SOCI 304 1st Edition Lecture 6 Outline of Last Lecture I Crime Trends Outline of Current Lecture II Race crime III Theoretical Perspective IV Immigration and crime V Police and black males VI Crime Justice system and race ethnicity a Sentencing research b War on drugs VII Latinos and violent crime Current Lecture Race and Crime In 2006 70 of all arrest were whites White collar crime Violent and Property crime Disproportionally race and arrest rate Intra racial crime crime within the same racial group such as homicide Race Ethnicity crime patterns Latinos have higher rates of serious crime and victimization than non Hispanic whites but have lower rates than blacks Theoretical Perspectives Sampson and Wilson 1995 o Communities Shaw and McKay high rates of delinquency persisted in certain areas of Chicago over many years regardless of population turnover Individuals living in the communities changed but the high rates of delinquency remained These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute No matter what group is in the inter circle the city there will still be more crime in that area The emphasis is on the community rather than the individuals Consider that race crime associations are due to community conditions Individualistic Fallacy race crime association may be spurious Crime is being caused by the neighborhood Race and crime has to do with the context where we live The basic thesis is that macro sociological patterns of residential inequality give rise to the social isolation and ecological concentration of the truly disadvantaged o Which in turn leads to structural barriers and cultural adaptations that undermine social organizations and hence the control of crime Sampson and Wilson If we don t have social control it will lead to more crime Neighborhoods o Why are Latino violent crime rates lower than black rates Level of poverty latino neighborhoods tend to be less poor Immigration higher immigration lower level of crime Relations with police Less isolated segregated neighborhoods What is the relationship between immigration and crime o Study of violence in Chicago as you increase immigration decrease crime o Immigration is a protective force against crime o Found a lower rate of violence among Mexican Americans compared to blacks and whites o First generation of immigrates have a lower crime rate The more time immigrates spend in the US they higher crime rates Generational crime Ethnographic Approaches spending time in a community and observing o Fieldwork field notes o Participant observation o In depth interviews o Issues emerge explored in detail Streetwise Anderson 1990 Compared two communities Village vs Northton Village o Diverse community heterogeneous o The better off neighborhood o Period of change in economy from manufacturing to service oriented economy o People were starting to make property investments Northon o Disadvantaged o Exodus of more advantaged o Contributes to construction of a local underclass o People who had more resources started to leave the community which made the neighborhood worse The impact on drugs on this study o Underground economy o New heads involved in drug economy become role models They were the influence the Northon community o Drugs become more pervasive low social control and more crime o You had to become very street smart to survive in this type of community Fear of crime concerns on safety village complex social interactions This became a bind for young black males victimized by two sides They constantly had to show they were decent people They were hit with a bad stereotype Master status young black male Instead of seeing them as a person they see them as a young black person They base their interactions on them being black The idea is that crime was associated with young black males Negotiation of public spaces The police and Black Male o Go limp they learned to take an approach with the police so they don t get into trouble such as neing nice and appropriate o ID card using student id to show they are part of the society o Downtown police they had a less clear understanding of the community Criminal Justice System and Race Ethnicity Key terms o Discrimination Overt When a black person and a white person did the same crime but the black person would have to do more time Subtle Built into institutions in society Blacks tend to be more questions by the police and leads to more people being picked up by the system War on Drugs tonry easier to focus on drugs in lower crimes than it is to detect it on wall street because police look for it lower class neighborhoods o Arrest o Space Penalties o Crack cocaine punished more severely than powder cocaine o White people had access to powder cocaine and black people had access to crack cocaine o Racial disparities in type of drug used differential punishment for each drug leads to racial disparities in incarceration o 1 gm of crack 100 grams of powder o Defendants who had 5 grams of crack 5 year sentence o 2007 US sentencing commissions recommended congress address lengthy mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine offenses The law were racially disproportion o 2010 August 3 Obama signs legislation to reduce sentencing disparities between crack and cocaine offenses o New law reduced 100 to 1 disparity to 18 to 1 Making it more equal but it is still unequal Gender and Crime Police victimization self report data concur in finding men s rates of serious offending are higher than women s Males outnumber females in arrested for homicide 90 Gartner o However sex differences in victimization are smaller than differences in offending o Again the more serious the violence the greater the sex differences in victimization o 80 of homicide victims in US are male Why the gender gap o Socialization masculinity femininity o Differential opportunities o Attachments o Delinquent peers Liberation Hypothesis Holds there is an association between improvement in women s economic and political position and levels of crime particularly violent crime Economic Marginalization Hypothesis Disadvantage influences both male and female involvement in violent crime Steffensmeier Issue increases female arrest rate for violent crimes in UCR Compare UCR to NCVS data latter less affected by policy change Two hypothesis to explain o Behavior change o Policy change Behavior Change Hypothesis Women s lives have