft; easy)
The range of potential victims is limited by factors
• The fact that as a predatory crime robbers work their own area;
general define territorial premises; so they have a certain range of their victim are from that area as well
A set of predispositions that robbers have about who the most appropriate victims
• Not acceptable
o Elderly women
o Going back to the status enhancing mechanism this victim
too easy or vulnerable; not seen as a challenge
• Acceptable
o Young, affluent people
You are young and can bounce back more quickly
They are young so they can replace what I am stealing
Students
o Intoxicated
You did this to yourself
o Homosexuals
Reflects the robbers disapproval of their lifestyle
• 4 different kinds of robbery
• Q; How many different types of robbers are there?
o 1) The professional robber
Unlike the entire group of robbers they have high status in the underworld and the prison
Their main identity is that of a robber
• Main source of income
They exercise a lot of planning
On average their take is much higher than any other robbers
Reflects their superiority in recognizing a lucrative target
o 2) The opportunist robber
The most common category; the biggest
Less planning (that’s why they are opportunist)
• Take advantage of the right now
• Some planning but not much
They don’t specialize in robbery, they take part in a variety of street crime
A long list of crime and deviance
Really easy
o 3) The addict robber
The individual with a serious drug problem who robs to service their drug habit
They really prefer other types of crimes but they will if they have to
o 4) The alcoholic robber
The worst kind of robber
They drink heavily and they rob while their intoxicated
Robbery is an after thought
Might be drunk, walk up to someone and their out of money, ask for it, they may be told they didn’t have any money, then they result to forceful taking it
May not even remember the robbery – but they go to jail for a long time as a result of it
• Robbers come from the very lowest SES
o Definitely a relationship between social class and robbery
• Robbery is one of the most primitive crime there is
o Committed by people who are too young, inept, and too stupid to do anything
else
o Does not require any specialized knowledge, it is an extension of everyday
knowledge
Done in daycares everyday lol
Differential Association Theory
• Sutherland and Cressey
• Crime is learned
o A skill that you learn
• Criminal behavior is really no different from any other type of behavior
• It is probabilistic in the sense that just because you learn it does not mean you’re going
to do it but you have to learn it to do it
• Two things that are learned
o 1) Attitudes and orientations <-messages (or definitions)
Is it subjectively acceptable
We learn that certain types of behavior are acceptable or not acceptable
o 2) The skills and the techniques <- messages (or definitions)
o Q: Which makes up messages? A: Orientations and Skills
• It is about the ratio of unfavorable to favorable becomes very high then crime is more
probable
o When most of the messages you receive are favorable towards crime then you
are more likely to commit crime
o An excess of crime favorable messages then crime is more probable
• Some groups expose their members to an excess of crime favorable messages
• A theory of a cultural transmission of crime
o From one group to the next
o One generation to the next
• It is what happened in Baton Rouge right after Katrina
o Wind blew in a small group of people who brought with them a different culture of
crime
o Crime got more public, shoes hanging on wires, etc.
o Also happened in Houston (qualitatively crime changed)
o Brought different attitudes and orientations, and skills and techniques
• Not all messages have the same impact
o It is the messages you receive from primary groups… MOST IMPORTANT
The personal relationship
Positive and negative reinforcement is very important for learning
Criticism or praise will encourage or discourage a particular behavior
Partial reinforcement makes it hard to extinguish a particular behavior
o Impersonal agencies of communication are less important
October 24, 2013
1. Impersonalization of communication: Does media violence have much of an affect on behavior? Why are primary groups more important for delivering messages? Sutherland said that a guy named Ron Akers talked about differential reinforcement: groups reinforce us differentially; you don’t get reinforcement from impersonal groups but more from primary groups. He said that behaviors that are approved by the group are rewarded and behaviors that are disapproved are punished; you then begin to orient your behaviors towards the group. We accept some behaviors and reject others. Sutherland wrote a book called “The Professional Thief” about Chick Conwell (professional thief). Chick Conwell hung around with other professional thieves and grew up around them. The professionals would take him under their wing. He got an excess of crime favorable definitions.
• Differential reinforcement is part of the differential association theory
Professional Crime: Professional Theft
4 characteristics of professional thieves
Skill Crime is done with fewer mistakes and more profitable. There are different aspects of skill: mechanical skill is the most obvious form of skill; it involves the manual skills necessary to carry out a job (how to pick a lock, how to get into a locked car, how to get into a safe).
