Criminology Test 3, Ch. 8, 12 + 13

What are the basic premises of the link between socialization and crime?

• Everyone has the potential to become a criminal.

• Criminality is a function of individual socialization.

• Crime is not limited to the poor and under-class.

• We need to examine the agents of socialization such as family, school, peer groups, and religion.

What factors of family relations may contribute to criminal behaviour?

• Conflict and tension.

• Separation and divorce.

• Single parenthood.

• Inconsistent discipline.

• Parent-child relations.

• Parental mental health problems.

• Drug abuse.

• Child abuse and neglect.

Graph: Types of self-reported criminal victimization experienced during adulthood, by victims of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse, Canada, 2014

What factors of educational experience may contribute to criminal behaviour?

• Poor academic achievement.

• “Streaming” or tracking.

• Dropping out.

What factors of peer relations may contribute to criminal behaviour?

• Acceptance and popularity affects

• Falling in with a “bad crowd”

• Antisocial friends

• Gang activity

What factors of institutional involvement and belief may contribute to criminal behaviour?

• Religious beliefs and values.

• Religious participation.

• Evidence is mixed.

What are three theories that describe the effects of socialization on crime?

• Social learning theory

  • Crime learned through interaction with criminal peers.

• Social control theory

  • Criminal tendencies are controlled by bonds to society.

• Social reaction theory

  • Criminality is result of labelling by significant others.

What is ‘differential association’?

• Edwin H. Sutherland

  • Challenged the stereotype of crime as a lower-class phenomenon.

• Criminal attitudes and skills are learned:

  • through interaction.

  • with significant others.

• Criminal learning includes skills and motives.

  • Attitudes, values, language.

• Significant others give definitions favourable or unfavourable to law-breaking.

• Too many definitions favourable to breaking the law results in deviance.

• Criminal behaviour is learned just like non-criminal behaviour.

• Criminal behaviour results from general needs and values, not special needs and values.

• Research shows that differential association is related to:

  • Violent behaviour.

  • Substance abuse and drug trade.

  • Career patterns of crime.

What is ‘differential reinforcement theory’?

• Akers and Burgess

• Combines differential association theory with operant conditioning

  • Deviant behaviour starts as imitation.

  • Maintained through reinforcement

  • Weakened through punishment

  • Rewards and rationalization.

• Main influence

  • Groups that control reinforcement and punishment

• Akers’ research of teen drug behaviour

  • Kids who believe they will be rewarded for deviance by those they respect are most likely to be deviant.

• Associates may be chosen because they reinforce deviant behaviour.

What is ‘neutralization theory’?

Sykes and Matza (1957)

• People “drift” between conventional and deviant behaviours.

• Techniques of neutralization of conventional values paves the way for further deviance and crime.

• Evidence of conventional values

Techniques of Neutralization:

• Criminals neutralize their conventional values through:

  • Denial of responsibility.

  • Denial of injury.

  • Denial of victim.

  • Condemnation of the condemners.

  • Appeal to higher loyalties.

What is ‘social control theory’?

• Key Issue:

  • All people are tempted to be deviant.

• Emphasis:

  • Self-concept, self-esteem and self-control.

• Criminality is a product of weak self-concept and poor self-esteem.

• Testing Social Control Theory:

  • Supportive research

  • Non-delinquent youth versus delinquent view

  • Deviant behaviour results in weakened social bonds.

Image: Hirschi’s Social Bond (1969)

What is ‘social reaction theory’?

• Also known as Labelling Theory

• People are given labels which may define the whole person.

• Labels about one trait may be generalized.

• Negative labels stigmatize.

  • E.g. Mentally ill are thought to be dangerous.

• Agents of social control may maintain and amplify criminal behaviour.

  • E.g. police, courts.

• Crime and Labelling Theory:

  • Crime is not a behaviour but how we respond to a behaviour.

  • Social groups create deviance by making rules.

  • Moral entrepreneurs

What is ‘differential enforcement’?

• Law are differentially enforced, based on social status and social distance.

• Poor and minorities predominate in crime statistics.

What are the consequences of labelling?

• Stigma

• Changing self-image

  • Reflective role-taking.

• Joining deviant cliques

  • Common bond with other outcasts.

• Criminal labels

  • Create a master status.

  • Become basis of personal identity.

• Process is referred to as the “dramatization of evil”.

