short essay
Deviance, Crime
and Violence
Angela Barian, and Patrick Sharkey, Princeton
University
Deviance, Crime and Violence
Page 2
Deviance, Crime and Violence
A N G E L A B A R I A N , A N D PAT R I C K S H A R K E Y, P R I N C E T O N
U N I V E R S I T Y
INTERPRETING DEVIANCE
What does it mean to be deviant?
Social control, stigma, and labeling
THEORIES AND PERSPECTIVES ON DEVIANCE
Functionalist theories
Conflict theories
Social bonds, lovable freaks , and criminals
CRIME AND VIOLENCE
What is a crime? Who is a criminal?
The context of crime
VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES AND BEYOND
The rise and fall of American violence
Why is the United States more violent than similar nations?
CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND THE PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE
The Great American Crime Decline
The police and the prison
The next model of criminal justice
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INTRODUCTION
We want to begin by talking about a very popular book. It recently sold more than 125 million copies
around the world—more than the wildly-successful Twilight series. More than the Little House on the Prairie
books. More than Pippi Longstocking, Winnie the Pooh, and the entire James Bond series. The book rights
were sold in at least 37 countries. Worldwide, five media conglomerates fought for the film rights. The film
adaptation made more than $571 million, breaking box office records. When the trailer to the sequel was
released on YouTube, in 24 hours it became the
most-watched trailer of all time. What is this
enormously successful, widely-read book? Fifty
Shades of Grey—a book in which a billionaire
begins a sadomasochistic sexual relationship
with a young college student, has her sign a
dominant/submissive contract forbidding her
from touching or looking at him during sex, and
eventually beats her with a belt.
In 1905, psychologist Sigmund Freud
classified sadomasochism as a sexual perversion borne out of psychological disorders linked to childhood.
Since then, it has been associated with sexual deviance. And the Fifty Shades trilogy generated a fair bit of
controversy. But how deviant could it really be, if it’s that popular? For that matter, what makes any
behavior deviant, or even criminal? Is there some objective line for normative versus deviant versus criminal
behavior? Does it depend upon the number of people who engage in it? Or the written law where you live?
Does it depend on where—or when—you live?
We’ll investigate these questions in this chapter. We’ll start with the concept of deviance, or
behaviors that violate social norms. We’ll discuss who violates societal rules, under what circumstances, and
how.
We’ll then move from deviance to the issue of crime, with a specific focus on one form of deviance
and crime: violence. We'll trace the history of how society has explained and responded to criminal behavior
and provide a sociological perspective on crime and violence. In the conclusion, we’ll move from the
abstract to the concrete: How has violence changed over time, and what can be done to prevent it?
(Source)
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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INTERPRETING DEVIANCE
What is the definition of deviance?
How do we collectively decide what is deviant and what isn’t?
How do societies attempt to enforce certain behaviors among members?
What does it mean to be deviant?
In 2007, the majority of Americans said they opposed
same-sex marriage. Many states passed gay marriage bans, and it
was only fully legal in one state (Massachusetts). But since then,
public opinion has moved toward acceptance. One way we can
see this is in positive depictions of gay and lesbian characters,
which have proliferated in the media since 2007. By 2013, over
three quarters of Americans said that a family member, friend, or
coworker had come out to them.1 In 2015, the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that all states must recognize same-sex marriages.
And in the last decade, public opinion has more than reversed
itself: Americans now favor allowing gay marriage two-to-one.2
We can reasonably say that public opinion about same-
sex marriage is a reflection of public opinion about gay people.
That means for some people in the U.S., being gay used to be
considered deviant, but now isn’t. The point here is that
understandings of deviant behavior rely on social agreement. So what does it mean to be deviant?
As we noted in the introduction, deviance refers to behaviors that violate social norms, or common
expectations for behavior. Norms are connected to the values and beliefs of the culture in which they exist. In
some cultures it’s considered too informal to remove your shoes upon entering someone’s house. Yet in
others, it’s considered offensive not to remove them. Norms vary in importance; some violations are
extremely serious, others go unnoticed. Sociologist William Graham Sumner developed a typology that can
Figure 1: Support for Same-Sex Marriage
(Source)
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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help us understand different types of norms. Folkways are the least serious norms. They mainly refer to
customs, traditions, and etiquette. Social sanctions for violating them are also the least severe.3 Imagine, for
example, someone eating a Snickers bar with a knife and fork, as in the Seinfeld episode “The Pledge Drive”
(search YouTube for a clip). While we might think it’s odd for someone to eat a Snickers this way, there
aren’t likely to be any long-term consequences if someone does so.
Mores (pronounced MORE-ays) are more seriously protected norms. They reflect a deeper sense of
morals and values, and sanctions for violating them are often much stronger.4 Take the example of Amy
Robertson, a Kansas high school principal who invented the name of a fake university and used it on her
resume. When the high school newspaper researched her for a story and discovered she had lied about her
credentials, Robertson resigned in shame. Finally, laws represent the most highly codified level of norm;
they are usually written down, and there are serious consequences if you don’t follow them. These norms are
important enough that the community agrees that violating them requires binding punishment. We’ll cover
laws in more depth in the second half of the chapter.
Social control, stigma, and labeling
A common fashion tip is that horizontal stripes should only be worn by thin people, since they make
people look wider. There are a lot of fashion “dos” and “don’ts” based on body shape and size. But there’s
also a burgeoning “fatshionista” movement for fat people who want to explicitly break rules of what you
“can” and “can’t” wear. One such example is “fatkinis,” bikinis for bigger women. As one self-described
fatshionista said, “As plus size women, we are always told to dress to flatter/slim or to blend in. I do exactly
the opposite. I break every plus size fashion rule there is and I look amazing while doing so. I like to push the
boundaries of what is acceptable in plus size fashion. No one else has the power to dictate or influence how I
dress myself because I dress to please me, not others. I hope that others do the same.”5
Rules may be made to be broken, but no one can deny they exist. Rules govern what we can and
can’t do, what we can and can’t say, what we can and can’t wear. But we might ask, says who? Who makes
the rules? And who enforces them?
Most rules aren’t enforced through the formal legal system, but rather through informal social
control, or the ways societies try to influence members’ behavior to maintain social order. Societies can
exert this social control in many ways. One is through moral panics. Moral panics are over-heated, short-
lived periods of intense social concern over an issue.6 Sociologist Howard S. Becker argued that in a moral
panic, moral entrepreneurs push for increased awareness of and concern over an issue.7 There’s usually
heightened social concern over it, increased hostility toward those deemed responsible, and some degree of
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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agreement over both the problem and who’s responsible.8 In addition, moral panics burn hot, but quick.
There is usually outsized concern over the problem, given its actual threat to society, and as a result, the
concern usually passes.9
One recent example of a moral panic occurred in 2013,
when mass media outlets began covering the then-new app
Snapchat. Because snaps disappeared after a certain amount of
time, moral entrepreneurs raised concern that it could be used as a
“sexting app.” To these entrepreneurs, Snapchat typified what they
called “sexting culture.” News stories routinely shared instances of
teens sending and receiving (and screen-shotting) lurid images.
