societies intro #1

“Crime Myths” – collective definitions society applies to
certain problems and their solutions; social products of
telling & re-telling crime-related fictions and sensational
stories. Over time, people believe these myths as
truths about crime & justice.
 Artificial Categorizations
Law-Abiding Citizens Criminals
Crime Fighters Victims
This, in turn,  dealing with individual actors rather than
structural issues of Crime & Criminality.
Media is the most powerful ‘myth-making’ group through
sensationalism and focus on atypical crimes, distorting
public perception.
Public Officials shape crime ideology by framing the debate
(e.g. “war on drugs”), while
Criminal Justice (CJ) Workers have an interest in
 increasing concern about crime.
Together [Media, Government, CJ] have pumped up ‘crime
mythology’ through programming like “Cops,” “America’s
Most Wanted,” “Unsolved Mysteries,” or “True Stories…”
ELEMENTS for CRIME MYTHS:

  1. Problem portrayed as ‘epidemic’

  2. Distant, deviant population identified/targeted

  3. Victims as ‘innocent’ or ‘helpless’

  4. Brave, virtuous heroes to combat crime, and

  5. \
    Threat to values, norms, and traditional lifestyles
    UNIFORM CRIME REPORT (UCR) – reported monthly by
    every police department’s chief. UCR considered best data and
    information but has its limits. Crime categories and definitions in
    UCR designed to maximize severity/number of crimes reported by
    local police. Conversely, reporting agencies manipulate data in
    both directions.
    NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMIZATION SURVEY (NCVS) –
    provides reliable, scientific source of US crime information. Most
    crimes against persons are committed by someone know to
    victims – relative, friend, acquaintance.
    “In 1965, US Senator (sociologist) Daniel Patrick Moynihan
    worried that a growing proportion of black children were being
    born to single mothers. When such large numbers of children
    were abandoned by their fathers and brought up by single
    mothers, he said, the result was sure to be wild violence and
    social chaos. He was excoriated as a racist and the subject was
    abandoned. The national rate of “illegitimacy” (out-of-wedlock
    births) among blacks that year was 26%. In 1970, it was 50%.Today, it is 72% of non-Hispanic blacks.” – Kappeler
    Many sociological, economic and political issues in this
    statement. Discuss.
    REIMAN & LEIGHTON
    Introduction: CJ through the Looking Glass, or Winning by Losing
    d – Recidivism – habitual relapse into crime
    *Image Vs. Reality is
    d – “Pyrrhic Defeat Theory” – a military victory purchased at
    such a cost that it is essentially a defeat; in CJ it approximates
    the failures of the CJ system with its benefits to those in
    power.
    *NOT CONSPIRACY THEORY !!!!
    Also CRITICAL is the CRIME – ECONOMICS Link.
    *POVERTY as a SOURCE of CRIME
    …This DOESN’T make those people ‘Blameless!’

  6. Society fails to protect people from the crimes they fear
    by, among other things, refusing to alleviate the poverty
    that breeds them.

  7. The CJ system fails to protect people from the most
    serious dangers by failing to treat dangerous acts of those
    who are well-off as crimes, and by failing to enforce the
    law vigorously vs the well-to-do when they commit acts
    that are defined as crimes.

  8. By virtue of these and other failures, the CJ System
    succeeds in creating the image that crime is almost
    exclusively the work of the poor, an image that serves the
    interests of the powerful.