• Labelling is associated with chronic offending

What is the ‘General Theory of Deviance’?

Kaplan (1992)

• Some people are unable to meet social expectations and face social sanctions.

  • e.g., lack desirable skills or traits

• Social sanctions lead to

  • Self-rejection

  • Deviant peer associations

  • Deviance amplification

What is the ‘Social Development Model (SDM)’?

• Community-level risk factors

  • Poverty, disorganization, weak institutions

• Socialization to develop pro-social bonds to family and friends through four routes:

  1. Perceived opportunities for involvement in activities and interactions with others

  2. Degree of involvement and interaction with others

  3. Development of skills needed to participate

  4. Perceived reinforcement (feedback) as a result of participation

What is ‘white-collar crime’?

• Illegal activity for profit through legitimate business transactions

• Edwin Sutherland

• Wealthy classes use their positions in business for personal gain

  • i.e. price-fixing, false advertising

• Committed by individuals who use the marketplace for their criminal activity

• How serious is it?

  • Much higher cost than street crime

  • Destroys property and lives

  • Destroys trust and confidence

  • An international problem

• Controlling white-collar crime:

  • Prosecution is rare

  • Compliance strategies

    • Economic incentives to obey the law.

  • Deterrence strategies

    • Detect crimes, convict and punish offenders as a warning to others.

  • Judges don’t see them as real criminals

  • They are subject to civil rather than criminal law

What are the seven types of white-collar crime?

1. Swings and swindles

   • Financial

     • Phony investments

   • Religious

     • Donations for non-existent causes

2. Chiselling

   • Cheating company or customers

     • E.g. Substituting generic drugs.

   • Securities fraud

     • Insider trading

3. Individual exploitation of position

   • Government

   • Industry

4. Influence peddling and bribery

   • Government

   • Criminal justice system

   • Business

5. Theft and employee fraud

   • Use position for personal gain

   • Blue-collar fraud

     • Pilferage

   • Management fraud

6. Client frauds

   • Health care fraud

     • Unnecessary services

   • Bank fraud

     • False property evaluation

   • Tax evasion

     • GST, PST

7. Corporate crime

   • Committed by people who control companies to further their business interests.

What are the four types of corporate crime?

1. Illegal restraint of trade and price-fixing

2. Deceptive pricing

3. False claims and advertising

4. Environmental crime

What is ‘organized crime’?

• Illegal activity for profit through illegitimate business enterprise

• Structured organization, which systematically provides illegal goods and services.

  • Prostitution

  • Gambling

  • Drugs

  • Pornography

• Conspiratorial

  • Coordinated specialties, hierarchical.

• Goals:

  • Profits and power, monopoly on illegal goods and services.

• Also involved in businesses that seem legitimate

  • Money laundering, land fraud, computer crimes, protection rackets.

• Predatory tactics:

  • Intimidation, violence, corruption.

  • Appeals to greed.

• Control and discipline members.

  • Demotion, death sentences.

• Many different groups besides Mafia.

What are some types of organized crime groups?

• Asian-based

  • Drugs, migrant smuggling, street gangs, credit card fraud.

• East European-based

  • Sophisticated Internet and financial frauds, phony credit cards, prostitution, drugs.

• Italian-based

  • Sicilian mafia, Cosa Nostra.

  • Primarily narcotics, gambling, extortion and loansharking.

• Outlaw motorcycle gangs

  • Hell’s Angels, Outlaws, Bandidos.

  • Drugs, escort services, extortion, intimidation, murder, etc.

• Native outlaw gangs

  • Street gangs, cross-border smuggling.

What are the similarities between white-collar crime and organized crime?

• Focus on enterprise

• Taint and corrupt free market system

• May involve violence

What are the two types of independent crime organizations?

1. Enterprise syndicates providing services

   • E.g. drugs, gambling, prostitution.

2. Power syndicates

   • Extortion, terror to gain power in legitimate business.

What are ‘high tech crimes’?

Traditional crimes using a computer:

• Money laundering

• Illegal gambling

• Child pornography

• Internet fraud

• Hate propaganda

What are ‘pure high tech crimes’?

• Hacking

• Spreading viruses

• Motivations:

  • Malice

  • Revenge

  • Voyeurism

  • “Open access” philosophy

  • Showing off

What is ‘mal prohibitum’?