Stories even circulated about teenagers who were charged with
child pornography for sending nude images of themselves. In
reality, very few teens actually sext; the number is probably around
7%.10 Eventually, the sexting aspect of Snapchat received less and
less coverage. This moral panic burned hot, but burned out quickly.
Despite the panicked nature of sexting coverage, it’s
important to acknowledge that some teens have suffered after
sending nude images of themselves over the internet. Some teens
caught sexting had to put themselves on a sex-offender registry, a
designation that sticks literally for life and can impact where people
can live or what jobs they can get.11 In the language of sociologist
Erving Goffman, those teens bear social stigma. Stigma occurs
when some characteristic of an individual or group is seen as
inferior or undesirable and leads to social rejection.12
Which attributes are stigmatized varies greatly by context. For instance, in Mauritania, fatness is so
admired in women that little girls are force-fed so they gain weight.13 But in modern American culture,
obesity is so stigmatized that people may make sure to eat only “healthy” foods in public, or pay for
expensive weight-loss bootcamps. After years of trying to “cover” their stigma, some fat people even feel the
need to “come out” to their friends and family.14 “Coming out” for fat people isn’t a simple declaration of
their weight; it’s a “refusal to cover.”15 As Kathleen Lebesco writes, coming out as fat is making a public
Fatshionistas like to break
societal fashion rules. (Source)
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declaration of “choosing to no longer pass as on-the-way-to thin,” and acknowledging their stigmatized
status.16
The reaction to our behavior can change the way
we see ourselves and our identity, possibly even
reinforcing the behavior. Labeling theory contends that
deviance isn’t really about the act itself, but is negotiated
socially through reactions to the act.17 When someone is
labeled as an “outsider,” they are treated differently.
Smoking marijuana may not change someone much, but
being labeled a pothead may shift how a person is treated
and how she sees herself.18 Selling drugs happens in
almost every city and town across the U.S., but in some
communities the police more actively target drug distribution, prosecutors more aggressively punish
offenders, and the criminal justice system delivers harsher sentences. Even if the behavior is the same in a
wealthy suburb and a poor city neighborhood, the treatment of the behavior leads to very different
consequences.
Taking all of this into account, how do we determine what is deviant? The key sociological point is
that in any society, deviance is a relationship between individuals and larger social landscapes. As morality
shifts (and it always does), enforcement of norms shifts, too.
Review Sheet: Interpreting deviance
Key Points
• Determining what is deviant relies on social agreements between community members.
• Lines between deviant and non-deviant behavior are upheld through enforcement of
social norms.
• Social norms vary in degree of importance and how severely violations are punished.
• Societies enforce norms through processes of social control.
• One way to exert social control is through moral panics.
• Deviance is a relationship between individuals and larger social landscapes.
Moral panics about Snapchat have largely subsided.
(Source)
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Key People
• William Graham Sumner
• Karl Mannheim
• Erich Goode & Nachman Ben-Yehuda
• Howard S. Becker
• Erving Goffman
Key Terms
• Deviance – Behaviors that violate social norms.
• Norms – Expectations for behavior.
• Folkways – Norms about customs, traditions, and etiquette.
• Mores – More seriously protected norms that reflect the morals and values of a social
group.
• Laws – Most seriously protected norms; codified and require specific enforcements.
• Social control – Ways societies try to influence members’ behavior to maintain social
order.
• Moral panics – Overheated, short-lived periods of intense social concern about an issue.
• Moral entrepreneurs – People who try to influence societies toward increased
awareness of and concern over the violation of social norms.
THEORIES & PERSPECTIVES ON DEVIANCE
Why do some people engage in deviance, but others don’t?
When we do engage in deviance, what forms does it take?
On July 15, 1974, a Florida television morning-show host named Christine Chubbuck decided to start
her broadcast of Suncoast Digest with footage of a shooting that occurred at a restaurant the previous night.19
When the film footage wouldn’t roll, she smiled strangely. She looked down at her desk and read: “In
keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts—and in living color—you are
going to see another first: attempted suicide.” She then pulled a .38 caliber revolver from under her desk and
shot herself in the back of the head.20 Christine Chubbuck killed herself on live television.
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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Why did she do it? According to news reports, she was
extremely depressed.21 But they also reported that it was more
complicated than that. She didn’t have any friends or romantic
partners.22 She was socially awkward and had trouble connecting
with others. She felt that the fact that she was a 29-year-old virgin
reflected poorly on her as a woman. At the time of her death, she
lived at home with her mother and brother.23 And she was often
angry about the sensationalistic focus of the news; her stories
would get bumped to make room for what employees at the
station called “blood and guts” stories.24 This hindered her career
and put her at odds with the station manager.
Christine Chubbuck’s suicide could have been spurred by
personal and psychological problems. But it could also have been
caused by Chubbuck’s disconnection from the larger community, her hopelessness about the future, or a
mismatch between her goals and the available means to achieve them. She may have taken on the identity of
outsider, further disconnecting her from society. There are a number of sociological theories of deviance that
could help explain this kind of incident. Though they come from different perspectives, all seek to
understand the role social relations play in why and how people engage in deviant behavior.
Functionalist theories of deviance
Émile Durkheim argued that deviance is a social fact that is inevitable and stable in societies.25
Deviance is a constant, and stabilizing, element of social life. This may seem counter-intuitive, but
functionalist theories of deviance begin with the idea that deviance serves a social purpose, a function. One
of these purposes is affirming our social agreements about right and wrong. For example, how do you know
it’s not okay to loudly pass gas in a crowded elevator? You weren’t born with this knowledge. You learned
it. And for a lot of us, we learned it because we ourselves were once in a crowded space where someone
loudly passed gas. What happens next? Others in the area shoot each other looks. They may roll their eyes or
look shocked, laugh or frown. Whatever it is, they communicate disapproval. And that communication,
according to functionalist sociologists, is instructive. It shows us social lines of acceptable behavior. Further,
when we publicly condemn someone who has violated social rules, we aren’t necessarily doing it for them;
we’re doing it for us. By shooting each other looks, we’re all coming together to affirm that passing gas
A reporter gives an on-location report.
(Source)
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wasn’t okay. We’re repairing the temporary societal rift that happens when someone breaks the rules. We’re
putting the societal fabric back together. This, Durkheim argued, strengthens social cohesion, the degree to
which we identify with and maintain social rules and connections.
But what if everyone thinks a deviant behavior is just fine? Durkheim recognized that sometimes,
deviant behavior isn’t met with disdain, but is tolerated or even welcomed. Functionalism argues that this is
one of the primary ways social change occurs. Think about women wearing pants, interracial marriage, and
openly gay legislators. While normative (that is, accepted and expected) in many communities today, all of
these were considered deviant at some point. When people push social boundaries, sometimes they spur
change.
Robert K. Merton borrowed from Durkheim’s concept of social cohesion and anomie to explain
deviance. Durkheim defined anomie as situation in which we do not have clear morals or social expectations
to guide our behavior. Merton believed that anomie, and ultimately deviance, occurs when there is a
mismatch between socially-endorsed goals and the socially-endorsed means to achieve these goals.26 In an
ideal society, there would be legitimate, accepted means for everyone to reach their goals. In reality,
acceptable means aren’t equally available; not everyone has the same chances to succeed. Imagine a group of
high school students who want to go to college so they can get good jobs. Some will find a relatively easy
path, but others will have significant roadblocks. Some went to underfunded schools that couldn’t afford
computers or even books; others went to schools with state-of-the-art technology. Some are undocumented;
others have citizenship. Some have to take care of sick family members; some don’t. Some just can’t afford
it. Others have their tuition and living expenses paid for by parents. These students all have the same goal.
