Criminology: Social Disorganization Theory

• Sociological criminologists focus on group characteristics like social class, gender, age, and culture to understand crime, rather than individual traits.

Emile Durkheim

• His sociological approach to suicide is relevant to strain theory.
• Social solidarity in small villages creates togetherness.
• Urbanization disrupted social cohesion due to the mixing of people.

Anomie

• Is a sense of aimlessness, despair, lacking grounding, and a sense of right or wrong.

The Chicago School/Disorganization Theory

• This theory uses a concentric zone/ring model.
• Zone 2, the transition zone, had immigrant families, poor housing, and abandoned buildings.
• Social disorganization in this zone, lacking established institutions, led to increased crime rates.
• Mixing of cultures led to differing ideals and a lack of collective efficacy.

Collective Efficacy

• Is the opposite of social disorganization
• It reflects a community's ability to address challenges through organization, support, and trust.

Strain Anomie Theory (Merton)

• Merton adapted Durkheim's anomie concept.

• Societal organization can strain individuals, leading to rule-breaking behavior, arising from the inability to achieve goals.

• There is a disconnect between culturally defined goals and the means to achieve the "American Dream."

• Hard work and education are insufficient to reach these goals.

• Criminals are "innovators" who find clever ways to achieve goals.

• The main issue is the focus on money instead of societal norms like marriage, university, and children.

Innovation to Explain Crime (Merton)

• Innovators accept societal goals but reject legitimate means.
• They use proceeds from crime to achieve the "American Dream."

Cohen Strain Theory

• Cohen suggests crime arises from lower-class citizens but is separate from meeting cultural goals.

• Working-class youth struggle in the educational system and turn to delinquent subcultures for status.

• Youth join gangs to gain status within the subculture instead of pursuing the "American Dream."

• To reduce crime, provide opportunities and think about important goals and values.

Critiques of Strain Theory

• Fails to explain crimes committed by the rich and powerful.
• Does not address the gender statistics that women are less likely to commit crimes although women face more strain.

Social Control Theory

• People are inherently capable of wrongdoing, and no special motivation is needed to explain deviance.
• Conformity, not deviance, requires explanation.
• It focuses on why people avoid deviance and the processes that bind them to social order.

Hirschi's Social Bond Control Theory

• Weaker social bonds increase the likelihood of deviance.

• Bonds include:

  • Attachments: emotional ties and respect for others' opinions.
  • Commitments: investment in conforming behavior (school, work).
  • Involvement: being busy with activities.
  • Beliefs: moral or spiritual beliefs.

• To reduce crime, foster safe home environments, eliminate social divisions, and address inequalities to improve conditions for children.

Critiques of Hirschi's Social Control Theory

• Does not account for serious youth or adult crimes.
• Strong bonds do not guarantee protection from all forms of crime.
• Assumes the four components relate to conforming behavior.

Differential Association Theory (Sutherland)

• Criminal behavior is learned, including techniques, motivations, and rationalizations.

• Association with criminal behavior increases the likelihood of engaging in it.

• Learning criminal behavior is similar to learning any behavior.

• Criminal behavior responds to the same cultural needs and values as non-criminal behavior.

• Frequency and intensity affect involvement in criminal activity.

• Consequences of being labeled a criminal include:

  • A criminal record.
  • Difficulty finding jobs, potentially leading to more crime.
  • Limited life options.

Labeling Theory (Constructivist Approach)

• Some groups have the power to label others as deviant.

• The label of deviance is stronger than the act itself.

• Focuses on defining crime/deviance and reactions of those in power.

• An example of labeling theory is putting the person on trial in cages which they are viewed as guilty.

Primary Deviance / Secondary Deviance (Labeling Theory)

• Primary deviance involves infrequent deviant acts early in an offender's career.
• Secondary deviance involves internalizing the label after societal reaction.

Perp Walk

• A "perp walk" involves publicly displaying someone in a guilty or humiliating manner, creating a narrative of guilt.

Criticism of Labeling Theory

• It does not account for long-term illegal activity without reaction.
• Some individuals do not feel ashamed of the criminal label and continue committing crimes.

Critical Criminology

• Considers who benefits from laws/criminal justice.
• Favors certain types of crime, like white-collar crimes.
• Upper socio-economic classes are punished less than lower classes.
• Focuses on rule-breakers and rule-makers.

Feminism Changes in the 70s

• Advocated for the rights and equality of women in social, political, and economic spheres.
• Advocated for a fundamental role of women in society.

Feminist Criminology

• Helped to change social attitudes and criminal justice responses to issues like sexual assault and domestic violence.
• Before the 70s, criminologists tended to ignore women's criminality.

Left Realism

• Uses victimization surveys to examine crime problems for the working class.
• Aims to address neglected crime and victimization of the working class.
• Most crimes affecting the working class are "street crimes."

Relative Deprivation (Left Realist)

• Crime arises from the desire for what others have, not just poverty related to survival.
• The idea of relative deprivation is based around the frame or reference such as seeing someone succeeding which would make someone want more.

