What Is Sociological Imagination - Essay Example

June 6, Q Sociological imagination from a sociologist’s point of view is the ability for one to comprehend that whatever affects the individual is continuously shaped or influenced by the surrounding or the people around him. The study of sociological imagination is closely linked to that of criminology in the sense that crime has been identified as one of the most important factors that affects how an individual behaves in his surroundings. Criminologists especially those who are influenced by the sociological tradition always base their analysis on the world as it is at the point of analysis and how it grows bearing in mind that crime and disorder are some of the most important factors that changes the society as it is. Criminology in a broader sense is an organized way of thinking and talking about crime as committed by criminals and how to control it. Sociological imagination can be used in the imagination of crime as it helps a person see how the private or personal trouble can be affected by happenings in the public. It therefore helps us understand how our daily lives is affected by the social forces that have a direct control on what we choose, the opportunities that are available to us. It helps in the understanding how individual characters are closely related to the broader relationships that we have amongst ourselves. Sociology is the study of the social behavior, the systems and the structures in place and may have a bearing on criminology either through structural or processes. Socio-structural criminology evaluates how social situations and structures play a key role in influencing the disposition of a person to behave criminally. It explains how crime can effect a change on the society or a particular environment. There is also the social-process criminology that explains how a person may turn out to be a criminal through learned behavior. Through the interaction of a person with criminals, a person is likely to develop a criminal character through the association with the criminals themselves. Criminologists always emphasize the role that ethnicity or race, gender and class may play as some of the tenets in which the society is developed, race or ethnicity affects how a person is perceived in terms of social imagination and it may play a key role in criminology. For example, stereotypes or beliefs based on the race or the ethnicity of a person may have a direct bearing on how the media and the public views a person and the policies that the government put in place regarding crime. Class plays a key role with regard to the perception of crime in the sense that persons who occupy the lower classes tend to be associated with crimes as evidenced by strong government scrutiny on their activities. Criminologists therefore relate high levels of inequality in terms of economic capabilities to the high levels of crime experienced in the streets, this is contrary to white-collar crime associated with the rich who in most cases have the organizational capacity. Q.1 b Sociology is the foremost discipline amongst the social sciences, this is because it studies human existence in the society, and sociological imagination is a derivative of this notion: the attempt to create a world in which human beings exercise dominion over nature but not with one another. This ambition of human dominance is well articulated through sociological imagination, a term that was initially devised by American sociologist Wright Mills in the 1959 in his book The Sociological Imagination. Sociological imagination has been widely accepted among sociologists to mean the ability to clearly evaluate and understand social problems as an outcome of the wider society comprising of the context, the actors and the actions. Sociological imagination should be able to express a clear awareness of the relationship between historical and cultural factors in shaping society’s troubles. The individual should be able to step out of the confines of his own problems to have a good understanding of why certain problems face specific societies. The basic concepts (the actors) that may shape a certain outcome in a society include the society’s norms, cultural traditions (customs), economy, education and laws. Social norms are the standard behaviors and values that the society expects every individual to up hold which more often than not lead to social construction whereby a society’s individuals are taught to accept certain values as the universal truth without questioning. Social imagination challenges the society to step outside of such conventional understandings; the individual is encouraged to exercise sociological imagination by questioning social norms and why certain people may choose to act outside of such norms. Sociological imagination aids in enlightening a comprehensive study of crime, which consequently sets perspectives in the discipline of criminology. Criminology is a field of study that uses theoretical explanation and empirical research findings to understand societal deviant behavior, known as crime, and it pursues the concept further by focusing on the process of making law, and societal reaction to the process and law breaking. Criminology studies therefore relates to the attempt in understanding crime as a social issue defined by the consequences of social relations and the society’s organizational structure rather than an individual’s actions. The major components of social structures that influence social interactions include inequality and power especially those based on class, race and gender which existed prior to an individual’s interaction with the society and constrains them from having any impact or change over them. These structures make part of a society’s norms and traditions. Sociological imagination is therefore critical to understanding criminology in a society because it encourages the members of the society to evaluate ways through which social influence affect the process of selective application of criminal law to social deviant behavior, a phenomenon that renders specific groups or individuals more vulnerable while the privileged are less vulnerable or immune from law enforcement. Q.2 Deviance from a society’s established norms defines expected social behaviors and values are generally criminalized. However, if such behavior interferes with the normal functionality of a society or engages actions that impede the ability of individuals, it is considered as public order crime. Public order crime is distinguished from other crimes in that the former is a committed against the society’s shared norms, social values and customs rather than being committed against other people or property. It is different from political crime in that in public order crime, the character of the victim is often unidentifiable or obscure and therefore the whole society bears the consequences while in the latter the victim is usually the state. Public order crimes include acts of deviance from social norms such as drug abuse, prostitution; pedophilia and pornography which have been deemed criminal by a society but do not directly violate the rights of a specific individual are sometimes referred to as victimless crimes. Other crimes like parking offences, gambling or speeding are prohibited by the state simply because they are considered wrong even though they do not cause harm to an individual or a society, such crimes are referred to as mala prohibita-they are deemed wrong simply because they are outlawed by the state system. There has been considerable debate regarding criminalization of victimless crimes given that more often than not these crimes are committed by consenting adults who choose to engage in acts that are considered illegal or immoral by the society. Proponents of decriminalization of these crimes argue that morality cannot be legislated as freedom of choice of