They just don’t have the same access to resources. And this can cause significant stress.
The stress that results from anomie, this mismatch of goals and means, may lead some to adapt by
engaging in deviant behavior. Merton calls this strain; it forms the basis of strain theory. Merton
understood that deviant behavior can be a function of the social situations in which people find themselves.
But he also understood that individuals adapt to these situations differently. He described five adaptations to
strain, based on the possible mismatch between goals and the means a person has available. 27 Conformity is
an adaptation in which individuals accept both the socially-approved goals (and the values that come with
them) and have the means to achieve them (so they can follow norms). Think about the person voted “Most
Likely to Succeed” at your high school. Those people usually worked toward success, and did so in the way
that society deems legitimate. Most people are conformists.
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Conforming ducks. (Source)
A second adaptation is innovation, which can arise if someone shares socially-approved values and
goals, but rejects the means to achieve them. They may use new, unapproved methods to achieve the same
goals. In the documentary Crips & Bloods: Made in America, many former gang members talked about
being locked out of traditional clubs and groups as children in the 1960s. As one gang member says:
The most significant thing was when I went to join the Boy Scouts…. My mother takes me up.
The scoutmaster—uh, he was nice. But he tells my mother, ‘well, I don't know.’ ‘Cause it was a
white troop…. We couldn't be Cub Scouts, couldn’t be Boy Scouts, couldn’t be Explorer Scouts,
we couldn’t get involved in organized activity that would take us anywhere that would bear us
any kind of good fruit, you see. So, we built an auxiliary alternative.
These young men shared socially-approved goals: they sought a group to call their own, skills
development, self-sufficiency, and wealth. Deprived of socially approved means to achieve this, they created
street gangs that achieved the same goals, but in illegitimate ways.
Table 1: Adaptations in Merton’s Strain Theory
Mode of Adaptation Cultural Goals Institutionalized Means
Conformity + +
Innovation + -
Ritualism - +
Retreatism - -
Rebellion +/- +/-
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A third adaptation is ritualism, in which people follow socially-approved means to success, but reject
the goals. Consider someone who wants to be an actor, but acts primarily in local stage productions that
aren’t particularly well-attended. The actor accepts that making it in Hollywood and winning an Oscar are
probably not in his future, but he still behaves in normative ways by continuing to audition and do the best he
can to succeed. This is ritualism.
Fourth is retreatism. Retreatists reject both the socially-prescribed goals and the normative means to
achieve those goals. They simply withdraw. A common example is the hippie of the 1960s. Hippies rejected
both social goals (amassing money, a 9-to-5 job, a spouse and kids with a house in the suburbs) and the
means to achieve them (wearing a suit and tie every day, following the boss’s orders, waiting until marriage
to have sex). However, a lot of hippies didn’t retreat forever. Many went on to lead very normative lives and
pursue socially-approved success. Take businessman Richard Branson. There’s a rumor this high-school
dropout spent two years squatting in a London basement with 20 other people.28 Now, as the co-founder of
the multinational Virgin Empire, he’s worth over $5 billion and has been knighted by the Queen of England.
Not quite a retreat from goals or means, in the end.
Last is rebellion. Some people reject both social goals and means, but instead of retreating, they try
to disrupt the system—what Merton calls rebellion. This adaptation is the most threatening to existing social
arrangements, and is often associated with people we see as dangerous. One example is Ted Kaczynski. A
child prodigy who went to Harvard when he was 16, he eventually quit his job as a professor and went to live
alone in the woods in Montana. While there, he developed an anti-society manifesto. He also started sending
homemade bombs through the mail. Not knowing his identity, the FBI called him the Unabomber. He sent
letter bombs over the course of 20 years, killing three people. Finally arrested in 1996, Kaczynski now lives
in a federal penitentiary.29
Why do people solve their problems (or adapt) in one way, but not others? Richard Cloward and
Lloyd Ohlin’s opportunity theory attempts to provide an answer.30 Cloward and Ohlin focus on illegitimate
means.
Consider an example: many people are frustrated by a lack of opportunity to succeed through
legitimate means, like the formal labor market. A lot of people face barriers to a good education, a poor job
market, and other hardships. And many might think of engaging in deviant acts as a result. But not all of
them do. Why? Cloward and Ohlin argue that we don’t all have the same opportunity to act in deviant
ways.31 Opportunity theory states that some people (those living in poverty in highly-populated cities, for
example) may be more likely than others to be exposed to deviant subcultures. The deviant subculture’s
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proximity and norms of delinquency provide an illegitimate opportunity to take on the role of deviant.32 So,
what separates the deviant from the non-deviant? Cloward and Ohlin suggest that in many ways, it comes
down to access.33
Conflict theories of deviance
Have you ever come up against a rule or norm that you thought was unfair? Have you ever thought
about who has the power to enforce these rules? Are those in power always right, and so-called deviants
always wrong? Who do the rules and norms benefit, anyway? Rather than focus on why people engage in
deviant behavior, conflict theories of deviance ask how rules and norms are shaped by power relations in a
society.
Here’s a classic example. In
1963, civil rights leaders were busy
strategizing about how to bring racial
discrimination to the attention of a
reluctant White public. Reverend James
Bevel had the idea that children should
publicly march in Birmingham,
Alabama, to better show the horrors of
racial segregation.34 In May 1963, the
Children’s Crusade began; children
marched with picket signs.
Birmingham’s commissioner of public
safety at the time was Eugene “Bull”
Connor, a notorious supporter of
segregation, the legally-enforced separation of Blacks and Whites. As the children marched, Connor ordered
the police to bring out fire hoses, batons, and attack dogs and turn them on the children before arresting
them.35 Some of these children were as young as six.36 The Children’s Crusade was one of many turning
points in the Civil Rights Movement. News coverage of children being beaten with clubs and sprayed with
fire hoses sparked a gradual change in public opinion among whites. President Kennedy announced his
intention to pursue national civil rights legislation.37 Pressure mounted, and the city of Birmingham
negotiated a “truce” with Martin Luther King.38 The city also fired Bull Connor.39
A segregated drinking fountain. (Source)
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At the time, segregation was the norm in Birmingham, as well as the law. This march broke the law
because the children didn’t have permits to march (of course, Connor’s commission wouldn’t have granted
permits even if they had applied for one). The Children’s Crusade also violated social norms of its place and
time. But most people today would surely say it was the morally correct stance, and courageous as well. So,
who created these laws? Who upheld the norms, and why? Who did these laws and norms benefit, and at
whose expense? These are key questions for conflict theorists of deviance.
Karl Marx didn’t specifically write about the sociology of deviance. Nevertheless, his work laid the
basis for conflict theorists who are interested in how deviance and crime are a function of wealth and power.
Marx argued that the wealthy class of “owners” in society centralizes its power and influence. One way they
secure this power is by occupying leadership positions in government and other “authority institutions.” This
allows the wealthy to be the primary creators of laws, which are designed to maintain and build their power
and influence.