• Fence- buy and sell goods
• ________
o Skill
Mechanical skill
• How to pick a lock, brake into a safe
Interpersonal skill
• Professional criminals have great interpersonal skills reflecting
their capacity to get along with other people
Organizational skill
• Top criminals (the really good ones) have really good
organizational skills
• They are able to bring together materials and other people with
some notion of timing (sometimes almost at a genius level)
Perceptual skills
• The ability to perceive opportunities
• Talented people who can recognize good opportunities (not any
coming your way, they find them and take advantage of them)
• Requires you to orient yourself in a certain way
• Instantaneous recognition of opportunity
• Sometimes you perceive an opportunity to make an opportunity
o Status
They are really high up on the totem pole
They have a certain prestige or recognition (admired)
Very few percolate to the top to be the very best (many called, few are chosen)
Developed rankings and they are at the top
o Consensus
Agreement. There is a shared philosophy of life and it is learned when you become a professional criminal (thief); holds the group together
Commonly held beliefs hold the group together
Beliefs include:
• All people are basically dishonest (especially business owners)
• Many non-criminals and business owners would love to commit
the crime at the level I am but you don’t have the skills or opportunities because if you did, you would do the same.
• Some targets are more worthy of being victimized than others
o Business more acceptable than knocking off a home owner
• Criminal justice officials are all crooked and corrupt and just as
dirty as thieves. They just get away with it because they have a badge or license
• Crime is a business. (buy low and sell high)(collect interest)
Business is business.
o Differential association
Professional criminals differentially associate with other criminals
Example: When you read the book the fence, Sam Goodman talks about his early influences in life. Uncle Howie. Who taught him all kinds of things like how to be streetwise and he even got him a prostitute for his first sexual experience. Sam admired him. Sam wound up in prison and learned how to be a professional criminal. He learned how to get over on people, how to see if they are bullshitters or real, and he learned how to read people very well. He learned crime is business while in prison.
Criminals hang around criminals
• Pickpocketing
• A form of sneak theft
• A book written by David Maurer (1949) called The Whiz Nlos
o Ethnogifer (hard to come by especially a good one)
o any kind of pickpocket is called a cannon
o a non-amateur is called a class cannon
o the mark is the person who’s pocket will be picked
o the tool is the person who is actually doing the pickpocketing; the person
reaching into the pocket and taking out the money
o the stall holds the mark in position for the tool and then sends the mark back
into the flow of the crowd as if nothing happened
o the fanning is a quick exploration of the marks pockets to find out where the
goods are and is done by the stall
o framing the mark means that the stalls will use some way to communicate to
the tool who the mark is and which pocket to go for
o pratting is done in two steps: holding the mark in position for the tool to hold
them perfectly still and the second part is to send them back into the flow of the crowd
o shading the duke is something done by the stall and is the act of covering the
hand of the tool (a newspaper, shopping bag, a coat, etc.) to keep other people from spotting the tool in action
o reefing a kick is a way to pick a pocket without putting your hand all the way
in the pocket; hook the lining of pocket and giving it a quick tug (unfelt by the mark) and bounces the materials in the pocket and grabbed with fingertips
o attention surfing is getting into their space but refocusing their attention and
not making eye contact
October 29, 2013
Maurer says it’s a 15 second sequence:
o Spot a mark
o Swing in closely behind the mark (the stall will)
o Fanning
o Frame the mark
o First step of pratting occurs (holding the person for the tool)
o Two things happen at once:
The tool gets the money
Shading the duke
o Second step of pratting happens/sending the mark back into the crowd.
o They pass the money to the stall
o Then they repeat it.
