Criminology: a sociological understanding [8 ed.] 9780137636181, 9780137636136

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EIGHTH EDITION

CRIMINOLOGY A Sociological Understanding Steven E. Barkan University of Maine

Content Strategy: Holly Shufeldt Product Marketing: Rachele Strober Content Production: Faye Gemmellaro Product Management: Alexa Frank Rights and Permissions: Ahsanul Haque and Marissa Bracker Please contact https://support.pearson.com/getsupport/s with any queries on this content. Cover Image by welcomeinside/Shutterstock Copyright © 2023, 2018, 2015 by Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates, 221 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. All Rights Reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise. For information regarding permissions, request forms, and the appropriate contacts within the Pearson Education Global Rights and Permissions department, please visit www.pearsoned.com/permissions/. Acknowledgments of third-party content appear on the appropriate page within the text. PEARSON and ALWAYS LEARNING are exclusive trademarks owned by Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. Unless otherwise indicated herein, any third-party trademarks, logos, or icons that may appear in this work are the property of their respective owners, and any references to third-party trademarks, logos, icons, or other trade dress are for demonstrative or descriptive purposes only. Such references are not intended to imply any sponsorship, endorsement, authorization, or promotion of Pearson’s products by the owners of such marks, or any relationship between the owner and Pearson Education, Inc., authors, licensees, or distributors. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Barkan, Steven E., author. Title: Criminology : a sociological understanding / Steven E Barkan. Description: Eighth Edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Pearson, [2023] | Revised edition of the author’s Criminology, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022011386 (print) | LCCN 2022011387 (ebook) | ISBN 9780137636181 (paperback) | ISBN 9780137636136 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Crime—Sociological aspects. | Criminology. Classification: LCC HV6025 .B278 2023 (print) | LCC HV6025 (ebook) | DDC 364—dc23/eng/20220425 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011386 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011387

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ISBN 10: 0-13-763618-0 ISBN 13: 978-0-13-763618-1

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Dedication To Barb,

Dave, and Joe, and in memory of my parents

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Brief Contents Preface

xxi

PART 1

Understanding Crime and Victimization Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

1 2 3 4

Criminology and the Sociological Perspective

1

Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem The Measurement and Patterning of Criminal Behavior Victims and Victimization

17

38

67

PART 2

Explaining Crime Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

5 6 7 8 9

Classical and Neoclassical Perspectives

92

Biological and Psychological Explanations

108

Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Structure Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Process Sociological Theories: Critical Perspectives

130 151

174

PART 3

Criminal Behaviors Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

10 11 12 13 14 15

Violent Crime: Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Robbery Violence Against Women

223

Property Crime and Fraud

242

White-Collar and Organized Crime Political Crime

193

260

286

Consensual Crime 305

PART 4

Controlling and Preventing Crime Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18

Policing: Dilemmas of Crime Control in a Democratic Society Prosecution and Punishment

347

Conclusion: How Can We Reduce Crime?

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367

327

Contents NEW TO THIS EDITION PREFACE XXI

XIX

PART 1

Understanding Crime and Victimization Chapter 1

Criminology and the Sociological Perspective

1

The Sociological Perspective 3 The Mutual Relevance of Sociology and Criminology 4 The Rise of Sociological Criminology 5 Criminal Law: Theoretical Underpinnings and Goals 7 Consensus and Conflict in the Creation of Criminal Law 8 Goals of Criminal Law 9 Criminal Law: Origins, Types of Crime, and Criminal Liability 9 Origins of Criminal Law 9 Types of Crime 10 Criminal Liability 10 Research Methods in Criminology 11 Surveys 11 Experiments 12 Qualitative Research: Observing and Intensive Interviewing 13 Research Using Existing Data 14 Comparative and Historical Research 14 Conclusion 14 Summary 15 Key Terms 15 What Would You Do? 16

Chapter 2

Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem Public Opinion about Crime: Laying the Groundwork A Brief Look Back 19 Public Opinion and Crime Policy 19 Overdramatization of Crime by the News Media 20 Crime Waves 21 Overreporting of Violent Crime 22 Violence in the Popular Media 22 Other Problems with Media Coverage 23 People of Color 23 Youths 24 vii

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19

17

Virtuous Victims 24 Additional Problems in Media Coverage 24 Effects of Media Coverage 25 Public Ignorance 25 Crime and Controversy Should the News Media Disclose the Names of People Who Report a Rape? 25

Public Fear and Concern 26 Obscuring Underlying Forces 26 Diversion from White-Collar Crime 26 International Focus Crime Is Down in Scotland, but Many Scots Think Otherwise

26

Racial and Ethnic Stereotyping 27 Research on Public Beliefs about Crime and Punitiveness 27 Fear of Crime 27 Anger about Crime 31 Seriousness of Crime 32 Punitiveness 33 Research on Views about Criminal Justice 34 Views about the Police 34 Perceptions of Criminal Injustice 35 Views about Crime and Criminal Justice Spending A Final Word on Public Beliefs 35 Conclusion 36 Summary 36 Key Terms 37 What Would You Do? 37

Chapter 3

35

The Measurement and Patterning of Criminal Behavior 38 The Uniform Crime Report and the National Incident-Based Reporting System 40 How a Crime Becomes Official 40 Critiques of the UCR’s SRS Data and of Two Alternatives 42 SRS Data 42 NIBRS 44 Calls to Police 44 National Crime Victimization Survey 45 Evaluating NCVS Data 46 Self-Report Studies 47 Critiques of Self-Report Studies 48 Assessing UCR, NCVS, and Self-Report Data 48 Recent Trends in U.S. Crime Rates 49 Geographical, Seasonal, and Climatological Patterning of Criminal Behavior 50 Geographical Patterns 51 Crime and Controversy Why Did the Crime Rate Drop After the Early 1990s?

52

International Focus Measuring Crime in Other Nations 52 Seasonal and Climatological Variations 53 Contents viii

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Social Patterns of Criminal Behavior Gender and Crime 55 Race, Ethnicity, and Crime 58 Social Class and Crime 61 Age and Crime 62 Conclusion 64 Summary 65 Key Terms 66 What Would You Do? 66

Chapter 4

Victims and Victimization

55

67

Geographical Patterns and Crime Characteristics of Victimization 69 Some Conceptual Issues 69 Geographical Patterns 70 Crime Characteristics 71 Social Patterns of Victimization 72 Gender, Race, and Ethnicity 73 International Focus The International Crime Victim Survey

74

Age 75 Household Income 75 Race, Gender, and Age Combined 76 LGBTQ Status 76 Victim–Offender Characteristics 77 The Victim–Offender Relationship: Strangers versus Nonstrangers 77 The Intraracial Nature of Victimization 78 Understanding Victimization: Situational Explanations 79 Lifestyle and Routine Activities Theories 80 Deviant Lifestyles and Victimization 80 Crime and Controversy Victim Precipitation 81 Physical Proximity and Victimization 82 Understanding Victimization: Individual Traits 82 Low Self-Control and Lack of Prosocial Relationships 82 Childhood Problems 82 Mental Disorder 83 Puberty 83 Repeat Victimization 83 Explaining Sociodemographic Variation in Victimization 83 Victimization of College Students and of People without Housing 84 Costs and Consequences of Victimization 86 Economic and Medical Costs and Consequences 86 Psychological Consequences 86 Social and Behavioral Consequences 87 Victimization by White-Collar Crime 88 Victims in the Criminal Justice System 88 Victims and Criminal Case Outcomes 89 Contents

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Conclusion 89 Summary 90 Key Terms 91 What Would You Do?

91

PART 2

Explaining Crime Chapter 5

Classical and Neoclassical Perspectives

92

Understanding Theories of Crime 93 From Theology to Science 94 God and Demons as Causes of Crime and Deviance 95 The Age of Reason 95 The Classical School of Criminology 96 The Rise of Positivism 97 Neoclassical Perspectives 98 Rational Choice Theory 98 Evaluating Rational Choice Theory 99 Deterrence Theory 99 Types of Deterrence 100 Taking a Closer Look at Deterrence 100 International Focus Mandatory Penalties and General Deterrence in International Perspective

101

Research on Deterrence 102 Crime and Controversy Three-Strikes Laws Strike Out 102 Routine Activities Theory 103 Evaluating Routine Activities Theory 104 Theory and Policy: Classical and Neoclassical Perspectives 105 Conclusion 105 Summary 106 Key Terms 107 What Would You Do? 107

Chapter 6

Biological and Psychological Explanations

108

Biological Explanations 109 Early Biological Explanations 110 Franz Gall: Phrenology 110 Cesare Lombroso: Atavism 110 Earnest Hooton: Biological Inferiority 111 William Sheldon: Body Shapes 112 Contemporary Biological Explanations: Heredity and Genes 113 Early Research 113 Twin Studies 113 Adoption Studies 114 Molecular Genetics 114

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Evolutionary Biology 115 Chromosomal Abnormalities 115 Contemporary Biological Explanations: Brain Abnormalities, Body Chemistry, Nutrition, and Perinatal and Childhood Problems 115 Brain Abnormalities 115 Neurochemical Factors 116 Neurotransmitters 117 Nutrition and Diet 118 Perinatal Problems 118 Adverse Childhood Experiences 118 Lead and Other Toxins 119 Early Puberty 119 Evaluation of Biological Explanations 119 Crime and Controversy Does Abortion Lower the Crime Rate? 120

The Value of Research on Maternal and Childhood Problems 121 Psychological Explanations 121 Psychoanalytic Explanations 122 Moral Development, Intelligence, and Personality 123 Moral Development and Crime 123 Intelligence and Crime 124 Personality and Crime 124 International Focus Psychological Research in New Zealand

125

Evaluation of Psychological Explanations 126 Abnormality or Normality? 126 Theory and Policy: Biological and Psychological Explanations 127 Conclusion 128 Summary 128 Key Terms 129 What Would You Do? 129

Chapter 7

Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Structure

130

The Legacy of Durkheim 131 Social Disorganization and Social Ecology 133 Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay 134 Critiques of Social Disorganization Theory 134 The Revival of Social Disorganization Theory 135 Other Ecological Work 135 Crime and Controversy Closing the Window on Crime?

136

Anomie Theory and Strain Theory 138 Evaluation of Anomie Theory 139 Defense and Extension of Anomie Theory 139 General Strain Theory 140 International Focus Strain, Immigration, and Rioting in Europe

141 Contents

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Subcultural Theories 142 Albert K. Cohen: School Failure and Delinquent Subcultures 142 Walter B. Miller: Focal Concerns 143 Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin: Differential Opportunity Theory 144 Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti: The Subculture of Violence 145 Elijah Anderson: The Code of the Street 146 Prospects for Subcultural Explanations 146 Structural Theories and Gender 146 Theory and Policy: Structural Theories 147 Conclusion 148 Summary 149 Key Terms 150 What Would You Do? 150

Chapter 8

Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Process

151

Learning Theories 152 Edwin H. Sutherland: Differential Association Theory 154 Other Learning Theories 156 Evaluation of Learning Theories 157 Control Theories 157 Walter Reckless: Containment Theory 157 Gresham M. Sykes and David Matza: Neutralization and Drift Theory 158 Travis Hirschi: Social Bonding Theory 159 International Focus Social Bonding in Japan 161 Crime and Controversy Does Dropping Out of School Promote or Reduce Delinquency?

163

Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi: Self-Control Theory 164 Charles R. Tittle: Control Balance Theory 165 Mark Colvin and Francis T. Cullen: Differential Social Support and Coercion Theory 165 Life-Course Theories 166 Specific Life-Course Theories 167 The Promise and Problem of Theoretical Integration 169 Theory and Policy: Social Process Theories 170 Conclusion 171 Summary 172 Key Terms 173 What Would You Do? 173

Chapter 9

Sociological Theories: Critical Perspectives

174

Labeling Theory 176 The Relativist Definition of Crime and Deviance The Imposition of the Deviant Label 177 The Negative Consequences of Labeling 178 Contents xii

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176

Evaluation of Labeling Theory 179 Crime and Controversy How Should We Deal with Juveniles in Trouble with the Law?

180

Conflict Theory 181 Consensus and Conflict Perspectives in Sociology 181 Conflict Perspectives in Criminology 181 Evaluation of Conflict Theory 182 Radical Theory 182 Marx and Engels on Crime and Law 182 Willem Bonger: Capitalism, Egoism, and Crime 183 International Focus Crime and the Economy in China, Vietnam, and Russia

183

Jerome Hall: The Law of Theft 184 William Chambliss: The Law of Vagrancy 184 Contemporary Radical Views on Crime and Law 184 Evaluation of Radical Criminology 185 Left Realism and Peacemaking Criminology 186 Feminist Theories 186 An Overview of Feminist Perspectives in Criminology 186 The Scope of Feminist Theory and Research 187 A Final Word on Feminism 190 Theory and Policy: Critical Perspectives 190 Conclusion 191 Summary 191 Key Terms 192 What Would You Do? 192

PART 3

Criminal Behaviors Chapter 10

Violent Crime: Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Robbery 193 Homicide 195 Defining Homicide 195 Patterning and Social Dynamics of Homicide 196 Trends in U.S. Homicide Rates 200 Aggravated Assault 201 Major Aspects of Aggravated Assault 202 Explaining Homicide and Aggravated Assault 202 Why Does the United States Have a Higher Homicide Rate than Other Wealthy Democracies? 202 Why Are U.S. Homicides and Aggravated Assaults More Common in Urban Areas than Elsewhere? 203 Why Do Men Commit Almost All Homicides and Aggravated Assaults? 203 International Focus Lethal Violence in Mexico 204 Why Do Black Americans and Certain Other People of Color Have Higher Rates of Homicide and Aggravated Assault? 204 Contents

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xiii

Robbery 205 Defining Robbery 205 Extent and Patterning of Robbery 205 Types of Robbers 207 Explaining Robbery 207 Special Topics in Violent Crime 208 Violence by Women 208 Workplace Violence 209 Mass Murder and Serial Killing 209 Hate Crime 212 Child Abuse and Elder Abuse 214 Mass Media and Violence 216 Firearms, Crime, and Violence 217 Crime and Controversy Do “Stand Your Ground” Laws Make Sense?

