Eugenics and crime: Biological Basis for Crime???

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Eugenics and crime Biological Basis for Crime???

• Lombroso

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SOCIOLOGY not biology

• SOCIOLOGY explains deviance not in terms of the
  individual, but rather how the society reacts to
  the person or event

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Deviance defined

• Deviance (violation of norms) and crime
  (violation of norms written into law) is socially
  constructed, which means it varies across time
  and place
• But it is not the act itself that makes it
  deviant, but the reaction of the society to the
  act!!!
• Deviance is always relative (different people
  define different acts as deviant)

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Case studyDeviance and Drugs

• Criminalization of a drug is a function of
• Norms
• Time
• Place
• Actor
• Audience
• How do you see each of these playing a role in
  Hooked Illegal Drugs?

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Case studyDeviance and Drugs

• Labeling is relative and affected by assumptions
  about class, race, and gender
• Why do some drugs remain legal while others not?
• Who benefits from legal drugs?
• Those drugs that are considered the most deviant
  are likely to be those most used among less
  powerful groupsincluding lower-class
  individuals, those in socially marginal
  occupations, students, and those not fully
  assimilated to the United States (pg. 210)

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For example

• African Americans 12 of population but 50 of
  those in jail or prison
• Why??? Class, racial profiling, types of crimes
  committed and link to profiling, visibility,
  perception of harm, and media focus
• ERPA still pending
• 16 in the population with less than a high
  school education, 43 of them are in jail or
  prison

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Questions to answer on a piece of paper in pairs

• 1) When you think of crime, what specific crimes
  come to mind? Why are these the crimes you think
  of first?
• 2) When you think of a criminal, what mental
  picture comes to mind? Describe that mental
  picture. Why is that the picture you have in
  your mind?
• ALL TOGETHER
• How would you describe the images of crime and
  criminals that come to mind looking at the images
  from all groups in class?
• In terms of cost and loss of life, what types of
  crime are the most harmful?

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The image versus the reality

• Harm of elite crime (pg. 206)
• Intra-racial crime statistics
• WHY do we have such a distorted image of
  criminals?
• Are media representations of crime accurate???
• Compare sentencing (pg. 207)

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Ethical DilemmaFord Motors Pinto Memo, 1968

• What would you do???

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Deviance in Families

• Domestic violence and abuse in families is often
  overlooked, but one of the greatest sources of
  violence in our society
• Origins of the phrase Rule of Thumb (pg. 210)

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Reactions to deviance include

• Imprisonment
• We have the highest incarceration rates (see
  Figure 8.2 on page 218), but incarceration has
  little to do with reducing crime
• What invisible punishments help us understand
  high rates (67) of recidivism? (pg. 218)

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Creative Sentencing?

• Given high rates of recidivism, is creative
  sentencing (pg. 219) an option?
• What types of sentences would you recommend for
  various crimes?
• Are there instances in which you would not use
  creative sentencing?
• Do you approve of the use of creative sentencing
  in the 3 cases in your book?