“It is not the act itself, but the reactions to the act, that make something deviant.”
Howard Becker, 1966

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Norms: rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members
Laws: the norms created through a society’s political system
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Crime: The violation of laws enacted by federal, state, or local governments
Crime is culturally relative
Crime: The Extent of the Problem
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Most people in the US think crime is a serious problem
Fear of crime is a social problem, because it limits the things people do and the places they go

Making acts criminal is a political process
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Determining which behavior is criminal is a political process
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Power: The capacity to achieve goals in the face of opposition
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The universal nature of crime: No society exists without crime

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Property offenses account for 88% of all serious offences, while violent crimes against persons account for 12%
Violent crime rose quickly from 1960 until the early
1990s
After that, the trend turned downward
 Stronger economy (may change due to recession that began in 2008)
 Drop in use of crack cocaine
 More police
 Tougher sentences

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Aggravated assault accounts for nearly 2/3 of all reported violent crime
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Aggravated assault is very much a male crime, with the majority of both victims and offenders being men

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Robbery involves both stealing and threatening another person, which makes this both a property and a violent crime
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This is the least likely of all violent crimes to result in an arrest
 victims usually don’t know a robber so that identification is difficult

The Risk of Violent Crime across the United States

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Burglary
 only 11% of cases are cleared
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Majority of those arrested are male (86%) and under
25 (59%)
Larceny-theft
 includes shoplifting, pick pocketing, purse-snatching
 the most common of all the serious crimes tracked by the FBI (account for 67% of total)

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Motor-vehicle theft
 only 11% of cases are cleared
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50% of those arrested are under 25 and 82% are male
Arson
 the arson rate is holding steady
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Only 27% are cleared
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67% those arrested are under 25 and 84% are male

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Age
 for all offenses, there is a strong link between crime and youth
Gender
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In 2007, males accounted for 67% of arrests for property crime
For violent crime, men are arrested in 82% of the cases
Women are more often arrested for larceny-theft, fraud, runaway youth and prostitution
For all serious crimes, the number of women arrested is increasing

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Social class
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Research shows that people of lower social position are involved in most arrests for street crime
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The link between class and criminality depends on the kind of crime one is talking about

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Race plays a large part in the crime picture several ways
 the deprivation faced by black youths may lead to hostility towards the police and various facets of the
“system”
 prejudice based on race may prompt people to suspect blacks on the basis of skin color
 research suggests that such biases may lead police to arrest African Americans more than whites

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Labeling theory views an act as deviant only if other people respond to it as if it were deviant; the view that the labels people are given affect their own and others’ perceptions of them, thus channeling their behavior either into deviance or conformity.
 Most people resist being labeled deviant, but some revel in a deviant identity.
 Practice that can set people on different paths in life
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Self-fulfilling Prophecy
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Refers to something that becomes true because one said it might come true

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Criminal Justice System: Agencies that respond to crime
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Data comes from the Uniform Crime Report and
National Crime Victimization Survey .
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Police Discretion
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Deciding whether to arrest someone or to ignore a particular offense
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Social class influences the authorities' reactions affecting who shows up in official statistics

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Statistics show that African Americans and Latinos are dealt with more harshly than Whites – from arrest through indictment, conviction, sentencing, and parole.
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Even when criminal offense is the same, African
Americans and Latinos are more likely than Whites to be convicted and serve more time in prison than
Whites.

 Functionalists consider crime a natural part of healthy society.
 helps clarify norms & and affirms values
 increases social unity & brings about needed social change
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Strain theory states that illegitimate opportunity structures encourage some people to commit crime and provide that others will not have the need to.
Robert Merton’s analysis:
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Conformists
Innovators
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Ritualists
Retreatists
Rebels
Innovation is most often the cause of criminal behavior
Innovators turn to illegitimate means

Cloward & Ohlin (1998) – refined strain theory to emphasize that deviant behavior is not an automatic response but must be learned.
 Illegitimate Opportunity Theory – Explains why social classes have distinct styles of crimes.
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Social class and illegitimate opportunities
 Illegitimate Opportunity Structures
 Opportunities woven into the texture of life in urban slums
 Middle and upper classes are not free of crime
 Ponzi Scheme
 Occurs when high investment returns are paid to clients using other clients’ money—not real investment profit

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Conflict theorists stress that every society is marked by power and inequality.
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The Ruling Class
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The Working Class: three major groups
 Upper-level managers and professionals
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White-collar and blue-collar workers
 Marginal working class
 Law is controlled by the ruling class
 Law is an instrument of oppression.

