- Discuss the relationship between crime and demography (i.e. gender, age, race, social class, education, employment). In answering the question, pay careful consideration to the measurement of demography and crime. Be sure to highlight and discuss reciprocal relationships between crime and demography (i.e. race increases the risk of victimization and crime increases the risk of White Flight). Draw on Criminological theory and empirical research in outlining your response. Draw on required reading and class presentations. 917
On a national average, the Blacks are nearly four times as likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana as compared to the Whites. This disparity is even more pronounced in Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota, states where Blacks are eight times as likely to be arrested compared to other U.S. states (The Editorial Board, 2013). More so, this trend is evident across all types of demographics.
This goes to show that there is a distinct relationship among inequality, race and ethnicity, and crime. It includes the inequality in the economic status of racial and ethnic minorities, inequality and crime, and the effect of civil rights movement. This can be explained by the conflict theory which states that law and its systems of enforcement are applied by dominant groups in society to minimize threats to their interests as posed by those whom they outcast and consider dangerous, particularly ethnic minorities and the poor (Kent, 2003). The minorities (such as the Blacks) are disproportionately represented among the poor people in the U.S. The connection between inequality and criminal behavior is explained by conflict theory with the Whites as being the majority race while the Blacks are the minority race. This criminal theory predicts that there is a higher rate of criminal behavior among the poor and the racial and ethnic minorities.
According to South & Messner (2000), each demographic characteristics and collective population processes are focal to various theoretical perspectives and empirical systems of criminal behavior. They underscore the multiple linkages and reciprocal relations between criminal and demographic behavior at both micro and macro social levels. In evaluating research on how demography impacts crime, the present contention on the effects of age, sex, and race on criminal behavior are identified between compositional and contextual effects of demographic structure on collective crime rates.
It must be contextualized in understanding the relationship between crimes and demography that most crime victims do not report their victimizations to the police (Agnew, 2005). It is said that only about 20% of the crimes which are known to the police and are properly processed by the criminal justice system. It should also be noted that not all arrests or crimes recorded in the police stations are reported to the FBI (Agnew, 2005). The Uniform Crime Reports may also give misleading information on crime trends.
As an effect of this discrepancy, criminologists have developed two alternative ways of crime measurement. The first involves data collection from crime victims. Every year, the United States Census Bureau administers the National Crime Victimization Survey, wherein respondents aged 12 and over from a representative sample of U.S. households are interrogated to report on their experiences as crime victims. This survey mainly focuses on a few property and violent crimes. However, it evidences the lack of police data on actual victims or crimes. Criminologists have given central focus on the identification of socio-demographic characteristics of criminals, specifically those who engage in street crimes like burglary, homicide, robbery, rape, and larceny (Agnew, 2005). The conclusions vary greatly as to whether the data was drawn from police arrest, victimization, or self-report data.
It was apparent that males are much more likely to engage in most crimes than females, specifically with regards to serious crimes. Also, males are much more likely to be life-course persistent offenders (Agnew, 2005). The gender gap in arrests in the United States has been decreasing in recent decades, however. There is some debate over whether this trend is due to the actual changes in the amounts of crime committed or an increased tendency for the police and others to formally process female offenders (Agnew, 2005). There is also strong evidence that juveniles and young adults are disproportionately involved in most street crimes. Criminologists have given much attention in recent years to theorize on gender and age differences in criminal offenses (Agnew, 2005).
The generic explanations to the relationships between crimes and demographics can be well justified by the Strain Theory. The strain theory is dependent on the notion that certain social structures compel individuals to commit crime (South & Messner, 2000). According to these theories, strain may be brought about by the structural institutions. These refer to societal level processes which are eventually brought down to the actors which compose a society. Subsequently, most of them begin perceiving their needs based on these structural institutions. A criminal's perceptions about their opportunities or threats serve as the parameters by which he experiences the level of regulation or provision of a specific social structure. Strain theories were originally formulated by popular criminologist Emile Durkheim. After him, Robert Merton advanced this theory in the nineteen thirties. Cohen also followed in the mid nineteen fifties. Cloward and Ohlin did some more work on the theory and their efforts were subsequently backed by Rosenfeld and Messner (Agnew, 2005).
