Crime and Criminology

1. Crime and Criminology What is crime? Durkheim on crime What is deviance?

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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 husband’s 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.

6. Lorena Bobbitt (1970 - ) • Lorena and John Bobbitt divorced in 1995 • She currently works as a hair stylist in Asburn, Virginia.

8. 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

9. 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

10. Emile Durkheim (1895) • Made three specific claims about the nature of crime: • Crime is normal • Crime is inevitable • Crime is useful

11. 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

12. In primitive society • Punishment was more severe • Criminal act offends the strong, well-defined common consciousness • A crime against another person=crime against the entire society • Rejection was the most terrible punishment

13. In industrialized society • A crime against another person=crime against another person • Punishment=isolation

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. Three perspectives on crime • The Consensus View of Crime • The Conflict View of Crime • The Interactionist View of Crime

20. 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 society’s mainstream • Concept of ideal legal system= Everybody's Equal Under The Law

21. 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)

22. 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

23. 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.

24. 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

25. 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

26. Conflict View of Crime • Powerful individuals are able to influence the making laws • Powerful individuals may escape the label “criminal”

27. 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

28. 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)

29. 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

30. 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

31. Eleven-year-old Imtyaz from Pakistan Imtyaz stiches a soccer ball

32. 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

33. 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

34. 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.

35. '‘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

36. 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

37. 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

38. 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

39. 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.

40. 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

41. 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)

42. Relativity of crime • Space • Time • Social context

43. 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

44. 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

45. 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

46. 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

47. 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)

48. 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

49. 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

50. The vocabulary of Homicide • Murder is the name for legally unjustified, intentional homicide (legal and moral meanings) • Execution is the name forjustified 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”.