Discussion 5

Deviance,

Crime, and

Violence

Angela Barian

Patrick Sharkey, Princeton University

Bryan L. Sykes, University of California-Irvine

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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Deviance, Crime, and

Violence

A N G E L A B A R I A N

P A T 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

B R Y A N L . S Y K E S , U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R I N A - I R V I N E

INTERPRETING DEVIANCE

What does it mean to be deviant?

Social control, stigma , and labeling

THEORIES AND PERSPECTIVES ON DEVIANCE

Functionalist t heories

Conflict t heories

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?

The Great American Crime Decline

CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND THE PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE

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Mass incarceration

The past, present, and future of policing in the United States

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INTRODUCTION

In August 2017, white supremacists and neo-Nazis held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

This Unite the Right Rally was held to promote racist, white separatist ideologies and to protest

the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. At this time, support for the

Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the United States was at -5%, meaning more Americans

disapproved of BLM than approved of it.1 While BLM was well-supported among Black

Americans at this time, it was rare to see any White public figure, news agency, social media

platform, or corporation openly support the movement.

Now consider more recent events. Since 2017, public opinion has changed fairly

rapidly. After the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, as well as

data showing the health effects of COVID-19 were far worse for African Americans than other

groups in the U.S., support for Black Lives Matter grew even more sharply. As mass protests

occurred around the country, support for BLM grew among Americans — even White

Americans — while opposition fell. Individuals, public figures, and corporations from Coca-

Cola to Netflix to Amazon to even Gushers candy expressed public support for Black Lives

Matter. Many Confederate monuments are being removed.2 The Mississippi legislature voted

to change their state flag to remove the Confederate symbol from it.3 Of course, some

Americans always supported the BLM movement. But for many, voicing public support for BLM

changed from being against the norm, to being the norm.

Figure 1: Public Opinion of the Black Lives Matter Movement

Why? What makes any behavior deviant or not? And what about criminal behavior? 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?

(Source)

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We’ll investigate these questions in this chapter. We 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 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 move from the abstract to the concrete: How has violence

changed over time, and what can be done to prevent it?

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.4 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.5

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?

Figure 2: Support for Same-Sex

Marriage

(Source)

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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

when entering someone’s house. 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 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.6 Imagine

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.7

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 example is the

attention recording artist Lizzo has gotten for her body. She routinely wears bodysuits onstage,

posts nude photos of herself on social media, and refuses to apologize for her body, which has

drawn controversy. Also controversial was a TikTok video montage she posted of herself

working out, with a voiceover that said in part, “So, I've been working out consistently for the

last five years. It may come as a surprise to some of y'all that I'm not working out to have your

ideal body type. I'm working out to have my ideal body type.”

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?

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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 – over-heated, short-lived

periods of intense social concern over an issue.8 Sociologist

Howard S. Becker argued that in a moral panic, moral

entrepreneurs push for increased awareness of and concern

over an issue.9 There’s usually heightened social concern

over it, increased hostility toward those believed to be

responsible, and some degree of agreement over both the

problem and who’s responsible.10 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.11

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%.12 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.13 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.14

Fatshionistas like to break

societal fashion rules.

(Source)

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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.15 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.16 “Coming

out” for fat people isn’t a simple declaration of

their weight; it’s a “refusal to cover.”17 As

Kathleen Lebesco writes, coming out as fat is making a public declaration of “choosing to no

longer pass as on-the-way-to thin,” and acknowledging their stigmatized status.18

The reaction to our behavior can change the way we see ourselves and our identity,

possibly even reinforcing the behavior. Labeling theory argues that deviance isn’t really about

the act itself, but is negotiated socially through reactions to the act.19 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.20 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 may lead 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.

Moral panics about Snapchat have largely

subsided. (Source)

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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REVIEW SHEET: INTERPRETING DEVIANCE

CLICK THE LINK FOR:

LEARNING OBJECTIVES KEY QUESTIONS

AUDIO KEY POINTS

PRACTICE QUIZ KEY PEOPLE

VOCABULARY CROSSWORD PUZZLES KEY TERMS

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.21 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.22 Christine Chubbuck killed herself on live television.

Why did she do it? According to news reports, she was extremely depressed.23 But they

also reported that it was more complicated than that. She didn’t have any friends or romantic

partners.24 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.25 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.26 This hurt her career and put her at

odds with the station manager.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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. A

number of sociological theories of deviance 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 d eviance

Émile Durkheim argued that deviance is a social fact that is inevitable and stable in

societies.27 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 limits 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 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

A reporter gives an on-location report.

(Source)

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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 a 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.28 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. 29 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.