218

Reducing Violent Crime 220 What History Tells Us 220 Conclusion 221 Summary 221 Key Terms 222 What Would You Do? 222

Chapter 11

Violence Against Women

223

Overview: The Gendered Nature of Violent Crime 224 An International Problem 225 Defining Rape and Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence 225 Extent of Violence Against Women 226 Rape and Sexual Assault 226 Intimate Partner Violence 227 Stalking 228 Crime and Controversy “All I See Is Blood”: Rape and Sexual Assault in the Military

229

Social Patterning of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women 229 Age 230 Social Class 230 Race and Ethnicity 230 Explaining Violence Against Women 232 International Focus The Nordic Paradox: Sexual Violence in the Nordic Nations

232

Gender, Economic, and Racial Inequality 233 Cultural Myths Supporting Violence Against Women Other Factors and Perspectives 236 Reducing Violence Against Women 237 Arresting Batterers: Deterrence or Escalation? 238 Conclusion 240 Summary 240 Key Terms 240 What Would You Do? 241 Contents xiv

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234

Chapter 12

Property Crime and Fraud

242

Types, Extent, and Patterning of Property Crime 243 Extent of Property Crime 244 Patterning of Property Crime 244 Social Organization of Property Crime 246 Burglary 246 International Focus Global Motor Vehicle Theft 248 Explaining Property Crime 249 Cultural Emphasis on Economic Success 249 Techniques of Neutralization 250 Unemployment 250 Routine Activities and Social Process Factors 251 Property Crime for Thrills 251 A Look at Shoplifting 251 Reducing Property Crime 252 The Criminal Justice System 252 Situational Crime Prevention 252 Crime and Controversy Vicious Dogs and Property Crime

253

Fraud 254 Identity Theft 255 Tax Fraud 255 Insurance Fraud 256 Cybercrime 257 The Cost of Fraud 257 Conclusion 258 Summary 258 Key Terms 259 What Would You Do? 259

Chapter 13

White-Collar and Organized Crime

260

Understanding White-Collar Crime 262 Edwin Sutherland and White-Collar Crime 262 Defining White-Collar Crime 262 Occupational Crime: Law Breaking for Personal Gain 263 Employee Theft: Pilferage and Embezzlement 263 Professional Fraud: Focus on Health Care 264 Unnecessary Surgery 265 Financial Fraud 265 Police and Political Corruption: Violations of Public Trust 266 Organizational Criminality and Corporate Crime 266 Corporate Financial Crime 267 Corporate Violence: Threats to Health and Safety 269 Crime and Controversy Harvest of Shame: Pesticide Poisoning of Farm Workers

270

Economic and Human Costs of White-Collar Crime Economic Cost 274 Human Cost 274 Contents

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xv

274

Explaining White-Collar Crime 275 Similarities to Street Crime 275 Differences from Street Crime 276 Cultural and Social Context of White-Collar Crime 276 Reducing White-Collar Crime 278 Organized Crime 279 History of Organized Crime 279 Alien Conspiracy Model and Myth 280 International Focus Yakuza: Organized Crime in Japan

281

Controlling Organized Crime Conclusion 282 Summary 283 Key Terms 284 What Would You Do? 284

Chapter 14

Political Crime

282

286

Understanding Political Crime 287 Major Categories of Political Crime 288 Crime by Government 288 Political Repression and Human Rights Violations 288 Unethical or Illegal Experimentation 292 Crime and Controversy Civil Liberties in the Age of Terrorism

292

State–Corporate Crime 293 International Focus Arrests of Russians for Protesting the Invasion of Ukraine

293

Political Corruption 294 Crime Against Government 295 Mass Political Violence: Rebellion, Riots, Terrorism Civil Disobedience 298 Espionage and Treason 299 Explaining and Reducing Political Crime 299 The Social Patterning of Political Crime 300 Reducing Political Crime 301 Conclusion 302 Summary 302 Key Terms 303 What Would You Do? 304

Chapter 15

Consensual Crime

305

Illicit Drug Use 307 Drug Use in History 307 Contemporary U.S. Drug Use 308 Explaining Illicit Drug Use 310 The Drugs–Crime Connection 311 The Decriminalization Debate 312

Contents xvi

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295

International Focus What Happened After Portugal Decriminalized Drug Possession?

316

Harm Reduction and Drug Courts 316 Crime and Controversy The Early Impact of Decriminalizing Drugs in Oregon

317

Sexual Offenses: Sex Work and Pornography Sex Work 318 Pornography 320 Gambling 322 The Growth of Gambling 323 The Gambling Debate 323 Reducing Consensual Crime 324 Conclusion 325 Summary 325 Key Terms 326 What Would You Do? 326

318

PART 4

Controlling and Preventing Crime Chapter 16

Policing: Dilemmas of Crime Control in a Democratic Society 327 Crime Control in a Democratic Society 328 The Ideal of Blind Justice 329 A Preview of the Discussion 329 Development of Modern Police Departments 330 Police Departments in the United States 330 Working Personality and Police Behavior 330 Police Misconduct: Brutality 332 Police Misconduct: Corruption 334 Police Discretion: To Arrest or Not to Arrest? 335 Race, Ethnicity, and Arrest 336 Crime and Controversy Racial Profiling in Traffic Stops 336 Gender and Arrest 338 International Focus Police and Policing in Japan 339 Impact of Policing on Crime 339 Do Additional Police Reduce Crime? 339 How Police Are Used 340 Does Arrest Make a Difference? 341 Community Policing 341 Legal Technicalities and Police Effectiveness 342 Impact of Policing on Crime Revisited 342 Women and People of Color in Police Departments 343 Female Officers of Color 344 Conclusion 344 Summary 344 Key Terms 345 What Would You Do? 346

Contents

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xvii

Chapter 17

Prosecution and Punishment

347

Criminal Courts and the Adversary System 348 Normal Crimes 349 Prosecutors, the Courtroom Work Group, and Plea Bargaining 349 Punishment, Social Structure, and Inequality 350 Economic Conditions and Punishment 351 Crime and Controversy Should Felons Lose the Right to Vote?

351

Social Class and Legal Outcomes 352 Impact of Race and Ethnicity 353 Gender and Sentencing 356 Impact of Punishment on Crime 356 Evidence Against a Deterrent Effect 357 Evidence Against an Incapacitation Effect 358 International Focus Punishing Criminals in Denmark and the Netherlands

359

The Death Penalty Debate 360 Cost of the Death Penalty 360 General Deterrence and the Death Penalty 361 Arbitrariness and Racial Discrimination in the Application of the Death Penalty 361 Quality of Legal Representation of Capital Defendants 362 Wrongful Executions 363 Conclusion 364 Summary 365 Key Terms 365 What Would You Do? 365

Chapter 18

Conclusion: How Can We Reduce Crime?

367

The Criminal Justice System Funnel 368 A Sociological Prescription for Crime Reduction 371 Social, Cultural, and Community Crime Prevention (Primary Prevention) 371 Developmental Crime Prevention (Secondary Prevention) 374 Criminal Justice Approaches (Tertiary Prevention) 375 Conclusion 378 Summary 378 Key Terms 379 What Would You Do? 379 GLOSSARY

380

REFERENCES

385

NAME INDEX

421

SUBJECT INDEX

430

Contents xviii

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New to this Edition This eighth edition has been thoroughly revised. It includes the latest crime and criminal justice statistics available as the book went to production, and it discusses the latest research on crime and criminal justice issues that had appeared by that time, with dozens of new references added and older ones deleted. This eighth edition continues the popular features of the previous one, including the chapter-opening Crime in the News vignettes ripped from the headlines (all new from 2021 and 2022), which engage students’ attention and demonstrate the text’s relevance to real-life events and issues; the Crime and Controversy and International Focus boxes, several of them new or revised for this edition, which highlight crime and justice issues within, respectively, the United States and abroad; and the What Would You Do? feature at the end of each chapter, which presents hypothetical scenarios on real-world situations faced by criminal justice professionals and average citizens alike. Major changes or additions to specific chapters include the following:

• New discussion of hierarchy rule • Expanded discussion of the Uniform Crime Report’s underestimation of crime • Expanded discussion of the National Incident-Based Reporting System • New discussion of rise in homicides and shootings beginning in mid-2020 • Expanded discussion of the seasonality of crime

Chapter 4. Victims and Victimization • New Crime in the News story • New discussion of people who become ill from corporate air pollution not being considered crime victims • New discussion of victimization rates and prevalence rates • Expanded discussion of victimization rates in rural areas • New discussion of Asian Americans’ victimization

Chapter 1. Criminology and the Sociological Perspective

• New section on higher victimization rates of LGBTQ persons • New section on higher violent victimization rates of people with disabilities

• New Crime in the News story

• New section on intraracial nature of victimization

• New mention of public criminology

• Revised and updated discussion of victimization of college students

Chapter 2. Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem

Chapter 5. Classical and Neoclassical Perspectives

• New Crime in the News story • New discussion of the news media’s portrayal of immigrants and criminality

• New Crime in the News story • Updated discussion of deterrence research based on recent literature reviews

• New discussion of violence in the popular media • Updated fear of crime survey data • New International Focus box

Chapter 6. Biological and Psychological Explanations

• New presentation of survey data on Asian Americans’ fear of crime

• New Crime in the News story

• New section on anger about crime • Revised discussion of punitiveness

• New discussion of lead and other toxins

• New discussion of increased public perceptions of injustice after the murder of George Floyd

• Expanded discussion of biological explanations

• New discussion of adverse childhood experiences

• New What Would You Do? scenario

Chapter 7. Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Structure

Chapter 3. The Measurement and Patterning of Criminal Behavior

• New Crime in the News story

• New Crime in the News story

• Revised and updated International Focus box

• Updated crime and victimization data

• Expanded discussion of research testing general strain theory

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Chapter 14. Political Crime

Chapter 8. Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Process

• New Crime in the News story

• New Crime in the News story

• Updated examples of political crime

• Expanded discussion of the marriage effect

• Expanded history of civil disobedience • New International Focus box

Chapter 9. Sociological Theories: Critical Perspectives

• New discussion of efforts by Donald Trump and several of his allies to overturn the 2020 election • Revised and updated discussion of explaining and reducing political crime

• New Crime in the News Story

Chapter 10. Violent Crime: Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Robbery

Chapter 15. Consensual Crime • New Crime in the News story

• New Crime in the News story

• Updated data on illicit drug use

• Updated homicide data

• Revised introductory discussion of illicit drug use

• New discussion of possible reasons for homicide jump in 2020

• New discussion of illicit opioid use

• New International Focus box

• New Crime and Controversy box

• New discussion of gender inequality and the South’s homicide rate

Chapter 16. Policing: Dilemmas of Crime Control in a Democratic Society

• New graph on gender differences in physical fighting during high school • Revised and expanded discussion of mass murder

• New Crime in the News story

• Expanded discussion of serial murder

• Revised and updated discussion of police use of force

• Revised and updated discussion of workplace violence

• Revised and updated discussion of race, ethnicity, and arrest

• Expanded discussion of hate crime, including updated examples and new discussion of its increase during the pandemic

• Updated Crime and Controversy box • Expanded discussion of impact on crime of additional police

• Updated child abuse and elder abuse data • New Crime and Controversy box

Chapter 17. Prosecution and Punishment

Chapter 11. Violence Against Women

• New Crime in the News story

• New Crime in the News story

• Updated data throughout

• Updated violence against women data

• New discussion of effects of skin tone and Afrocentric features on sentencing

• New discussion of increase in violence against women after the COVID-19 pandemic began

• New discussion of different perceptions by news media and politicians as the opioid crisis developed compared to when the war on drugs developed

• New International Focus box • Updated and revised discussion of stalking

• New example of wrongful execution

Chapter 12. Property Crime and Fraud • New Crime in the News story

Chapter 18. Conclusion: How Can We Reduce Crime?

• Updated property crime data

• Updated cost data if bottom of criminal of justice funnel could be widened

Chapter 13. White-Collar and Organized Crime • Updated Crime in the News story • Updated white-collar crime data and examples • Revised and updated International Focus box

New to this Edition xx

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Preface standing. But this understanding is also important for students in courses in criminal justice or criminology departments. If crime cannot be fully understood without appreciating its structural context, students in these departments who do not develop this appreciation have only an incomplete understanding of the reasons for crime and of the most effective strategies to reduce it. Although street crime has declined since the early 1990s, it remains a national problem, as the residents of high-crime neighborhoods know all too well, and homicides and serious assaults increased in 2020 and 2021. Meanwhile, white-collar crime continues to cost tens of billions of dollars and thousands of lives annually, even as it receives far less attention than mass murder, terrorism, and everyday violent and property crime. In presenting a sociological perspective on crime and criminal justice, this book highlights issues of race and ethnicity, gender, and social class in every chapter and emphasizes the criminogenic effects of the social and physical features of urban neighborhoods. This eighth edition continues to include certain chapters that remain uncommon in other criminology texts, including Chapter 2: Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem; Chapter 11 : Violence Against Women; Chapter  14: Political Crime; and Chapter 18: Conclusion: How Can We Reduce Crime? In addition, the book’s criminal justice chapters, Chapter 16: Policing: Dilemmas of Crime Control in a Democratic Society and Chapter 17: Prosecution and Punishment, continue to address two central themes in the sociological understanding of crime and criminal justice: (1) the degree to which social inequalities affect the operation of the criminal justice system and (2) the extent to which reliance on the criminal justice system can reduce crime. These two themes, in turn, reflect two more general sociological issues: the degree to which inequality affects the dynamics of social institutions, and the extent to which formal sanctions affect human behavior.

introduction to the field of criminology! This

Welcome book emphasizes the need to understand the social causes of criminal behavior in order to this sociological to be able to significantly reduce crime.

This emphasis echoes the approach followed in the field of public health, which tries to determine what causes a disease like cancer so that we can prevent people from becoming ill with cancer. Although it is obviously important to treat cancer patients, there will always be more cancer patients unless we discover its causes and then do something about these causes. The analogy to crime is clear: Unless we discover the causes of crime and do something about them, there will always be more criminals. Unfortunately, this is not the approach the United States has taken during the past few decades. Instead, it has relied on a “get-tough” approach to the crime problem that relies on more aggressive policing, longer and more certain prison terms, and the building of more and more prisons. The nation’s prison and jail population has soared and has reached some 1.8 million persons despite a decline during the past decade. Many criminologists warn that this development of mass incarceration has had serious collateral consequences for the people incarcerated, their families, and their communities and that it has cost tens of billions of dollars while reducing crime only to a small degree. In offering a sociological understanding of crime, this book suggests that the “get-tough” approach is shortsighted because it ignores the roots of crime in the social structure and social inequality of society. To reduce crime, we must address these structural conditions and appreciate the role that factors such as race and ethnicity, gender, and social class play in criminal behavior. Students in criminology courses in sociology departments will especially benefit from this book’s sociological under-

Instructor Supplements Instructor’s Manual with Test Bank.Includes content outlines for classroom discussion, teaching suggestions, and answers to selected end-of-chapter questions from the text. This also contains a Word document version of the test bank. TestGen.This computerized test generation system gives you maximum flexibility in creating and administering tests on paper, electronically, or online. It provides state-of-the-art features for viewing and editing test bank questions, dragging a selected question into a test you are creating, and printing sleek, formatted tests in a variety of layouts. Select test items from the test banks included with TestGen for quick test creation, or write your own questions from scratch. TestGen’s random generator provides the

option to display different text or calculated number values each time questions are used. PowerPoint Presentations. Our presentations are clear and straightforward. Photos, illustrations, charts, and tables from the book are included in the presentations when applicable. To access supplementary materials online, instructors need to request an instructor access code. Go to www.pearsonhighered. com/irc, where you can register for an instructor access code. Within 48 hours after registering, you will receive a confirming email, including an instructor access code. Once you have received your code, go to the site and log on for full instructions on downloading the materials you wish to use.

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Revel Criminology, by Barkan Designed for how you want to teach—and how your students want to learn Revel is an interactive learning environment that engages students and helps them prepare for your class. Reimagining their content, our authors integrate media and assessment throughout the narrative so students can read, explore, and practice, all at the same time. Thanks to this dynamic reading experience, students come to class prepared to discuss, apply, and learn about criminal justice—from you and from each other. Revel seamlessly combines the full content of Pearson’s bestselling criminal justice titles with multimedia learning tools. You assign the topics your students cover. Author Explanatory Videos, application exercises, survey questions, interactive CJ data maps, and short quizzes engage students and enhance their understanding of core topics as they progress through the content. Through its engaging learning experience, Revel helps students better understand course material while preparing them to meaningfully participate in class.

