Chapter 4

1. Chapter 4 Crime and Social Control

2. Chapter Outline • The Global Context: International Crime and Violence • Sources of Crime Statistics • Sociological Theories of Crime • Types of Crime • Demographic Patterns of Crime • The Costs of Crime and Social Control • Strategies for Action: Crime and Social Control

3. Crime Throughout the World • There is no country without crime. • Most countries have the same components in their criminal justice systems: police, courts, and prisons. • Worldwide, adult males make up the largest category of crime suspects. • In all countries theft is the most common crime committed and violent crime is a relatively rare event.

4. Crime • An act, or the omission of an act, that is a violation of a federal, state, or local criminal law for which the state can apply sanctions.

5. Four Measures of Serious Violent Crime

6. Structural-Functionalist Theories • Strain theory • Control theory • Subcultural theories

7. Strain Theory • People adapt to inconsistency between means and goals in society. • Methods of adaptation: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion.

8. Merton’s Strain Theory

9. Merton’s Strain Theory

10. Control Theory • Social bonds constrain some individuals from violating social norms: • Attachment to significant others. • Commitment to conventional goals. • Involvement in conventional activities. • Belief in the moral standards of society.

11. Subcultural Theories • Certain groups or subcultures in society have values and attitudes conducive to violence. • Members of these subcultures adopt the crime-promoting attitudes of the group.

12. Conflict Perspective • Social inequality leads to crimes as means of economic survival. • Those in power define what is criminal. • Law enforcement penalizes those without power and benefits those with power.

13. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective Labeling Theory • Being labeled deviant leads to further deviant behavior: • The labeled person is denied opportunities to engage in nondeviant behavior. • The labeled person adopts a deviant self-concept and acts accordingly.

14. Primary and Secondary Deviance • Primary deviance is deviant behavior committed before a person is caught and labeled an offender. • Secondary deviance is deviance that results from being caught and labeled.

15. Gender and Crime • It is a universal truth that women everywhere are less likely to commit crime than men. • In 2005 males accounted for 76.2% of all arrests, 82.1% of all arrests for violent crime, and 68% of all arrests for property crimes.

16. Age and Crime • The highest arrest rates are for individuals younger than age 25. • In 2005, 44.3% of all arrests in the U.S. were of people younger than age 25. • Those older than age 65 made up less than 1% of total arrests for the same year.

17. Race, Social Class, and Crime • African Americans represent 14% of the population, but account for over 38% of violent index offenses and 28.6% of property index offenses. • Blacks are sent to prison for drug offenses at a rate 8.2 times higher than the rate for whites. • If current trends continue, by 2020 two of every three black men between the ages of 18 and 34 will be in prison.

18. Racial Profiling • The law enforcement practice of targeting suspects on the basis of race.

19. Race and Crime: Causally Related • Statistics reflect the behaviors and policies of criminal justice actors, so the high rate of arrests, conviction, and incarceration of minorities may reflect bias against minorities. • Nonwhites are overrepresented in the lower classes. • Criminal justice system contact, higher for nonwhites, may lead to a lower position in the stratification system.

20. Region and Crime • Crime rates are higher in metropolitan areas than in nonmetropolitan areas. • In 2005, the violent crime rate in metropolitan statistical areas was 510 per 100,000 population; in cities in nonmetropolitan statistical areas it was 373.5 per 100,000 population. • A recent survey by the Police Executive Research Forum found that murder rates have climbed by more than 10% in the nation’s largest cities since 2004.

21. Economic Costs of Crime: Six Categories • Direct losses from crime, such as the destruction of buildings through arson, of private property through vandalism, and of the environment by polluters. • Costs associated with the transferring of property. • Costs associated with criminal violence, for example, the medical cost of treating crime victims.

22. Economic Costs of Crime: Six Categories • Costs associated with the production and sale of illegal goods and services. • The cost of prevention and protection—the billions of dollars spent on locks and safes, etc. • The cost of social control—the criminal justice system, law enforcement, litigative and judicial activities, corrections, and victims’ assistance.

23. Rehabilitation and Incapacitation • Rehabilitation -Helping offenders rehabilitate using education and job training, individual and group therapy, substance abuse counseling, and behavior modification. • Incapacitation -Putting offender in prison.

24. Prisons • According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 2,193,798 prisoners held in federal or state prisons or local jails on December 31, 2005.

25. Prison Population Rates Per 100,000 and Rank in World (January 2007)

26. Probation • The conditional release of an offender who, for a specific time period and subject to certain conditions, remains under court supervision in the community.

27. Capital Punishment • With capital punishment the state takes the life of a person as punishment for a crime. • 38 states allow capital punishment. • In 2006: • 53 executions took place in 14 states, with over 3,374 inmates on death row. • 2,148 people were executed in 22 countries despite the global trend toward abolition of the death penalty.