an individual to cause harm to none other than the society or statutory laws cannot take themselves away. Q.3 Political crimes are violent or non-violent acts committed by an individual or group of individuals, which the state might perceive as hostile, threatening or potentially able to prejudice the operations of the state, the political system or the state’s overall survival. These crimes do not have to act in a manner that may be perceived as a real threat to the society such as aims at overthrowing the government. Rather any advocacy for change or reforms of government’s policies by individuals or groups of individuals may be perceived as threatening to the survival of the state and branded as political criminal acts. Other acts that are generally considered as politically criminal include treason, espionage, sedition, terrorism, sabotage and unlawful protest. Individuals who are perceived by the state as political criminals are generally dissidents holding different political ideologies who are not satisfied with current government policies or the prevailing political system There has been a growing public concern about state response to what it perceives as political crimes. For example, in the United States, the constitution protects the right of individuals to freely assemble in a peaceful manner, express their views about issues affecting the society and policies adopted by the government, and to implore the government for redress of complaints. Any government restriction of these freedoms enshrined in the constitutional are considered as violation of citizen’s rights and government highhandedness. However, in liberal societies that allow political freedom, the state can usually target individuals who hold views that are in contravention of the government policies. Q.4 Property crime is the most prevalent category of crime, an estimated 1.5 million people who are in correctional facilities in the United States committed either of the sub categories of this type of crime. Crimes such as burglary, vandalism, arson, auto theft, cybercrime, theft, shoplifting, larceny con thieving amongst others constitute this category. A major feature differentiating this category from others such as terrorism and robbery is the fact that it does not involve the use of force, threat, or threat of force on from the criminal to the victim. Occasional property criminals commit these offences infrequently and they have little or no history with crime, they are mostly occasioned by the lack of technical knowledge on criminal maneuvers. The high prevalence of these crimes has necessitated stringent laws to curb their sprawling, more than three quarters of world population have supported the mechanisms that have been adopted to curb this menace. Occasional criminals are mainly shoplifters, vandals and other short time crimes such as arson. Conventional criminals commit crimes with some degree of regularity, committing crimes such as burglary, larceny and theft with a certain level of persistency. They may be considered to be semiprofessional criminals, and they have developed some history in the law enforce departments due their prevalence. Professional criminals on the hand live lavish lifestyles occasioned by acts of criminal activities; their criminal activity is highly organized. An obvious example is the heist conducted on the central Bank in Brazilian 2005, in which the criminals made away with up to $70 million, this heist involved a great deal of planning and organization, to this date, the masterminds of the Brazilian heist are yet to be brought to book. Q.5 This kind of crime though having existed prior in old times was given much prominence by a social scientist going by the name Edwin Sutherland. The initial definition given by Sunderland is that white-collar crime is a kind of crime committed by members of the society who are in positions of a higher social status and are respectable in the course of their occupation. Determination of when an offence can be deemed to be a white-collar crime is difficult because most of the time the crime is never reported to the relevant agencies as expected by the law. This may be due to the fear of victimization, shame or the apathetic feeling that reporting the crime may be futile. White-collar crimes are also rarely reported due to the ambiguities it presents, as most often the person who is to report will be ignorant as to whether a crime has occurred. White-collar crimes can result to economic losses suffered by the individual that can also be felt by the society, it also has consequences that may affect a person emotionally that may occur due to victimization or the violation of trust between the members of the company as well as reduction of morale to the public. At times white-collar crime may result into physical harm to the persons concerned in one way or the other through crime victimization. The studies by Sutherland uncovered numerous areas where white-collar crime could be unearthed mostly crimes that violated the antitrust laws through illegally fixing the prices, infringement of copyrights, unfair practices in the labor market. He states that the crimes that are majorly regulatory in nature escaped criminal prosecution as the corporations, which committed them wielded political and economic, clout and had massive patronage. Bonus Question Gender refers to the statuses and meanings that a man or a woman is assigned by the society he or she lives in right from birth. It plays an important role in the society and has numerous impacts on how the societal life is perceived in relation to criminology. In the early twentieth century, criminologists did not have any serious thought that there could exist female criminals or criminals of the female gender. This inequality means that the women could also be blamed or victimized even when they are the victims of the crime itself. Sociologists have therefore been put to task to explain the stereotypes that the women meet in the society especially in the work place, home, in school or within politics. It has been found that most women may suffer from what is known as institutional sexism that is being discriminated against due to their gender; for example, the US Supreme Court in the case of Bradwell v Illinois denied a woman the right to practice law before the honorable court. Moreover, almost every society ranks the genders according to power and believes that men and women are not equal; he states that most societies grant more power and rank to the men as compared to their female counterparts inclusive of privilege and prestige and these are called patriarchal societies. He gives the example of the United States where women earn are paid less as compared to their male counterparts, have little authority at the places of work and have less legal or political influence. The inequality in the perception of gender has also affected the men in the society in the sense that men are under pressure to exhibit superior qualities that are associated with strength and dominance as compared to their female counterparts. Traditionally, men have been forced to adopt mentality bordering on conquests and aggressiveness. Due to these inequalities, the society has found it acceptable to have the men dominate their women that always borders on oppression. Sociologically, the adverse effect of the inequality of women as compared to the men in the home is evident as men are allowed to impose their sexual desires on their female counterparts who are not allowed to express their sexual preferences or needs. The inequality between men and women as put forward in the society and the societal life has had an adverse impact on the men economically. This is because, they are compelled to compete in the work place with both men and women in order to provide for their families due to the stereotype placed on the man as the provider. Read More