Reading reflection and discussion

SAMPLE DISCUSSION:

The Crime Dip of the 1990s theorizes that a variety of factors contributed to the declining crime rates beginning in major cities and later in others previously considered "hopeless areas". This includes but is not limited to factors such as a healthier economy, crime prevention programs, more community policing, and an incarceration binge (more individuals being locked up in a shorter time frame). It's interesting to note that rather than the decrease in crime rates being caused by major restructuring or societal changes, the change is owed to minor shifts in policy, perhaps such as those decriminalizing something that had previously been criminalized, though I don't believe it would be drug-related as the War on Drugs is still officially ongoing. It would be interesting to see if the same theory would hold up in the present, by making similar changes in existing policies and to assume that non-policy factors played a stronger role in declining crime rates than given credit for or whether the change was largely owed to policy-related shifts. 

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SAMPLE REFLECTION:

Chapter one was informative about what the study of criminology is and its history, Sumner’s three different types of norms, criminology’s ideologies, effects of criminal law and economic effects of crime. This chapter also discussed crime and deviance where deviance is that behavior that is outside of the limits of social toleration. The emergence of law in this chapter was a valuable information to learn about as it resembles the foundations of criminology.

There are many new concepts that have been introduced in this chapter and one of the is Sumner’s three different types of norms: folkways, norms, and laws. As the book defines it, folkways are nice customs, traditions, and less serious types of norms. Mores are the serious informal social controls. Laws are the formal coeds of control and the written rules of behavior. In addition, criminal activity can be undercrminalized, underuse of the law to control deviant activity, or overcriminalized, overuse of the criminal law to control deviant activity.

Learning about crime and deviance made me think about the current pandemic and requirements of masks in some places. As the book defines, deviance is that kind of behavior that deviates outside of the limits of social toleration. During the pandemic, it was rare to see a person with no mask on. I remember travelling back to Arizona and everyone on board had to masked on. However, in certain places I still saw people that did not wear face masks and they were the ones that had odd looks at them because they are not following what everyone in their society is doing. Such people are somehow showing a deviant kind of behavior as they are not taking a step further to make our society a better place. It is a requirement by the majority to wear a mask even I they got vaccinated.