1. Introduction to Sociology
SOC101Y
Introduction to Sociology
Professor Robert Brym
Lecture #14
Crime and Deviance
9 Feb 2011

2. Definitions I
Deviance involves breaking a norm and eliciting a negative reaction from others.
Informal punishment is mild and may involve raised eyebrows, gossip, ostracism or
Stigmatization. When people are stigmatized, they are negatively evaluated because of a perceptible sign that distinguishes them from others.
Formal punishment results from people breaking laws, which are norms stipulated and enforced by government bodies.

3. Definitions II
Social diversions are minor acts of deviance such as participating in fads.
Social deviations are more serious acts. A larger proportion of people agree they are deviant and somewhat harmful, and they are usually subject to institutional sanction.
The state defines conflict crimes as illegal but the definition is controversial in the wider society.
Consensus crimes are widely agreed to be bad in themselves.

4. Definitions III
Power is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his or her own will despite resistance.
White‑collar crime refers to illegal acts committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his or her occupation.
Street crimes include arson, burglary, robbery, assault, and other illegal acts. They are committed disproportionately by people from lower classes.

5. Definitions IV
Victimless crimes, such as prostitution and illegal drug use, involve violations of the law in which no victim steps forward and is identified.
Self-report surveys are especially useful. In such surveys, respondents are asked to report their involvement in criminal activities, either as perpetrators or victims.

6. Victimization: Percent of Offences by Type of Crime, Seven Countries, 2000
Percent of population
victimized by all crimes
Note: Contact crimes include robberies, sexual incidents, and assaults and threats. Horizontal lines indicate international average for each type of crime for all 17 countries in the survey. Thirty-eight percent of the population of all 17 countries were victimized in the year preceding the survey.

7. Crime Rate, Canada, by Province and Major City, 2008
Crimes per
100,000
population
Territorial crime rates are extraordinarily high: about 21,805 in the Yukon, 34,867 in Nunavut and 43,509 in the Northwest Territories.

8. 1991
Crimes per 100,000 population
Graph excludes traffic crime, the rate of which has been stable at about 375. Between 1991 and 2006, total crime was down 27%, violent crime was down 10%, property crime was down 42%, other (mainly drug-related) crime was down 5%.

9. Total and Violent Crime Rate, Canada, 1998-2009
Total crime rate
Frequency per 100,000 population
Violent crime rate
Year

10. Homicide Rate, Canada,
Homicides per 100,000 population

11. Homicide Rate by Gun Ownership, 1990s
USA
Homicide rate per 100,000 population
Japan
New Zealand
Australia
Canada UK
Thousands of guns owned per 100,000 population
Note: About 30% of Canadian homicides and 70% of American homicides involve firearms.

12. 100,000 Population per Police Officer, Canada, 1991-2006
100,000 population/officer
As the crime rate fell from , there were fewer police officers per 100,000 population; as the crime rate continued to fall after 1998, there were more police officers per 100,000 population. Thus, the correlation between crime and density of police officers is weak.

13. World Prison Population, 2008
Prisoners per 100,000 population
Share of Prisoners per Country
Country
Percent of World’s Prisoners
Percent of World’s Prisoners / Percent of World’s Population
China*
24.7
1.1
USA
23.4
5.2
Russia
9.1
4.3
France
0.6
0.7
Germany
Canada
0.4
0.8
Other
41.1
Total
100.0
Germany (89)
France (96)
Canada (116)
World (145)
England/Wales (153)
China* (155)
Russia (629)
United States (756)
Walmsley, Roy “World Prison Population List (eighth edition).”
* Includes 850,000 people in “administrative detention.”

14. Persons Charged in Criminal Incidents, Canada, 1991-2006
Thousands of charges

15. Total Crime Rate and Unemployment Rate, Canada, 1991-2009
Year

16. Abortions and Crime, USA, 1973-97

17. The Ratio of Female to Male Offenders, Canada, 1994-2006
Youth crime
Total crime
Ratio of female to male offenders
Homicide
Year

18. The percentage of sentenced Aboriginal adults increases with the log of the percentage of Aboriginal adults in a population ( )
Nunavut
NWT
Saskatchewan
Yukon
logarithmic function
Manitoba
Aboriginals adults sentenced as
percent of adults sentenced
Alberta BC
Aboriginal adults as percent of adult population

19. Why the Crime Rate for Aboriginals and Blacks is Higher than the Crime Rate for Whites in North America
Racism exists in the criminal justice system (e.g., age, class, and lack of criminal activity act as prophylactics against stops and searches for whites and Asians, but not blacks).
Aboriginal and black men experience relatively high discrimination, high unemployment, and low per capita income as a result of their race.

20. Arrest by Race, USA, 2009 Racial group % of Pop. % of Arrests
White
Black
American Indian
Asian

21. The Two Big Trends in Social Control
The medicalization of deviance. Medical definitions of deviant behaviour are becoming more prevalent.
Getting tough on crime.

22. An Example of the Medicalization of Deviance
Five North American surveys conducted in the 1950s and 1960s presented respondents with the following anecdote. The graph on the right shows the percentage of respondents who considered the behavior described in the anecdote evidence of mental illness. Notice the difference between the 1950s and the 1960s. (Nearly 100% of psychiatrists who evaluated the anecdote thought it illustrated “simple schizophrenia.”)
“Now here’s a young woman in her twenties, let’s call her Betty Smith… she has never had a job, and she doesn’t seem to want to go out and look for one. She is a very quiet girl, she doesn’t talk much to anyone -- even her own family, and she acts like she is afraid of people, especially young men her own age. She won’t go out with anyone, and whenever someone comes to visit her family, she stays in her own room until they leave. She just stays by herself and daydreams all the time and shows no interest in anything or anybody.”
Percent of respondents
who considered behavior
indicative of mental illness

23. Why Deviance is Becoming Medicalized
Many North Americans are experiencing more stress, due mainly to the increased demands of work and a growing time crunch.
Traditional institutions for dealing with mental health problems are less able to cope with them
North American culture predisposes people to define social problems “scientifically.”
Various professional organizations have an interest in inflating the number and scope of mental disorders.

24. Why Getting Tough May Not Pay
Capital punishment may result in the execution of innocent people, doesn’t deter murderers, and is often biased.
Tough prison sentences do not result in lower crime rates and they create hardened criminals.

25. The Death Penalty Worldwide