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,

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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 +/- +/-

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 very 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 (making lots of 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.30 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.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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 view

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.31

On January 6, 2021, the United States experienced one of the greatest acts of rebellion

in modern history. As Congress began executing its constitutional duties to certify the results of

the 2020 Presidential election between Joe Biden (Democrat) and Donald Trump

(Republican), thousands of protesters marched to Capitol Hill chanting “Stop the Steal”—the

organizational theme and protest message that the 2020 election was “stolen” in various

states and jurisdictions, leading to then-President Trump’s defeat.32 The protest ultimately gave

way to a full-scale riot, as protesters stormed Congress, destroyed and defaced public

property, raided congressional offices, and issued death threats to both Democratic and

Republican leaders who were certifying the election results for Biden. Ultimately, one police

officer and one protester died in the melee, and several other officers and protesters died in

the aftermath from suicide and other medical conditions. Dozens more were injured in the

scuffle between Capitol Hill police and the rioters. In the aftermath of this seditious rebellion,

the Department of Justice has charged hundreds of protesters from across the nation for their

unauthorized breach of the Capitol Building.33

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.34 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.35 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 proximity and norms of

delinquency provide an illegitimate opportunity to take on the role of deviant.36 So, what

separates the deviant from the non-deviant? Cloward and Ohlin suggest that in many ways, it

comes down to access.37

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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Conflict theories of d eviance

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.38 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.39 Some of these children were as

young as six.40 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.41 Pressure mounted, and the city of

Birmingham negotiated a “truce” with Martin Luther King.42 The city also fired Bull Connor.43

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 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.

A segregated drinking fountain. (Source)

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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For a more current example, consider the debates

over wearing face masks to protect the public against

COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) and public health scientists say masks control the

spread of the virus and could save lives.44 Yet there are no

national laws compelling people to wear face masks. While

some localities do have laws that mandate wearing face

masks, at least 18 states and Washington, D.C. have laws

that penalize those who wear masks. Though “…[m]any of

these face-covering laws were enacted to target the Ku

Klux Klan’s use of masks and hoods to conceal their

identity,” some local leaders repurposed them to outlaw

wearing masks in public more generally. As a result, wearing

a mask has been strongly politicized by some: witness the

woman in this photo throwing her groceries out of her cart

after being asked to wear a face mask in a store. The

questions a conflict theorist would ask in this situation is, who

benefits from these anti-masking laws, and at whose

expense?

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.45 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.46 One result is

remarkable levels of cooperation and agreement about policymaking. Mills argued that these

elites assume their interests are also society’s best interests.

(Source: Screencap from Twitter)

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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.47 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 sometimes outright support) of everyone else.48 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 suggests that

deviance is a learned behavior, just like any

other. Sutherland’s theory describes a process

through which we engage in deviant

behavior.49 In this process, we learn behavior

through intimate personal contacts, such as family and friends. This is a clear contrast with the

Mills argues that societies are run by a small group of the

wealthiest, most well-connected people. (Source)

A little IT humor, in cross-stitch. (Source)

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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 largely to attitudes that encourage rule-breaking, we’re more likely to

become delinquent.50

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.51 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.

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.52 You can share photos on

Facebook of Mid-Century Modern-style lamps.53 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”).54

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.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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REVIEW SHEET: THEORIES & PERSPECTIVES ON DEVIANCE

CLICK THE LINK FOR:

LEARNING OBJECTIVES KEY QUESTIONS

AUDIO KEY POINTS

PRACTICE QUIZ KEY PEOPLE

VOCABULARY CROSSWORD PUZZLES KEY TERMS

CRIME AND VIOLENCE

 What is a crime and who is a criminal?

 Why do people commit crime?

 What makes crime more or less likely?

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 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

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 19

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?55

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 dead 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 since been dismissed.

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.56

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 a person’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.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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 3 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.

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.

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.57

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.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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Figure 3: Marijuana Legalization as of May, 2020

(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.58

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.

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, few individuals 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

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 22

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 are

shockingly high.

Sociologists Andrew Papachristos and Chris Wildeman studied shooting victims in

Chicago, focusing on a social network of high-risk young people who had come into contact

with the law at some point.59 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 consider 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, 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.60 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 (unity) and trust among

residents.61 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).62 And police departments all over the country have

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 23

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.63

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

CLICK THE LINK FOR:

LEARNING OBJECTIVES KEY QUESTIONS

AUDIO KEY POINTS

PRACTICE QUIZ KEY PEOPLE

VOCABULARY CROSSWORD PUZZLES KEY TERMS

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?

 What factors have led to the decline in violence in the U.S.?