People who commit petty to serious predatory street crimes like burglary, robbery, carjacking are disproportionately young, poor, and male individuals. One way to explain this is through Alfred Cohen’s Cultural Deviance Theory (Agnew, 2005). According to Cohen, the concept of “innovative adaptation” answers up to this. He theorized that young people do not act in isolation as most of them are influenced by their direct environments and peers. Consequently, there are certain issues within these cultures and subcultures (Agnew, 2005). Hence, poor boys may have the same tendencies to rob.
However, even if there is a strong link between these demographic characteristics and street crime, it cannot be generalized that all young, poor, males commit street crimes. This is because not all street offenders are young, poor, or male. This weakened the relationship between of demography and criminality as some individuals may not have the compulsion to commit a crime yet after an instance, he may just suddenly do so.
2. The Fishbein article addressed the issue of Nature versus Nurture. She highlights issues around how nature affects nurturing, nurturing will alter nature, and the dynamic interaction between nature and nurture. Discuss. Draw on all required readings and class presentations.
In Diana Fishbein’s article “Biological Perspectives in Criminology,” ends the toss between nature and nurture in theorizing the origins of crime. It draws attention to the biological sources of antisocial behavior as well as the effective theory-based interventions for prevention and treatment of individuals who exhibit them. This author married nature and nurture and stressed that both biological and environmental factors are important determinants of human behavior. She emphasized the use of biological data to support its direct influence on the study of crime and criminality. Fishbein established the fundamental biological processes and presented the research methodologies applicable in studying the biological effects on crime. She also presented an interdisciplinary approach in theorizing anti social behavior. This is not to disregard the existing theories on criminology but to reinforce them with the important biological perspective and how it relates to criminal behaviors.
Prior to her research, the early biological theories of crime were mainly influenced by the theory of Charles Darwin, which ruled the deterministic character of a person by his genes and by natural selection (Anderson, 2007). The initial work of the prominent criminologist, Lombroso’s Criminal Man, depicted the dominance of biological influences during the 19th and early 20th centuries (Anderson, 2007). With the advent of sociological theories, the Darwinian Theory was challenged. Sociologists Durkheim, Weber, and Marx, individually pointed out to the social structure as the main cause of criminality. The different sociological views of crime became very popular among scholars and criminologists and the behavioral aspects of criminality were left out (Cullen & Wilcox, 2010).
As different from the usual biological theories of crime, the new “biosocial” criminology intended to comprehend the different biological and environmental factors which cause the behavioral problem (Cote, 2002). To add, much contemporary biological theorizing evaluated the individual development across a life span, including issues within the life-course like the stability of behavior. As more and more scholars have accepted that criminal behavior is an outcome of both nature and nurture, many studies which tried to account for both natural and environmental processes emerged (Cote, 2002). However, this did not erase the general contention between the points of view that crime is a product of “nature” versus “nature” (Anderson, 2007).
There are many sub-disciplines under the behavioral sciences which intensively delved into the different aspects of antisocial behavior which are relevant to the study of criminology. These include cognitive neuroscience, endocrinology, forensic psychiatry, molecular and behavioral genetics, neurobiology, physiology, psychology, and many more. Various findings have evidenced the difference among individuals to the extent of which they are vulnerable to both antisocial behavior and other factors such as drug abuse (Cote, 2002). These experts explored the individual’s tendency to commit a criminal offense by trying to identify genetic and biological systems which underlie or contribute to these problem behaviors.
It was emphasized that psychological traits and behaviors serve as the antecedents or conditions which underlie certain types of criminal behavior. These behaviors greatly correlate with the development of antisocial behavior and these happen early in a child’s life. Hence, special conditions such as aggressiveness, hyperactivity, attention and other cognitive deficits, conduct disorder (CD), among other are all development indicators which affect and predict criminal behavior (Fishbein, 2004). Each of the so-called antecedents has been related to different disturbances or irregularities in brain functions, physiological and neuro-psychological processes, and biochemical equilibrium. In dynamically interacting with special conditions in the physical and social environment, these disturbances are taken to increase the tendency for antisocial outcomes.