• Grift sense—an intuition that pick pockets have developed over years/ “When to hit,
when to split”
• argot
o a language specific to a group
o creates solidarity within the group
o defines boundaries to keep others out
o doctors, lawyers, sociologist, etc. use them
o robbers do not have an argot because it is a primitive behavior
• the Underworld
o probably formed in the 16th or 17th century
Industrialization
• peasants used to work on someone else’s land
• when there was no longer a need for them they got the boot
• before industrialization, everything was personalized and easy to
recover
• after industrialization, everything was standardized and looked
exactly alike
• insurance came along to protect from loss goods
• guys who calculate gains and losses are called actuaries (lots of
training)
futile order breaking down
• the futile war were also coming to an end
• the men who fought in them were out of a job
• they joined the rest of the unattached poor and moved to the city
• men, ages 15-24
o Jonathan Wilde was the most successful underworld figure in London in the 19th century
o He was a fence (worked both sides of the fence)
o He was the guy you went to, to recover your property
because he had his connections
o It was his crew that stole in the first place
o Became very successful
o Every now and then he would feed the police a burglar to
keep them happy
o Eventually caught and hanged
o loosely tied
• The Neutralization theory
o Embezzlement
An embezzler is a person in the position of financial trust who misappropriates property or money entrusted to him or her
White collar
The clearance rate is not high
The reason for this is that institutions want to project an image of security and trust and if they actively prosecute every embezzler it ruins their image so they try to keep it hush
o 3 Stages in becoming an Embezzler
A gradual process (processional nature)
1) Incurring what is perceived to be a non-sharable financial problem
• Gambling debt, medical bills, drug problem, bad credit
• People under financial strain are extremely vulnerable (not a good
security risk)
2) Perceiving that embezzlement is a solution to your problem
3) You have to overcome a problem
• You are considering stealing money
o Embezzlement represents a normative conflict
Normally consider a good person, but when you are an embezzler you are a thief
A confrontation with the normative definition of yourself
An embezzler does not consider themselves to be a thief
o You develop a neutralization that allows you to engage in a behavior and still see
yourself as a good behavior
o A neutralization is a pre-behavioral justification which protects the individual from
self-blame that makes norms and ordinary social controls ineffective thereby making the deviant behavior possible; an internal conversation; norm evasions (ways to get around); negate social controls; gets us around a normative conflict
o 5 techniques of neutralization (read Sykes and Matza)
1) denial of responsibility
• The idea is that the delinquent act is due to forces outside of my
control
• Not responsible or accountable for their actions
• The person sees himself acted upon rather than acting
• “I was just following orders” -soldiers
October 31, 2013
• 5 techniques of neutralization continued
2) denial of injury
• “What I did was illegal, but I didn’t hurt anyone so big deal”
o For example: downloading music, drug use, stealing cable
o Another example is Iceman, a mafia hit man. When caught
he was asked in an interview how he felt about everything he responded that he only killed scumbags that most people would want dead anyway, and did the public a favor
3) denial of victim
• Criminals see it as a form of retribution.
o “sure I did something to someone, but they had it coming”
• In essence switches the victim and offender around (“they are not
the victim, I am”)
• Read Scully and Monroe “vocabulary of motives”
• Rapist use this technique
o She was a tease; she dressed provocatively
4) Condemnation of the condemners
• They shift the focus of attention away from their deviant act, to the
motives and behaviors of those actually doing the disapproving
• “Yea I did it, but don’t go shaking your finger at me, hypocrite!”
5) appeal to higher loyalty
• Tax evasion
o Anyone who willfully acts to defeat the tax code
Hiding income, lying
o The attempt alone completes the crime
o Must be willful not accidental and therefore it must be proven with some
independent evidence of willfulness
o Example: buying something for personal use and claiming it to be for business
use to avoid taxes (Leona Helmsley hotel owner)
• Bribery
o The giving or receiving of anything of value in corrupt payment for an official act
Has to be some public official figure (senator, policeman)
• Graft
o Its bribery but as it relates to a federal defense program
o T/F: A Graft does not have no be “official”. A: F… it is a bribery, which is “official”
• Conspiracy
o Its assumed that when people act together on crimes there is a theory that they
are more dangerous than if they act alone so the stature created to punish is conspiracy
o Agreeing with another to commit an unlawful act
Does not have to be actually committed
o Separate from the actual crime as far as prosecuting goes
• Insider trading
o Exists when the officers of a corporation or major stock holders (more than 10%
of the stock) buy or sell stock based on information known only to them before it was known to the public
o Q: Pick the one that is untrue… says insider trading exists when any stock holder
buys or sells stock based on info. known only to them before it was known to the public. Not true. Must be a MAJOR stock holder (10% of the stock)
Martha Stewart – she owned 45,000 in stock in a company and the company did not own a patent and when that happens the stock begins to go down. She was friends with the president of that company and the president found out one afternoon, Martha dumped her money from the company, made known to the public the next morning, the stock fell. Nobody would talk, but during the investigation, she lied to an investigator under her lawyer’s advice and got a year and a half for that.