In The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills
expands on and modernizes this idea. Mills
argued that power lies in the hands of a few
political, corporate, and military leaders.40 These
leaders operate in the same social and
professional circles, Mills says. They come from
similar backgrounds, go to the same schools
together, play golf together. The group is so
homogeneous that they tend to share values and
beliefs, or a worldview.41 One result is
remarkable levels of cooperation and agreement
in terms of policymaking. Mills argued that
these elites assume their interests are also society’s best interests.
Conflict theories of deviance argue that people who have the power to define and police deviance
will do so with the specific intent of maintaining their class status. That is, dominant groups in society define
as deviant any behavior or activity that threatens their power or conflicts with their class interests.42 Every stage
in the system, from defining behavior as deviant to enforcement and punishment, is influenced by the interests of
the powerful. This creates a collectively-understood ideology, or set of beliefs, values, and assumptions we use to
view and understand the world, about what constitutes deviance and what doesn’t. And this ideology supports the
dominant group’s hegemony, a particular type of domination in which the powerful get the consent (and
Mills argues that societies are run by a small group of the
wealthiest, most well-connected people. (Source)
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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sometimes outright support) of everyone else.43 A conflict theorist might argue that segregationist laws in
southern states after the Civil War were designed to concentrate power and money in the hands of White elites.
This system preserved economic, legal, and social advantages for Whites long after slavery was officially
abolished.
Social bonds, lovable freaks, and criminals
In the 1980s, a public service announcement on TV featured a father confronting his young son about the
drug paraphernalia he’s found. “Who taught you how to do this?” the father asks. The son dramatically yells back,
“You, alright? I learned it by watching you!” Since then, the PSA has lived on in pop culture and comedic parody.
The phrase “I learned it by watching you” entered the American lexicon.
Despite the unintended comedy in that PSA,
some theorists argue there is substance to the claim.
Edwin Sutherland’s theory of differential association
argued that deviance is a learned behavior, just like any
other. Sutherland’s theory describes a process through
which we engage in deviant behavior.44 In this process,
we learn behavior through intimate personal contacts,
such as family and friends. This is a clear contrast with
the commonly-held belief that we learn deviant
behaviors from impersonal sources such as movies,
video games, and music. Sutherland argued that we
learn how to engage in deviance, as well as motivations
for behaving in certain ways. In social groups, we’re surrounded by ideologies that make it desirable or
undesirable to violate norms and rules. When we’re exposed to a preponderance of attitudes that encourage rule-
breaking, we’re more likely to become delinquent.45
While Sutherland’s theory focuses on how our social networks may lead us to break rules, control theory
focuses on how ties to mainstream social groups and societal institutions make us less likely to become deviant.46
If we’re attached and committed to our jobs, to our romantic partners or families, or to institutions like the
military, we’re less likely to veer off track and take part in deviant, delinquent, or criminal activity. This is a topic
we’ll discuss in more depth when we look at crime.
A little IT humor, in cross-stitch. (Source)
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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Importantly, not all deviance is bad. Social critics like Seth Godin claim that technological change
has made it easier for “weird” people to create things, get noticed, and join up with other weird people.
Through the internet, if you’re interested in the television show Dr. Who, you can buy a hand-crocheted mini
Doctor.47 You can share photos on Facebook of Mid-Century Modern-style lamps.48 You can have eight
certified-platinum singles, and perform in front of thousands of people on tour, all while wearing a wig that
completely obscures your face (at least, if you’re recording artist Sia, who has been described as “weird” and
“polarizing” but remains tremendously successful at doing something she loves, on “her own terms”).49
But favoring some deviants isn’t new. Societies often worship the strangest among us. Think about
fashion models, elite athletes, artistic or scientific geniuses. These are people who look unusual or can do
unusual things with their bodies or minds. They are, as Godin would say, weird. And we love them for it.
Then there’s the other side of deviance: not the kind that features lovable freaks, but the kind that
features dangerous criminals. Many of the theories of deviance we have covered translate directly to the
study of crime and violence, and yet there are some key differences as well. Crime and violence are certainly
forms of deviance, but they are usually defined more formally and measured more precisely because they are
codified into law. They are seen as serious social problems, and they sometimes have severe social
consequences.
Review Sheet: Theories and perspectives on deviance
Key Points
• When a so-called deviant act occurs, there are multiple overlapping ways to explain it.
Thus, there are many theories of deviance and crime. Their usefulness varies depending
upon the context, but all seek to understand deviance.
• Functionalist theories focus primarily on the social purposes of deviance. They seek to
understand why people engage in deviance.
• Conflict theories of deviance focus primarily upon power relations in society, and the
ways in which the powerful understand deviance in ways that benefit themselves. They
seek to understand how norms, rules, and laws are created and shaped through processes
of social, political, and economic power.
• Not all deviance is negative; deviance can solve problems through innovation.
Key People
• Émile Durkheim
• Robert K. Merton
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• Richard Cloward & Lloyd Ohlin
• Karl Marx
• C. Wright Mills
• Edwin Sutherland
Key Terms
• Functionalist theories of deviance – Theories that focus on potential social purposes
that deviance serves.
• Social cohesion – Degree to which we identify with and maintain social rules and
connections.
• Normative – Accepted and expected behavior.
• Anomie – A social lack of morals and expectations for behavior that can lead to
deviance.
• Strain – Stress that results from anomie.
• Strain theory – Functionalist theory that describes five adaptations to strain: conformity,
innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion.
• Opportunity theory of deviance – Functionalist theory that says delinquency is a
function of opportunity and access to delinquent behavior.
• Conflict theories of deviance – Theories that ask about how rules and norms are shaped
by power relations in society.
• Worldview – Set of shared values, beliefs, and understandings about how the world
should be.
• Hegemony – Type of domination in which the powerful obtain the consent or support of
the subordinated.
• Stigma – A phenomenon in which a person is discredited and/or rejected by society
because of an attribute they have.
• Differential association – Theory that deviance is learned through intimate personal
contacts.
• Control theory – Theory that claims deviance arises from a weakening of social
connections.
• Labeling theory – Theory that deviance is created through reactions to an act.
CRIME AND VIOLENCE
What is a crime and who is a criminal?
Why do people commit crime?
What makes crime more or less likely?
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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Cesare Lombroso was a physician and scientist who worked in the Italian army, in asylums for the
insane, and in prisons during the late 1800s. Through his work, he came to know a notorious Italian criminal,
a man who boasted of robbery and theft, named Giuseppe Villella. When Villella died at the age of 70,
Lombroso carried out a post-mortem anatomical observation. He noticed an indentation on the base of
Villella’s skull, which reminded Lombroso of a similar feature in the skulls of apes and our human ancestors.
This discovery led Lombroso to carry out more extensive research on the skulls of humans, 66 in total. He
focused his observations on the skulls of criminals and the insane, and he published his research in one of the
most famous books on criminals ever written.