• An act that is not inherently immoral but is prohibited by statute (via Cornell Law School)

• Public Order Crimes

What are ‘public order crimes’?

• May be regarded as victimless crimes

  • Are victimless crimes victimless?

    • E.g. runaways and prostitution.

• Violate the prevailing moral rules.

• Prohibit the sale and distribution of selected goods and services (e.g., sex, drugs).

What are some examples of the relationship between criminality and morality/immorality?

• Some non-criminal behaviour may be very harmful.

  • E.g. tobacco.

• Some criminal behaviour may not be very harmful.

  • E.g. marijuana.

What are ‘moral crusaders’?

• Moral entrepreneurs

• Howard Becker

• Undertake “moral crusades” to have their values incorporated into law.

  • E.g. same-sex marriage opponents.

• Encourage “moral panics.”

What is ‘prostitution’?

• Consensual exchange of sex for money.

• Not a crime per se.

• Sections 211 - 213 of Criminal Code includes

  • Solicitation (communicating for purposes of prostitution).

  • Procurement (act as a pimp)

• Earlier in 2012, the Ontario Court of Appeal made a ruling on prostitution, resulting in significant changes to the prostitution laws.

  • It is now legal for prostitutes to hire drivers, bodyguards and support staff

  • It is now legal for prostitutes to work in organized brothels or “bawdy houses”

  • “Exploitation” of sex workers by pimps is illegal, as is openly soliciting customers on the street

• Prostitutes and customers:

  • Limited information, mostly focused on female street prostitutes.

  • Customers:

    • Almost exclusively male.

    • Mostly white.

    • Blue-collar workers most common occupational group.

    • Higher status more likely to use escort services, call girls.

What are the five different types of prostitutes?

• Streetwalkers

  • Runaways, ethnic minorities, high incidence of drug abuse.

• Bar girls

  • In military towns, transient populations.

• Brothel (bordello) workers.

  • Run by madams (former prostitutes).

• Call girls

  • Independent or escort services.

  • Often high-income earners.

• Circuit travelers

  • Groups of two or three.

  • Visit lumber camps, truck stops.

  • Some are enslaved by pimps.

What are some reasons for becoming a prostitute?

• Troubled families.

• Conflict with school.

• Poor grades.

• Dislike of discipline of traditional work.

• Drug abuse

  • Heroin, cocaine.

• Desire for money, luxuries.

  • Easy money.

• Few are coerced into prostitution.

What is ‘pornography’?

• Difficult to define

  • What is obscene? Who decides?

• Supreme Court definition:

  • Media which links sex with undue exploitation, violence, or degrading or dehumanizing treatment and which has no redeeming social value.

What is ‘child pornography’?

• Use of children in sexually explicit material.

• Under 18 (or depicted as being under 18).

• Visual depiction

• Written material advocating sex with minors.

What have been some attempts at controlling sex for profit?

• Vibrant industry, $10 billion worldwide.

• Get tough policy

  • Increases profits.

• By-laws may regulate and license activity.

  • Zoning by-laws.

  • Restricting the number of licenses.

How have technological changes impacted sex crimes?

• Technology increases ability to communicate.

  • Guarantees privacy.

  • Internet interactive sex services.

• Bill C-15A

  • Internet luring.

  • Child pornography.

What is ‘illegal gambling’?

• Not well controlled, continues to be popular.

• Section 207 of the Criminal Code

  • Province has exclusive rights.

  • Need permission from government to operate lotteries, make or take bets, hold a pool.

  • Gambling over the Internet is illegal if website is outside of Canada.

• Social costs of gambling:

  • Problem gamblers (3 - 5% of the population).

    • Suicide (10% are gambling-related).

    • Crimes to support habit (theft, fraud).

    • Domestic violence and family breakdown.

    • Debt and bankruptcy.

What are some drug control strategies?

• Source Control.

  • American approach to Latin America, Middle East; the War on Drugs.

  • High stakes, violent action and reaction.

  • Devastated economies (Afghanistan).

  • Can’t control designer drugs.

• Border checks.

• Law enforcement.

  • Target drug rings, go undercover.

• Punishment.

  • Jail, fines.

• Community.

  • Block watches.

Pioneer Canada:

• Opium widely used in medicines.

• Moral crusaders.

• 1908 Criminalization of opium.