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Racial disparities in sentencing
- black to white - 5.6:1
- 412 out of 100,000 whites
- 2,290 out of 100,000
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more likely to have criminal record than bachelors degree or military service
- Explanation for Racial Inequality in Sentencing
- Strain Theory
- Racial Threat Theory
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Explanations for Racial inequality in Sentencing
- Strain Theory
- Racial Threat Theory
- Life Course Analysis
- The War on Drugs
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Strain Theory
fewer educational, therefor legitimate economic opportunities lead to more crime (low income)
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Racial Threat Theory
- Blacks are incarcerated at a higher rate when there is a larger white population
- minorities are threat so police them more
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Life Course Analyse
- Things like education, jobs, marriage, have normalizing effect on life course
- But if incarcerated, can't go to school etc
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War on Drugs
- Mandatory Sentencing
- 3 strikes/habitual offenders
- 2/3rd of nonviolent drug incarcerated offenders are minorities
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Gender Gap in Offending Explinations
- Narrowing Gender Gap
- - Emancipation Hypothesis - women closing gap with everything else, why not crime too?
- - Economic Marginalization Hypothesis - women have high economic burdens (strain theory)
- - Decay of Chivalry Hypothesis - because we achieved more equality, police feel less chivalrous to let women go
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Goffman, Total Institution
- institution in which members conduct all aspects of their lives
- ie military, jail
goal is social control of large monolithic group of people
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Foucault and the Panopticon
society is moving towards total gov control and ubiquitous surveillance
what started in prisons was meant to spread throughout society social message of constantly being watched
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US Incarceration Trends compared to other countries
- highest rate of incarceration and highest prison population in world
- $64 bil annually
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Deterrence Theory
- crime results from a rational calculation of costs vs benefits
- -focused on punishment (but higher punishment does not equal lower crime)
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Focused deterrence vs undifferentiated targeting
- -undifferentiated targeting- *is ineffective
- focus on all criminals/crime
- unequal arrests based on race/income
- does not reduce crime
- increased prison population
focused deterrence - selective targeting focus resources on most dangerous criminals or specific type of crime
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Boston case study and pulling levers approach
come to problem with more than one approach
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Recidivism
going back to jail or repeating crime
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Restorative Justice
emphasizes rehabilitation and healing because crime hurts everyone (community and victim and offender). Accountability, communication, and forgiveness through meditation
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Stop and Frisk
- stopping individuals who look sketch or have criminals (to get guns off the street)
- INEFFECTIVE
- mostly minorities
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Death Penalty
- higher than other countries
- cost 90k per year per prisoner than life in prison
- more black than white, higher chance of sentence if victim was white
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Exonerations in US
143 so far in the US
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Wrongful Convictions
false confession and eye witness identification 2 most common reasons
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Functionalist/Conservative Solutions
identify social pressures that result in high rates of deviance and crime.
- Better policing, learn current problems and prevent them from occurring
- Strengthen communities and other organizations
- 3 strikes
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Conflict/Liberal Solutions
- reduce power differentials and/or economic inequality to solve crime
- also try and reduce racism
- empower people
people who have few opportunities to gain good education or job more likely to commit crime
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Symbolic Interaction Solution
behavior is learned, including criminal behavior
- so teach people law abiding ways
- listen to diverse voices to find out how we can reduce crime
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