In the first chapter of The Criminal Man, Lombroso documented the features of the skulls he had
observed:
Criminals have the following rates of abnormality: 61 percent exhibit fusion of the
cranial bones; 92 percent, prognathism or an ape-like forward thrust of the lower
face; 63 percent, overdevelopment of the sinuses; 27 percent, cranial thickness; 9
percent, an open medio-frontal suture; 20 percent, a large jawbone; 25 percent, a
receding fore-head; 74 percent, wide or overdeveloped cheekbones; 45 percent,
overly large wisdom teeth; 59 percent, small cranial capacity, among which 10
percent show true microcephaly; and 14 percent, too many wormian bones…These
abnormalities are almost always found in large clusters in individual criminals like
Villella. Is it possible that individuals with such an enormous variety of cranial
anomalies can have the same level of intelligence and sense of responsibility as men
with perfectly normal skulls?50
Lombroso’s question was rhetorical. He thought it was not possible, and he used his data to conclude
that criminals were people whose anatomy contained abnormalities from humans’ primitive ancestors,
before our species had fully evolved.
Lombroso’s observations about the skulls of deceased criminals may seem absurd today. His
method of observing the anatomy of criminals and making conclusions based on what he saw violates
virtually every principle of scientific inquiry. His simplistic conclusions are one of the best examples
of a historical tradition in which pseudo-scientific research is used to reinforce commonly-held
stereotypes while justifying views about the superiority of Whites. His research has been summarily
dismissed in the time since he wrote.
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But in some ways, Lombroso’s ideas remain critically important in the study of crime and
violence. The Criminal Man is one of the classics of criminology, the study of crime and criminal
behavior, because it was an extremely influential example of a perspective that assumes that crime and
violence can be explained by studying the characteristics of individual people, or groups of people,
who commit crimes. From this perspective, crime exists because criminals have something wrong with
them—a biological abnormality, a lack of intelligence, or a deficient culture. We can still find high-
profile examples of researchers who argue that criminal behavior is primarily explained by biology.51
This approach to understanding crime isn’t always driven by racism, and it’s not always useless
or completely misguided. Certain risk factors, like low self-control, are powerful predictors of an
individual’s probability of engaging in violence. But if this approach to understanding crime isn’t
entirely useless, it is incomplete. A sociological perspective on crime and violence leads us to think
more broadly about the problem of crime, asking more expansive questions: What features of our
environment make crime more or less likely? Why is crime more common in some societies than
others? Why do crime rates rise or fall?
A sociological perspective forces us to think beyond individual criminals to consider the social
forces that affect individual behavior and the way that deviant or criminal behavior is defined and
punished in different societies at different times. When we’re thinking like sociologists, we begin to
see crime differently—we see it within a wider social context.
What is a crime? Who is a criminal?
Just like all deviant behavior, a criminal act is defined within a specific social setting and a particular
time period. The most formal definition of a crime is an act that violates the penal code, or the written laws
that govern behavior in a particular jurisdiction. But this is only a starting point. What counts as a crime can
change as you travel from one state to the next, and it can change over time as laws are amended or repealed.
The map in Figure 2 was made in late 2018 and shows the states where marijuana is illegal (prohibited for
any use), where it’s legal only for medical purposes, and where it’s legal for medical and recreational use. In
most of the southeastern United States, you can’t legally smoke marijuana even as a medical treatment, but
can use certain cannabis-based products such as cannabidiol, known as CBD oil. Along the entire West
Coast, on the other hand, if you’re an adult, you can walk into a shop on a main street and buy marijuana
about as easily as a can of soda.
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Despite the variation in what counts as a criminal act, a small number of crimes are close to
universal. Murder is the best example: virtually every society treats murder as a crime. In the United States,
murder is tracked by police departments, which report crimes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the FBI
then calculates national statistics on crime throughout the country. Murder is also tracked through vital
records collected by state health departments, which rely on coroners and medical examiners to document the
cause of every death. National trends in the murder rate as measured by both police departments and health
departments look almost identical. Because we have multiple sources of information on murder, and because
bodies are hard to hide, it’s the crime that is counted most reliably.
Figure 2: Marijuana Legalization as of November, 2018
(Source: Lokal_Profil, Wikimedia Commons)
Murder is only the most extreme form of violent crime, a category that also includes crimes like
robbery (a theft that takes place in person through use of force), assault, and sexual assault or rape. Property
crime involves theft that isn’t carried out through force, including acts like motor vehicle theft or the
burglary of a home. All of these crimes are typically referred to as street crime, while crimes like fraud,
embezzlement, and other unethical acts or business practices are typically thought of as corporate or white-
collar crime.52 Although the attention of law enforcement and the public is almost always focused on street
crime, white-collar crime can affect not only its victims, but all employees of a firm, investors, and even the
economy as a whole.
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Now that we know the formal definition of a crime, we can ask a follow-up question: Who is a
criminal? The most straightforward definition of a criminal is a person who has violated a criminal law.
Deviant behavior, as we learned, is a violation of common norms; but criminal behavior is a violation of the
formal penal code. But we need to push further to develop a better understanding of why some people, and
some groups of people, get tied up in the criminal justice system while others don’t. Contrary to the
perspective of theorists like Lombroso, there are few individuals who can truly be thought of as “natural-
born criminals.”
The context of crime
Chicago often has more shooting victims and homicides than any other city in the country, including
New York and Los Angeles, which both have millions more residents. From the outside, the violence in
Chicago appears to be random and senseless, and the threat of being shot seems ever-present. The truth is,
for most Chicago residents, the likelihood of being shot is extremely low. For a very small segment of the
population, however, the odds of being shot are shockingly high.
Sociologists Andrew Papachristos and Chris Wildeman studied shooting victims in Chicago, focused
on a social network of high-risk young people who had come into contact with the law at some point.53 A
social network is a group of people (or organizations, nations, etc.) that are linked to each other in a specific
way. In this case, the members of the network were linked together because all of them had been arrested
with at least one other member of the network at some point.
The two researchers argued that violence in Chicago should be treated in the same way as other
epidemics, like the spread of HIV, which moves through networks of people engaged in risky behaviors like
sharing needles or unprotected sex. Being a victim of gun violence didn’t necessarily mean that a person had
been actively engaged in any criminal activity, but that individual could still be vulnerable if he was
somehow linked to the network of people at greatest risk—if he was walking down the street with a gang
member, for instance, or ended up at a party with a friend or cousin engaged in violent activity. Being in this
network turned out to be the strongest predictor of becoming a shooting victim. Only 4% of the community’s
population was part of the network, but the network accounted for 40% of all shooting victims. For the
young people within this network, being the victim of a shooting was “tragic, but not random.”
The extraordinary findings from this study lead us to think about how criminal activity is partially
about who we spend our time with. One of the strongest findings in criminology is that our attachments to
other people, like a partner or spouse, and to institutions and organizations like school, a job, or the military,
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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play an extremely important role in influencing whether or not we will become actively involved in crime.
These types of social bonds, or connections and attachments to people and institutions, often serve as a
pathway leading us away from a life of criminal activity. You may think twice about committing a crime if
you worry about going to prison and leaving your family alone, or you may decide not to take part in risky
activities with friends if you are worried about losing a good, stable job.54 Criminal behavior isn’t only about
what’s inside us; it’s also about the links that we have to other people and to the outside world.