Author Explanatory Videos

Student Survey Questions

Short (2- to 3-minute) Author Explanatory Videos, embedded in the narrative, provide students with a verbal explanation of an important topic or concept and illuminating the concept with additional examples.

Student Survey Questions appear within the narrative, asking students to respond to questions about controversial topics and important concepts. Students then see their response versus the responses of all other students who have answered the question, in the form of a bar chart.

Point/CounterPoint Videos

Current Events Bulletins

Instead of simply reading about criminal justice, students are empowered to think critically about key topics through Point/ Counterpoint videos that explore different views on controversial issues such as privacy, search and seizure, Miranda rights, prison privatization, prisoner rights, the PATRIOT Act, and many other topics.

Bring currency into your classroom with author-written articles that are updated each semester to help connect core concepts with real-life current events. Society changes quickly, and Current Events Bulletins are one way to avoid a narrative that seems dated. Students can follow the trajectory of criminology issues in the context of the criminal justice field.

Criminal Justice Simulations In our introduction to Criminal Justice Revel etexts, there are simulations that ask the student to evaluate scenarios and make decisions regarding CJ issues or procedures. In this title we have included the Extent of Crime simulation that allows students to compare the difference between the statistics of the FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) as well as learn about the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

Social Explorer Criminal Justice Data Maps Social Explorer Maps integrated into the narrative ask students to examine crime and corrections data correlated with socioeconomic and other criminal justice data. Maps also show differences in state statutes on major issues such as marijuana legalization, the death penalty, and the distribution of hate organizations across the United States.

Track Time-on-Task throughout the Course The Performance Dashboard allows you to see how much time the class or individual students have spent reading a section or doing an assignment, as well as points earned per assignment.

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The Revel App

This information helps correlate study time with performance and provides a window into where students may be having difficulty with the material.

The Revel mobile app lets students read, practice, and study— anywhere, anytime, on any device. Content is available both online and offline, and the app syncs work across all registered devices automatically, giving students great flexibility to toggle between phone, tablet, and laptop as they move through their day. The app also lets students set assignment notifications to stay on top of all due dates. This app is available for download from the App Store or Google Play. Visit www.pearsonhighered.com/ revel/to learn more.

Learning Management System Integration Pearson provides Blackboard Learn™, Canvas™, Brightspace by D2L, and Moodle integration, giving institutions, instructors, and students easy access to Revel. Our Revel integration delivers streamlined access to everything your students need for the course in these learning management system (LMS) environments.

Alternate Versions eBooks. This text is also available in multiple eBook formats. These are an exciting new choice for students looking to save money. As an alternative to purchasing the printed textbook, students can purchase an electronic version of the same content. With an eTextbook, students can search the text, make notes

online, print out reading assignments that incorporate lecture notes, and bookmark important passages for later review. For more information, visit your favorite online eBook reseller or www.pearson.com.

Acknowledgments stated my personal and intellectual debt to Norman Miller and Forrest Dill, and I continue to acknowledge how much I owe them. Norman Miller was my first undergraduate sociology professor and quickly helped me fall in love with the discipline. He forced me to ask questions about society that I probably still haven’t answered. I and the many other students he influenced can offer only an inadequate “thank you” for caring so much about us and, to paraphrase a verse from a great book, for training us in the way we should go. Forrest Dill was my mentor in graduate school and introduced me to criminology, the sociology of law, and the craft of scholarship. His untimely death when I was beginning my career continues to leave a deep void. My professional home since graduate school has been the Sociology Department at the University of Maine. I continue to owe my colleagues there an intellectual debt for sharing and reaffirming my sense of the importance of social structure and

social inequality to understanding crime and other contemporary issues. I also wish to thank the editorial, production, and marketing staff at Pearson for their help on all aspects of the book’s revision, and Holly Shufeldt for her continued faith in the vision underlying the book. Finally, as in my first seven editions, I acknowledge with heartfelt gratitude the love and support that my wife, Barbara Tennent, and our sons, Dave and Joe, bring to my life. They put up with my need to write and with my reactions to the success and failure of our favorite sports teams more than any husband and father has a right to expect. The eighth edition of this book is again dedicated to my late parents, Morry and Sylvia Barkan, who instilled in me respect for learning and sympathy for those less fortunate than I. As I continue to think about them after so many years, I can only hope that somewhere they are smiling with pride over this latest evidence of their legacy.

The first edition of this book

About the Author Steven E. Barkan is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Maine. His teaching and research interests include criminology, sociology of law, and social movements. He is a past president of the Society for the Study of Social

Problems and had previously served as a member of the SSSP Board of Directors, as chair of its Law and Society Division and Editorial and Publications Committee, and as an advisory editor of its journal, Social Problems . He also previously

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racism and socioeconomic status as fundamental causes of street criminality, views on police brutality, political trials, and feminist and anti-hunger activism. These articles have appeared in the American Sociological Review, Critical Criminology, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Journal of Crime and Justice, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Justice Quarterly, Social Forces, Social Problems, Sociological Forum, Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Perspectives, and other journals. Professor Barkan welcomes comments from students and faculty about this book; they may email him at [email protected].

served as a member of the council of the Sociology of Law Section of the American Sociological Association and served on its student paper award committee as well as that of the ASA Crime, Law, and Deviance Section. He also served on the council of Alpha Kappa Delta, the sociology honor society, and is a past president of the Textbook and Academic Authors Association. An earlier edition of this book was awarded the Textbook Excellence Award for Humanities/Social Sciences from this association. Professor Barkan has written many journal articles dealing with topics such as racial prejudice and death penalty attitudes,

Timeline of Major Criminological Theories Chapter 5 1764

Classical Theory (Utilitarianism)

Cesare Beccaria

Neoclassical Theories 1968

Gary Becker

Rational Choice Theory

Derek B. Cornish

Year

1985

Ronald V. Clarke 1970s

Deterrence Theory

1979

Routine Activities Theory

Lawrence E. Cohen Marcus Felson

Year

Chapter 6 1796

Phrenology

Franz Gall

1876

Atavism

Cesare Lombroso

1939

Biological Inferiority

Earnest Hooton

1949

Body Shapes (Somatology)

William Sheldon

1960s–1970s

Contemporary Explanations

Year

Chapter 7 1942

Social Disorganization Theory

Clifford R. Shaw Henry D. McKay

1987

Deviant Places Theory

Rodney Stark

1938

Anomie Theory

Robert K. Merton

1992

General Strain Theory

Robert Agnew

1955

Status Frustration Theory

Albert K. Cohen

1958

Focal Concerns Theory

Walter B. Miller

1960

Differential Opportunity Theory

Richard Cloward Lloyd Ohlin

1958, 1967

Subculture of Violence Theory

Marvin Wolfgang Franco Ferracuti

Code of the Street Theory

Elijah Anderson

1999

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Chapter 8 1939 1956 1973, 1977 1966

Year

1956, 1961

Differential Association Theory

Edwin H. Sutherland

Differential Identification Theory

Daniel Glaser

Social Learning Theory

Albert Bandura

Differential Reinforcement Theory

Robert L. Burgess Ronald L. Akers

Containment Theory

Walter Reckless

1957

Neutralization and Drift Theory

Gresham M. Sykes David Matza

1969

Social Bonding Theory

Travis Hirschi

1990

Self-Control Theory

Michael Gottfredson Travis Hirschi

2004

Control Balance Theory

Charles R. Tittle

2002

Coercive Control and Social Support Theory

Mark Colvin Francis T. Cullen

1979

Integrated Strain-Control Theory

Delbert S. Elliott

1987

Interactional Theory

Terence P. Thornberry

1993

Life-Course-Persistent Theory

Terrie E. Moffitt

1993

Age-Graded Theory

Robert J. Sampson John H. Laub

Chapter 9 1951 1963

Labeling Theory

1938

Year

1958

Edwin Lemert Howard S. Becker Thorsten Sellin

Conflict Theory

George Vold

1969

Austin T. Turk

1916

Willem Bonger

1952 1964

Radical Theory

1974

William Chambliss Richard Quinney

1988

Kathleen Daly Feminist Theories

1989

Jerome Hall

Meda Chesney-Lind Sally S. Simpson

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1 Criminology and the Sociological Perspective LEARNING OBJECTIVES

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Explain the sociological perspective and describe its relevance for criminology. Describe the contributions of the social scientists who developed the field of criminology. Identify the implications of consensus and conflict theories for understanding crime. Describe the elements of criminal liability and legal defenses to such liability. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of quantitative and qualitative research, respectively.

CHAPTER OUTLINE The Sociological Perspective The Mutual Relevance of Sociology and Criminology The Rise of Sociological Criminology Criminal Law: Theoretical Underpinnings and Goals Consensus and Conflict in the Creation of Criminal Law Goals of Criminal Law Criminal Law: Origins, Types of Crime, and Criminal Liability Origins of Criminal Law Types of Crime Criminal Liability Research Methods in Criminology Surveys Experiments Qualitative Research: Observing and Intensive Interviewing Research Using Existing Data Comparative and Historical Research Conclusion

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Crime in the News Homicides and nonfatal shootings increased in many U.S. cities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 and continued to climb during the early months of 2021. New York was one of these cities. As just one of many examples, a 17-year-old youth was fatally shot in front of his Brooklyn school at the end of the school day on April 29, 2021. His mother later recalled her son smiling and saying he loved her on the morning of the day that he later died. “It needs to stop because it’s taking away so much,” she said. “Nobody should have to bury their kid. They’re supposed to bury us.” Source: Closson 2021.

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his mother’s tragic experience reminds us that violence and other street crimes continue to trouble people across the nation. Although the U.S. crime rate has actually declined since the early 1990s, violent and property crimes continue to victimize millions of Americans annually. The U.S. prison and jail populations stood at nearly 1.8 million in spring 2021 (Kang-Brown et al. 2021), the highest rate of incarceration in the Western world. The criminal justice system costs more than $300 billion annually (Hayes 2020) compared to only $36 billion in the early 1980s. Why do we have so much violence and other crimes? Why did homicide and nonfatal shootings seemingly rise after the pandemic arose? What can we do to reduce our crime rate? What difference do police and prisons make? Could we spend our law enforcement dollars more wisely? How serious is white-collar crime? Is the war on drugs working? What roles do race and ethnicity, social class, and gender play in criminal behavior and in the response of the criminal justice system to such behavior? These are just a few of the questions this book tries to answer. The rationale for the book is simple: Crime is one of our most important social problems but also one of the least understood. Most of our knowledge about crime comes from what we read in newspapers or see on TV or the Internet. From these sources, we get a distorted picture of crime and hear about solutions to the crime problem that ultimately will do little to reduce it. These are harsh accusations, to be sure, but they are ones with which most criminologists probably agree. A major reason crime is so misunderstood is that the popular sources of our knowledge about crime say little about crime’s social roots. Crime is not only an individual phenomenon but also a social one. Individuals commit crimes, but their social backgrounds profoundly shape their likelihood of doing so. In this sense, crime is no different from other behaviors sociologists study. This basic sociological understanding of crime has an important social policy implication: If crime is rooted in the way our society is organized, then crime-reduction efforts will succeed only to the extent that they address the structural roots of criminality. This book presents a sociological understanding of crime and criminal justice, an approach commonly called sociological criminology (Cao 2020). As we will see later, for most of its history, virtually all criminology was sociological criminology, and this two-word term would have been redundant. This view of criminology gave explicit attention to issues of poverty and race and ethnicity, as well as to the structure of communities and social relationships. As John Hagan (1994), a former president of the American Society of Criminology, once observed, a sociological criminology is thus a structural criminology. It takes into account the social and physical characteristics of communities and the profound influences of race and ethnicity, social class, and gender. In the past few decades, criminology has moved away from this structural focus toward individualistic explanations, with the fields of biology and psychology vying with sociology for prominence in the study of crime. These fields enliven the discipline and have expanded criminology’s interdisciplinary focus. However, they ultimately fail to answer three of the most central questions in criminology: (1) Why do crime rates differ across locations and over time? (2) Why do crime rates differ according to the key dimensions of structured social inequality: race and ethnicity, social class, and gender? (3) How and why is the legal response to crime shaped by race and ethnicity, social class, and gender and by other extralegal variables? Only a sociological criminology can begin to answer these questions, which must be answered if we are to have any hope of seriously reducing crime and of achieving a just legal system.

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A sociological criminology is not only a structural criminology. To be true to the sociological perspective, it should also be a criminology that debunks incorrect perceptions about crime and false claims about the effectiveness of various crime-control strategies. In addition, it should expose possible injustice in the application (arrest, conviction, punishment) of the criminal label. These are all important aims of the public criminology movement, which aims to bring criminological insights and findings to the attention of the general public and to influence crime and criminal justice policymaking (Henne and Shah 2020). These themes appear throughout the book. Part 1, Understanding Crime and Victimization, introduces the sociological perspective and discusses public beliefs about crime and criminal justice. It also discusses what is known about the amount and social patterning of crime and victimization. Part 2, Explaining Crime, critically reviews the major explanations of crime and criminality and discusses their implications for crime reduction. These explanations are integrated into the chapters contained in Part 3, Criminal Behaviors. These chapters discuss the major forms of crime and the ways of reducing them. The fourth and final part of the book, Controlling and Preventing Crime, explores, among other things, two important issues for a sociological understanding of the criminal justice system: (1) To what degree do race and ethnicity, class, and gender unjustly affect the chances of arrest, conviction, and imprisonment? (2) To what degree do arrest and punishment reduce criminal behavior? The concluding chapter of the book presents a sociological prescription for crime reduction. Our sociological journey into crime and criminal justice begins by reviewing the sociological perspective and discussing the mutual relevance of sociology and criminology. We look briefly at the development of sociological criminology and at its approaches to crime and criminal justice and review some key legal terms and concepts.

c The Sociological Perspective

Brandon Bourdages/Shutterstock

Above all else, the sociological perspective stresses that people are social beings rather than mere individuals. This means that society profoundly shapes people’s behaviors, attitudes, and life outcomes. People growing up in societies with different cultures tend to act and think differently from one another. People within a given society growing up in various locations and under diverse socioeconomic circumstances also tend to act and think differently. We cannot understand why people think and behave as they do without understanding their many social backgrounds. ▼ The sociological perspective emphasizes that people are This perspective derives from the work of Émile social beings more than they are individuals. This means that Durkheim (1858–1917), a French sociologist and a society shapes our behaviors, attitudes, and life outcomes. founder of the discipline, who stressed that social forces influence our behavior and attitudes. In perhaps his most famous study, Durkheim (1952 [1897]) found that even suicide, normally regarded as the most individualistic act possible, has social roots. Examining data in France and elsewhere, he found that suicide rates varied across locations and across different kinds of people. Protestants, for example, had higher suicide rates than did Catholics. Durkheim explained these differences by focusing on structural characteristics, in particular the level of social integration among the locations and people he studied. People in groups with high social integration, or strong bonds to others within their group, have lower suicide rates. His analysis remains a classic study of the influence of social structure on individual behavior such as suicide. What exactly is social structure? Briefly, social structure refers to how a society is organized in terms of social relationships and social interactions. It is both

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horizontal and vertical. Horizontal social structure refers to the social and physical characteristics of communities and the networks of social relationships to which an individual belongs. Vertical social structure is more commonly called social inequality and refers to how a society ranks different groups of people. In U.S. society, social class, race and ethnicity, and gender are key characteristics that help determine where people rank and whether some people are “more equal” than others. Sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959) emphasized that social structure lies at the root of private troubles. If only a few individuals, he wrote, are unemployed, then their private troubles are their own fault. But if masses of individuals are unemployed, structural forces must account for their bad fortune. What people may define as private troubles are thus more accurately described as public issues, wrote Mills. Their personal troubles result from the intersection of their personal ▲ A job-seeker holds a sign indicatbiographies with historical and social conditions. Mills referred to the ability to ing his need for a job. C. Wright understand the structural and historical basis for personal troubles as the Mills considered unemployment a sociological imagination. Once people acquire a sociological imagination, they are public issue that results from strucbetter able both to understand and to change the social forces underlying their tural problems in society. private troubles. As Mills’s comments suggest, sociology’s emphasis on the structural basis for individual behavior and personal troubles often leads it to challenge conventional wisdom. Max Weber (1864–1920), another founder of sociology, echoed this theme when he noted that one of sociology’s most important goals is to uncover “inconvenient facts” (Gerth and Mills 1946). As Peter Berger (1963) observed in his classic book Invitation to Sociology, the “first wisdom” of sociology is that things are not always what they seem: Sociological research often exposes false claims about reality and taken-for-granted assumptions about social life and social institutions. Berger referred to this sociological tendency as the debunking motif.