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Karl Marx: Class and Crime
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Understood social problems in terms of class conflict
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Crime was seen as a product of social inequality
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Solution to the crime problem is to eliminate capitalism in favor of a more egalitarian system

White-Collar Crime:
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Any crime committed by respectable and high-status people in the course of their occupation
When white-collar offenders are caught, their cases are usually heard in a civil court, and they rarely go to jail
Corporate crime – crime committed on behalf of organizations (e.g., environmental pollution and gross negligence)
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Two major types:
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Those committed by employees on behalf of a corporation
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Those committed against a corporation
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Most of these offenses are tried in civil courts so that no individual is charged with criminal behavior

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Professional Criminals
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People who consider crime to be their occupation
Criminal Enterprise
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Crime committed within a highly organized gang
Mafia
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Famous organized crime group; made up only of Italians is a myth
Organized crime involves three main elements:
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In-group loyalty
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Scorn for the values of the straight world
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Pride in specialized skills

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Political Crime: crime motivated by a particular ideology
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U.S. Constitution - First Amendment
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Some view political actions of individuals as major social problems, while viewing similar acts by government as acceptable.
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Crimes designed to maintain the social order

Due Process
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The criminal justice system must operate within the bounds of law.
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No person can be “deprived of life liberty or property without due process of the law”
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The U.S. Constitution

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In principle, the U.S. court system is an adversarial process by which the prosecutor presents the state’s case against the suspect and the suspect’s attorney presents a defense

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The reality of justice, however, is something much different.
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90% of criminal cases are settled through plea-bargaining, a negotiation in which the state reduces a defendant’s charge in exchange for a guilty plea even if innocent, for lesser charge ― encouraged by defense attorneys
While plea-bargaining saves the time and expense of a trial, efficiency doesn’t always produce justice
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Poor spend months (even years) behind bars awaiting trial
 Threats of mandatory minimum sentences to get guilty pleas
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Judges impose harsher sentences on those who insist on unnecessary trials
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Age, employment, and the number of previous arrests affect sentencing
 Number of arrests, not the seriousness of those charges, influences a sentence

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Respectability, wealth, and power insulate many lawbreakers.
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Assembly-line justice
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Plea bargaining has become standard in U.S. criminal justice system.
 Vast majority of cases, people accused of a crime do not receive a trial
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Criminal justice system is also slow and inefficient.
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Plea bargaining and the inefficiencies of the court system subvert the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.

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African Americans are 12% of the U.S. population: 45% of prison inmates
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Criminal conviction rates in U.S. vary greatly among different racial groups
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Unclear why African Americans are most apt to be arrested and charged
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Cannot conclude that the courts are biased for or against minorities or for or against Whites
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The evidence is inconclusive.

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A criminal justice system may draw on four approaches to punishment:
 Deterrence – emphasizes intimidation, using threat of punishment to discourage crime.
 Retribution – criminals pay compensation equal to their offenses against society.
 Incarceration – removes criminals from society.
 Rehabilitation – attempts to resocialize criminals.

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Some believe that it further brutalizes the society
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Criminal recidivism
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Subsequent offenses by people previously convicted of crimes.

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Juvenile crime refers to violations of the law committed by those less than eighteen years of age.
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Juvenile offenders are the third largest category of criminals in the U.S.
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Juvenile crime reached its lowest in a decade in
2001. Several factors account for this.
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A decline in the demand for crack cocaine.
Gangs have reached truces.
Police have clamped down on illegal guns.
 Repeat juvenile offenders have been given stiffer sentences.

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The United States has more violent crime than other industrialized countries – highest murder, rape, and robbery rates.
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According to the United Nations Survey of Crime
(1996-2006):
 rape and robbery increased, assault increased, burglary decreased
 homicide declined
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General trend in crime suggests that the world is becoming slightly safer.

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Conservatives believe that people raised in strong, law-abiding families are unlikely to commit crime
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Most conservatives favor tougher laws, more aggressive policing, and harsher penalties as ways to combat the crime problem.
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They believe the key to controlling crime is parents teaching children to make the right choices in a world of pressures

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Liberals believe that many people live in situations that pressure them to break the law
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Crime is caused by a harmful environment, particularly living in poverty
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To liberals, jobs are the key to a drop in the crime rate

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The radicals believes the real crime of society is tremendous economic inequality
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The radical solution begins with a restructuring of the economic and political system toward a more egalitarian social order that can make a real claim to justice

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According to U.S. Justice Department (2008):
 12,000 terrorist attacks against noncombatants occurred around the world in 2008.
 40% in the Near East
 35% in South Asia
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Terrorism occurs under certain social conditions:
 in politically weak states or in nations that have undergone years of political violence
 in countries with a foreign occupier
 in countries with widespread racial or ethnic discrimination
 in the presence of extreme secular or religious ideologies