Sociology of Crime - Essay Example

Sociology of Crime Question To what extent do the Public Perceptions of crime match the reality? Crime has consistently been a major focus for the government over the past decades. A raft of new legislations has been introduced since 1997 in an attempt to try and tackle the challenges of crime. These legislations have created a situation where more police officers have now been hired, the sentencing for crimes is tougher and the crime rate has experienced a significant decrease. However, there still remains a relatively major gap between public perception and these measurable facts pertaining to crime. Research has consistently shown that the public still thinks that crime rates are continually soaring and that personal safety has been negatively impacted as it has steadily been declining. The main culprit that has been identified by the public as being solely responsible for the increasing crime rate is the government. This misconception pertaining to crime poses a serious challenge as the ratings of how governments are able to deal with crime have been identified as being key drivers of overall view of the current government as well as the quality of life that its citizens are able to enjoy (Duffy and Bobby et al. 2). The issues pertaining to crime have been identified as being a staple topic of political campaigns and media coverage. Ever since the 1968 U.S. presidential election when the then Republican candidate Richard Nixon actively campaigned on the promise of restoring order and law, subsequent presidential candidates have been promising to do the same and this is identified as having further fuelled the public misconception of crime. According to Duffy and Bobby et al. (12) Mass media has been identified as being a relatively powerful amplifying mechanism in respect to the coverage of crime. However, this has led to the development of a series of misconceptions pertaining to increased crime rate. In the media coverage of crime, a key element of this coverage is the overall seriousness of the crime. The more serious a crime is identified as being, the higher its chances of being reported. As a result of using seriousness as the key news criterion when reporting about crime, the media has at times over-reported crimes that are very unlikely to occur. This has served to present to the public a misconstrued perception of the world in relation to the occurrence of criminal activities. In reality, the more serious a given crime is, the less the likelihood of its happening. A number of high-profile criminal cases have over the years been instrumental in raising the public perception in relation to some violent crimes. These cases such as the OJ Simpson murder trial and the recent shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson have also played a key contributing role in the public misconception of crime in the country. Public officials and the media have an active role to play in the reduction of the gap between the currently existing public perception of crime and its actual reality in the country. The irrational fear that the public has in relation to crime can have a number of dire consequences for our society. This is because when people start taking unnecessary precautions based on the fear of crime, this tends to restrict not only their lives, but also that of their children. Fears over crime have caused the American society to not only restrict its freedom, but also to do so unnecessarily. Question 2: The Extent to which there are gender-based differences in the rates of offending and in the types of crimes that offenders tend to commit. According to Heimer (427), One of the most persistent findings in research pertaining to criminology is that men generally tend to commit more crimes as compared to women. This gap in criminality between the different genders is commonly referred to as the gender gap in offending. Gender has been identified as being the single best predictor of criminal behavior. The distinction of men committing more crimes than women has been proven to hold true across history for all groups, societies as well as in nearly every category of crime. The universality of this fact is quite remarkable and it is still in play today. Females have been shown to have lower arrest rates than males for virtually all categories of crime except for prostitution. Data released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics has shown that in the United States, women generally constitute less than 20 percent of arrest for most categories of crime. Females also have a much lower representation than males in the more serious categories of crime. The total extent of female arrests since the 1960s has been less than 15% for aggravated assault and homicide. It has also been less than 10 percent for serious property crimes; such as robbery and burglary (Cooper and Smith 2). An analysis of the homicide rates in the country provides a clear outlook into the different crime rates between the genders. Males in the United States commit a larger proportion of homicides in the country and this proportion has at times been estimated to represent up to about 90% of the total number of offenders. However, the overall offending rate for both males and females in the country has been on a decline since the 1990s. This aspect is shown by data released by the US Department of Justice that indicates that homicide rates in the country have undergone a sharp decrease from the 1992 high of an average of 9.3 homicides per 100,000 individuals to an estimated 4.8 homicides per 100,000 as at 2010. The offending rate for females committing homicide was estimated as at 1.6 offenders per 100,000 as at 2008 while offending males stood at 11.3 per 100,000 during the same time period. Additional data from the U.S. DOJ also shows that in 2008, males were about 7 times more likely than females to engage in the violent crime of murder (Cooper and smith, 9). The acts of violence that women engage in generally tend to to be fewer and less serious injuries as