Lecture 5 (~20 slides)
Assumes audience reads:
* Kitsuse and Cicourel “A Note on the Uses of Official Statistics.”
* Robert O’Brien. 1996. “Police Productivity and Crime Rates:
1973-1992.” Criminology 34 (2): 183-207. [PREFERABLY
SELECTIONS THAT ARE RELEVANT, REDACTING THE HIGHLY
TECHNICAL STATISTICS
* On the NCVS— http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm
On the UCR— http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm
Comparing the National Crime Victims Survey (NCVS) and
Uniform Crime Reports methodologies:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ntmc.htm
-(Optionally: Biderman & Reiss. 1967. “On Exploring the ‘Dark Figure’ of Crime.”
AAAPS 374: 1-15).
-(Optionally: Donald Black. 1970. “Production of Crime Rates.” American
Sociological Review 35 (4): 63-77.)
Lecture 5
The Social Reality of Crime
Discussion question…
• Let us focus on probably the most formal
kind of deviance: crime
• Notice two themes…
1. Why “formal” social control?
Discussion question…
• We’re going to focus on probably the most formal kind of
deviance: crime
• Notice two themes…
1.
Why “formal”?
Because it is actually codified in law, courts, prisons,
unlike “informal” deviance? Recorded bureaucratically;
By institutions.
2.
What would count as “informal” deviance?
Discussion question…
• We’re going to focus on probably the most formal kind of
deviance: crime
• Notice two themes…
1.
Why “formal”?
Because it is actually codified in law, courts, prisons, unlike
“informal” deviance?
By institutions.
2.
What would count as “informal” deviance?
Getting drunk (over 21); is that deviant? Keeping a messy
house; urinating/defecating in a cat box (if you’re a human)
Discussion question…
• Even though crime is formal and written
down, definitions of crime still
______________(?)
Discussion …
• Even the crime is formal and written
down, definitions of crime still change –
all the time
Across time, place, social situations.
There is no specific act that is considered
everywhere and always deviant.
Crime rates
• We generally hear about “the crime rate” in
the news.
– Is there such a thing as “the crime rate”?
– Is it “real”? What would that question even mean?
The “Reality” of Crime
Sociological Viewpoints:
– As an “imperfect measure”—or “realist” view
– As a social process of “defining crime”—or
“institutionalist” view
• Different Sociologists Use Crime Rates for
Different Purposes
– To study criminality or to study social control
Crime rates
• We generally hear about “the crime rate” in the
news.
– Is there such a thing as “the crime rate”?
• Different views, but the most sociologically
sophisticated ones recognize that “the” crime
rate (actually two official ones) is produced
through a social process, involving not simply
crime (or “reports of crime”) but mainly
institutional records
Challenges to the “Objective Reality” of
Crime Rates
• Some people argue there is no final
“objective” standard – what counts as crime is
not a fixed variable (e.g., the law changes
every year!)
• Different agents of formal social control may
disagree, reach different definitions dbout the
same case
• Impossible to Remove Disagreement
When does the Process/Institutionalist
View Matter?
• Theory and philosophy of modern social
control (technology of information).
• A window onto criminal justice system
operations
• Understanding how crime rates are part of
culture
Institutionalist View
• Social & Organizational Process of Defining
Crime
• All Definitions Are Socially Processed
• Interest in how crimes are recorded and used
by control agencies
• Records are shaped by organizational actors—
police, prosecutors, juries/judges
Realist Solution to Insitutionalist Challenge
• Give most credence to the first official
definitions: Reports > Arrest > Conviction
• Page 4: “…in theory at least, the police
function most nearly as passive recorders and
nondiscretionary classifiers of events that take
place.”
How Much Crime is There?
• Answer Depends on Your View of Statistics
• Rates Are Always Created by Organizations
• Institutionalists: Police are administrators of
technology of “knowing, defining, and
processing.”
• Realists: Police are “information collectors.”
Realist Perspective
on Police Organizations:
• Police try, but have reasons to record
inaccurately
– Resources are limited
– Public Image
– Securing Additional Resources
• Understand in Order to Improve Accuracy
• Victimization Surveys are Better (NCVS)
Victimization Statistics
•
•
•
Also Simplifications of Complicated Social
Processes
One Event May Have Multiple Victims
Problems with Victim Surveys:
1. Memory
2. Embarrassment
3. Police Involvement
Kitsuse and Cicourel. “A Note on the Uses
of Official Statistics.”
• Distinguish between deviant behaviors &
organizationally-produced rates of behavior
• What criminals do vs. what police do
• Are police definitions of crime appropriate for
sociological questions? Which questions?
• Why would crime statistics, read literally, be
inappropriate for sociological questions?
• Definitional grounds: formal definitions
assume objective reality. Sociology assumes
competing definitions.
• Use rates to study what control agents do, not
what criminals do
Institutionalist Questions:
1. How do different forms of behavior come to
be defined as deviant by different groups in
society?
2. How are different kinds of individuals
organizationally processed?
3. How do social circumstances contributed to
these definitional outcomes?
Institutionalists
• How do criminal justice agents make decisions, use
discretion?
• What are the effects of the social control on the
people defined as criminal?
• Are there organizational reasons why poor people
are over-represented in crime statistics?
• How many citizen complaints receive official
attention?
To Conclude
How to reconcile different views?
• Each is practical for certain purposes
• Policy questions, I view from realistmeasurement perspective
• I use process-institutional perspective to
answer questions like: How do some groups
become defined as more criminal? How do
people use statistics to define certain
groups as criminal (e.g. gang members,
crack cocaine users)? How do social control
agents use statistics for political purposes?