Crime and Criminology

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Crime and Criminology

• What is crime?
• Durkheim on crime
• What is deviance?

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Carol Carr

• The woman, Carol Carr, 64, killed her sons,
  Michael R. Scott, 42, and Andy B. Scott, 41, in a
  nursing home
• Both men were in the advanced stages of
  Huntington's disease and were bedridden and
  unable to communicate.
• The disease, a degenerative nerve disorder that
  causes involuntary body movement, dementia and
  death, killed their father, Ms. Carr's first
  husband.
• ''What she did was illegal, but also what she did
  was moral she stopped the suffering of these
  children,'' her lawyer, Lee Sexton, said.

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Lorena Bobbitt (1970 - )

• Perpetrator of domestic abuse
• Lorena Bobbitt married John Wayne Bobbitt on June
  18, 1989
• Five years later, on the night of June 23, 1993,
  she severed her husband's penis with a kitchen
  knife while he was sleeping
• She then got in her car and flung the penis out
  the window while driving
• It was later found and surgically reattached.

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Lorena Bobbitt (1970 - )

• According to police reports, Lorena pleaded
  self-defense, saying that John had continuously
  raped her
• John adamantly denied her accusations
• John was acquitted of charges of assault against
  Lorena in 1993.
• In 1994, Lorena was found not guilty based on
  expert testimony stating that her husbands abuse
  had caused her to suffer from post-traumatic
  stress disorder, or temporary insanity, at the
  time of the crime
• She was ordered to spend 45 days in a psychiatric
  hospital.

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Lorena Bobbitt (1970 - )

• Lorena and John Bobbitt divorced in 1995
• She currently works as a hair stylist in Asburn,
  Virginia.

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Clifton Eames

• Clifton Eames was a law school graduate who found
  it difficult to pass the bar
• But apparently his wife was much more successful
  in her dental (student/school) career
• After a stormy marriage the couple eventually
  divorced
• Police say on Monday Eames shot and killed his
  ex-wife Mina Rosenthal-Eames
• He was later shot and killed after a gunfight
  with police

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Crime can be defined

• Form of normal behavior
• Violation of behavioral norms
• Form of deviant behavior
• Legally defined behavior
• Violation of human rights
• Social harm/injury
• Form of inequality

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Emile Durkheim (1895)

• Made three specific claims about the nature of
  crime
• Crime is normal
• Crime is inevitable
• Crime is useful

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Crime is normal

• There he argued that crime, in itself, is a
  normal social phenomenon and should not be
  considered morbid or pathological.
• Crimes occur in all societies
• They are closely tied to the facts of collective
  life
• Crime rates tend to increase as societies evolve
  from lower to higher phases

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In primitive society

• Punishment was more severe
• Criminal act offends the strong, well-defined
  common consciousness
• A crime against another personcrime against the
  entire society
• Rejection was the most terrible punishment

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In industrialized society

• A crime against another personcrime against
  another person
• Punishmentisolation

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Crime is inevitable

• No society can ever get entirely rid of crime
• Imagine a community of saints in a perfect and
  exemplary monastery
• Faults that appear venial to the ordinary person
  will arouse the same scandal as does normal crime
  
• Absolute conformity to rules is impossible
• Each member in society faces variation in
  background, education, heredity, social
  influences

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Crime is inevitable

• It seems impossible for everyone to share
  precisely the same strong sentiments
• Since we are subject to different hereditary
  antecedents and are located in different physical
  and social environments, each of us will have
  somewhat different experiences and will perceive
  the world from a somewhat different viewpoint
• We may expect people who have had similar
  experiences to perceive things in similar ways,
  and those who have had very different experiences
  to perceive at least some things in very
  different ways

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Crime is inevitable

• Given that some of us are bound to have very
  different experiences, the development of
  conflicting sentiments, and the translation of
  these sentiments into violent arguments, seems to
  be an unavoidable consequence of social life

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Crime is useful

• Crime is functional for society
• By punishing criminals, society reaffirms it own
  values
• If crimes were not committed, then the values of
  society would become blurred
• If there is no punishment, then there would be no
  way of reestablishing the values that the crime
  offends

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Crime is useful

• Crime is indispensable to the
• normal evolution of law and morality
• Crime often is a symptom of individual
  originality and a preparation for changes in
  society
• Rosa Parks (was a criminal) is a hero now
• Her simple act of protest galvanized America's
  civil rights revolution

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Three perspectives on crime

• The Consensus View of Crime
• The Conflict View of Crime
• The Interactionist View of Crime

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The Consensus View of Crime

• Consensus agreement
• Crimes are behaviors believed to be repugnant
  (repulsive) to all elements of society
• Substantive criminal law written code that
  defines crimes and their punishments
• This code reflects the values, beliefs, and
  opinions of societys mainstream
• Concept of ideal legal system Everybody's Equal
  Under The Law

