True or False
U.S. incarceration rates increased at the same time U.S. crime rates decreased.
True
the criminal legal system for Marx?
maintain the smooth functioning of the capitalist economy and protect the interests of the powerful (bourgeoisie)
What are three reasons the news covers crime incorrectly?
1. News values (stories about conflict between good and evil are newsworthy)
2. Organizational needs (i.e. need to make profits)
3. Reliance on official sources (government and law enforcement officials perceived as authoritative)
Crime is behavior the authorities label criminal
Symbolic Interactionist (Howard Becker)
A worker recently lost his job and has become homeless. He was sleeping in the door front of a local business, but the shop owner called the police and he was told to move along or he would be arrested for trespassing.
Marxist understanding of crime and the criminal justice system
The news covers violent crime because it occurs most frequently in the U.S.
False - property crime is 7 times more common than violent crime
punishment for a structural functionalist (Durkheim)?
To reinforce our shared commitment to moral values
Wacquant's definition of hyperincarceration focuses on three components. What are they?
1. Class - poor people are incarcerated the most
2. Race - Black incarceration has increased sharply
3. Place - targets "remnants of the ghetto"
Structural Functionalism (Emile Durkheim)
Crime is behavior that offends our shared moral values (collective consciousness)
A wall-street banker goes to a party where his colleagues are talking and laughing about a new way to secretly move small amounts of money to a private account. Later, he decides to try it out himself even though he knows it's not allowed under U.S. law.
Sutherland's theory crime called of differential association
Bill Clinton's policies on crime and punishment were as punitive as the Republican presidents before him.
True - Democrats did not want to appear weak on crime in the 1990s.
building new prisons, according to Ruth Wilson Gilmore?
Solve the problems of surplus:
1. Labor (create new jobs)
2. Lands (use idle farms)
3. Finance Capital (safe government loans)
4. State Capacity (bureaucracy from New Deal)
What are three key "rules" of understanding crime using a symbolic interactionist lens, according to Becker?
1. Not every rule-breaker will be labeled deviant
2. Not every person labeled deviant has actually broken a rule
3. Whether an act is considered deviant depends on how people react to it
Crime is behavior that threatens the relations of production in capitalist societies
Marxian theory (Steven Spitzer)
A woman really wants a new pair of earrings to go with her outfit, but she has recently spent all of her money and can't afford to buy them. She quickly slips them into her pocket and walks out of the store.
Structural functionalist cause of crime - Strain/frustration caused by the disparity between
goals and means
False - shifts in political rhetoric cannot be explained by increases in fear of crime
1. Win over swing voters
2. Avoid looking "soft on crime"
3. Associate crime with Black people (racially-coded rhetoric)
List three of Forman's critiques of Alexander's New Jim Crow theory of the criminal justice system.
1. Obscures history (crime in Black communities)
2. Black leaders support for punitive policies
3. Minimizes violent crime
4. Obscures the role of class (wealth/education)
5. Overlooks other impacted racial groups
Race-based Theory (W.E.B. du Bois)
Crime is the open rebellion of an individual against the wrong social conditions
A teen boy lives in a neighborhood that is predominately Black, heavily policed and lacks job opportunities for youth. He is stopped and searched by a police officer on his way home from school.
Du Bois's theory of the "wrong social conditions"
Marx believed that the criminal justice system is shaped by capitalist relations of production,
and, it turn, it maintains and legitimates capitalist relations of production.
True - Economic base shapes ideological superstructure; the ideological superstructure maintains the economic base
prisonfare for Wacquant?
Responding to poverty, urban decay, and social insecurity by boosting and deploying the police, the courts, and prisons.
Name three laws or policies associated with the increased punititiveness during the "tough on crime" period.
1. Mandatory minimums
2. Three strikes laws
3. Death penalty for some drug-related crimes
4. Weaken defendant protections (Supreme Court)
5. Restricted ability to challenge racial discrimination (Supreme Court)
Differential Association Theory (Sutherland)
Crime is learned in association with those who define such behavior favorably and in isolation
from those who define it unfavorably
A judge sentences one man to the mandatory minimum of 5 years in prison for possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine. The next drug case she hears is club promoter who was arrested with 500 grams of powder cocaine. She also sentences him to the mandatory minimum of 5 years. The difference between how the court handles these two different crimes is best explained by what theorist from Module 2?
Alexander's understanding that the criminal legal system is the latest version of the U.S. racial caste system (New Jim Crow).