Review and Discuss What do we mean by the sociological perspective? How does this perspective help us to understand the origins of crime and the possible ways of reducing crime?

The Mutual Relevance of Sociology and Criminology With this brief discussion of the sociological perspective in mind, the continuing relevance of sociology for criminology immediately becomes clear. Perhaps most importantly, crime, victimization, and criminal justice cannot be understood fully without appreciating their structural context. Using Mills’s terminology, crime and victimization are public issues rather than private troubles. They are rooted in the social and physical characteristics of communities, in the network of relationships in which people interact, and in the structured social inequalities of race and ethnicity, social class, and gender. Reflecting this point, many of criminology’s important concepts, including anomie, relative deprivation, and social conflict, draw from concepts originally developed in the larger body of sociology. Moreover, research methodology originating in sociology provides the basis for much criminological research. Criminology is just as relevant for its parent field of sociology because of the structural basis of criminality. If crime and victimization derive from community characteristics, social relationships, and inequality, criminological insights both reinforce and advance sociological understanding of all these areas. Crime, victimization, and legal punishment are certainly important negative life outcomes for people at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. More than most other subfields in sociology, criminology shows us how and why social inequality is, as Elliott Currie (1985:160) once put it, “enormously destructive of human personality and of social order.” By the same token, positions at the top of the socioeconomic ladder contribute to a greater probability of white-collar crime that results in little or no punishment. Again, perhaps more than most other sociological subfields, criminology illuminates the privileges of those at the top of the social hierarchy. Another major dimension of inequality, gender, also has important consequences for criminality and victimization and, perhaps, legal punishment. Criminological findings have contributed to chapter

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the larger body of sociological knowledge about the importance of gender (Belknap 2021). More generally, the study of crime has furthered the understanding of many standard sociological concepts such as alienation, community, inequality, organization, and social control (Short 2007). Intersectionality An exciting development in the social sciences called intersectionality manifests and reinforces the mutual relevance of criminology and sociology. Intersectionality refers to the ways in which people’s race and ethnicity, social class, and gender interact to produce outcomes reflecting the combined influence of these backgrounds, often to an individual’s disadvantage. In criminology, intersectionality-based theory and research examine the combined impact of all these sociodemographic factors on offending, victimization, and contact with the criminal justice system (Durfee 2021; Kruttschnitt and Kang 2021; Potter 2015). This work has shed new light on the importance of race and ethnicity, social class, and gender for both criminology and sociology and promises to continue doing so for years to come.

Review and Discuss In what ways are the disciplines of sociology and criminology relevant for each other?

The Rise of Sociological Criminology Many of the themes just discussed shaped the rise of sociological criminology in the United States during the twentieth century. Because Part 2 discusses the development of criminological theory in greater detail, here we simply sketch this history to underscore the intellectual connection between criminology and sociology. Before we do so, it will be helpful to review some basic concepts. All societies have social norms or standards of behavior. Behavior that violates these norms and arouses negative social reactions is called deviance. In most traditional societies studied by anthropologists, the norms remain unwritten and informal and are called customs. These customs are enforced through informal social control (society’s restraint of norm-violating behavior) such as ostracism and ridicule. People obey customs because they believe in them and because they fear the society’s informal sanctions. In large, modern societies, many norms tend to be more formal because they are written and codified. These formal norms are called laws. Social control is also more formal and takes the shape of specialized groups of people (legislators, police officers, judges, and corrections officials) who create laws, interpret them, and apprehend and punish law violators. With these concepts in mind, we now trace the rise of sociological criminology. For much of recorded history, people attributed crime and deviance to religious forces. Individuals were said to commit these behaviors because God or gods were punishing or testing them. During the Middle Ages, Europeans blamed deviance on the devil. In the eighteenth century, the classical school of criminology stressed that criminals rationally choose to commit crimes after deciding that the potential rewards outweigh the risks. In view of this, classical scholars said, legal punishment needs to be only severe enough to deter potential criminals from breaking the law. During the nineteenth century, scholars began to investigate through scientific means the causes of criminal behavior. Perhaps the first such scholar was Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874), a Belgian astronomer and mathematician who gathered and analyzed crime data in France. He found that French crime rates remained fairly stable over time, that they were higher for young adults than for older adults, and that they were higher among men and the poor than among women and the nonpoor. Later in that century, Émile Durkheim began providing his major contributions. He stressed the primacy of social structure over the individual and thus established the sociological paradigm. He also observed that deviance will always exist because social norms are never strong enough to prevent all rule breaking. Even in a “society of saints,” he said, such as a monastery, rules will be broken and negative social reactions aroused. Because Durkheim (1962 [1895]) thought deviance is inevitable, he considered it a normal part of every healthy society and stressed its functions for social stability. The punishment of deviance, he said, clarifies social norms and reinforces social ties among those doing or observing the punishing. Durkheim further argued that deviance is necessary for social change to take place. A society without deviance, he said, would be one with chapter

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no freedom of thought; hence, social change would not be possible. A society, thus, cannot have social change without also having deviance. At about the same time, White physicians and other researchers began to investigate the biological basis of criminal behavior. Although their methodology was seriously flawed and many of their views were racist, their perspective influenced public and scholarly thinking about crime. The recent rise of biological explanations of crime indicates their continuing popularity for understanding criminal behavior. At the end of the nineteenth century, famed Black American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois (1899) disputed a biological basis for crime in his renowned book The Philadelphia Negro, in which he attributed the relatively high crime rates of Black Americans to negative social conditions rather than to biological problems. His analysis of crime in Philadelphia is today regarded as an early, classic study of sociological criminology (Gabbidon and Greene 2019). Du Bois was also one of the first social scientists to write about possible racial discrimination in arrests and sentencing. Another Black American scholar, Ida B. Wells-Barnett (2002), documented perhaps the most extreme use of law in this regard in an 1892 pamphlet titled Southern Horrors, an indictment of lynch law. She wrote the pamphlet after three of her friends were lynched in Memphis, Tennessee, where Wells-Barnett co-owned a newspaper named Free Speech. After she editorialized against these and other lynchings, White people threatened to lynch her and other Free Speech staff and forced the newspaper to shut down. The sociological study of crime advanced further at the University of Chicago after the turn of the twentieth century. Scholars there noticed that high crime rates in Chicago’s inner-city neighborhoods remained stable from one year to the next, even as certain immigrant groups moved out and others moved in. They attributed these crime rates to certain social and physical conditions of the neighborhoods (including their stark poverty and residential instability) that reflected a breakdown in conventional social institutions, which they termed social disorganization. One student of the Chicago sociologists was Edwin Sutherland, who soon became a towering figure in the development of sociological criminology. Sensitive to the criminogenic (crime-causing) conditions of urban neighborhoods, Sutherland was especially interested in how and why these conditions promote criminality and emphasized the importance of peer influences in his famous differential association theory. He further developed the concept of white-collar crime and was sharply critical of the illegal and harmful practices of the nation’s biggest corporations. At the heart of his sociological criminology was a concern for issues of race, poverty, and political and economic power. At about the same time, Robert K. Merton, a Columbia ▼ This photo shows a section of the Vietnam War Memorial in University sociologist, developed his anomie theory of Washington, DC. Protests against this war were significant in deviance. Borrowing heavily from Durkheim, Merton the turbulent era of the 1960s and early 1970s that stimulated attributed deviance to the poor’s inability to achieve ecothe use of labeling and conflict theories in the study of crime nomic success in a society that highly values such success. and deviance. His theory was perhaps the most “macro” of all the early structural theories of crime and remains influential today. During the 1970s, a new social control or social bonding theory of criminal behavior rose to prominence. Drawing on Durkheim, this theory emphasized the criminogenic effects of weak bonds to social institutions. Although this theory focused on social relationships, it was less of a macrostructural theory than its social disorganization and anomie forebears. The 1960s and early 1970s were also turbulent eras marked by intellectual upheaval in several academic disciplines, perhaps most of all sociology. Some sociologists asserted that society is rooted in conflict between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in society. In the study of crime and deviance, labeling and conflict theories emphasized bias and discrimination in the application of criminal labels and in the development of criminal laws. Shortly thereafter, new feminist understandings of gender and society began to make their way into criminology, as chapter

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feminists criticized the male bias of traditional criminological theories and called attention to the gendered nature of crime and victimization. Today, all of these sociological approaches inform the study of crime and criminal justice. As this textbook will indicate, sociological criminology’s emphasis on the structural origins of crime and on the impact of race/ethnicity and poverty continues to guide much contemporary theory and research. To aid your understanding of sociological perspectives on crime, we now discuss some important concepts in the study of crime and deviance.

c Criminal Law: Theoretical Underpinnings and Goals

Itsuo Inouye/AP Images

Edwin Sutherland (1947) defined criminology as the study of the making of criminal laws, of the breaking of these laws, and of society’s reaction to the breaking of these laws. Put another way, criminology is the scientific study of the creation of criminal law, of the causes and dynamics of criminal behavior, and of society’s attempts through the criminal justice system and other efforts to punish, control, and prevent crime. Note that criminology as a social science differs from crime-scene investigation, or forensic science, which is featured on many TV shows. As Sutherland’s definition of criminology implies, students of criminology should become familiar with criminal law. In this and the next section, we thus briefly discuss several aspects of criminal law. Before doing so, though, we should first comment on the concept of crime to help set the stage for this discussion. The term crime has already appeared many times in this chapter, but what actually is crime? Most simply, crime is behavior that is considered so harmful that it is banned by a criminal law. This straightforward definition begs some important questions: For example, how harmful must a behavior be before it is banned by a criminal law? Is it possible for a behavior to be harmful but not banned? Is it possible for a behavior to be banned but not very harmful? Who decides what is or is not harmful? What factors affect such decisions? As these questions indicate, the definition of crime is not very straightforward after all. Instead, it is problematic. In sociology, this view of crime derives from the larger study of deviant behavior, of which crime is obviously one very important type. Recall that deviance is a behavior that violates social norms and arouses negative social reactions. Durkheim’s monastery example, given earlier, raises an interesting point: Behavior considered deviant in a monastery, such as talking, would be perfectly acceptable elsewhere. This illustrates that deviance is a relative concept: Whether a given behavior is judged deviant depends not on the behavior itself ▼ Killing in wartime is considered necessary and even but on the circumstances under which it occurs. Consider murheroic, but killing in most other circumstances is considder, the most serious of interpersonal crimes. As a behavior, ered a crime (homicide). murder involves killing someone. We consider this act so horrible that sometimes we execute people for it. Yet if soldiers kill someone in wartime, they are doing their job, and if they kill several people in a particularly heroic fashion, they may receive a medal. The behavior itself, killing, is the same, but the circumstances surrounding it determine whether we punish the killer or award them a medal. Whether a given behavior is considered deviant also depends on where it occurs, as the monastery example reminds us. What is considered deviant in one society may be considered acceptable in another. Another way of saying this is that deviance is relative in space. As just one example, anthropologists have found that sexual acts condemned in some societies are often practiced in others (Goode 2019). Deviance is also relative in time: Within the same society, what is considered deviant in one time period may not be considered deviant in a later period, and vice versa. For example, the use of cocaine and opium was very common (and legal) in the United States in the late nineteenth century even though chapter

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both drugs are illegal today. Many over-the-counter medicines for such problems as depression, insomnia, and various aches and pains contained opium. Many over-the-counter products, including Coca-Cola, contained cocaine. Coke was popular when it hit the market in 1894 because it made people feel so good when they drank it (Goode 2019)! By saying that deviance is a relative concept, we emphasize that deviance is not a quality of a behavior itself but, rather, the result of what other people think about the behavior. This was a central insight of sociologist Howard S. Becker (1963:9), who famously wrote that “deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules or sanctions to an ‘offender.’ The deviant is one to whom that label has been successfully applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.” Becker’s observation alerts us to two possibilities. First, some harmful behaviors, such as white-collar crimes, may not be considered deviant because “respectable” people do them, because they occur secretly, or because people know about them but do not deem them harmful. Second, some less harmful behaviors, such as sex work, may still be considered deviant because people are morally opposed to them or do not like the kinds of people (low-income, etc.) who are doing them.