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Legalistic definition

• Crime is human conduct in violation of the
  criminal laws of state, the federal government,
  or a local jurisdiction that has the power to
  make such laws
• Some activities are not crimes even though they
  are immoral (watching pornography, torturing
  animals, creating poor working conditions)

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Domestic Violence

• Twenty-five years ago, police, prosecutors, and
  judges did not view domestic abuse (rape and
  battering) as real crime but rather as private
  matter where the woman to blame
• No law no crime

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Federal Domestic Violence Laws in the United
States

• The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) .
• "Domestic abuse" means the following, if
  committed against a family or household member by
  a family or household member
• (1) physical harm, bodily injury, or assault
• (2) the infliction of fear of imminent physical
  harm, bodily injury, or assault.

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Family or household members

• spouses and former spouses
• persons related by blood
• persons who are presently residing together or
  who have resided together in the past
• persons who have a child in common regardless of
  whether they have been married or have lived
  together at any time
• a man and woman if the woman is pregnant and the
  man is alleged to be the father, regardless of
  whether they have been married or have lived
  together at any time and

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Conflict View of Crime

• Powerful groups of people label selected
  undesirable forms of behavior as illegal
• Powerful individuals use their power to establish
  laws and sanctions against less powerful persons
  and groups
• Official statistics indicate that crime rates in
  inner-city, high-poverty areas are higher than
  those in suburban areas
• Self-reports of prison inmates show that
  prisoners are members of the lower class

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Conflict View of Crime

• Powerful individuals are able to influence the
  making laws
• Powerful individuals may escape the label
  criminal

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Eliot Spitzer, 48

• Had a reputation as a hard-nosed "Mr. Clean" who
  had built his career as a relentless and
  moralistic foe of organized crime, corruption and
  alleged unethical Wall Street behavior
• New York's North Fork Bank informed the U.S.
  Treasury Department about suspicious transfers of
  money from Spitzer's accounts
• Spitzer had spent up to 80,000 dollars on call
  girls going back 10 years to his time as New York
  state attorney general

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Conflict View of Crime

• Crime of inequality includes a lot of behaviors
  that are omitted by legalistic definition
• Crime is a political concept used to protect
  powerful people
• Crimes of power (price fixing, economic crimes,
  unsafe working conditions, nuclear waste
  products, war-making, domestic violence, etc)

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Child labor - Crime?

• For many years, human rights groups have attacked
  Nike for the low pay and terrible working
  conditions, and for the use of child labor
• Nike admitted employing children in Third World
  countries but added that ending the practice
  might be difficult

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Child Labor

• About half of the world's soccer balls are made
  in Pakistan, and each one of them passes through
  a process of production where child labor is
  involved
• About 7,000 children between the ages of 5 and 14
  have no time for school because they work
  full-time manufacturing soccer balls, earning
  about 50 cents for each ball they produce
• Majority of these children work in Asia, India,
  Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia

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Eleven-year-old Imtyaz from Pakistan
Imtyaz stiches a soccer ball
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Child Labor

• So what happens when you question Nike about
  child labor practices?
• An answer comes that it is not they who are
  involved in child labor practices but  it is the
  local subcontracter who is doing so

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Poor working conditions

• Up to fifty percent of workers
• cannot drink water or go to the toilet
• when they want
• A quarter of workers receive less than the legal
  minimum wage (less than 2.00 per day), even
  though Nike makes huge profits
• Abusive treatment", physical and verbal, is
  exercised in more than a quarter of its plants

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Gap

• The clothing company Gap
• Report revealed terrible working conditions in
  its factories in Mexico, China, and India
• Report disclosed details of child labor, the
  virtual slavery of workers and working weeks in
  excess of 80 hours.

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'Eco-mafia''

• The developing South (particularly African
  countries like Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Algeria
  and Mozambique) has become the dump for hundreds
  of thousands of tones of radioactive waste from
  the world's rich countries
• A colossal business which is linked to money
  laundering and gunrunning

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Nuclear waste dumps found by Greenpeace

• Illegal dumps - among the largest in the world -
  in Somalia, where workers handle the radioactive
  waste without any kind of safeguard or protective
  gear - not even gloves
• The workers do not know what they are handling,
  and if one of them dies, the family is persuaded
  to keep quiet with a small bit of cash

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Interactionist View of Crime

• This view takes a smaller scale view of society
  and social order and analyses small or medium
  scale social interactions
• The main idea behind the interactionist approach
  to crime is that the definition of what is
  criminal/deviant is socially negotiated
• It also differs according to where you are and
  with whom at any given moment

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Example

• Imagine that a young male of 18 is walking home
  late one night through the city streets singing
  at the top of his lungs and weaving about in the
  road
• The police are called and the young man is taken
  to the police station
• When he gets there he explains that earlier that
  day he has been accepted at Cambridge University
  and he had been out with his friends to celebrate

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Example

• He has no previous police record. His father is
  the local GP (General Practitioner)
• The police call his father who arrives looking
  rather embarrassed. He apologizes to the police
  and they have a little joke together about young
  men and boys will be boys
• The young man is sent home with a mild warning
  and the suggestion that he won't feel very well
  in the morning.