28. Brady Bill • Passed in 1993, requires 5-day waiting period on handgun purchases so sellers can do a background check on the buyer.

29. Restorative Justice • A philosophy primarily concerned with reconciling conflict between the victim, the offender, and the community.

30. Chapter 5 Family Problems

31. Chapter Outline • The Global Context: Families of the World • Changing Patterns in U.S. Families and Households • Sociological Theories of Family Problems • Violence and Abuse Intimate and Family Relations • Strategies for Action: Preventing and Responding to Violence and Abuse in Intimate and Family Relationships

32. Chapter Outline • Problems Associated with Divorce • Strategies for Action: Strengthening Marriage and Alleviating Problems of Divorce • Teenage Childbearing • Strategies for Action: Interventions in Teenage Childbearing • Understanding Family Problems

33. Family • A kinship system of all relatives living together or recognized as a social unit, including adopted persons.

34. Median Age at First Marriage, by Sex

35. Changing Patterns in U.S. Families and Households • Increased singlehood and older age at first marriage. • The proportion of households consisting of one person living alone increased from 17% to 26% in 2005. • Today, 13.1% of women and 18.5%t of men ages 40–44 have never been married.

36. Changing Patterns in U.S. Families and Households • Delayed childbearing • Between 1981 and 2003, the birthrate for women ages 40–44 more than doubled. • First-birth rates for women ages 30 to 34, 35 to 39, and 40 to 44 increased from 2002 to 2003, by 7%, 12%, and 11%, respectively.

37. Changing Patterns in U.S. Families and Households • Increased heterosexual and same-sex cohabitation • Nationally, 9% of coupled households are unmarried partner households. • From 1960 to 2000 the number of cohabiting unmarried couples skyrocketed.

38. Number of Unmarried, Cohabitating Couples of the Opposite Sex

39. Changes in U.S. Families and Households • More interracial/interethnic unions • Between 1980 and 2000 the proportion of interracial or interethnic marriages more than doubled, from 4% in 1980 to 9% in 2000. • In a 2007 national survey, 83% agree that “it’s all right for blacks and whites to date,” up from 8% in 1987.

40. Changes in U.S. Families and Households • A new family form: Living apart together • Family scholars have identified an emerging family form, living apart together (LAT) relationships. • Couples may choose this family form for a number of reasons, including the desire to maintain a measure of independence and avoid problems that may arise from living together.

41. Changes in U.S. Families and Households • Increased births to unmarried women • The percentage of births to unmarried women increased from 18.4% of total births in 1980 to 30.1% in 1991 to 36.8% in 2005. • Among black women in the United States, more than 2/3 of births are to unmarried women.

42. Changes in U.S. Families and Households • Increased single-parent families • From 1970 to 2003 the proportion of single-mother families grew from 12% to 26% and single-father families grew from 1% to 6%. • Fewer children living in married families • The % of children living in married-couple families decreased from 77% in 1980 to 68% in 2003.

43. Changes in U.S. Families and Households • Increased divorce and blended families • About 1/4 of U.S. first-year college students have parents who are divorced. • Increased employment of mothers • Employment of married women with children under age 18 rose from 24% in 1950 to 40% in 1970 to 70% in 2004.

44. Births, Birth Rate, and % of Births to Unmarried Women: U.S. 1980–2005

45. Changes in U.S. Families and Households • Increased single-parent families • From 1970 to 2003 the proportion of single-mother families grew from 12 to 26% and single-father families grew from 1 to 6%. • 16% of children living with single fathers and 9% of children living with single mothers also live with their parents’ partners.

46. Changes in U.S. Families and Households • Increased divorce and blended families • The divorce rate, the number of divorces per 1,000 population, doubled from 1950 to 1980, increasing from a rate of 2.6 to 5.2. • In nearly every year since the early 1980s, the divorce rate has decreased, and in 2005 it was 3.6. • 28% of U.S. adults have been divorced; among 50 to 64 year olds, 45% have been divorced.

47. Changes in U.S. Families and Households • Increased employment of mothers • Employment of married women with children under age 18 rose from 24% in 1950 to 40% in 1970 to 66% in 2005. • In 61% of U.S. married-couple families with children younger than under age 18, both parents were employed.

48. Structural Functionalist Perspective • Family performs functions that help society: • Replenishes population. • Socializes children. • Provides emotional and physical care for its members.

49. Conflict Perspective • Focuses on how social class and power influence marriages and families. • Racial and ethnic differences in families are related to the lower socioeconomic status of racial and ethnic minorities.

50. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective • Concerned with social meanings and definitions of divorce, single parenthood, and cohabitation. • As meanings become less negative, behaviors become more common. • When family members label each other, they may act according to label.