According to Fishbein, antisocial behavior is a complicated concept which is variably defined in various studies and has diverse origins. No unitary psychological disorder is especially linked to antisocial behavior. It cannot also be solely attributed to a certain behavioral patterns, childhood experiences or social conditions. From the different ways of characterizing people, however, a certain subgroup consistently engage in impulsive antisocial behavior, potentially violent (as it results to physical injury), complicatedly categorized by the behavioral result but by relatively steady personality and temperamental traits, such as impulsivity, negative affect and cognitive deficiencies. Exhibition of impulsive antisocial behavior are, thus, an outgrowth of these traits in confrontation with crime-prone conditions in the social environment. On the contrary, individuals who show only isolated depiction of anti-social behavior may be more affected by social and situational elements. They might also lack the necessary conditions to produce a genuine “vulnerability” to a destructive behavioral trend.
Because of the nature of the phenomenon of antisocial behavior, research on the sub elements of criminal behavior must stress the measurable dimensions of antisocial behavior which may heightened the risk for criminal activity. Inherently, Fishbein wanted to illustrate those criminal acts, which happen only once or rarely in an individual may be more as an outcome of a situation instead of a current predisposition. However, a traditional or recurrent pattern of antisocial behavior has the greater tendency due to the cumulative, developmental influence of interacting biological and environmental factors. Hence, it is very important that researchers are able to distinguish and integrate at the same time the behaviors which related with criminal behaviors.
3. Many researchers (including Social Disorganization Theorists) have explored the relationship between neighborhood/community structure and crime rates. Discuss the major theoretical concepts and measurement developments in “communities and crime” research.
Neighborhood processes are said to instrumental in the important causal relationships between crime and social disorganization (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). An overall theory is that social disorganization (such as poor economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility) influences informal control mechanisms in such a way that it increases crime and prevalence of delinquency (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). This is based on dependent variables such as burglary, mugging, robbery, theft, total victimization, and vandalism rates. It showed that social disorganization greatly affected the intervening variables, which in turn, affect all crime outcome measures.
Shaw and McKay, initiator of studies on this criminal theory, argued that low economic status, ethnic similarities, and residential instability led to community disorganization, which in turn, accounted for delinquent subcultures and ultimately high rates of delinquency (Morenoff, Sampson, & Raudenbush, 2001). This is commonly known as the social disorganization theory. Shaw and McKay started with the popular notion during their time that there was something peculiar about the classifications of people who resided in these areas which explained neighborhood variation in crime ((Morenoff, Sampson, & Raudenbush, 2001). One of their most important findings was that differences in crime rates across areas did not change with changes in the population (for example, the ethnicity of the residents), but remained relatively consistent throughout time. They surmised that it could not simply be explained that different people lived in the high-crime areas than in the low-crime areas. There had to be variable/s which had to explain the differences (Morenoff, Sampson, & Raudenbush, 2001).
Criminologists found out that the intervening mechanisms between social disorganization variables and crime rates explored in their studies consist of informal control mechanisms such as the adolescents’ local friendship networks, the presence of unregulated peer groups, and the level of organizational participation in the community.
Another important concept in communities and crimes is the notion of collective efficacy. This is defined as the cohesion among residents and their shared expectations of social control of a public place explains to decreased crime rates after structural instruments are installed within the community (Sampson & Raudenbush, 2004). This concept is also attributed to the lowered rates of violent crimes after managing the disorder and the reciprocal impacts of violence. In other words, where there is social cohesion in the neighborhood, crime is positively prevented (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997).
Sampson, Raudenbush and Earls (1997) examined how social disorganization affects violence and crime through its effects on collective efficacy. Their study evidenced that socially disorganized neighborhoods tend to be low on collective efficacy. The authors further stated that members of a neighborhood tend to less likely intervene in a neighborhood context when the intervention rules are unclear and people do not trust or fear each other. It prescribes for socially cohesive neighborhoods where there is a distinct social control. This element deters violence and crime in the community.
