SOC101Y

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SOC101Y

• Introduction to Sociology
• Professor Robert Brym
• Lecture 15
• Crime and Deviance
• 28 Jan 09

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Definitions I

• Deviance involves breaking a norm and eliciting a
  negative reaction from others.
• Informal punishment is mild and may involve
  raised eyebrows, gossip, ostracism or
• Stigmatization. When people are stigmatized, they
  are negatively evaluated because of a perceptible
  sign that distinguishes them from others.
• Formal punishment results from people breaking
  laws, which are norms stipulated and enforced by
  government bodies.

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Definitions II

• Social diversions are minor acts of deviance such
  as participating in fads.
• Social deviations are more serious acts. A larger
  proportion of people agree they are deviant and
  somewhat harmful, and they are usually subject to
  institutional sanction.
• The state defines conflict crimes as illegal but
  the definition is controversial in the wider
  society.
• Consensus crimes are widely agreed to be bad in
  themselves.

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Definitions III

• Power is the probability that one actor within a
  social relationship will be in a position to
  carry out his or her own will despite resistance.
• White-collar crime refers to illegal acts
  committed by a person of respectability and high
  social status in the course of his or her
  occupation.
• Street crimes include arson, burglary, robbery,
  assault, and other illegal acts. They are
  committed disproportionately by people from lower
  classes.

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Definitions IV

• Victimless crimes, such as prostitution and
  illegal drug use, involve violations of the law
  in which no victim steps forward and is
  identified.
• Self-report surveys are especially useful. In
  such surveys, respondents are asked to report
  their involvement in criminal activities, either
  as perpetrators or victims.

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Victimization Percent of Offences by Type of
Crime, Seven Countries, 2000
Percent of offences
Percent of population victimized by all crimes
Note Contact crimes include robberies, sexual
incidents, and assaults and threats. Horizontal
lines indicate international average for each
type of crime for all 17 countries in the survey.
Thirty-eight percent of the population of all 17
countries were victimized in the year preceding
the survey.
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Crime Rate by Province, 2006
Crimes per 100,000 population
Territorial crime rates are extraordinarily high
about 23,000 in the Yukon, 37,000 in Nunavut and
43,000 in the Northwest Territories.
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1991
Crimes per 100,000 population
Graph excludes traffic crime, the rate of which
has been stable at about 375. Between 1991 and
2006, total crime was down 27, violent crime was
down 10, property crime was down 42, other
(mainly drug-related) crime was down 5.
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Homicide Rate, Canada, 1961-2006
Homicides per 100,000 population
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Homicide Rate by Gun Ownership, 1990s
USA
Homicide rate per 100,000 population
Japan
New Zealand
Australia
Canada
UK
Thousands of guns owned per 100,000 population
Note About 30 of Canadian homicides and 70 of
American homicides involve firearms.
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Population per Police Officer, Canada, 1991-2006
Population/officer
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Number of Prisoners per 100,000 Population,
Selected Countries, c. 2005
Prisoners per 100,000 population
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Only 2 of crimes in Canada result in sentencing
to custody (2006)
5 million
2.8 million
532,000
252,000
100,000
Percent
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Persons Charged in Criminal Incidents, Canada,
1991-2006
Thousands of charges
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Sentences to Federal and Provincial Prisons
1997-2005
Sentences
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Total Crime Rate and Unemployment Rate, Canada,
1991-2006
Total crime rate
Unemployment rate
Unemployment rate
Year
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Abortions and Crime, USA, 1973-97
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The percentage of sentenced Aboriginal adults
increases with the log of the percentage of
Aboriginal adults in a population (2004-05)
Nunavut
NWT
Saskatchewan
Yukon
logarithmic function
Manitoba
Aboriginals adults sentenced as percent of
adults sentenced
Alberta
BC
Aboriginal adults as percent of adult population
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Why the Crime Rate for Aboriginals and Blacks is
Higher than the Crime Rate for Whites in North
America

• Racism exists in the criminal justice system
  (e.g., age, class, and lack of criminal activity
  act as prophylactics against stops and searches
  for whites and Asians, but not blacks).
• Aboriginal and black men experience relatively
  high discrimination, high unemployment, and low
  per capita income as a result of their race.

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Arrest by Race, USA, 2006

• Racial group of Pop. of Arrests
• White 75.1 69.7
• Black 12.3 28.0
• American Indian 0.9 1.3
• Asian 3.7 1.1

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The Two Big Trends in Social Control

• The medicalization of deviance. Medical
  definitions of deviant behaviour are becoming
  more prevalent.
• Getting tough on crime.

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An Example of the Medicalization of Deviance
Five North American surveys conducted in the
1950s and 1960s presented respondents with the
following anecdote. The graph on the right shows
the percentage of respondents who considered the
behavior described in the anecdote evidence of
mental illness. Notice the difference between the
1950s and the 1960s. (Nearly 100 of
psychiatrists who evaluated the anecdote thought
it illustrated simple schizophrenia.) Now
heres a young woman in her twenties, lets call
her Betty Smith she has never had a job, and she
doesnt seem to want to go out and look for one.
She is a very quiet girl, she doesnt talk much
to anyone -- even her own family, and she acts
like she is afraid of people, especially young
men her own age. She wont go out with anyone,
and whenever someone comes to visit her family,
she stays in her own room until they leave. She
just stays by herself and daydreams all the time
and shows no interest in anything or anybody.
Percent of respondents who considered
behavior indicative of mental illness
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Why Deviance is Becoming Medicalized

• Many North Americans are now experiencing more
  stress than ever before, due mainly to the
  increased demands of work and a growing time
  crunch.
• North American culture predisposes people to
  define social problems scientifically.
• Various professional organizations have an
  interest in inflating the number and scope of
  mental disorders.

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The Death Penalty, 2005
The most controversial punishment is the death
penalty or capital punishment. Organizations such
as Amnesty International believe the death
penalty is a serious human rights violation. Much
research shows that it is not an effective
deterrent, and concern continues to rise
regarding racial bias and wrongful conviction in
the use of the death penalty. Despite the
controversy, 48 of the worlds countries allow
capital punishment for at least some types of
crimes. How can you explain the global
distribution of these laws? The data suggest a
positive relationship between economic
development and abolishing the death penalty, but
there are obvious exceptions. Notably, the United
States, one of the most developed countries in
the world, still allows the death penalty.
Several African countries, though poor, outlaw
capital punishment. What factors other than
economic development might account for these
exceptions?
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Why Getting Tough May Not Pay

• Capital punishment may result in the execution of
  innocent people, doesnt deter murderers, and is
  often biased.
• Tough prison sentences do not result in lower
  crime rates and they create hardened criminals.