compared to males. Property crimes committed by females also result in less property damage and less monetary losses. Females are also less likely than males to become repeat offenders as long-term careers among women are found to be quite rare as compared to their male counterparts. Although Heimer (427) argues that the gender gap in offending has narrowed over the years, it is still evident that males tend to commit more crimes than females. Crimes committed by males also tend to be more serious and violent and compared to those committed by female offenders. Question 3: The Main Differences between (a) the developmental approach and (b) the life course approach to the study of patterns of criminal behavior over time. The developmental approach to the study of criminal behavior is seen to share its initial origins with the developmental psychology. Developmental psychology generally concerns itself with both the examination of the initial roots of human development as well as the unique psychological changes that may happen to occur to individuals over the course of their life-spans. While the developmental approach focuses on the unique psychological changes that might influence an individual, the life course approach to the study of patterns of criminal behavior over time is seen to focus on the examination of a given individual’s life history. It attempts to establish how the events that occur in an individual’s early life influence the decisions that the individual makes in future pertaining to their engagement in crime. In the study of the patterns of criminal behavior over time, the life course perspective is primarily based on social structure and is seen to greatly elaborate the importance of process, context, time as well as the meaning of family life and human development (Kazemian and Oxford University Press 5). The approach considers the family to essentially be a micro-social group that exists within the macro-social context of a diverse group of individuals that happen to share history in addition to their interacting in what is an ever-changing social context. On the other hand, the developmental approach to the study of criminal behavior over time tends to place a greater degree of focus on various psychological factors so as to explain developmental processes in criminality. According to Helfgott and Meloy (64), the developmental approach examines the psychological science of exactly how criminal behavior is acquired, maintained, modified and eventually ended. Question 4: The extent to which Restorative Justice and Re-integrative Shaming are an improvement on the dominant approaches to offender punishment and rehabilitation in today’s United States. A crucial area of study in criminology has been identified as being criminal study. Although the dominant approaches to offender rehabilitation and punishment in today’s United States have tried to attain the goals of deterrence, incapacitation, restitution or rehabilitation, they have largely been unable to achieve successes on a wide scale. This has resulted in the formulation of various new criminology theories such as Re-integrative shaming and restorative justice that attempt to approach the purpose of punishment from what is a re-integrating position with the aim of preventing the occurrence of future crimes. Restorative justice is seen to greatly improve upon the traditional criminal justice system in that it attempts to try and view criminal acts in a more comprehensive manner. As opposed to simply defining crime as lawbreaking, it recognizes that offenders tend to greatly harms communities, their victims and at times even themselves. As opposed to the country’s traditional justice system, restorative justice measures success differently. Whereas the traditional justice system measures how much punishment has generally been inflicted, restorative justice measures its success by evaluating how much harm has successfully been prevented or repaired (Zernova 30). Restorative justice also improves on the traditional justice system in that it is able to recognize the crucial role that is played by community initiative and involvement in the reduction and responding to crime. It involves more parties in the form of communities and victims in the solution of the problem of crime. In this respect, restorative justice does not leave the problem of crime to be dealt with by the government alone (Zernova 30). Re-integrative shaming on the other hand improves on the country’s criminal justice system as it greatly emphasizes the crucial role played by shame in criminal punishment. As opposed to punishment being focused on the offender, the theory postulates that punishment should instead be focused on the offender’s behavior. In re-integrative shaming, the offender is treated empathetically and respectfully as a good person who happens to have done a bad act. Special efforts are made to show the wrong doers just how valued they happen to be after the wrongful act has been sufficiently confronted (Cullen, Wright and Belvins 397). Works Cited Cooper, Alexia, and Erica L. Smith. "Homicide trends in the United States, 1980-2008." Bureau of Justice Stastistics (BJS). Department of Justice. Reports & Trends. Washignton, DC: BJS (2011): 36. Cullen, Francis T, John P. Wright, and Kristie R. Blevins. Taking Stock: The Status of Criminological Theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2006. Print. Duffy, Bobby, et al. "Closing the gaps–crime and public perceptions."International Review of Law Computers & Technology 22.1-2 (2008): 17-44. Heimer, Karen. "Changes in the gender gap in crime and women’s economic marginalization." Criminal justice 1 (2000): 427-483. Helfgott, Jacqueline B, and J R. Meloy. Criminal Psychology. , 2013. Print. Kazemian and Oxford University Press. Developmental and Life-Course Criminology. Oxford University Press, 2010. Print. Zernova, Margarita. Restorative Justice: Ideals and Realities: International and Comparative Criminal Justice. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2013. Print. Read More