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, if you take a

long-term perspective, 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.64

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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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 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.”65

Fortunately, he was wrong. As shown in Figure 4, the homicide rate dropped from 1993 to 1994,

and 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 2014.66 Based on historical

records, 2014 was probably one of the safest years in U.S. history.67 The homicide rate rose in

2015 and 2016, then stabilized, and fell slightly in 2017 and 2018. As we update this chapter in the

summer of 2020, many cities are again worried about a recent rise in shootings and murders.68

But it is important to distinguish between short-term fluctuations and long-term trends. Over a

period of a few months or even a couple of years, the level of violence can rise or fall quickly.

When we take a longer view, however, it becomes clear that we are still living in one of the

safest eras of our nation’s history.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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Figure 4: U.S. Homicide Rate, 1960-2018

Source: F.B.I. Uniform Crime Reports

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?

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 FBI, 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.69 What

about 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.70 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.

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

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 26

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 Uni ted 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.71 In some regions of the world, extreme violence

is a common aspect of daily life for most people. 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 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.72 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-

A rally against gun violence in Annapolis, Maryland.

(Source)

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 27

reliance had already 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.73

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 government agencies that fund most research on health, disease, and causes

of death, are prohibited by law from funding studies or programs that can be interpreted to

“advocate or promote gun control.”74 This prohibition has been applied broadly, effectively

discouraging these agencies from providing funds for any research related to gun violence.

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 violent crime: homicide.75 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 the ideologies of meritocracy (that success is based on hard work and

talent) 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, argues 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.76 Merton called this relative deprivation.

The theory of relative deprivation suggests that inequality, not poverty, may be the

crucial dimension of a society that predicts how much crime and violence there will be. The

available evidence provides some support for this view. States with higher murder rates tend

to be those with higher levels of inequality, and nations with greater gaps between the rich

and the poor have higher rates of violence.77 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.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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The Great American Crime Decline

The reality of violence in the United States leads 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, 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?

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 more law enforcement reduced crime.

 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 in 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.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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 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 drop in crime.78 Criminologist Franklin Zimring, who

has written extensively on the crime decline, argues that a range of social conditions (an

improving economy, a decrease 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.79 A recent, comprehensive report looks at 13 different factors that have been

proposed as explanations for the crime reduction, 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.80 Others,

including one of the authors of this chapter, have argued that the expansion of local

community organizations created to make neighborhoods safe and to provide supports for

residents also played a central role in contributing to the crime drop.81

Debates about the factors that led to the crime decline are controversial and remain

unsettled. The most contentious debates revolve around two core institutions in the United

States: law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 30

REVIEW SHEET: VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES AND BEYOND

CLICK THE LINK FOR:

LEARNING OBJECTIVES KEY QUESTIONS

AUDIO KEY POINTS

PRACTICE QUIZ KEY PEOPLE

VOCABULARY CROSSWORD PUZZLES KEY TERMS

CRIME, PUNISHMENT AND THE PREVENTION OF VIOLENCE

 What are the costs of aggressive policing and mass incarceration?

 How do incarceration and policing affect violence?

 What should a new model of policing and criminal justice look like?

On May 25th, 2020, a teenage clerk in a Minneapolis grocery store suspected that a

customer had used a counterfeit $20 bill, and called the police.82 The customer was George

Floyd, a regular at the store whom the owner knew well. But the owner wasn’t around that

day, and officers were called to the scene. The officers who responded to the call found Mr.

Floyd in a car around the corner. With his gun drawn, one officer ordered Floyd out of the car

and handcuffed him. Floyd was cooperative, but when the officers attempted to push him

into the police car, he struggled, explaining that he was claustrophobic. They eventually

pushed him to the ground, with his face down.

With Floyd subdued on the ground, one of the officers put his knee between Floyd’s head

and neck and knelt down, pressing him into the ground. The officer remained in that position

for almost eight minutes, while Floyd lay face-down and repeatedly told the officer he

couldn’t breathe. Floyd became unresponsive, and died.

The sickening video of George Floyd’s murder led to massive protests against police

brutality and racial injustice in hundreds of cities across the country. It has added new energy

and new urgency to the movement to end the style of aggressive, often violent, policing that

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 31

has become common in many cities, and to consider new approaches to confronting violent

crime. Before we consider what comes next, however, it is worth considering how did we got

here.

Mass incarceration

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 exploded to more than 2.3 million.83

The rise in 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, 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 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.84

While research on the impact of incarceration on crime is mixed and uncertain, the

costs of our nation’s expansive prison system are very clear. Being incarcerated makes it

exceedingly difficult for individuals to return to society, form healthy relationships, support a

family, maintain a stable job, and take part in civic life. The impact of imprisonment extends to

the next generation, as a growing share of children now experience a period of life in which a

parent is incarcerated.85

Beyond these tangible impacts of incarceration, an expanding group of activists,

researchers, and politicians argue that the prison system 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. Perhaps the most influential voice against mass incarceration is

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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Michelle Alexander, a civil rights lawyer and legal scholar who argues that mass incarceration

represents the latest in a series of institutions and policies designed to reinforce a racialized

caste system in the United States.86 Her argument aligns with the writings of Ta-Nehisi Coates,

who points toward the systems of law enforcement and criminal justice as part of a broader

structure built on the ideology of white supremacy.87 The prison, according to both writers, is

something more than a tool used to improve public safety. It is part of a system designed to

maintain racial inequality.

Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, reached a wider audience than any previous

scholarship on incarceration, and it resonated with readers in a way that is extremely rare for

an academic book. 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 past, present, and future of policing in the United States

Debates about policing often devote little attention to an important question: Do

police actually reduce crime and violence? After a long period in which most criminologists

believed that police were powerless to control crime, recent evidence has led to a new

conclusion.

During the 1990s, federal funding enabled cities to hire more than 60,000 new officers,

increasing the number of police officers per each American (the per capita rate) by around

14%.88 The funds were distributed at different times, which allowed researchers to look at when

new officers were hired and whether there was any noticeable impact on crime. They found

strong evidence suggesting that the influx of new officers on the street led to a clear 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.89

The accumulation of evidence has led to the conclusion that more police on the street

typically translates into less crime. Economist Steven Levitt looked at 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 decline during that decade.90

While this evidence is important, it ignores the staggering costs of policing. Now that we

have cellphones with video cameras, those costs have become much more visible to a larger

segment of the public. Millions of Americans watched the video of Eric Garner choked to

death in Staten Island and the video of 12-year-old Tamir Rice shot and killed in a park in

Cleveland. Millions more saw a former police officer and his son track down and kill Ahmaud

Arbery in Georgia, and then watched the officer in Minneapolis kill George Floyd. These are

the incidents caught on video, but there are thousands of less extreme routine interactions

that we don’t see. And this has been going on for a long time.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

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Historian Kahlil Gibran Muhammad documents how the institution of law enforcement

has suppressed and inflicted violence on Black people from its origins, when the first “police”

forces in the American South were formed as slave patrols used to find runaway slaves and

return them to their owners. Muhammad shows how Black Americans’ attempts to achieve

freedom, to obtain fair employment, to resist injustice, and to function in society without

discrimination have repeatedly been defined as criminal from the time of slavery to the

present. Research in cities like New York has provided conclusive evidence that the most

aggressive forms of policing have targeted non-White communities, particularly African

Americans.91 Other research shows that surges of aggressive policing have a negative effect

on educational outcomes for African Americans, and the shock and stress caused by police

shootings lead to tangible, negative educational outcomes for children throughout a

community.92

Front pages from New York City tabloids after the officer who killed

Eric Garnerduring an arrest was acquitted. (Source)

Even if most interactions between police officers and residents are polite and

respectful, videos showing officers choking, abusing, or killing citizens have shed light on a

pattern that is unacceptable to most Americans. And the video of George Floyd’s murder was

the last straw. After protests throughout the country, change is happening. In Minneapolis, the

city government voted to “dismantle” its police department and rethink the role of police in

the city. Elsewhere, cities like Los Angeles have moved to “defund the police” by shifting

resources from police budgets to other agencies that provide services, like jobs programs or

mental health treatment, to residents of the city. Black Lives Matter, a movement to end

police violence against Black Americans and to work against all forms of racial injustice, has

emerged as one of the largest and most successful social movements of our time.

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 34

The next model for how to confront violence and crime in the U.S. is unsettled. Protests

against police violence and mass incarceration reached a peak in the summer of 2020, and

reforms of policing and criminal justice policy began to be implemented across the country.

At the same time, President Donald Trump has continued to voice unequivocal support for law

enforcement, and is campaigning for reelection on a platform of “law and order.” We live in a

moment of change, and it is a fascinating time to study and take part in debates about

policing and criminal justice policy, to consider the theories we’ve covered in this chapter,

and to think hard about what the next model to control violence should look like.

REVIEW SHEET: CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND THE PREVENTION OF

VIOLENCE

CLICK THE LINK FOR:

LEARNING OBJECTIVES KEY QUESTIONS

AUDIO KEY POINTS

PRACTICE QUIZ KEY PEOPLE

VOCABULARY CROSSWORD PUZZLES KEY TERMS

Deviance, Crime, and Violence (Fall 2021)

Page 35

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that Do Not.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 18(1): 163-190. 91 Gelman, Amanda, Jeffrey Fagan, and Alex Kiss. 2007. “An Analysis of the New York City Police Department’s

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Economics.

Cover photo: Police by Chad Davis; CC by 2.0