Consensus and Conflict in the Creation of Criminal Law

The previous discussion raises two related questions about criminal laws: (1) Why do criminal laws get established? (2) Whom do criminal laws benefit? In criminology, consensus and conflict theories of crime, law, and society try to answer these questions. These views derive from related perspectives in ▲ When Coca-Cola was first manufacthe larger field of sociology. tured in 1894, it contained cocaine, conConsensus theory originates in Durkheim’s work. It assumes a consensus tributing in no small measure to its among people from all walks of life on what the social norms of behavior are instant popularity. and should be. Formal norms, or laws, represent the interests of all segments of the public. People obey laws not because they fear being punished but because they believe the norms are appropriate to obey. Crime and deviance violate these widely accepted norms, and punishment of this behavior is necessary to ensure continuing social stability. Conflict theory (discussed further in Chapter 9) derives from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and is generally the opposite of consensus theory. It assumes that members of the public disagree on many social norms, with this disagreement reflecting people’s disparate positions based on their inequalities of wealth and power. Laws represent the views of the powerful and help them to stay at the top of society’s hierarchy and to keep the powerless at the bottom. Behavior labeled criminal by laws is conduct by the poor that threatens the interests of the powerful. The powerful may commit very harmful behaviors, but because they determine which laws are created, their behaviors are often legal, or at least not harshly punished even if they are illegal. These two theories have important implications for how we define and understand crime. In consensus theory, “crime” is defined simply as any behavior that violates a criminal law, to recall our earlier straightforward definition. Criminal law in turn is thought to both represent and protect the interests of all members of society. In conflict theory, the definition of “crime” is more problematic: It is just as important to consider why some behaviors do not become illegal as to consider why others are illegal. A conflict view of crime, law, and society thus defines “crime” more broadly than does a consensus view. In particular, the former is willing to consider behaviors as crimes in the larger sense of the word if they are harmful, even if they are not illegal. Both theories have their merits. The greatest support for consensus theory comes from criminal laws banning the criminal behaviors we call street crime, which all segments of society condemn and which victimizes the poor more than the wealthy. Although the historical roots of some of these laws lie in the conflict between the rich and the poor, today they cannot be said to exist for the protection of the wealthy and powerful. The greatest evidence for conflict theory perhaps comes from corporate misconduct, which is arguably more socially harmful than street crime but is less severely punished. Both kinds of behavior are discussed in the chapters ahead. chapter

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Goals of Criminal Law

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Criminal law in the United States and other Western democracies ideally tries to achieve several goals. Because criminal law is obviously an essential component of the criminal justice system, perhaps its most important goal is to help keep the public safe from crime and criminals or, to put it another way, to prevent and control crime and criminal behavior. A second goal of criminal law is to articulate a society’s moral values and concerns, a goal that consensus theory emphasizes. Ideally, criminal law bans behaviors that our society considers immoral or wrong for other reasons. Murder is an obvious example here. More controversially, criminal law also bans the use of certain drugs, prostitution, and some other behaviors that people voluntarily commit and for which there may be no unwilling victims. We call these behaviors consensual or victimless crimes, and critics say that society’s ▲ Reports of abuse and torture of Iraqi detainees by U.S. personnel aroused efforts to ban them amount to “legislating much controversy, in part because critics said these incidents violated intermorality” and may in fact do more harm national law. than good (Hart 2021). A third goal of criminal law and the criminal justice system is to protect the rights and freedoms of the nation’s citizenry by protecting them from potential governmental abuses of power. This is what is meant by the rule of law that is so fundamental to a democracy. This consideration helps us to understand why reports of torture and abuse by U.S. personnel of persons captured in the Iraq War some two decades ago aroused so much concern: The alleged abuse was committed by personnel of a democratic nation and violated the rules of international law governing the treatment of military prisoners and detainees (Cole 2009).

c Criminal Law: Origins, Types of Crime, and Criminal Liability We turn now from this basic understanding of criminal law to its origins and current aspects.

Origins of Criminal Law Law in the United States has its origins in English common law, which began during the reign of Henry II in the twelfth century. Over the centuries, England developed a complex system of laws that specified the types of illegal behaviors, the punishment for these behaviors, and the elements that had to be proved for someone to be found guilty of a crime. English judges had great powers to interpret the laws and in effect to make new case law. As a result, much of English law derived from judges’ rulings rather than from legislatures’ statutes. During this time, the jury was developed to replace ordeals as the chief way to determine a defendant’s guilt or innocence. However, the jury’s power was limited because jurors could be punished if they found a defendant innocent. Its power and importance grew considerably in 1670 after William Penn was arrested and tried for preaching about Quakerism. When the jurors refused to convict him, the judge imprisoned and starved them. In response, an English court ruled that juries could not be punished for their verdicts. This ruling allowed juries to acquit defendants with impunity and strengthened their historic role as protectors of defendants against arbitrary state power (Barkan 1983). chapter

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When the Pilgrims and other English colonists came to the New World, they naturally brought with them English common law. Several grievances that led to the Revolutionary War centered on England’s denial of jury trials for colonial defendants, its search and seizure of colonial homes and property, and its arbitrary use of legal punishment. After the Revolution, the new nation’s leaders included protections from these and other legal abuses in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Types of Crime Most U.S. jurisdictions still retain common law concepts of the types of crimes and the elements of criminal law violation that must be proved for a defendant to be found guilty. One distinction concerns mala in se crimes and mala prohibita crimes, with the former considered more serious than the latter. Mala in se (evil in themselves) crimes refer to behaviors that violate traditional norms and morality. This category includes the violent and property crimes that most concern the public. Mala prohibita (wrong only because prohibited by law) crimes refer to behaviors that violate contemporary standards only; examples include illegal drug use and many white-collar crimes (Schmalleger 2022). Another distinction concerns felonies and misdemeanors. Felonies are crimes punishable by more than one year in prison, and misdemeanors are crimes punishable by less than one year. Most people convicted of felonies and then incarcerated are sent to state prisons (or, if convicted of a federal crime, to federal prisons), whereas most people convicted of misdemeanors and then incarcerated serve their sentences in local jails, which also hold people awaiting trial.

Criminal Liability For a criminal defendant to be found guilty, the key elements that must be proved are actus reus and mens rea. Actus reus (actual act) refers to the specific criminal act of which the defendant is accused. For a defendant to be found guilty, the evidence must indicate beyond a reasonable doubt that he or she committed a criminal act. Mens rea (guilty mind) refers to criminal intent. This means that the state must show that the defendant intended to commit the act. Although the concept of criminal intent is complex, it generally means that the defendant committed a criminal act knowingly. If the defendant is too young or mentally incapable of understanding the nature and consequences of the crime, criminal intent is difficult to prove. By the same token, the defendant must have also broken the law willingly. This generally means that the defendant was not in fear of their life or safety at the time of the crime. If someone holds a gun to your head and forces you to shoplift (admittedly an unlikely scenario), you do not have criminal intent. The concept of mens rea also covers behaviors in which someone acts recklessly or negligently and injures someone else, even though he or she did not mean the injury to happen. If you accidentally leave an infant inside a car on a hot day and the infant becomes ill or dies, you can be found guilty of a crime even though you did not intend the infant to suffer. If you try to injure someone but end up accidentally hurting someone else instead, you can still be found guilty of a crime even though you did not intend to hurt that person. Legal Defenses to Criminal Liability Defendants may offer several types of excuses or justifications as defenses against criminal accusations (Schmalleger 2022). Accident or Mistake One possible defense is that the defendant committed the act by accident or mistake. If you are driving a car in the winter at a safe speed but skid on the ice and hit a pedestrian, your act is tragic but probably not criminal. If, however, you were driving too quickly for the icy conditions and then skid and hit a pedestrian, you might very well be held responsible. Ignorance Another defense is that the defendant committed a criminal act out of ignorance. Here, it is generally true, as the popular slogan says, that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” because people are normally assumed to be aware of the law. However, the law does exempt mistakes of fact that occur when someone engages in an illegal activity without being aware it is illegal. If someone gives you a package to mail that, unknown to you, contains illegal drugs, you commit a mistake of fact when you mail the package and are not criminally liable. chapter

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Duress Another defense to criminal prosecution is duress, which is usually narrowly defined to mean fear for one’s life or safety. During the Vietnam War, several antiwar protesters arrested for civil disobedience claimed in their trials that they were acting under duress of their consciences. However, judges almost always excluded this defense from the jury’s consideration (Barkan 1983). Self-Defense A common defense to prosecution is self-defense to prevent an offender from harming you or someone nearby. However, if you injure your would-be attacker more than legitimate self-defense would reasonably have required, you may be held liable. The issue of self-defense has arisen in cases of abused women who kill their husbands or male partners (Lemon 2018). Often, such a killing occurs when the husband or partner is sleeping or otherwise not threatening the woman at that instant. Several women who killed their batterers in this manner have claimed they were acting out of self-defense even though they were not afraid for their lives at that moment. Traditionally, the law of self-defense does not apply to this situation, and many judges still refuse to permit this defense. However, some courts have expanded the self-defense concept to cover these circumstances.

Another possible defense is entrapment, which generally refers to a situation in which someone commits a crime only because law-enforcement agents induced the offender to do so. For example, suppose you are living in a dormitory and have never used marijuana. A new resident of the dorm offers you a joint, but you turn him down. Over the next couple weeks, he repeatedly tries to get you to smoke marijuana, and finally you give in and take a joint. As you begin to smoke it, your friend, who in fact is an undercover narcotics officer, arrests you for illegal drug use. Because you had no history of marijuana use and agreed to try some only after repeated pleas by the undercover officer, you may have a good chance of winning your case, assuming a prosecutor goes forward with it, with an entrapment defense.

Entrapment

A final, very controversial defense is the insanity defense. (“Insanity” and “insane” remain legal terms but otherwise have fallen out of favor because they may be considered offensive.) Despite the attention it receives, few criminal defendants plead insanity, diminished capacity, or related mental and emotional states, and abolition of the insanity defense would not affect the operation or effectiveness of the criminal justice system (Walker 2015). This issue aside, if a defendant does not have the capacity (e.g., the ability to know right from wrong) to have criminal intent at the time they commit a criminal act, the person is not assumed to have the necessary mens rea, or guilty mind, for criminal liability.

Insanity

Review and Discuss What are three legal defenses to criminal liability? Do you think these defenses should exist, or do you think they have been exploited by criminal defendants?

c Research Methods in Criminology Like any natural, physical, or social science, theory and research lie at the heart of criminology. Theories and hypotheses must be developed and then tested. Again like the other social and natural sciences, criminological research often asks whether one variable (e.g., attachment to one’s parents) influences another variable (e.g., delinquency). The variable that does the influencing is called the independent variable, and the variable that is influenced is called the dependent variable. Research typically tests whether the independent variable is associated with the dependent variable (e.g., whether the degree of adolescents’ attachment to their parents is related to the extent of their delinquency). This book discusses the latest criminological research findings in every chapter. To help understand how crime is studied, we now review the major types of research in criminology.

Surveys One of the most important types of research in criminology (and sociology) is survey research. A  survey involves the administration of a questionnaire to respondents who are interviewed face to face in their homes or elsewhere, or instead by telephone, online, or through the mail. chapter

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However a survey is conducted, it enables a researcher to gather much information about the respondents, even though this information is often relatively superficial. Often respondents represent a random sample of an entire population in a particular location, such as the whole nation, a state, a city, or perhaps a campus. The process of selecting a random sample is very complex but is functionally equiva▲ Telephone surveys have become very commonly used in criminology and lent to flipping a coin or rolling two dice other social sciences. to determine who is in, and who is not in, the sample. The familiar Gallup poll is a random sample of the adult population of the United States. Even if the size of a national random sample like this poll might be as small as 400 adults, its results will accurately reflect the opinions and behaviors of all U.S. adults, if we could ever measure all of them. This means that we can generalize the results of a random sample to the entire population with only a small margin of error. Other surveys are carried out with nonrandom samples. For example, a researcher might hand out a questionnaire to a class of high school seniors or first-year college students. Although we cannot safely generalize from these results to the population, some very well-known studies in criminology rely on such convenience samples. In criminology, surveys are used primarily to gather three kinds of information: The first kind involves public opinion on crime and the criminal justice system. Depending on the survey, respondents may be asked about their views on several issues, including the death penalty, spending to reduce crime, their satisfaction with the local police, or the reasons they believe people commit crimes. The second kind of information gathered involves self-report data, primarily from adolescents, on crime and delinquency. Respondents in this case are asked to indicate, among other things, how many times in the past they have committed various kinds of offenses. The third kind of information concerns criminal victimization. Respondents are asked whether they have been victimized by various crimes and, if so, are further asked about certain details about their victimization. We will discuss all these types of information in the chapters ahead.

Review and Discuss What three kinds of information do criminological surveys gather?

Experiments Experiments are very common in psychology but are less so in criminology and sociology. Subjects typically are assigned randomly either to an experimental group, which is subjected to an experimental condition, or to a control group for comparison. Many experiments take place in the laboratory. A common laboratory experiment with criminological implications concerns the effects of violent videos. After random assignment, an experimental group of subjects may watch violent videos, while a control group watches nonviolent videos. Researchers then ask both groups to read hypothetical scenarios in which someone resolved an interpersonal dispute violently and to indicate for each scenario whether they approve the use of this violence. If those in the experimental group are more likely than those in the control group to indicate such approval, researchers can reasonably conclude that watching the violent videos films yielded this difference. Certain problems exist with the conclusions drawn from such laboratory experiments, however. First, even if an experimental effect is found, it might be only a short-term effect rather than a longterm effect. Second, an effect found in the artificial setting of a laboratory will not necessarily be found in a real-world setting. Third, most subjects in laboratory experiments conducted by social scientists are college students, typically in lower-level classes. Because college students are younger

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than most people not in college and differ in many other ways, experimental results found among college students may not necessarily pertain to other people. Some experiments, called randomized field experiments or randomized field trials, occur outside a laboratory. Such experiments in criminology go back to the 1950s, and there is growing interest in what is called experimental criminology (Farrington et al. 2020; Koehler and Smith 2021). Randomized field experiments have been used to test the effectiveness of various treatment and prevention programs, and they have also been used to help understand the causes of crime. As just one example of such experiments, police have increased their foot patrol in randomly selected high-crime areas. Subsequent crime rates in these areas were then found to be lower than rates in other high-crime areas in which foot patrol did not increase. The randomized nature of these studies permits the conclusion that the increased foot patrol did, in fact, reduce criminal behavior (Haberman and Stiver 2020).

Qualitative Research: Observing and Intensive Interviewing Much research in criminology and sociology involves observing and/or interviewing members of various groups (Katz 2019). These studies are called field studies or ethnographies. Two of the most famous such accounts in sociology are the late Elliott Liebow’s Tally’s Corner (1967), a study of urban Black men, and Tell Them Who I Am: The Lives of Homeless Women (1993), which provides a rich account of urban women living on the streets. A classic field study in criminology was William Foote Whyte’s (1943) Street Corner Society, a study of leadership in a Chicago gang. Gangs remain the subject of many qualitative studies in criminology (Deuchar et al. 2020; Miller 2008; Przemieniecki et al. 2020) Criminologists have also observed the police. Typically, trained researchers ride in police cars and observe the police as they deal with suspects, victims, witnesses, and other people (Dabney et al. 2017). These studies illuminate police behavior and provide important data on several issues, including why police decide to arrest or not to arrest suspects and the extent to which police officers use excessive force. One potential problem with these and other observational studies is that the people being observed—in this case, the police—may change their typical behaviors when they know they are being watched. Another type of qualitative research in criminology involves intensive interviewing of criminal offenders (Topalli et al. 2020). Some studies interview convicted offenders who are either still imprisoned or on probation or parole (Pyrooz et al. 2021; Ricciardelli 2018). Other interview studies involve offenders who are still on the streets, as in the gang studies just mentioned. As you might expect, this type of study poses several difficulties: Active criminals might not want to cooperate because they fear the interviewer might be an undercover police officer or might report what is heard to the police; interviewers may also face a legal or ethical obligation to report serious crimes. Some offenders may also pose a danger to the interviewer. Nonetheless, criminologists have published several fascinating studies of active robbers, burglars, carjackers, drug dealers and users, gang members, and other types of offenders (Holt and French 2020; Jacobs 2012; Miller 2008; Roy et al. 2018). Increasingly, intensive interviewing has been combined with surveying in longitudinal studies, in which the same people are studied over time (Blagden and Wilson 2020; Giordano et al. 2020). Criminology has a growing number of investigations in specific cities or across the whole nation in which researchers interview children or teenagers and their parents and then re-interview them periodically for one or two decades or even longer. Juvenile and criminal police and court records are often also consulted. Longitudinal studies have greatly contributed to the understanding of crime over the life course (see Chapter 8) and are invaluable for the testing of many theories of crime and delinquency. Criminal offenders have been interviewed at great length, and so have criminal victims. Heart-rending accounts of the experiences of women survivors of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence helped bring these crimes to public attention beginning in the 1970s. Since that time, victims of these and other types of crimes have been interviewed at length (e.g., LoCascio et al. 2021). In a related type of study, interviews of urban residents have helped to illuminate their complex concerns about crime and incivility and have yielded a poignant picture of how the threat of crime and the prospect of being arrested affect their daily lives. Qualitative research, whether in the form of observing or intensive interviewing, chapter

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cannot readily be generalized to other segments of the population, but this type of research has nonetheless provided richer accounts of the motivations, lives, and behaviors of criminals than any other research method has yielded. Several ethnographic studies of urban areas, such as Elijah Anderson’s (1999) sensitive account of urban culture, may not touch on crime directly, but they still provide important perspectives that help us understand why street crime may be common in these areas.