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Another Scenario

• A young male of 18 is walking home late one night
  through the city streets singing at the top of
  his lungs
• The police are called and the young man is taken
  to the police station
• When he gets there he explains that earlier that
  day he has been out with his friends to celebrate
  birthday
• When asked for his address and telephone number
  the police realize that he lives in a notorious
  housing estate that has a high rate of criminal
  activity.
• The police call his father who arrives looking
  not very embarrassed. He apologizes to the
  police but they are unimpressed
• The boy is charged with breach of the peace

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Howard Becker (1966)

• It is not act itself, but the reactions to the
  act, that make something deviant
• People in different social groups/societies
  react differently to the same behavior
• Moreover, within the same society at a given time
  the perception of deviance varies by class,
  gender, race, and age (subculture,
  counterculture)

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Relativity of crime

• Space
• Time
• Social context

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Adultery is crime

• Saudi Arabia, the
• United Arab Emirates,
• the Sudan, and some of
• the northern states of Nigeria practice a very
  strict form of Sharia law
• Sharia law requires that married or divorced
  persons found guilty of Zina (adultery) be
  executed by stoning

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Sati tradition

• Within the Indian culture there is a custom in
  which a woman burns herself either on the funeral
  pyre of her deceased husband or by herself
  shortly after his death
• Proof of her loyalty to husband

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Prostitution

• Prostitution legalized in Netherlands from
  October 1, 2000
• Prostitutes have the right to hygienic working
  conditions and security in the workplace
• They must pay taxes
• Can have social insurance, be paid sick leave,
  and receive a pension if they work for a brothel
  or own a company
• According to estimates published by the de Graaf
  Foundation, some 25,000 people work as
  prostitutes in the Netherlands

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Prostitutions in the USA

• A federal law against prostitution concentrate on
  the prohibition of crossing state or
  international boundaries for the purpose of
  engaging in sex for pay
• In selected counties in Nevada prostitution is
  not criminalized

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Prostitution in Canada

• Law does not criminalize prostitution
• It instead criminalizes communication with the
  intent to arrange for prostitution (Street
  prostitution was a problem in Toronto and
  Vancouver)
• The law was to be enforced equally against people
  working as prostitutes and against customers
• Results concentration of police apprehension on
  less-advantaged prostitutes (homeless or addicted
  to drugs)

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Alternative conceptualization of prostitution

• Does criminalization punish people for making
  reasonable choices when trading sex for money is
  the only way, or the best way, they can survive
• Alternative view of the culpability of people who
  sell sex versus the culpability of customers,
  entrepreneurs, and network that support
  prostitution
• Prostitute as victim or prostitute as a sex worker

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Social Context of crime

• Crime is socially constructed (Burger, 1968)
• Do you agree with Burger?
• An criminal act can be the same but the
  interpretation of it can be different

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The vocabulary of Homicide

• Murder is the name for legally unjustified,
  intentional homicide (legal and moral meanings)
• Execution is the name for justified homicide
  (when terrorists kill their enemies)
• Journalist Ambrose Bierce Homicide is the
  slaying of one human being by another. There are
  four kinds of homicide felonious, excusable,
  justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no
  great difference slain whether he fell by one
  kind or another-the classification is for the
  purposes of the lawyers.

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Vocabulary of homicide

• Debate about abortion
• Those who oppose call it murder
• Those who favor legal access to abortion speak of
  terminating pregnancy or removing tissue
• Different moralities-different vocabularies
• Is Crime socially constructed?

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Palestinian Suicide Bombers

• Claim that it is merely a tactic of war in
  defense of their land and homes
• They see it as a heroic act of martyrdom, not
  suicide

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What is deviance?

• Deviance involves the violation of group norms
  which may or may not be formalized into law
• Some examples criminals, alcoholics, people
  with tattoos, compulsive gamblers, and the
  mentally ill

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Deviance is commonplace

• We are all deviant from time to time
• Each of us violates common social norms in
  certain situations
• Being late for class is categorized as deviant
  act
• Dressing too casually for a formal wedding

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Deviance

• Deviation from norm is not always negative
• A member of an exclusive club who speaks out
  against its traditional policy of excluding
  women, or poor people
• Police officer who speaks against corruption
  within the department

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Deviance

• Deviant behavior is human activity that is
  statistically different from the average
• Deviance and crime are concepts that do not
  always easily mesh
• Some forms of deviance are not violations of the
  criminal law and the reverse is true as well

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Relationship between crime and deviance