The Police Response (Left Realism)

• Saturated policing in high-poverty and minority neighborhoods creates distrust and lack of cooperation with police.

• The ruling class uses the police to maintain injustices.

• This perspective is a political perspective rather than a theoretical explanation for crime.

Patriarchy and Law

• Women had been written into Canada's legislation as belonging to their fathers and husbands.

Liberation/Emancipation Hypothesis

• The hypothesis links crime differences to unequal power levels between men and women.
• As women's roles change and equalize they will commit more crimes (untrue) the women that were actually committing crimes came from marginalized backgrounds

Gender Variation Through Patriarchy

• Deviance is related to the amount of control imposed on teenage children in a household.
• Girls are more tightly controlled in patriarchal societies, while boys have more freedom.
• Equal treatment of sons and daughters in households does not have data to prove that girls are more likely to deviate.

Male Violence Against Women

• There was a virtual conspiracy of silence around rape and domestic violence in Canada.

• Rape laws were redefined as sexual assault statutes.

• Consent was previously irrelevant in marriage.

• Women needed substantial evidence to press charges, and their moral character was questioned.

• Rape/SA was treated as a personal matter; assault charges were not pressed.

• Before legal changes, domestic calls were classified as being drunk and disorderly in the home.

The Concept of the Ideal Victim

• It is a stereotype of a person who might best benefit from the criminal justice system.

• It makes it difficult to receive help from the police and criminal justice system if women face SA and violence in jail,

• Violence in the home/family is a major source of police calls at 1/4 of calls.

Response to Violence

• The movement for women who are survivors for domestic abuse has been more focused on helping women leave violent relationships than police intervention.

Criminalizing Coercive Control

• It will criminalize abusive behaviors like surveillance and demanding passwords.

Pathways Research

• It analyzes why women end up in jail and disrupt the distinction between victims and offenders.

Victim-Offender Overlap

• Offenders often come from backgrounds of abuse.
• It blurs lines between victim and offender.

Differential Association

• Criminal behavior, like any other behavior, is learned through association.

• They learn motivations and rationalizations.

• It is a response to the values of wealth/status and non-criminal behavior.

• One might be a drug dealer for social status and power, more than money because being a drug dealer isnt really a great way to make money (irrational choice if they are after the money)

General Theory of Crime (Gottfredson and Hirschi)

• Crime and other bad behaviors result from low self-control, impulsivity, and short-term interests.
• This starts in childhood with behavior issues that move on to be juvenile and adult offenders.
• Parenting is the most important factor in teaching children self-control.

Marshmallow Experiment

• The marshmallow experiment tested self-control in children.

• "Unreliable" children took one marshmallow because they distrusted adults to deliver on promises and knew that longterm gain is rare.

• This relates to criminal behavior/self-control because self-control is learned.

• People who grow up in unstable, unreliable households learn impulsivity.

Criticisms of General Theory of Crime

• Places too much blame on parents.

• Self-control may shift over time and is not fixed in childhood.

• Fails to explain white-collar crime.

• Ignores the role of opportunity.

• Mixed results when tested.

• Young people commit more crimes because they have fewer social controls/attachments.

Life Course Perspective

• Adult roles such as marriage and employment act as turning points.
• Victimization in early years has long-term negative repercussions.
• Social supports can prevent long-term disadvantages for crime victims.

General Strain Theory

• Strain can lead to criminal/deviant behavior. focuses on financial strain and doesnt apply to youth.
• Youth face pressures like home life, loss, acceptance, breakups, and bullying.
• Harm exposure or losing something valued creates deviants.
• Youth face different pressures such as abuse or discrimination

Three Types of Strain

• Inability to achieve positively valued goals
• Removal/threat to remove a positively valued stimuli (getting suspended loss of a SO, divorce of parents)
• Exposure to negative stimuli.

Rational Choice Theory

• Criminal behavior results from conscious decision-making.

• Expected utility principle: crime is calculated and deliberate.

• Criminals are rational actors.

• Target and risk of detection influence crime.

• For white collar crime the business weighs risks and benefits of committing shady action.

Instrumental crimes versus expressive crimes

• Instrumental crimes require planning.
• Expressive crimes are impulsive and emotional, such as police finding these people easily as they didnt plan how to get away with it

Routine Activity Theory

• Changes in crime levels are associated with changing lifestyles.
• Changes to routines increases possibilities of crime.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)

• Maximize visibility for users' safety.
• Use planters to discourage panhandling.
• Use gates and fences to mark property.
• Create physical barriers or changes in colors.

Broken Windows Theory

• Vandalism encourages more crime.
• Keeping places clean decreases bad activities.

Legitimate Versus Illegitimate Use

• There is a thought to be an ideal type of person that uses a space.
• Example park benches have spikes to ensure homeless people can not use them for sleeping (anti homeless architecture)

Critical Criminology

• Considers how things become criminal and why.
• This work addressed economic equality as a contributor and the forming of subcultures from the exclusion of the American dream.
• Inequalities of gender, race, and class create crime

Marxism and Critical Criminology

• Marxism asks who benefits from keeping people in line.
• Class struggle and capitalism create the mental state that leads to crime.
• Capitalism requires docile workers, but desperate people commit crimes.
• Capitalism protects private property

Prohibition Drinking Video

• The issue of alcohol was blamed on lower class and racialized parts of society.
• Lots of actors supported it for different vested interests,
• Womens groups, religious groups, capitalist companies, socialists, racists and politicians
• The upper class kept drinking while the prohibition stopped the middle/working and lower classes.