• Mail fraud
o Passed in 1872
o One of the oldest federal statue
o The use of the postal services in an inter-state scheme to defraud someone out
of money or property
• Wire fraud
o The same as mail fraud, but is when you use the telephone or internet
o 1952
• Obstruction of justice
o Any act that interfere with the orderly process of civil or criminal courts
Bribing judges, refusing to give evidence, intimidating a witness, intimidating jurors
Bill Clinton got in trouble for this
• Beechnut Corporation
o Was in the business of selling baby food and baby products. One of their
products was apple juice, but there weren’t any apples in it. In 1978 they got 2 new suppliers of apple juice and one from a guy name Zeev Kaplanski at a great price. Beechnut got a tip from a former supplier that there was something wrong with it. Beechnut went to the address for the place, and saw no production just drums labeled apple juice but did not investigate further. A year later Nestle bought it and put two guys in charge, Niels Hoyvald and John Lavary. Were told to make money. Then some guy in marketing approached John Lavary and says there was something fishy going on with the supplier and John told him to shut up and go back to work and the guy quit. In 1982, the industry trade group, The Apple Process Institute, hired a PI to investigate the reports and the PI came back with a report that it was phony, no apples. They go to Beechnut and told them what was up but they kept using the product instead of fixing it. At this point the FDA steps in and wanted to test the product. *back in 1978 Beechnut tested the product and the results were inconclusive* FDA finds that it was not apple juice (better testing). So now Beechnut is afraid that it will be confiscated and they have lots of it. In the middle of the night, they moved it to another location and then shipped most of it oversees where the FDA has no jurisdiction. For the next 6 months they took the phony apple juice that was left and added it to mixed juices, and yogurts. Neils Hoyvald and John Lavary were brought up on charges. Each defendant was charged 100,000, the cost of the prosecution, and a year and a day for each count served concurrently. Hoyvald appealed and got the deal of 100,000 fine, 5 years’ probation, and 1000 hours of community service.
November 5, 2013
Opportunity Theory
• If people don’t have access to the legitimate means to be successful they have problems
and that crime can be the result
• What’s missing?
o The other side of that is they would need access to the illegitimate means
o Just because you are willing does not mean you are able
• Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin
o Asked the question “Why would crime be the automatic result?”
o Maybe the illegitimate world contains means deficiency as well
o Every opportunity whether illegitimate or legitimate requires access to 2 things:
The Learning Structure- being in an environment for the acquisition of values and skills associated with a performance for some activity (being in the right place at the right time to learn the right things)
The Performance Structure- the opportunity to perform the roles once the skills and the orientations have been acquired
• If there is no opportunity to commit a crime then you will not
commit it
• An example of reducing the performance opportunity to commit a
crime—casino
• Q: Black jack example in class is an example of which theory? A:
Opportunity Theory? Or Neutralization Theory?
o Merton applied it to the legitimate world, Cloward and Ohlin said it applied to the
illegitimate too
o Occasionally people have access to both worlds for instance John Gotti’s son
o The homeless have access to neither – double losers
When they are essentially shut out, they disengage; not even part of our society (not playing the game)
o High crime condition is having high access to the illegitimate world and low
access to the legitimate world; the low crime condition is the opposite
November 19, 2013
• Social Control Theory
o Emile Durkheim and Travis Hirshi
o People are hedonistic and seek gratification at the expense of others
o Classical theory
o T/F: Differential Association Theory is a classical theory that says people seek
gratification at the expense of others. A: False.
o Microlevel
o Hedonistic- maximize pleasure and minimize pain
o Control is necessary
o A person controlled by the bonds they have with mainstream society
o If no bonds are present, there is no way to control a person
o Engage in deviance if a person has nothing to lose
o If they have a lot to lose, they are constrained because they have stakes in
conformity
o Asks “Why do we conform?”
Answer : because of our bonds
o Bonds
Attachment-
• emotiona l or the affective bond with other conventional persons
o Something else to protect
o For example: you cheat and get thrown out of school, but
now you have to go home and tell your parents, kids, etc. The knowledge that that is there pulls you into conformity because it is something to protect. If you do not have anyone in important in your life, you have no one to disappoint.