Research Using Existing Data Criminologists often analyze data that have been recorded or gathered by government agencies and other sources. For example, criminologists may code data from the case files of criminal defendants to determine whether defendants’ race or ethnicity, social class, or gender affects their likelihood of conviction and imprisonment. They also often combine Census data with government-produced crime and victimization statistics to assess how the social characteristics of neighborhoods, cities, and counties affect crime and victimization (Hollis 2018); some studies also use Census data to determine how the social characteristics of states or counties affect imprisonment rates, the number of executions, and other criminal justice responses to crime (Brown 2020).

Comparative and Historical Research Two final types of research that combine several of the kinds already mentioned are comparative and historical research. Comparative research refers to cross-cultural or international research. Different nations’ varying rates of crime and imprisonment reflect differences in the nations’ social structures and cultures (Chon 2013). By examining other nations’ experiences, we can better understand our own situation. International Focus boxes throughout this book highlight this comparative approach. Historical research is also important. Much of the work of the three key founders of sociology—Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx—is historical. Societies change over time, as do their rates of criminal and other behaviors. For example, murder rates in Western nations were much higher a few centuries ago than they are now. By looking at crime in history, we can better understand our own situation today and the possibilities for change. Most chapters in this book discuss historical research.

c Conclusion Viewed from a sociological perspective, crime is a public issue rooted in the way society is organized, not a private trouble rooted in the personal failures of individuals. Accordingly, sociological criminology highlights the role played by social structure, broadly defined, in criminal behavior, victimization, and the legal response to crime. It emphasizes the criminogenic social and physical conditions of communities and stresses the impact of social inequalities based on race and ethnicity, social class, and gender. It also challenges commonsense perceptions of crime and the legal order and offers solutions for dealing with crime that address its structural roots. This book’s primary aim is to develop your sociological imagination so that you can perceive, perhaps a little more than you do right now, the structural bases for crime, victimization, and criminal justice. As you develop your sociological imagination, perhaps you will also understand yourself, or at least your friends and loved ones, a little better than you do now. As C. Wright Mills (1959:5) observed some 50 years ago, the idea that individuals can understand their own experiences only by first understanding the structural and historical forces affecting them is “in many ways a terrible lesson [and] in many ways a magnificent one.” It is terrible because it makes us realize that forces affecting our behavior and life chances are often beyond our control; it is magnificent because it enables us to recognize what these forces are and, perhaps, therefore to change them. Welcome to the world of sociological criminology. Enjoy the journey you are about to make!

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Summary 1. The popular sources of our knowledge about crime say little about its social roots. A sociological understanding of crime and criminal justice emphasizes the need to address the structural roots of crime for crime-reduction efforts to succeed. 2. The sociological perspective states that our social backgrounds influence our attitudes, behaviors, and life chances. Sociologist C. Wright Mills stressed that people’s private troubles are rooted in the social structure. A sociological approach often challenges conventional wisdom by exposing false claims about reality and taken-for-granted assumptions about social life and social institutions. 3. Criminology and sociology are mutually relevant. Criminology grew largely out of sociology, and today, each discipline addresses concepts and theories and uses methodologies that are all relevant to the other discipline. 4. Sociological criminology arose from the writings of Émile Durkheim in France in the late nineteenth century, from the efforts of W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells-Barnett in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and from the work of social scientists at the University of Chicago in the early twentieth century. Somewhat later in the twentieth century, the pioneering efforts of Edwin Sutherland contributed further to the prominence of sociological criminology. Today, several sociological theories of crime vie for scholarly popularity. 5. A sociological approach suggests that the definition of “crime” is problematic because some behaviors may be harmful but not criminal, and others may be criminal but not very harmful. This view of crime derives from the larger study of deviant behavior, which sociologists consider relative in time and space, given that whether a behavior is considered deviant depends on the circumstances under which it occurs. 6. Consensus and conflict theories of criminal law try to answer two related questions: (1) Why do criminal laws get established? and (2) Whom do criminal laws benefit? Consensus theory assumes that laws represent the interests of all segments of the public, whereas conflict theory assumes that laws represent the views of the powerful and help the powerful stay at the top of society’s hierarchy and keep the powerless at the bottom. 7. For a defendant to be found guilty of a crime, criminal intent, among other things, must be proved. This means that the defendant must have committed a criminal behavior knowingly and willingly. Legal defenses to criminal liability include accident or mistake, ignorance, duress, self-defense, entrapment, and insanity. 8. Research methods in criminology include surveys, experiments, observing and intensive interviewing, the use of existing data, and comparative and historical research.

Key Terms actus reus 10 common law 9 conflict 8 consensus 8 crime 7 criminal intent 10 criminogenic 6 criminology 7 customs 5 debunking motif 4 dependent variable 11 deviance 5

duress 11 felonies 10 generalize 12 independent variable 11 intersectionality 5 laws 5 longitudinal studies 13 mala in se 10 mala prohibita 10 mens rea 10 misdemeanor 10 norms 5

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private troubles 4 public criminology 3 public issues 4 self-defense 11 social control 5 social inequality 4 social structure 3 sociological criminology 2 sociological imagination 4 sociological perspective 3 survey 11

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What Would You Do? 1. Suppose you are a single parent with two young children and are living in a large city. Like many urban residents, you and your neighbors are very concerned about the crime and drug trafficking you see in your neighborhood. Some of your neighbors have moved out of the city, but most have stayed, and some have even joined a neighborhood watch group. You can afford to move out of the city, but it would be a severe financial strain to do so. Do you think you would decide to move out of the city, or would you stay? Explain your response. If you stayed, would you join the neighborhood watch group? Why or why not?

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2. Suppose you are the college student described in this chapter who smokes your first marijuana joint only after repeated appeals by another dormitory student who turns out to be an undercover police officer. You know you were entrapped, but you also realize that if you decide not to plead guilty and take the case to trial, your entrapment defense might not work, and you will face harsher punishment than if you plead guilty. Would you plead guilty, or would you plead not guilty and argue that the officer entrapped you? Explain your response.

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2 Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem LEARNING OBJECTIVES

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Explain why the historical concern over crime might challenge democratic theory if this concern at least partly arises from misleading media coverage.

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Explain how the news media overdramatize crime.

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Describe the role played by racial prejudice in punitiveness.

Describe the different kinds of crime myths generated by the news media. List the effects of news media coverage of crime. Explain the structural factors and individual characteristics that relate to fear of crime, anger about crime, and views on the seriousness of crime.

Summarize racial differences in views about the police, in perceptions of criminal injustice, and in views about criminal justice spending.

CHAPTER OUTLINE Public Opinion about Crime: Laying the Groundwork A Brief Look Back Public Opinion and Crime Policy Overdramatization of Crime by the News Media Crime Waves Overreporting of Violent Crime Violence in the Popular Media Other Problems with Media Coverage People of Color Youths 17

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Virtuous Victims Additional Problems in Media Coverage Effects of Media Coverage Public Ignorance Crime and Controversy: Should the News Media Disclose the Names of People Who Report a Rape? Public Fear and Concern Obscuring Underlying Forces Diversion from White-Collar Crime International Focus: Crime Is Down in Scotland, but Many Scots Think Otherwise Racial and Ethnic Stereotyping Research on Public Beliefs about Crime and Punitiveness Fear of Crime Anger about Crime Seriousness of Crime Punitiveness Research on Views about Criminal Justice Views about the Police Perceptions of Criminal Injustice Views about Crime and Criminal Justice Spending A Final Word on Public Beliefs Conclusion

Crime in the News It was the end of April 2021, and the residents of the South Ozone Park neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens were reacting to the nonfatal shootings of two young men late one night on a street corner. A neighbor who had heard several shots said, “Who didn’t hear shots? You hear shots around here all the time.” Another neighbor said she had quit her restaurant job to avoid having to walk home alone at night. “It’s very bad news that this kind of situation is happening,” she said. “We live just a little over there, and we’re very afraid.” Source: Kriegstein and Tracy 2021.

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hink about why you are taking this criminology course. If you are like many students, you may be taking it simply because it fits into your schedule. Or, you might be interested in becoming a probation officer, a juvenile caseworker, a police officer, or a victim-witness advocate. Perhaps you even want an academic career in criminology. Some students may be taking the course because they are crime victims or are friends or relatives of crime victims. Still others may simply be interested in and even fascinated by crime and criminals. A final group may consider crime a serious social problem and want to know why crime occurs and what can be done about it. Now think about why you have taken courses in other subject areas: math, biology, English literature, or even many of the social sciences. It may have been to fulfill general education or major requirements, to prepare you for a career, to help you learn more about an interesting topic, or—be honest—to fill a time slot in your schedule. You probably did not take these courses because you were concerned about their subject matter or because you were worried about the subject matter somehow affecting you. A criminology course differs in this sense because its subject matter is very real to students: They hear about crime from the news media and see many crimes portrayed in TV programs and the movies. They come into their criminology courses with real concerns about crime and even fears that they or their friends and relatives will become crime victims. Like the residents of the South Ozone Park neighborhood in which the late-might shootings occurred, they worry about being unsafe.

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In this respect, students are no different from average citizens, as most of us hold strong opinions and concerns about crime and criminal justice. But where do these beliefs come from? How accurate are the sources of our beliefs and, for that matter, our beliefs themselves? What does social science research reveal about these matters? To return to a theme of Chapter 1, how does our location in society affect our beliefs? This chapter attempts to answer these questions and to indicate the major findings on public opinion about crime.

c Public Opinion about Crime: Laying the Groundwork Before delving into this fascinating and important topic, we need to lay the groundwork by providing some historical context and by critically discussing the relevance of public opinion to crime policy. This material will help you to better appreciate the research findings that will be presented.

A Brief Look Back Crime has been considered a serious problem throughout U.S. history. As the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1967:22) noted several decades ago, “[T]here has always been too much crime. Virtually every generation since the founding of the Nation and before has felt itself threatened by the spectre of rising crime and violence.” During the 1830s, for example, the major East Coast cities were plagued by repeated mob violence. Teenage gangs roamed the streets and attacked innocent bystanders, and newspaper stories about crime were common (Roth 2019). Moving ahead to the next century, the 1920s were a “crime boom” decade with headlines such as “Cities Helpless in the Grip of Crime” and “The Rising Tide of Crime.” An American Bar Association committee declared in 1922: ▼ This wanted poster for the notorious outlaw Billy the “Since 1890 there has been, and continues, a widening, Kid reminds us that crime has been considered a serious deepening tide of lawlessness in this country, sometimes problem throughout U.S. history. momentarily receding, to swell again into greater depth and intensity” (American Bar Association 1922:427). A New York newspaper agreed: “Never before has the average person, in his place of business, in his home or on the streets, had cause to feel less secure. Never before has a continuous wave of crime given rise to so general a wave of fear” (Davey 1995:85). This brief history reminds us that crime has always been considered a serious problem. Although we worry about it today, Americans have always worried about it, with their anxiety fueled by news media coverage. This concern influences policy decisions about crime and criminal justice. But what if public concern is at least partly the result of misleading media coverage? We explore this issue in the next section.

As you undoubtedly learned before you entered college, the most defining feature of a democracy is that citizens elect their leaders by majority vote. A related feature, say scholars of democratic theory, is that policy decisions by public officials should take into account public opinion (Saward 2021). Critics challenge this view on several grounds. A first criticism is that public officials are influenced more by a small, powerful elite than by the public (Domhoff 2014). To the extent this criticism might be true, public policy development differs from the idealized version of democratic theory. chapter

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A second criticism is that majority opinion may violate democratic principles of fairness, equality, and justice. Support for slavery before the Civil War is just one of many examples from U.S. history. Public opinion that violates democratic principles should not influence public policy. A final challenge to democratic theory is that public opinion is often inaccurate. Humans once believed that the earth was flat, but that did not make it flat. In today’s world, many people get their information from the news media, but the news media often distort reality (Glassner 2018). Expert opinion may also influence our views, but even expert opinion may be inaccurate. In the late 1800s, respected U.S. physicians thought women should not go to college. These “experts” believed that the rigors of higher education would upset women’s menstrual cycles and that they would not do well on exams during “that time of the month” (Ehrenreich and English 2005)! Fortunately, we have moved beyond these foolish notions, but the damage they did back then to women’s opportunities for higher education was real. What relevance does all this have for public opinion about crime? People have many concerns and strong opinions about crime and criminal justice. Their views may influence criminal justice policy decisions and, in particular, promote tougher penalties for serious crime. But what if these views are sometimes misinformed? What if public concern about crime stems partly from sensational news media coverage of violent crime and alarmist statements by politicians? Moreover, what if antidemocratic attitudes such as racial prejudice affect public views about crime? These possibilities raise some troubling questions about the influence of public opinion on criminal justice policy in a democratic society. The remainder of this chapter addresses these possibilities. A major goal is to emphasize the problems involved in allowing public opinion on a complex topic such as crime to influence policy without careful evaluation of all available evidence.

Review and Discuss What are three criticisms or challenges to democratic theory? What is the relevance of these challenges to public opinion about crime?

c Overdramatization of Crime by the News Media To stimulate your thinking about these issues, complete this mini-survey on certain aspects of crime and criminal justice in the United States: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What percentage of convicted felony defendants are found guilty by a jury instead of by a judge? Answer: ________ How much of the average police officer’s time is spent fighting crime (i.e., questioning witnesses, arresting suspects) as opposed to other activities? Answer: ________ About how many people die each year from homicides? Answer: ________ What percentage of all felonies in a given year lead to someone being convicted of a felony and imprisoned? Answer: ________ In terms of race and social class, who is the typical criminal in the United States? Answer: ________

If your answers are similar to many of my own students’ answers, you would have said the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Between 30 percent and 60 percent of convicted felons are found guilty at a jury trial. About 60 percent or more of police officers’ time is spent fighting crime. At least 50,000–100,000 people die each year from homicides. About 33 percent of all felonies in a given year lead to someone being imprisoned for committing the felony. The typical criminal, despite many exceptions, comes from a low-income background and is a person of color.

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1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Fewer than 10  percent of convicted felons are found guilty at jury trials, with most found guilty as a result of plea bargaining (Neubauer and Fradella 2019). Only about 10–20 percent of police officers’ time is spent fighting crime; the remainder is spent on directing traffic, responding to traffic accidents, and other ordinary matters (Dempsey and Forst 2019). About 16,000–20,000 people die each year from homicides (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2020; Lopez 2021). Well under 10 percent of all felonies in a given year lead to someone being imprisoned for committing the felony (Walker 2015). The profile of the typical criminal, if one includes very common crimes such as employee theft and other kinds of white-collar crime, is certainly not restricted to people from low-income backgrounds and people of color (Rosoff et al. 2020).