As research on crime and violence has evolved, theories of criminality have shifted attention away
from individual offenders and toward the features of streets, neighborhoods, and cities that make crime more
or less likely. Criminologists have shown that violent crime is much less likely in communities where there
is greater social cohesion and trust among residents.55 Urban planners and architects have identified how the
design of city streets and housing can reduce crime by limiting the number of dark, isolated, or unsupervised
spaces where potential criminals might seek out victims, an approach called crime prevention through
environmental design (CPTED).56 And police departments all over the country have adapted their practices
because of an extremely influential theory of crime arguing that small signs of disorder on the street, like a
broken window, provide a hint to offenders that the area is outside the control of authorities. This idea, called
broken windows theory, suggests that if the police respond to very small violations of public order, they
will make major crimes less likely.57
A sociological perspective doesn’t suggest that individual characteristics have nothing to do with
crime. However, it does suggest that studying individual criminals isn’t sufficient. Instead of examining
individual traits or features, we have to understand how individuals interact with other people and with their
environments. Rather than trying to reduce crime by medicating, executing, or imprisoning those most likely
to commit crime, research shows that violence can be reduced with interventions that target the physical and
social environment.
Review Sheet: Crime and violence
Key Points
• A sociological perspective on crime and violence expands beyond the focus on individual
characteristics and considers the features of environments and societies that make crime
more or less likely.
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• Murder is the crime that is measured most precisely because it’s tracked by both police
departments and health departments.
• A large portion of all violent crime is committed by a small network of individuals.
• Individuals’ ties to other people and institutions have a large impact on their involvement
with violence.
Key People
• Cesare Lombroso – One of the founders of criminology; scientist who argued that crime
is explained by biological abnormalities.
Key Terms
• Criminology – Study of crime and criminal behavior.
• Crime – Act that violates the penal code.
• Penal code – Written laws that govern behavior in a particular jurisdiction.
• Violent crime – Crimes like homicide, robbery, assault, and sexual assault, which
involve the use of physical force.
• Property crime – Theft that doesn’t involve the use of direct physical force.
• Street crime – Violent crimes and property crimes that are more common in public
spaces and often involve the police.
• White-collar crime – Crimes like fraud, embezzlement, and other unethical acts or
business practices that are typically not carried out on the street or in public spaces and
don’t use physical force.
• Criminal – Person who violates the penal code.
• Social network – Group of people linked together in a specific way.
• Social bonds – Connections and attachments to people and institutions in mainstream
society.
• Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) – Strategy to reduce crime
through the design of buildings and physical space.
• Broken windows theory – Theory of policing that argues that small signs of disorder
lead to outbreaks of more serious crimes.
VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES AND BEYOND
Is violence in the United States rising or falling?
Is the U.S. more or less violent than the rest of the world?
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Anyone who follows the news faces a constant barrage of stories about terrorism, war, mass
shootings, and horrific murders. A few days of steady news coverage might lead you to think that we are
living through the most violent period in world history. The reality is just the opposite.
In 2011, psychologist Steven Pinker published The Better Angels of Our Nature, a remarkable book
about the decline of violence over the course of modern human history.58 Although most of us think of
modern society as violent, Pinker shows that murder, rape, torture, mutilation, and slavery were common and
accepted throughout most of human history, but have become more and more uncommon over time. As
warring tribes were organized into nation states, as government institutions expanded their reach, and as the
value of human rights came to be recognized around the world, the brutality of our species began to subside.
We now live in the most humane, and the least violent, era in the world’s history.
But even if the world has become less violent over time, the problem of violence hasn’t become any
less severe in the United States—right?
The rise and fall of American violence
The homicide rate is the most common measure of violence in a society; it measures the number of
murders for every 100,000 residents. The homicide rate in the United States doubled from 1963 to 1974, a
period of unrest in urban America when funding for cities was slashed and urban neighborhoods began to fall
apart. For the next two decades after 1974, cities continued to experience intense violence, and the national
homicide rate fluctuated between roughly 8 and 10 murders per 100,000 residents.
By the early 1990s, many experts on violent crime thought violence was only going to get worse. James
Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University who wrote widely on trends in violent crime, offered an
urgent warning: “unless we act now, when our children are still young and impressionable, we may indeed
have a bloodbath of teen violence by the year 2005.”59 Fortunately, he was wrong. As shown in Figure 3, the
homicide rate dropped from 1993 to 1994, and then continued fell sharply through the rest of the decade. By
the end of the 1990s, there were about 6 murders for every 100,000 Americans, a level that hadn’t been seen
since the late 1960s. Then violent crime fell further, to 4.4 murders for every 100,000 Americans in 2014.60
Based on historical records, 2014 was probably one of the safest years in U.S. history.61 The homicide rate rose
in 2015 and 2016, leading many to worry that the long decline of violence had reached its end point. But the
homicide rate then stabilized, and fell slightly in the time since. Despite the short-term fluctuations in recent
years, we are still living in the safest era of our nation’s history.
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If violent crime has been falling for most of the past two decades, however, many Americans don’t
seem to know it. Polls asking Americans whether they think crime is getting better or worse show that they
often think it’s getting worse; this was true even in the years when violent crime was plummeting. So how can
we be so sure that they’re wrong? How confident can we be that the statistics are right, that crime has actually
been falling since the early 1990s?
Figure 3: U.S. Homicide Rate, 1960-2015
Source: F.B.I. Uniform Crime Reports
First, let’s focus on murders. As we noted, homicide is the most reliable measure of extreme violence in
a society. And the trends in the murder rate reported by the F.B.I., which show a dramatic decline since the
early 1990s, match almost perfectly with data from medical reports gathered by state health departments and
the National Center on Health Statistics.62 Now let’s turn our attention to Americans’ own reports of how often
they are victims of violence. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) was designed to count criminal
victimization experienced by a national sample of Americans; it has been administered every year since the
early 1970s.63 The NCVS provides a useful complement to official statistics compiled by the FBI, because the
survey isn’t affected by changes in how crime is monitored or reported by the police.
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NCVS data confirm the patterns documented by the FBI, and even suggest that the decline in violent
crime may be under-reported in official statistics. In 1993, about 80 out of every 1,000 Americans reported
being the victim of a violent crime in the past six months. By 2015, only 19 out of every 1,000 Americans
reported being the victim of a violent crime. The FBI’s official statistics on murder and other violent crimes tell
us that violence has been cut roughly in half. Americans’ own reports of whether they have recently been
assaulted or otherwise violently attacked suggest that violent victimization has dropped by more than 75%.
Even though there are some discrepancies in reports on how much violence has fallen, all of the best
sources of data on American violence—the national survey of victimization, figures from vital statistics, and
reports from police departments—tell the same basic story: the level of violence in the U.S. has fallen
dramatically from its peak in the early 1990s. No matter which data source you look at, the nation is safer than
it was 25 years ago. Despite this good news, the fact that we are living during one of the safest periods in the
nation’s history doesn’t mean that we’re living in a particularly safe nation.
Why is the United States more violent than similar nations?
Compared to the entire world, the United States has a relatively low rate of violent crime and homicide.
According to estimates from the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, there are more than 30 homicides
for every 100,000 residents in nations like Honduras, Venezuela, and Jamaica, a rate six times higher than in
the U.S.64 In some regions of the world, extreme violence is a common aspect of daily life for most of the
population. This isn’t the case in most communities across the United States.
