Eugenics and crime:
Biological Basis for Crime???
 Lombroso
SOCIOLOGY not biology:
 SOCIOLOGY
explains deviance not in
terms of the individual, but rather how
the society reacts to the person or event
Deviance defined:
 Deviance
(violation of norms) and crime
(violation of norms written into law) is
socially constructed, which means it
varies across time and place
 But
it is not the act itself that makes it
deviant, but the reaction of the society to
the act!!!
 Deviance is always relative (different
people define different acts as deviant)
Case study:
Deviance and Drugs
 Criminalization
of a drug is a function of:
 Norms
 Time
 Place
 Actor
 Audience
 How
do you see each of these playing a
role in “Hooked: Illegal Drugs”?
Case study:
Deviance and Drugs

Labeling is relative and affected by
assumptions about class, race, and gender
 Why do some drugs remain legal while others
not?


Who benefits from legal drugs?
“Those drugs that are considered the most
deviant are likely to be those most used among
less powerful groups…including lower-class
individuals, those in socially marginal occupations,
students, and those not fully assimilated to the
United States” (pg. 210)
For example…

African Americans 12% of population but 50%
of those in jail or prison



Why??? Class, racial profiling, types of crimes
committed and link to profiling, visibility, perception
of harm, and media focus
ERPA still pending
16% in the population with less than a high
school education, 43% of them are in jail or
prison
Questions to answer on a
piece of paper in pairs:
1) When you think of crime, what specific crimes come
to mind? Why are these the crimes you think
of first?
2) When you think of a criminal, what mental picture
comes to mind? Describe that mental picture. Why
is that the picture you have in your mind?



ALL TOGETHER:
How would you describe the images of crime and
criminals that come to mind looking at the images
from all groups in class?
In terms of cost and loss of life, what types of crime
are the most harmful?
The image versus the reality:
 Harm
of elite crime (pg. 206)
 Intra-racial crime statistics
 WHY do we have such a distorted
image of criminals?
 Are
media representations of crime
accurate???
 Compare sentencing (pg. 207)
Ethical Dilemma:
Ford Motors Pinto Memo, 1968

What would you do???
Deviance in Families
 Domestic
violence and abuse in families
is often overlooked, but one of the
greatest sources of violence in our
society
 Origins of the phrase “Rule of Thumb”
(pg. 210)
Reactions to deviance include:
 Imprisonment
 We
have the highest incarceration rates
(see Figure 8.2 on page 218), but
incarceration has little to do with reducing
crime
 What invisible punishments help us
understand high rates (67%) of recidivism?
(pg. 218)
Creative Sentencing?
 Given
high rates of recidivism, is
creative sentencing (pg. 219) an option?
 What
types of sentences would you
recommend for various crimes?
 Are there instances in which you would not
use creative sentencing?
 Do you approve of the use of creative
sentencing in the 3 cases in your book?