Tony Gutierrez/AP Images

Now compare your answers to what the best-available evidence tells us:

▲ Despite the importance of juries, fewer than 10 percent of felony convictions occur as the result of jury trials. Instead, most convictions occur as the result of plea bargaining.

Many students disbelieve these findings, but each is based on sound evidence that later chapters will discuss. For now, assume that these findings are accurate and that public opinion and perceptions on these and other crime and criminal justice matters may sometimes be mistaken. Where do these perceptions come from? Where did you acquire the information that led to your answers? Research suggests that the major sources of your information are the news and popular media (Robinson 2018). If so many people rely on the media for information about crime, the media should depict crime accurately. But how accurate is the media’s depiction of crime? To begin to answer this question, pretend that you are a newspaper editor or a TV news director. Why might you want to devote a lot of stories to crime and drugs? The answer is obvious: These stories have great potential for capturing readers’ or viewers’ attention and thus for advancing your career. Now pretend that you are in charge of nightly programming for one of the TV networks. Which types of events hold the most promise for boosting your network’s ratings: violent street crime or white-collar crime? Police chases of violent criminals or traffic citations? Jury trials or plea bargains? The answer is again obvious. Like the news media, the networks’ show schedules will feature the most dramatic kinds of crime and criminal justice activities, as will theatrical films dealing with criminal justice. Scholarly investigations of media crime coverage find that the news media do, in fact, overdramatize crime. This occurs in several related ways.

Crime Waves The first way the news media overdramatize crime is through crime waves, in which a city’s news media suddenly devote much attention to a small number of crimes and falsely suggest that crime is rampant. In an early study, Felix Frankfurter, a future Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Roscoe Pound, dean of Harvard Law School, documented the manufacture of a crime wave in Cleveland, Ohio, in January 1919, when the city’s newspapers sharply increased their crime stories even though police reports of crime had increased only slightly (Frankfurter and Pound 1922). Frankfurter and Pound criticized the press for alarming the public and for pressuring Cleveland officials to ignore due process. In a later and widely cited study, Mark Fishman (1978) documented a 1976 media crime wave by New York City newspapers, which extensively covered a few crimes against older people. Although these crimes were not in fact increasing, the media coverage alarmed the public. chapter

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Often the media’s crime coverage continues to be heavy even though the crime rate may be declining. For example, murder stories on the TV networks’ evening newscasts surged by 721 percent from 1993 to 1996, even though the U.S. homicide rate actually dropped by 20 percent during this period (Kurtz 1997). This inconsistency prompted one TV news reporter to comment, “The myth of rapidly rising crime is so widespread that almost every report(er) believes it’s true. I’m as guilty as anyone” (Williams 1994:72). In a related phenomenon, the media may devote much attention to very uncommon crimes or even report stories of crimes that never happened. Victor E. Kappeler and Gary W. Potter (2018) describe several such examples. No doubt you have heard of children stricken by poisoned Halloween candy. Such stories surfaced in the mid-1970s when the media reported that several children had died from poisoned candy. However, investigation later confirmed only two deaths, neither involv▲ The belief that several trick-or-treaters ing a stranger giving poisoned candy to a trick-or-treater. In one death, a have died from eating poisoned Halloween child died after supposedly eating Halloween candy laced with heroin, candy is a myth. but it was later discovered that he had found the drug in his uncle’s home. In the other, an eight-year-old boy ate candy that his father had laced with cyanide. The truth of both boys’ deaths received far less coverage than the initial reports of innocent trick-or-treaters murdered by strangers. No doubt you have also seen faces of missing children—believed to be kidnapped by strangers—on milk cartons and in heavily publicized news reports. Various government reports indicate that between 1.5 and 2.5 million children are reported missing each year. However, most missing children are in fact runaways. The relatively few abducted children are usually taken by a parent in a custody battle, and only about 300 are abducted by strangers annually. Although even one child abducted by a stranger is too many, the real number of such children is much smaller than most people think. Kappeler and Potter (2005) term a final example the “serial killer panic of 1983–85,” when many news stories appeared about serial killers who murder people at random. A front-page article in the New York Times called serial killing a national epidemic, accounting for roughly 20 percent, or 4,000, of all the yearly U.S. homicides back then (Lindsey 1984). Many other news reports repeated the Times’s estimate. However, a later study put the annual number of serial killings at no more than 400 and perhaps as few as 50 (Jenkins 1988). The higher end of the estimate is still only one-tenth the size of the earlier 4,000 figure. Serial killers do exist and must be taken seriously, but they do not appear to be quite the menace the media had us believe.

Overreporting of Violent Crime A second way the news media overdramatize crime is simply by reporting so many stories about it (Kappeler and Potter 2018). These stories tend to focus on violent crime, especially homicide. As the old saying goes, “If it bleeds, it leads.” This focus occurs even though most crimes are not violent (see Chapter 3). The media thus give the most coverage to the crimes that occur the least. As criminologist Mark Warr once put it, “If I were an alien and I came to this planet and I turned on the television, I would think that most crimes were . . . violent crimes, when in fact those are the least common crimes in our society” (Williams 1994:72). Much research supports this view and finds that homicide generally accounts for more than one-fourth of all TV and newspaper crime stories even though it represents less than 1 percent of all crime (Feld 2003).

Violence in the Popular Media Although the news media do overreport violent crime, it almost goes without saying that violent crime is also a staple of many TV shows and films (Grubb and Posick 2021). Weekly shows on the major networks feature police and forensic science experts trying to solve homicides and other serious, violent crimes, and celebrated cable series such as Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and The Wire display many acts of violence. Many films on streaming channels and/or in theaters also certainly feature violent crime and high death tolls.

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Like the news media, the popular media feature violent crime rather than crimes such as burglary and larceny because violent crime is what the public wants to watch. Depending on the popular media source, high viewership translates to higher advertisement revenue, higher subscription revenue, and/or higher box office receipts. Although the focus of the popular media on violent crime is thus understandable from an economic perspective, their depictions of violent crime still overdramatize it by suggesting that crime tends to be violent and that violent crime is rampant. In fact, violent crime is much less common than property crime; homicides, despite the attention they draw, are thankfully rather rare in most communities; and serious violent crime has declined dramatically since the early 1990s despite a reversal after the COVID-19 pandemic began (see Chapter 3).

Review and Discuss In what ways do the news media overdramatize crime? How and why do crime waves contribute to overdramatization?

c Other Problems with Media Coverage A myth is a false or unproven belief about a social phenomenon. False beliefs about crime are therefore called crime myths (Kappeler and Potter 2018). We have just seen that the media contribute to two such myths—that crime is rampant and is overly violent—by overdramatizing crime in the ways described. Other aspects of the media’s crime coverage generate additional myths.

People of Color

Michael Matthews—Police Images/Alamy Stock Photo

People of color have often been the subjects of distorted treatment in media coverage. Several historical examples abound. During the 1870s, newspapers falsely alleged that Chinese immigrants were kidnapping White children and turning them into opium addicts. A few decades later, the press claimed that cocaine use would make Black Americans more cunning, super strong, and invulnerable to bullets. A few decades after that, press reports claimed that marijuana use would make Mexican Americans violent (Musto 2002)! We may mock such beliefs now, but back then they increased prejudice against people of color and helped prompt new laws to ban the use of opium, cocaine, and marijuana. In modern evidence, TV news broadcasts and newspapers often overrepresent Black and Latinx offenders in their crime stories (Johnson and Johnson 2021; Ravid 2021; Sun 2018). In a related problem, the news media often pay disproportionate attention to White crime victims: They feature more articles about White victims than ▼ Crime stories in TV broadcasts and newspapers pay disproactual crime statistics would justify, and these articles portionate attention to Black and Latinx offenders. are longer than those about Black victims (Gruenewald et al. 2013; Slakoff and Fradella 2019). News stories about victims of color are also more likely to depict them as “bad” people whose risk-taking behavior resulted in their victimization, whereas stories about White victims tend to depict them as blameless (Slakoff and Brennan 2019). Moreover, even though most violent crime is intraracial (involving offenders and victims of the same race), newspapers tend to feature stories with Black offenders and White victims (Lundman 2003). Finally, Black and Latinx suspects are more likely than White suspects to be portrayed in a menacing context: in the physical custody of police, in a mug shot, or victimizing a stranger (Colburn and Melander 2018). In all these ways, the media’s racially tinged coverage exaggerates the involvement and threat of people of color in crime (especially committing violence and selling drugs) and understates their victimization by it. chapter

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A similar bias has existed in coverage of immigration and crime. Although research finds that immigrants have lower crime rates overall than do native-born Americans (see Chapter 3), news media coverage over the decades has suggested otherwise in ways that inflame public opinion against immigrants and immigration (Haynes et al. 2016). As evidence, a study of national newspapers from 1990 to 2013 found that immigration crime stories tended heavily to depict immigrants as very crime-prone (Harris and Gruenewald 2020), while a study of local newspapers from 2008 to 2012 found a similar tendency (Harris et al. 2020). News magazine photos of immigrants also tend to depict immigrants as criminals or in other negative ways (Farris and Mohamed 2018).

Youths TV news shows and newspapers also disproportionately portray young people as involved in violence (Goidel et al. 2006). These outlets actually have very few stories about teenagers, but the stories they do have tend to depict adolescents as violent offenders or victims. Despite these stories, only a miniscule percentage of all teenagers are arrested annually for committing violent crimes. The news media coverage of teenage crime thus presents an unfair portrait of young people and contributes to public fears about juvenile violence (Webb 2017).

Virtuous Victims Crime victims come from all walks of life. Many and perhaps most victims are fine, upright citizens who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but others are disreputable and may even have contributed to their own victimization (see Chapter 4). Despite this diversity, the news media tend to give more coverage to crimes whose victims seem to be entirely innocent and even virtuous. These include children and wealthy White women, even though these groups actually have very low victimization rates. Critics say the media’s attention to virtuous victims helps foster even greater public concern about crime (Kappeler and Potter 2018). As a media critic once explained, “Reporters, like vampires, feed on human blood. Tales of tragedy, mayhem, and murder are the daily stuff of front-page headlines and breathless TV newscasts. . . . If the victims of such incidents are sufficiently wealthy, virtuous or beautiful, they are often turned into martyred saints in the epic battle between good and bad” (Cose 1990:19).

Review and Discuss What are any four crime myths promoted by news media coverage? How do these myths distort an accurate understanding of crime?

Additional Problems in Media Coverage

iQoncept/Shutterstock

▼ TV and newspaper crime stories contribute to public fears about juvenile violence.

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Several other problems in the news media’s crime coverage contribute to the misleading picture it provides (Kappeler and Potter 2018). These include (1) selecting to interview people who support the reporter’s point of view, (2) using value-laden language when referring to criminals (“preying on their victims” instead of more neutral terms), (3) presenting misleading data (e.g., reporting increases in the number of crimes without noting increases in population size), (4) neglecting white-collar crime, and (5) omitting the social and/or historical context for the information presented in a crime story. A final problem is that the media sometimes deliver a misleading picture of certain aspects of crime. For example, the violent crime depicted in the media typically involves strangers even though nonstrangers commit most violence. The media also neglect the role of gender in much violent

Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem 24

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crime, including the fact that males commit almost all of the mass shootings that have shocked the United States over the years. Media coverage of violence against women (rape/sexual assault and domestic violence) provides another example. Critics say this coverage is biased in several ways (Franiuk et al. 2008; Meyers 1996; Richards 2019): First, the media tend to cover rapes by strangers even though nonstrangers commit most rapes. Second, reporters sometimes falsely suggest—by emphasizing a woman’s “provocative” clothing or “careless” behavior—that she was somehow responsible for the rape. Third, although men commit the most serious violence against their spouses (see Chapter 11), reporters often use vague terms such as “a stormy relationship” that imply either that both spouses were to blame or that no one was to blame. When women do abuse their husbands, these relatively few cases receive disproportionate media attention.

c Effects of Media Coverage We have seen that the media provide a misleading picture of crime that involves several false beliefs: (1) Crime is rampant; (2) crime is overly violent; (3) people of color are more likely to be involved in crime and drugs and less likely to be crime victims; (4) teenagers commit much violent crime; and (5) crime victims are particularly virtuous. Although crime coverage varies among the news media, and in particular depends on whether the news outlet is a quality one or a more popular or tabloid type, an inescapable conclusion is that the image of crime that the public garners from the media is very distorted.

Public Ignorance The media coverage responsible for this distorted image has several effects (Goidel et al. 2006; Surette 2015). Perhaps the most important is that many Americans are fairly ignorant about critical aspects of crime and the criminal justice system, including the amount of crime, trends in crime rates, and the likelihood of being arrested and imprisoned for committing crime. Media coverage should not bear the total blame for this ignorance, but because this coverage is the public’s major source of information on crime and criminal justice, the media shoulder a heavy responsibility. An example of this effect is that the public may think crime is rising when it is actually falling. For example, 64 percent of Americans said in a 2019 Gallup poll that crime had increased from a year earlier, even though crime had actually declined during this period (McCarthy 2020;

Crime and Controversy

SHOULD THE NEWS MEDIA DISCLOSE

THE NAMES OF PEOPLE WHO REPORT A RAPE? However, some observers say the media should identify people who report a rape. First, if society has the right to know the name of an alleged rapist, these observers say, then it also has the right to know the name of the accuser; keeping the name secret might not be fair to the defendant, who has not yet been convicted of any crime. Second, the policy of withholding accusers’ names ironically reinforces the idea that rape should be considered shameful and embarrassing. It is fair to say that both sides of this debate make good points. Should the news media disclose the names of people who report a rape or sexual assault? What do you think?

The news media typically do not disclose the name of someone who reports a rape to the police, unless (as rarely happens) they agree to be identified. This news media practice began in the 1970s when the new women’s movement emphasized the seriousness of rape. So much shame surrounds this crime, anti-rape activists said, that media disclosure of the names of people who report a rape would increase the trauma of the rape itself. Supporting this argument, studies find that these persons’ major concern is that their names will become public. Proponents of withholding their names make at least one additional argument: Someone who thought their name would become known would be less willing to tell the police about the rape, making it less likely that the rapist will be arrested and also less likely that rape as a behavior will be deterred.

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Sources: Duara 2014; Kristof 2010; Tucker 2011; Yarrow 2013.

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Morgan and Truman 2020). And 59 percent of Americans said in another 2019 poll that the gun murder rate was higher than it had been twenty-five years earlier even though this rate was much lower in 2019; only 12 percent of respondents knew it had fallen during this period (Bump 2019). In virtually every year from the early 1990s through 2019, the public has continuously thought that crime was rising even though it fell rather steadily falling during this period (Monkovic and Asher 2021). As an analysis of this issue observed, “Voters’ perceptions of crime continue to conflict with reality” (Gramlich 2016).

Public Fear and Concern A second effect of the media’s overreporting of crime is greater public concern about crime (Shi et al. 2020), with some research finding that the more people watch local TV news and crime shows, the more they fear crime and/or are concerned about it (Baranauskas and Drakulich 2018; Eschholz et al. 2003; Goidel et al. 2006). This public concern in turn pressures prosecutors to take a hard line against criminal defendants and prompts public officials to call for the tougher treatment of criminals (Pickett 2019; Webb 2017). Critics say some public officials add to this problem by making alarmist and racially coded statements about the menace of crime (Shelden and Young 2021).