But when we compare the U.S. to other developed countries, the U.S. has an extremely high rate of
homicides and a fairly high rate of violent crime. The U.S. homicide rate is more than twice as high as it is in
nations like Canada, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and many other countries, where there
are fewer than 2 homicides per 100,000 residents.
Why is there so much violence in the United States? There is no single definitive answer, but there are
several theories. Some scholars believe that America’s high rate of violence is a cultural heritage from the
time of the frontier, when Americans were forced to resolve disputes by force, without any official authority
or strong institutions set up to enforce the law.65 Settlers knew they couldn’t rely on law enforcement in areas
that were beyond the reach of any formal government institutions, so they developed an alternative system in
which people protected themselves, their families, and their property by force when necessary. When the
institutions of formal government eventually emerged on the frontier, the culture of self-reliance had already
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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been firmly established. Unlike most other nations, the government didn’t impose its will on the people,
confiscate all guns, and closely regulate social life. The culture of self-reliance, and the culture of violence
that went with it, persisted over time.66
Closely related to this
“cultural” explanation of U.S.
violence is another, even more
controversial, potential answer:
guns. About 70% of homicides in the
United States are committed with a
firearm, and the U.S. is the most
heavily armed nation in the world,
with more guns per person than any
other developed country. Despite the
passionate rhetoric on both sides of
the issue, however, the truth is we
don’t have great evidence about the
impact of guns on rates of violent crime. And politicians, supported by gun rights organizations like the
National Rifle Association (NRA), have made it hard to get that evidence. Because of legislation supported
by the NRA, the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, the two primary
government agencies that fund research on health, disease, and mortality, are prohibited by law from funding
studies or programs that can be interpreted to “advocate or promote gun control.”67 This prohibition has been
applied broadly, effectively discouraging these agencies from providing funds for any research related to gun
violence.
Of course, the NRA hasn’t stopped all research on gun violence or gun control. But the research on
gun control policies that has been completed doesn’t lead to clear conclusions about whether these policies
are effective in reducing all forms of crime. There is stronger evidence that the availability of guns is related
to a specific kind of crime: homicide.68 In other words, guns don’t necessarily lead to more violence, but they
do make violence more lethal when it occurs.
A third possible explanation is that America’s unique brand of inequality is the reason for its high
level of murder. In an individualistic society that celebrates the achievements of the wealthy and promotes
A rally against gun violence in Annapolis, Maryland. (Source)
Deviance, Crime and Violence
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the ideologies of meritocracy and capitalism, failing to achieve economic success can generate psychological
strain that may lead to criminal activity or violence. Robert Merton’s strain theory, which we discussed
earlier in the chapter, argued that it’s not just poverty that makes people more likely to commit crime; it’s a
feeling that they are losing out while others achieve vast riches, that they’re falling behind while others live
the good life.69 Merton called this relative deprivation.
The theory of relative deprivation argues that inequality, not poverty, may be the crucial dimension
of a society that predicts how much crime and violence there will be. The evidence available provides some
support for this view. States with higher murder rates tend to be those with higher levels of inequality, and
nations with greater disparities between the rich and the poor have higher rates of violence.70 The U.S. has
one of the highest levels of inequality in the developed world. According to the theory of relative
deprivation, this may be a central reason why this country has such high rates of violence.
Review Sheet: Violence in the United States and beyond
Key Points
• Violence has fallen steadily over the last several centuries of human history.
• The rate of homicides and all violent crimes in the U.S. has been cut in half since the
early 1990s.
• In 2017, there were 5.4 homicides per every 100,000 residents.
• The homicide rate in the U.S. is more than twice as high as in many nations in the
developed world, including Canada, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom,
and many others.
• Three possible explanations for the high rate of violence in the U.S. are our historical
culture of violence, the large number of guns, and the high level of inequality.
Key People
• James Alan Fox
• Steven Pinker
Key Terms
• Homicide rate –Number of homicides per 100,000 residents.
• Culture of violence – The idea that the United States has a unique heritage in which
settlers had to resort to violence to protect their property and themselves, creating a
longstanding norm of violent behavior.
• Relative deprivation – A feeling of falling behind while other people do better and
better. Merton argued that this feeling creates strain, leading to crime.
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CRIME, PUNISHMENT AND THE PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE
Why has violent crime fallen?
How do incarceration and policing affect violence?
What is the next model of criminal justice?
The facts about violence in the United States lead to a complex set of conclusions. On the one hand, the
U.S. still has a level of lethal violence that is higher than almost all other nations in the developed world. On
the other hand, the level of violence in the United States has fallen sharply, cut in half from the early 1990s
to the present. How can we learn from what has taken place over the past few decades and use it to reduce
violence further? To come up with an answer, we must first grapple with an even more difficult question:
Why has violence fallen?
The Great American Crime Decline
Scholars have proposed a wide range of theories for the decline in violence, including all of the
following:
• The economy improved in the 1990s, reducing unemployment and poverty and, therefore, crime.
• The intensely violent epidemic of crack cocaine that hit U.S. cities in the 1980s began to die down in
the 1990s.
• Environmental regulations led to the removal of lead, a toxin that impairs children’s cognitive
development and affects behavior, from gasoline and indoor house paint. This improved children’s
behavior and impulse control, and reduced violent crime.
• The legalization of abortion meant that many children were never born. The parents who chose to
have abortions may have been unable or unwilling to devote the necessary resources and attention to
raise children; if they’d had children, their kids might have been more likely to become criminals.
• Police departments grew in the 1990s because of enhanced funding from the federal government, and
the expanded presence of law enforcement reduced crime.
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• Police departments adopted more effective tactics beginning in the 1990s, using advanced data on the
location and timing of criminal activity and more aggressive responses to minor crimes.
• The rate of incarceration began to rise in the 1970s, as more and more Americans were imprisoned
due to aggressive policing and prosecution as well as longer sentences. With a greater share of
criminals off the streets, the crime rate fell.
• Rates of immigration to the United States have risen over time. Immigrants tend to commit less
violence than other groups, so the rise of immigration may have led to the drop in crime.
• Medication for conditions like depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
became more accessible, reducing impulsive, destructive, and criminal behavior.
• Americans’ consumption of alcohol has declined over time. A high proportion of all criminal activity
is carried out under the influence of alcohol, so the drop in consumption could have led to less crime.
• Local community organizations mobilized to confront the problem of violence in the 1980s and
1990s, and their efforts helped to reduce crime.
Although all of these theories (and more) have been proposed as contributors to the drop in crime,
not all of them have much evidence behind them. Some are purely speculative, with no evidence to back
them up; others are supported by some evidence but remain extremely controversial; still others have more
solid evidence behind them but have still generated intense debate. The best evaluations of available research
conclude that the decline in violence wasn’t driven by any single factor, but was the result of many different
social forces and policy changes that came together to reduce violent crime.