Other studies and theories link the communities and prevalence of crimes. For instance, violence is emphasized in communities where there are racial disparity, poverty, and single parent community, among others (Morenoff, Sampson, & Raudenbush, 2001). On the other side, the broken window theory supposes that physical signs of disorder serve as an indicator of the community members to intervene in a crime, call a cop or help control criminality in the neighborhood (Sampson & Raudenbush, 2004). All these theories stem from the historic Chicago school of urban sociology wherein the observance of public spaces or communities helps define the criminality in one location.
One of the major factors in understanding why some neighborhoods are better at controlling crime than others has to do with “social networks” or the special relationships among members of the neighborhood (Sampson & Raudenbush, 2004). This shows that the more neighbors know each other and socialize with each other, the less crime there will be. This theory is supported by different reasons. Initially, this can be explained by the knowledge of one’s neighbors provide the members of the community a sense of responsibility to guard others as well as themselves. Second, this same knowledge distinguishes aberration among members in terms of place and contexts. Lastly, caring neighbors tend to agree upon common problems and they cooperate with one another to solve them.
Aside from social networks, neighborhood based institutions are also currently used to theorize new principles to help understand differences in social control and crime in neighborhoods (Triplett & Gainey, 2007). The concept behind this theory describes institutions in the neighborhood as helpful in the following: 1.) providing places where social networks can emerge and 2.) serving as resources that help members of the neighborhood to come up with solutions to their neighborhood problems. There are strong theoretical foundations for assuming that social agencies like schools, civic centers and churches promote social networks and improve social cohesion. This is why the federal government provides ample financial and social support to these institutions as it believes that they are important instruments for providing services to reduce social problems like homelessness, poverty and recidivism (Triplett & Gainey, 2007).
Criminologists and crime prevention experts are also becoming more aware of the significance of places of crime. A place is defined a very small area, often a corner of the street, an address, building, or street section. This focus is different from the focus on the neighborhood. Neighborhood theories often focus on the development of offenders, while place level explanations focus on crime events. Three theories suggest the significance of places to understand crime and these are the: rational choice; routine activity theory; and crime pattern theory (Triplett & Gainey, 2007). While these theories are mutually supportive, routine activity theory and crime pattern theory also provide different explanations for crime occurring at different places.
References:
Agnew, R. (2005). Why Do Criminals Offend: A General Theory of Crime and Delinquency. New York: Oxford University Press.
Anderson, Gail. (2007). Biological influences on criminal behavior. Boca Raton, FL: Simon Fraser Univ.
Cote, S. (2002). Criminological Theories: Bridging the Past to the Future. London: Sage Publications.
Cullen, Francis & Wilcox, Pamela. (2010). Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory, Vol. 1. London: Sage Publications.
Fishbein, Diana, ed. 2004. The science, treatment, and prevention of antisocial behavior: Evidence-based practice. 2 vols. Kingston, NJ: Civic Research Institute.
Kent, Joselyn. (2003). Conflict Theory and Racial Profiling: An Empirical Analysis of Police Traffic Stop Data. Journal of Criminal Justice, 31 (1), p. 1-11.
Morenoff, J., Sampson, R. & Raudenbush, S. (2001). Neighborhood Inequality, Collective Efficacy, and the Spatial Dynamics of Urban Violence. Criminology, 39(3), p. 517-560.
Sampson, R. & Raudenbush, S. (2004). Systematic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods. The American Journal of Sociology, 105 (3), p. 603-651.
Sampson, R. & Raudenbush, S., Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy. Science, 277 (5328), p. 918-924.
South, S. & Messner, S. (2000). Crime and Demography: Multiple Linkages, Reciprocal Relations. Crime and Demography, 26, p. 83 – 106.
The Editorial Board. (June 15, 2013). Racially Biased Arrests for Pot. The New York Times. Retrieved on October 11, 2013 from, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/opinion/sunday/racially-biased-arrests-for-pot.html?_r=0.
Triplett, R. & Gainey, R. (2007). Understanding Neighborhoods and Crime. Retrieved on October 10, 2013 from, http://ww2.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/NeighborhoodsCrime.html.