o Conscious for control theorist is your attachments to other
conventional people
o When you get married you marry into another family and
create more affective attachments and therefore are even more likely to commit crimes
Commitment
• Economic or your reputational or your certificational stake in
conformity
o Savings, investments, your credit rate, university degree,
buying a house, and building a business or career all pull you into conformity
o For example: your career is so important that you will
watch what you say to who in the workplace and what you wear
o Economic report card
o The more you have the more you have to protect
Involvement
• Refers to your time investment on the assumption that time is
finite resource that you don’t have time for systematic deviance
o Idle mind is the devils workshop (keep kids busy)
Belief
• Belief of philosophical investment
o Do you believe in the notion of conventional society
o Do you believe that certain things are wrong and in rules
o Sovereign citizens – people who believe that the US
government are illegal and that they can do whatever they want
Potentially dangerous
Want to be left alone
Can be unpredictable if they are called out by authorities
Don’t recognize authorities
o For example: if you believe a certain law is unjust, you are
more likely to commit that crime
o Floaters – adolescent men (ages 16-20) who are not
connected to anything, not employed or in the labor force, not in sports, not in school, not in the military, not in church, just not attached to any conventional institution
Not connected to anything
No control over them
They are the most dangerous
Professors theory: From the early 2000’s up to 2009 crime rose potentially because there was an increase in floaters
• 15 years earlier, there was a rise in teen
pregnancy , during the late 80s (crack cocaine error) and those babies entered the crime prone age around that time
o Criticisms of this theory…
Overly simplistic view of society
• One modelific mainstream society, we may have multiple
subcultures or nuances that this model does not take into account; could be attached to other things
Some of these bonds are tough to measure such as attachment
• Social Disorganization Theory
o Q: Asks if social disorganization theory studies at the individual level. A: No.
o Macro level – communities not on an individual level
o Instead of asking how controlled is a person by the bonds of society, we now ask
how well the community control the behavior of it’s individuals
o Clifford Shaw and McKay
Wanted to get away from these individualistic views of society
As a result of Darwin’s influence and this tinged of proclivity toward social Darwinism there was the view that people’s behavior is irreconcilably to their biological, or genetic makeup
In the 1920s the big social issue was immigration. “Are these immigrants going to contaminate our society?”
• Eastern European (Jews) and Asian
• Concern that Asians were primitive and stupid
• Didn’t like Catholics either
• Liked western Europeans, but not even southern Europeans
• They are going to contaminate the purity of our society with these
people
• That’s when the KKK 2.0 came about (KKK 1.0 was shut down in
1860s) and they were very powerful (about 5 million members)
o Wanted to keep America white and western European
• The reason being was that these people were poor and crime
ridden and they assumed that it was something inherent
• Broke Chicago down into neighborhoods and looked at crime
rates for a 30 year period (1900-1930) and posed this question “If people’s likelihood to commitment crime was inherent, why did the crime in these areas remain stable despite the fact that the makeup of the neighborhood changed?”
o What they found was that instead of having to do with
individualistic characteristics, low crime communities were places that did not change very much and high crime communities were communities that underwent rapid social change.
The Theory of Social Change
• What does Social change do? Why does it lead to crime?
o It disrupts the order of the community.
o A community is interconnected by rules and norms
o Communities have formal networks such as church,
schools, sports organization and these institutions are going to participated in by members of the community from the time you are young until adulthood. You will constantly be handed the rulebook by these institutions of this society. Socialization. The community has to be organized, and they has to be some communication between these organizations
o A community also has informal networks, such as friends,
associates, family, etc.
November 21, 2013
*Test Tuesday*
• Social Disorganization Theory (continued)
o University of Chicago
o Social Change disrupts the neighborhood (networks)
Informal
Formal
o Networks cannot be maintained if change is currently taking place, and they
cannot exert control over their members
o Social control is anything the community does to hand you the rule book and
move you along socially acceptable lines of action
Example: neighbor rats out your kid for misbehaving
o Places matter more than people (not a kinds of people explanation but a kinds of
places explanation)
o Infantry units have to be tightly knit and organized
o Main goal of a community
Socialize the younger members and to do that they have to have organization and unity
o Emphasis on society
o Chicago in the decades prior to 1930s
Huge and rapid social change
1) Rapid industrialization
The Rust Belt
• Corridor between Chicago and New York (I80)
• In the good ol days industries were pouring in their
2) Urbanization
• Had to build neighborhoods to accommodate all the people
moving in their
3) Immigration and Migration
• People moved around a lot
• A lot of south to north movement
o Black migration
o Better jobs and better opportunities
o W. I. Thomas and Florian Znachiecki
The Polish Peasant in Europe and America
Conducted in the 1920s
University of Chicago
Thomas was walking down the sidewalk in the good ol’ days there was no sewage system. They threw their garbage out the window, and rode on horses. People showered less often. The city smelt horrible. Someone threw out a bag of garbage and it split open and there was a bunch of letters of correspondence of a Polish peasant and he reads them. He found evidence of a real discomfort and a harsh life. There were complaints no rules in this country, divorce was up, kids were out of control, no rules of conduct, suicide rates, and crime rates are going up. He began to read everything he could get his hands on relative to this
issue (like court documents). The same people (polish) new place and they had new and more problems. They had no more social control over their members because of all the social change. Q: Young males more violent. Why?