Risk and Actuarial Criminology (Foucault)

• This focused on understanding social control.

• Different techniques of governing people and the ways of thinking that go with them are reviewed.

• It was introduced to make present adjustments to avoid future bad events.

• An example is your credit card being frozen due to suspicious charges.

• Predictive policing gathers data on crime hotspots to prevent future crimes.

Zemiologists

• These seek to replace the study of crime with an emphasis on social harm.

Defining Social Exclusion

• It involves physical/non-physical exclusion from jobs, relationships, housing etc.
• It is the denial/non-realization of civil, political, and social rights.

Foucault Video on Governmentality

• Unpacks and traces the development of norms/ideals.

• Norms are created by comparing ourselves to others using statistics.

• Used risk as a way to governmentality and control people.

• Actuarial governmentality can govern through the notion of risk.

• Risk is an abstraction focused on dealing with crime, not a theory.

• Social exclusion shifts blame to those excluding rather than the disadvantaged.

• An example is an indigenous person targeted for fraud due to their race being excluded and not welcomed.

• Some people may be excluded from bathrooms.

• Homeless youth commit crimes for survival and are both perpetrators and victims.

• The word "Gang" is controversial, they are usually identified by the community who gets to say who is and is not in it.

• They often want power, respect, protection, and social support.

• Gangs help in providing a sense of belonging.

Theories That Can Be Applied To Youth Gangs

• Strain, differential association, Chicago/disorganization, and Cohen's strain theories.

• Indigenous exclusion leads to higher rates of suicide, homelessness, substance abuse, and over-representation in the criminal justice system.

• Ways to reduce over-representation:

• Educate criminal justice professionals on the issue and broader sentencing.

• Reduce the number of Indigenous people brought to the criminal justice system.

• National inquiries deal with social issues failed by policy and are triggered by social outcry.

National Inquiry and MMIW

• The missing and murdered indigenous women of canada is a national inquiry as they are much more likely to be victims of crime compared to non indigneous people.

• There is a need for a National inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.

• Social exclusion, economics, and control cause violence against women.

Gladue Reports

• To deal with indigenous over representation it allows them to explain how they are where they are.

• This can get them a lesser sentence or alternative sentencing.

• It can get abused by people trying to falsely claim to benefit.

• Some argue murder motivated by hate is worse and needs legal differentiation.

• The debate is if its the intent of the killer or simply mens rea.

• Victims of hate crimes are strangers targeted for their perceived group affiliation.

• Hard to measure because police departments use different definitions. such as hate incidents.

• Criminal Code lacks a general "hate crime" clause.

Becardi Article "Neighborhood Wisdom"

• Neighbourhood Wisdom understands physical geography and localized threats in the area.

Zero Tolerance Movie Examples of Social Exclusion

• Police came to jean batiste day engaging and turning a blind eye to quasi legal behaviour.
• Caribbean parade with strict fearful vibes as well.

White-Collar Crime

• Crime committed by someone of respectable status and is usually at work.

• White collar is beneficial for the individual

• Corporate is beneficial for the whole corporation

• Examples include misrepresentations of statements, stock manipulation, and commercial bribery.

• You cannot put a corporation in jail when they are the beneficiary

• Governments don't do much, they usually extract a large settlement

Cost-Benefit Analysis

• Ford Pinto was cheaper to pay out customers than do a recall.

• Businesses calculate gains from breaking rules, expecting to pay penalties.

• It is not prosecuted because:

• Public is more concerned about street crime, violent crime

• Police culture is oriented toward street crime

• WC crime is hard to investigate and costly

• Overlap between regulators and admins

Regulatory Capture

• Regulators who go into companies for oversight start to feel a company alliance.

Occupational Crime

• Crime committed on the job, such as a clerk stealing from a till.

Financial Collapse of 2008

• Caused by excessive risks from the financial institutions lacking regulations, hundreds of millions of people were affected yet no one was punished.

• The public as victims involve contaminated water, price fixing, and unsafe products.

• State corporate crimes occur when political and economic institutions cooperate.

• Example migrant workers

• Deregulation allows for new opportunities for crime, and reduces control.

Enron Video

• Enron took advantage of deregulation and close government ties.
• There was a highly risk taking, competetive, culture.
• The energy market turned into stocks.

Green Criminology

• This is the study of environmental damage caused by human activity through a criminological lens.

Political Crime

• These are crimes committed against the state, such as terrorism.

Quebec FLQ

• They were a terrorist group that was committed to making quebec sovereign but they started kidnapping and murdering people.
• The RCMP broke and blew things up to stop them.

Crime in Social Organizations

• Abuse of trust occurs within occupations or total institutions.