Tagged: crime

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

Crime as a Mechanism for Governing

Whether flipping through channels, listening to the radio, or reading the newspaper, it is evident that crime has secured a mainstay position in today’s media. In order to achieve high ratings, television networks and news outlets must fill their allotted time slots with only those headlines sure to popular attention (see Best, 2004). Oftentimes, those stories and reports are generated by sensationalizing criminal events. However, the seemingly overrepresentation of crime and delinquency is not the focus for this essay. Rather,...

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Children's Exposure to Violence: The Need to Acknowledge Their Plight

Every day, children in the United States are exposed to violence. Whether they are personally victimized or bystanders to the victimization of others, youths across the U.S. are frequently subject to traumatic crimes. From headline-grabbing school shootings to often unreported acts of domestic violence, adolescents are not immune to the violent acts of others. While it may be easy to say that children are resilient and are better able than adults to overcome the consequences of being exposed to violence,...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Immigrants and Crime: The Importance of Destination?

Crime is a global phenomenon. From the most highly developed states to the least developed ones, crime represents a significant threat to social well-being. And because of its ubiquity, unsavoriness, and harmful qualities, criminal activity has the distinction of being a social event that is often blamed on the individuals who live on the fringes of a society. For immigrants, this tendency to place the blame of crime on the less well-off members of a society is particularly dangerous since...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Situating Strain within Late Modernity

Robert K. Merton, in 1938, began delving into how societal arrangements could create, maintain, and exacerbate social tension and individual stress. His theory of ‘strain’ – tremendously oversimplified – proposes that crime/deviance becomes more likely when a disjuncture exists between culturally derived ends (i.e. monetary success) and what the social structure makes possible. This theoretical framework, from its onset, has been the focus of numerous efforts; being tested, criticized, buttressed, and modified to increase its viability. As a result, sociology...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Neoliberalism, Anomie, and Interpersonal Violence: Normlessness Leads to Criminality?

As discussed in neoliberalism and its consequences, increasingly, there appears to be a connection between neoliberalism and the development of anomie. Such an association is unsurprising considering that neoliberalism encourages individuals to achieve ever greater success even though such a goal is unrealistic. In response to being blocked from realizing their never-ending aspirations, Merton (1968) argues that people in success-driven societies will feel deprived and frustrated as a divide forms between idealistic ambitions and factual reality. While such a divide has...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Militarization of Rape in American Society

Sexual harassment, assault, and rape are topics that are very difficult to discuss.  American society has taken strides to develop programs, protocols, and legal actions to help victims of these heinous crimes. Despite these efforts, there are still environments where women and men experience this act of violence at disproportionately high rates. In the newly released documentary, The Invisible War, we are exposed to the high incidence of rape in the United States military. The documentary opens up with a caption that...

Race & Ethnicity Studies

Black Complaints / White Denials: The Trayvon Martin Case

In my last post, I mentioned the larger discussion about blame for racism that cases like Trayvon Martin produce.  One consistent meme that arises every time black people protest the killing of a black person by a white person is: Why don’t black people protest when blacks kill other blacks?  After all, statistically black homicide victims are more likely to be killed by blacks than any other race.  Black on black homicide certainly happens at a far greater rate than...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Embracing Civility or Intensifying Deviance….A Dialectic?

As prior posts may express, my attention has been gripped by the motivations and experiences of those engaged in deviant activity. More specifically, it is not major crimes under consideration but rather the marginal acts of expression and resistance – tagging, unsanctioned extreme sports, controversial fashions, and the like. While trying to empathetically understand the ‘deviant’ perspective, it seems this perspective is often dismissed as delinquent and nothing more, void of any further value. As scholars have often noted, this...

Class & Stratification / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

On the Streets: Spaces of Opportunity and Marginalization

On my weekly trip to the grocery store, the traffic seems heavier than usual; perhaps the nice weather has coaxed people from their homes or out of work. It is surprisingly warm today with a high reported to reach the 70s. Taking advantage, my car windows are rolled down, sunglasses are on, and it seems that Bruno Mars has gripped popular radio channels. While stopped at a red light (about a dozen cars back), I notice a group of about...

Science & Technology / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Illness or Deviance: A Contested Space Between Criminal Justice and Medicine

Foucault wrote that the nineteenth century ushered in a new way to inspect the body; recognizing that medical personnel had placed the patient under “perpetual examination” (1975). His interest, however, was on the discourse that produced, maintained, and extended the medical look or “gaze” (1975). The “clinic,” for Foucault, became an apparatus of examination; a site of knowledge production bound by rules and regulations. It became an authoritative institution where the individual became the object of scrutiny (Long, 1992). Following...

Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Immigration and the Limits of the Criminal Justice System

Candidate Barack Obama promised to enact immigration reform in his first term.  That promise is almost certain to go unfulfilled.  The result of years of heated debate has been deadlock between two seemingly irreconcilable positions.  On one hand, many in congress support a “path to citizenship” for undocumented workers and increased legal immigration.  On the other, a substantial number argue for greater border enforcement, mass deportation, and decreased immigration.  While the status quo has virtually no vocal support, systems create...

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Video Abstract

First Video Abstract Available! – “Isn’t Every Crime a Hate Crime?: The Case for Hate Crime Laws”

Isn’t Every Crime a Hate Crime?: The Case for Hate Crime Laws Randy Blazak VIDEO ABSTRACT: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: The process to create hate crime laws in the United States has wrestled with the core issues of freedom of speech and greater harm. This article looks at the evolution of bias crime laws, culminating with President Obama’s signing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. The constitutionality of the laws is ‘discussed and suggestions...

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Sex Offender Rehabilitation via Friendship

Bob Howard of the BBC has recently published an article looking at a scheme to combat sex offender recidivism. Originating in Canada, friendship circles are ‘based on the premise that while some offenders have friends and family to return to when they come out of prison, others have not and the more isolated they are, the more likely they are to re-offend’. Throughout the article, Sarah from London talks about her experiences as a volunteer for the child protection charity...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Science & Technology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Religion, Abortion, and the Law in the United States

  If one’s religion teaches that abortion is murder, is the believer then obligated to stop abortions from happening, by any means necessary? Today, a Kansas judge decided that this is not a viable defense strategy under the law. On May 31, Kansas resident Scott Roeder is accused of shooting and killing Dr. George Tiller. Roeder had wished to use something that has been termed the “necessity defense,” which would justify using lethal force. Although the judge’s reasoning for not...

Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Organizations & Work

When Heroes Become Villains

by paulabowles For criminologists and sociologists, prison has for many decades provided a fertile environment for research. In recent decades, the focus has been on overcrowding, together with attempts to identify the composition of the prison population. As at 25 September 2009, Her Majesty’s Prisons contain some 84,382 incarcerated men and women. On the same date the BBC reported that as many as 8,500 of these prisoners are former veterans of the British army, navy and air force. Moreover, this...

Science & Technology / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

“Free” Heroin on the NHS

by paulabowles The links between illegal drug use and crime, particularly acquisitive, have long been recognised as problematic. Recent statistics published in The Independent suggest that as few as ten percent of addicts commit 75 percent of all acquisitive crime. In spite of these consistently dispiriting figures, the familiar approach is one of punishment, with some attempt at rehabilitation. Moreover, all of these programmes have at their foundations an aim to ensure their clients maintain complete desistance from drug use....