o Robert Park and Earnest Burgess
Came up with The Concentric Zone Model of the City
University of Chicago
They were all coming up with these theories simultaneous
Natural areas of _____
Divided the city out into zones
Looked like a bullseye
Zone 1
• The Central Business District
• Central of the city (heart of the city)
• Focus of Social Change
Zone 2
• The Transition Zone
• Highest rate of crime
• Very disorganized
• High suicide rates, high divorce rates
• High rates of crime no matter what racial group lived there
Zone 3
• The Multiple Family, Working Class Zone
• Lots of duplexes, and apartments
• Crime rates have come down some
• Insulated by the Transition Zone
Zone 4
• Q: Which area is directly outside of the Multiple Family, Working
Class Zone? Make sure you pick Single Family RESIDENTAL zone… there is also just a single family zone.
• The Single Family Resident zone
• Old single family homes
o The Garden District of Baton Rouge for example
Zone 5
• The Commuter Zone
• Lowest of crime rates
• Once the neighborhoods are built, not too much else happens.
• Quiet
• The Suburbs
By the way, it is opposite in France, crime is higher in the Burbs
o The Chicago Area Project
If disorganization is the problem than reorganization is the solution
Conservative view is punish individual, liberal view is help and treat individuals but this theory is a bit different
Treat the area and then watch the crime rates go down
Identified 22 different areas in Chicago that were disorganized and recruited people from the area to help with this project and put them in key decision making positions
2 strategies
• Coordinate the strategies of different organization to strengthen
formal ties
• Sponsor youth programs. 3 types
o Help police and the courts develop their own youth
programs to help guide them and help integrate them
o Upgrade the neighborhood,
build playgrounds, cross walks
o expand recreational resources
give them a place to play
• a church basement, a classroom (not
behind a warehouse) so they are still under
Went on for 25 years and did not measure it
What little measurement was a great decrease in delinquency
o Boo Thomas of Baton Rouge
Got a grant to clean up the area around the Baton Rouge area
• Paint and plant gardens and fix it up
It worked, but she did not measure it
Asked professor to measure it so that she could get another grant
5 year program
Big reduction
From 1 out of 40 to 1 out of 400 robberies occurred in that area
So she got another grant from Baton Rouge General
Told professor anything you need just let me know
Apart of Baton Rouge Health ____
Called her and asked for favor to see the guy from Apollo 13 at the dinner this organization was throwing and she agreed and gave him an opportunity to meet him before the dinner
Caught laryngitis but went anyway to meet Jim Level
o Social Integration as a focus died out for a while after the 40s
o Rob Sampson from The University of Chicago
Most cited social scientist
Very well published man
Created a link between family structure and crime in an interesting way
Black male unemployment ->family structure -> crime
For women finding a marriage partner is hard because you have to find someone who is economically viable
While the ratio of black men to women was fine
But the male marriage pool index was very low in this ratio for black women
The way welfare was structured at the time was that if she got married she would receive no more welfare
Choice between stable check and a chance in a slim pool of good black men
They chose check
There was an economic disincentive for marriage
Single parent households went up
Single parent households more likely to produce delinquents?
• Been looking for relation for years and cannot find one
When you get a collection of single parent households in an area crime rates go up and that has to do with Social Disorganization Theory
Communities with single parent households are more disorganized because:
• Fewer formal networks
o Single mothers have a HUGE role overload so they don’t
have the time or money to participate in formal networks of the community
• Fewer informal networks
o Less contact with neighbors because of less time
o Single parents have less contact with their children’s peers
o Fewer parents around period to be watchful (just numbers
wise)
Consequently crime rates are higher
Not a theory of what happens under the roof of the house, it is a theory of the community
When you leave home you step into a community with less social control
Relate to other places
• New Orleans after Katrina
o Crime skyrocketed because of social change
o Communities were broken down
o Baton Rouge was disorganized
• Iraq when we invaded
• Read chapter one of professors book
TEST 2 INFO ENDS HERE
Q: Asks about age curve of crime. A: rise in mid teens, fall in early 20’s