Obscuring Underlying Forces The media’s focus on individual crimes and criminals obscures crime’s underlying social and cultural forces, including neighborhood conditions. These forces are the subject of much of the rest of the book, but, as Chapter 1 indicated, they have to be understood and their importance for crime appreciated if the nation is to succeed in reducing the crime rate.

Diversion from White-Collar Crime Critics say the media’s focus on street crime diverts attention from white-collar crime and reinforces negative feelings about poor people (Reiman and Leighton 2020). Although white-collar crime can be very harmful (see Chapter 13), its neglect by the media implies to the public that it is not very serious.

International Focus

CRIME IS DOWN IN SCOTLAND, BUT MANY

SCOTS THINK OTHERWISE Why did so many Scots believe crime was rising in their nation when it was actually continuing to fall? We will never know for sure, but the likely answer is that they were reading about crime in newspapers and online and hearing about it from their TV sets every day. The Scottish experience of thinking crime was rising even when it was falling replicates the American experience. This international similarity underscores the text’s point that media coverage and politicians’ alarmist comments may unduly sway public views about crime. As a British news columnist once observed, “Newspaper editors and broadcasters have always known what sells their products and rule No. 1 in the book is this: if it bleeds, it leads. . . . Politicians realize there are very few votes to be won in calm reassurance that things are, in one respect at least, improving. The prevailing mood is always that the world is going to hell in a handcart, and woe betide any political candidate who suggests otherwise.”

The text notes that nearly two-thirds of Americans in 2019 believed crime was on the rise even though crime had declined during the preceding year. This disconnect between public views and actual reality is not unique to the United States. People in Scotland, too, think crime is rising when in fact the opposite has been true for many years. In an annual national survey taken in fiscal year 2019– 2020, 45 percent of Scots thought crime had increased during the two years preceding the survey. In fact, crime in Scotland during those two years was somewhat lower than it had been in the immediately preceding years. This decline continued a sharp drop in Scottish crime during this century. In fiscal year 2008–2009, for example, there were 1,045,000 crimes in Scotland as measured by the annual survey, and this figure had dropped by some 45 percent to 573,000 by 2018–2019; it then remained stable up to the time of the 2019–2020 survey. Even though crime in Scotland thus had declined and then remained stable during the two-year period before the 2019–2020 survey, more than four out of every 10 Scots thought crime had risen during this period.

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Sources: Fogg 2013; Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2021.

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Racial and Ethnic Stereotyping Finally, the media’s exaggeration of the violent criminality of Black and Latinx Americans and its neglect of their victimization reinforces negative stereotypes about these groups’ violent tendencies (Webb 2017). For example, White Americans tend to think they are more likely to be victimized by people of color even though most crimes against White people are committed by other White people (Dorfman and Schiraldi 2001). Similarly, 60 percent of a study’s subjects who watched crime stories remembered seeing an offender when in fact one was never shown, and 70 percent of these subjects thought the offender was Black (Gilliam and Iyengar 2000)! Such stereotyping in turn contributes to White Americans’ fear of crime. In an innovative study, Sarah Eschholz (2002) found that watching TV produced greater fear of crime among both Black and White respondents in a large southeastern city: the more hours spent watching TV, the greater the fear of crime. Meanwhile, watching programs with higher proportions of Black offenders produced greater fear of crime among White viewers, but not among Black viewers. Although more research is needed, media crime coverage does seem to influence public beliefs and public policy in all the ways just described. To the extent that this is true, this coverage must be as accurate and objective as possible. For this reason, the evidence of the media’s misleading portrayals of crime and criminals raises troubling questions regarding the key beliefs of democratic theory outlined at the start of this chapter.

Review and Discuss What are any four effects of news media coverage of crime? If you were a newspaper editor or TV news director, how would you want crime covered?

c Research on Public Beliefs about Crime and Punitiveness We now turn from media coverage to specific public beliefs. A growing body of research addresses the nature and sources of public attitudes about crime and criminal justice. We look first at fear of crime, the belief for which there is probably the most research.

Fear of Crime Take a moment and write down the things you do in your daily life to reduce your chances of becoming a crime victim. If you are like many students, you wrote that you usually lock the doors of your dormitory room, apartment, or house and of your car (if you have one). You might also have written, especially if you are a woman, that you are careful where you walk alone at night or that you even refuse to walk alone. And you might even have written that you or your family has a gun at home or that you carry a weapon or other means of protection in case you are attacked. Most of us take some of these precautions, often without even thinking about them. We may realize that something like air pollution or price-fixing by large corporations might ultimately pose more danger to us or cost us more money than street crime. But we do not lock our doors to keep out air pollution, and we do not carry a gun or pepper spray to protect ourselves from price-fixing. We worry about crime because it is so directly and personally threatening. We especially worry about crime committed by strangers, even though we often have more to fear from people we know than from strangers. It should not surprise you to learn that many people are afraid of becoming a victim of crime, with some more afraid than others. A standard question included in both the Gallup poll and the General Social Survey (GSS), a random sample of the noninstitutionalized U.S. population that has been conducted regularly since 1972, asks, “Are there any areas around here—that is, within a mile—where you would be afraid to walk alone at night?” In 2021, 36 percent of GSS respondents answered yes to this question (author’s computation). This figure obscures the fact that some people fear crime more than other people do. This variation stems from both structural factors and individual characteristics. Structural factors concern the social and physical characteristics of the locations in which people live, whereas chapter

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individual characteristics include demographic variables, such as age, gender, and race, and crime-related factors, such as personal victimization and vicarious victimization (knowing someone who has been a crime victim). We now discuss research on both sets of factors.

1000 Words/Shutterstock

Structural Factors Research on structural factors focuses on community characteristics such as the living conditions of respondents’ neighborhoods (e.g., whether the neighborhood is filled with abandoned buildings) and the proportion of people of color living nearby. Fear is generally higher in neighborhoods with dilapidated living conditions and, because of racial stereotyping, in neighborhoods with higher proportions of people of color (Lee et al. 2020). As might be expected, urban residence also matters: the more urban the area, the greater the fear of crime. Figure 2-1 ■ indicates this with GSS data: Big-city resi▲ Fear of crime is generally higher in neighborhoods with dents are more likely than rural residents to be afraid to dilapidated living conditions. walk alone at night. Several reasons probably explain this difference (Baranauskas and Drakulich 2018; Glas et al. 2019; Pickett et al. 2012): First, big-city residents are more likely to perceive a higher crime rate where they live and in their cities as a whole. Second, big-city residents are more likely to reside amid dilapidated conditions. Third, they are more likely to live in neighborhoods with higher proportions of people of color. Surprisingly, crime rates of communities are only weakly related, if at all, to their residents’ fear of crime (Shi et al. 2020), perhaps because people generally do not know the actual crime rate of their place of residence. Individual Characteristics Demographic and other characteristics of individuals also influence their fear of crime. Before turning to these, note that one factor surprisingly does not seem to matter very much: whether someone has 60

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Large Cities (at least 250,000 residents)

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Urban/Rural Location and Fear of Crime, 2018.

Source: Data from Smith et al. 2019.

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50 40 Percentage Afraid of 30 Walking Alone at 20 Night 10 0

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FIGURE 2-2

Gender and Fear of Crime, 2021.

Source: Data from Davern et al. 2021.

been a victim of crime. Some studies find that personal victimization heightens fear of crime, but others find no such effect or only a weak effect (Curiel and Bishop 2018; Lane et al. 2014). One reason for these mixed results is that some of the demographic groups most afraid of crime have relatively low victimization rates. For example, although older people are much less likely than younger people to be crime victims, older people feel physically vulnerable to attack and are thus more likely to fear crime (Kappes et al. 2013; Rader et al. 2012). Similarly, women are more afraid of crime than men are (see Figure 2-2 ■) even though women are less likely than men to be victims of crime overall. Women’s much higher rate of victimization by rape and sexual assault helps to explain this apparent paradox (Johnston 2020; Mellgren and Ivert 2019). A third demographic variable influencing fear of crime is race/ethnicity, with people of color being somewhat more afraid of crime than White people are (see Figure 2-3 ■). This difference

50 45 40 35 30 Percentage Afraid of 25 Walking Alone at 20 Night 15 10 5 0

Asian

Black

Latinx

Native American

White

Race/Ethnicity

FIGURE 2-3

Race/Ethnicity and Fear of Crime. 2014–2018.

Source: Data from Davern et al. 2021.

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Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem 29

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70 60 50 Percentage Afraid of 40 Walking Alone at 30 Night 20 10 0 Latina Black White Asian Women Women Women Women

Latino Men

Black Men

Asian Men

White Men

Gender and Race/Ethnicity

FIGURE 2-4

Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Fear of Crime.

Source: Data from Smith et al. 2019.

partly reflects the fact that people of color are more likely to live in large cities, which have high crime rates, and to reside in the high-crime areas of these cities (Lane and Fox 2020). If gender and race both affect fear of crime, then Black and Latina women should be especially concerned. To illustrate this, Figure 2-4 ■ reports fear of crime results for Asian Americans, Black Americans, Latinx Americans, and White Americans of both sexes. As expected, Black and Latina women are much more likely than White men, the least afraid group, to fear walking alone in their neighborhoods at night. These results provide striking evidence of the sociological perspective’s emphasis on the importance of social backgrounds and also some evidence of intersectionality (see Chapter 1) in the production of fear of crime. We know less about fear of crime among other racial and ethnic groups. To help fill this gap, Ilhong Yun and colleagues (2010) studied fear of crime among almost 500 Chinese immigrants in Houston, Texas. In a surprising finding, fear of crime was lower among older immigrants than among younger immigrants. The authors attributed this difference to the Chinese culture’s emphasis on taking care of their older population and to their older people’s consequent involvement in community activities. This type of culture helps reduce the fear of crime that older immigrants might otherwise have. Another study of fear of crime among Chinese immigrants in greater Detroit, Michigan, found that fear was highest among the following groups of immigrants: those who perceived risks of being victimized, those who especially perceived that crime was a problem in their local area, and those whose command of English was lower (Wu and Wen 2014). Social class also affects fear of crime, with the poor more afraid because they are more apt to live in high-crime areas. If we allow annual family income to be a rough measure of social class, Figure 2-5 ■ portrays the relationship between social class and fear of crime. As expected, the lowest income group in the figure is the most afraid of crime. Consequences of Fear What consequences does fear of crime have? Many scholars say that fear of crime leads to mistrust of others, prompts people to move away from high-crime areas, and threatens the economic viability of whole neighborhoods (Lane et al. 2014). Although we should not exaggerate the effects of fear of crime, we must also not understate them. Concern over crime leads people to take many precautions, including having a dog, a firearm, and/or a home security system for protection. Fear of sexual assault affects women’s daily behaviors in ways that men never have to experience (Johnston 2020). Fear of crime also is the reason for neighborhood watch groups across the nation and the huge home security industry. In the area of criminal justice policy, public concern over crime shapes legislative decisions to increase the penalties for crime and to build new prisons (Pickett 2019). chapter

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45 40 35 30 Percentage Afraid of 25 Walking Alone at 20 Night 15 10 5 0 Under $35,000

$35,000 $74,999

$75,000 and higher

Annual Family Income

FIGURE 2-5

Annual Family Income and Fear of Crime, 2021.

Source: Data from Daven et al. 2022.

In sum, fear of street crime has important consequences. This is true even if this fear does not always reflect actual levels of crime. To paraphrase a familiar sociological saying, if things are considered real, then they are real in their consequences (Thomas and Thomas 1928). The consequences of fear of crime thus are very real for many people—and especially for women, older people, and the residents (most of them people of color) of high-crime urban neighborhoods.

Review and Discuss What are the structural and individual correlates of fear of crime? What are the consequences of fear of crime?

Anger about Crime People can be afraid of crime, but they may also be angry about crime: angry about the possibility that they may be victimized by crime and about having to take precautions to prevent this possibility; angry about the possibility that their friends and loved ones may also be victimized by crime; angry about crime being frequent enough to constitute a serious problem in their neighborhood, their state, or the entire nation. Some survey research links anger about crime to greater support for more punitive treatment of convicted offenders, such as longer prison sentences (Hartnagel and Templeton 2012; Johnson 2009). Using national survey data, a recent comprehensive study of anger about crime (to be more precise, anger about possibly being victimized by crime) yielded several interesting findings (Drakulich and Baranauskas 2021). These findings include: • More people are angry about crime than are afraid of crime. • People with negative views about Black Americans are more angry about crime. • Anger about crime is more common among younger people, people with less formal education, people with lower incomes, Latinx people compared to White people, and people who are not Black compared to Black people. • Women and men are equally angry (or not angry) about crime. chapter

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• Anger is more common among people who recently had a family member or friend who was victimized by violent crime but is less common among people who themselves had recently been violent victimized. • People who are angry about crime are more likely to favor increased spending on law enforcement, decreased spending on social assistance programs such as drug rehabilitation, and better schooling. • Anger is more common in counties with greater proportions of Black and Latinx residents, even when controlling for those counties’ amounts of violent crime. • Counties’ violent crime rates are not related to their residents’ levels of anger about crime.

Seriousness of Crime Which of the following crimes seems more serious to you: setting off a false fire alarm or taking $35 from an unlocked dormitory room? Stealing a car or stabbing a stranger with a knife? Being a prostitute or being with a prostitute? Public judgments of the seriousness of crime are important for several reasons (Warr 2000): First, they reflect the value placed on human life and on personal property. Second, our judgments of crime seriousness affect our views of appropriate punishment for criminal offenders: The more serious we regard a specific crime, the more harshly we want it punished. Third, and perhaps most important, these judgments may influence the penalties stipulated by legislators for violations of criminal laws and the sentences judges give to convicted offenders. Thorsten Sellin and Marvin Wolfgang (1964) initiated the study of crime seriousness with a survey given to sample groups of judges, university students, and police officers. Each group was asked to assign a seriousness score to almost 150 offenses (the more serious the crime, the higher the score). Although obviously different in other respects, the three groups assigned similar scores to the various offenses. Wolfgang et al. (1985) later administered a survey of crime seriousness to a random sample of some 60,000 U.S. residents, who were asked about more than 200 offenses. Table 2-1 presents the average seriousness scores they assigned to some of the offenses. These scores demonstrate, among other things, that the public at the time of the survey considered selling marijuana more serious than simply smoking it, and engaging in prostitution TABLE 2-1 Seriousness Scores for Selected Offenses OFFENSE

SCORE

A person plants a bomb in a public building. The bomb explodes and 20 people are killed.

72.1

A man forcibly rapes a woman. As a result of her physical injuries, she dies.

52.8

A man stabs his wife. As a result, she dies.

39.2

A person runs a narcotics ring.

33.8

A person robs a victim of $1,000 at gunpoint. The victim is wounded and requires hospitalization.

21.0

A person breaks into a bank at night and steals $100,000.

15.5

A person steals a locked car and sells it.

10.8

A person sells marijuana to others for resale.

8.5

A person steals $1,000 worth of merchandise from an unlocked car.

6.5

A person turns in a false fire alarm.

3.8

A woman engages in prostitution.

2.1

A person is a customer in a house of prostitution.

1.6

A person smokes marijuana.

1.4

A person under 16 years old plays hooky from school.

0.2