Economist Steven Levitt argued that it was likely a combination of expanded incarceration, growth
of police departments, the end of the crack epidemic, and the legalization of abortion that explained the
crime drop.71 Criminologist Franklin Zimring, who has written extensively on the crime decline, argues that
a range of social conditions (an improving economy, a drop in the proportion of the population at the peak
age for criminal behavior, the growth of the incarcerated population, and the growth in police forces)
converged in the 1990s and combined with new, more effective policing to bring about the crime decline.72
A recent, comprehensive report looks at 13 different factors that have been proposed as explanations for the
crime drop, providing support for some common theories, such as the growth of police departments, and
pointing to the importance of other factors that are more rarely mentioned, such as the decline in alcohol
consumption.73
The police and the prison
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Among the many theories of the crime decline, the increase in incarceration and the expansion of law
enforcement have generated the most controversy. In the 1970s, the rate of incarceration in the United States
wasn’t much different than in many similar countries. At that time, about 200,000 Americans were locked up
in state and federal prisons. But then the incarceration rate rose quickly. States passed increasingly severe
sentencing laws, the federal government carried out a new War on Drugs, and prosecutors became more
aggressive, putting more and more criminal offenders behind bars. Over time, the number of people in
American prisons and jails has exploded to more than 2.3 million.74
The rise of imprisonment wasn’t spread evenly across the American population; it was targeted
toward young, non-White males, especially African Americans. Sociologist Bruce Western has written
extensively on mass incarceration, or the expansion of imprisonment to a level that isn’t matched elsewhere
in the world or at any previous point in U.S. history. Western argues that for some segments of the
population, such as young African American men with minimal education, the prison has become a more
common institution than college or the military. About 60% of Black, male, high school dropouts who were
born near the end of the 1960s will go to prison at some point in their lives, according to Western.
Did the expansion of the prison system contribute to the crime decline? The answer is complicated.
Most rigorous research on the topic has concluded that the growth of incarceration has had some impact on
crime, although many researchers argue that the impact is small. But even those who argue that mass
incarceration has reduced crime acknowledge that as the scale of incarceration grew, its impact on crime
became smaller and smaller. A recent committee of scholars reviewed the best available evidence and
concluded that the increase in incarceration in the 1970s and 1980s likely reduced violent crime, but as the
incarceration rate continued to grow higher, it’s less clear that there was any impact after the 1990s.75
Research on policing has generated similarly controversial results. Bolstered with funding from the
federal government, more than 60,000 new officers were hired during the 1990s, increasing the number of
police officers per each American (the per capita rate) by around 14%.76 Strong evidence suggests that the
influx of new officers on the street contributed to the decline in violence. In fact, experimental studies of
policing tactics have shown that when police officers focus their attention and resources on “hot spots” of
criminal activity, they’re very successful in reducing the overall amount of crime and violence.77 The
accumulation of evidence has led to a relatively new consensus about police and crime. After a long period
in which most criminologists believed that police were powerless to control crime, the new consensus is that
more police on the street translates into less crime. Economist Steven Levitt looked at the evidence about
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how much crime falls with each additional officer and estimated that the growth of police forces throughout
the 1990s can account for between 10% and 20% of the crime drop during that decade.78
Front pages from New York City tabloids after the officer who killed Eric Garner during an arrest was
acquitted. (Source)
Although the expansion of law enforcement and the prison system may have contributed to the
decline in violence, these changes also came with great costs. Research conducted in cities like New York
has provided conclusive evidence that the most aggressive forms of policing have targeted non-White
communities, particularly African Americans. Videos of abusive, violent, or lethal police behavior have
revealed what policing sometimes looks like in the most disadvantaged, segregated communities in the
country. Even if most interactions between police officers and residents are cordial and respectful, videos
showing officers choking, abusing, or killing citizens has shed light on a pattern that is unacceptable to many
Americans. Black Lives Matter mobilized in part to push back against the use of police violence in Black
communities.
Similarly, as the scale of incarceration has grown, there has been more and more protest directed
toward a prison system that seems out of control.79 Activists, many researchers, and a growing number of
Deviance, Crime and Violence
Page 33
politicians argue that the prison system is a violation of Americans’ rights, that it conflicts with the core
American value of liberty, that it systematically targets racial and ethnic minorities, and that it costs
taxpayers too much to sustain. After years in which these arguments had little impact, laws designed to scale
back the criminal justice system have started to be implemented, and the rate of incarceration has begun to
decline very slowly.
The next model of criminal justice policy
As we conclude this chapter, the next phase of the longstanding effort to confront violence and crime
in the U.S. is unsettled. Protest against police violence and mass incarceration reached a peak in the summers
of 2015 and 2016, and reforms of policing and criminal justice policy began to be implemented across the
country. However, the election of President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a platform of “law and
order,” altered the criminal justice landscape. His former Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, questioned
whether the federal government’s oversight of law enforcement prevented police officers from doing their
jobs effectively.80 And yet reform continues. Late in 2018, President Trump signed the First Step Act, a
major piece of legislation which scales back harsh federal sentencing requirements and provides funding to
make it less likely that prisoners will return to crime when they are released.
A few decades ago, this type of legislation would have been difficult to imagine. But we live in a
much safer era, and the politics of crime and violence have changed. It’s a fascinating time to listen to
debates about criminal justice policy, to consider the various theories we’ve covered in this chapter, and to
think hard about the best way to control violence.
Deviance, Crime and Violence
Page 34
Review Sheet: Crime, punishment, and the prevention of violence
Key Points
• There is no single answer as to why violence fell in the United States, but several factors
played at least some role, including the growth of police, improvements in policing
tactics, the rise of incarceration, and the end of the crack epidemic.
• Other factors, like the decline in alcohol consumption and lead poisoning, may also have
played a role in reducing violence but don’t yet have sufficient evidence to come to a
clear conclusion.
• The U.S. imprisonment rate is higher than any other country in the world. More than 2
million Americans are in prison or jail, and almost 5 million are on probation or parole.
• About 60% of African American men born near the end of the 1960s will go to prison at
some point in their lives.
Key People
• Franklin Zimring
• Steven Levitt
• Bruce Western
Key Terms
• Mass incarceration – Expansion of imprisonment to a level not matched elsewhere in
the world or at any previous point in U.S. history.
• Black Lives Matter – Movement devoted to, among other things, reducing police
violence against African Americans.
Deviance, Crime and Violence
Page 35
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debates/100579848/
Cover Photo Source
- interpreting deviance
- What does it mean to be deviant?
- Social control, stigma, and labeling
- Theories and perspectives on deviance
- Functionalist theories
- Conflict theories
- Social bonds, lovable freaks, and criminals
- Crime and violence
- What is a crime? Who is a criminal?
- The context of crime
- violence in the united States and beyond
- The rise and fall of American violence
- Why is the United States more violent than similar nations?
- crime, punishment, and the prevention of violence
- The Great American Crime Decline
- The police and the prison
- The next model of criminal justice
- Introduction
- interpreting deviance
- What does it mean to be deviant?
- Social control, stigma, and labeling
- theories & perspectives on deviance
- Functionalist theories of deviance
- Conflict theories of deviance
- Social bonds, lovable freaks, and criminals
- crime and violence
- What is a crime? Who is a criminal?
- The context of crime
- Violence in the united states and beyond
- The rise and fall of American violence
- Why is the United States more violent than similar nations?
- crime, punishment and the prevention of violence
- The Great American Crime Decline
- The police and the prison
- The next model of criminal justice policy
- references