Review of Crime, Immigration, and Social Control

Summary

1. Crime is a major concern for the general public, who often fear being victimized by crime. News media coverage of crime contributes to these fears. The media overdramatize crime, cover it frequently, and give much attention to violent crime even though most crime is not violent. The news media also disproportionately depict people of color as offenders and white people as victims.
2. The nation’s major source of crime statistics is the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS, formerly the UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Self-report surveys, typically given to adolescents, are another form of crime measurement. 
3. Major categories of crime include violent crime, property crime, white-collar crime, and more. Much violent crime is relatively spontaneous and emotional, and typically involves victims and offenders who knew each other before the act occurred. Property crime is far more common than violent crime, particularly theft. Corporate crime and other kinds of white-collar crime arguably cost the nation more than street crime in economic loss, health problems, and death, and corporate violence involves unsafe working conditions, unsafe products, and environmental pollution.
4. There are many sociological theories of crime. Social structure theories highlight poverty and weakened social institutions as important factors underlying crime. Conflict theories call attention to the possible use of the legal system to punish behavior by subordinate groups, while feminist theories examine gender differences in criminality, the victimization of women by sexual assault and domestic violence, and the experiences of women professionals and offenders in the criminal justice system. Social process theories stress the importance of peer relationships, social bonding, and social reaction.
5. Crime is socially patterned. Men commit more serious crimes than females. Black and Latinx people have higher street crime rates than white people, poor people have higher street crime rates than the wealthy, and youth in their teens and early twenties have higher street crime rates than older people. However, wealthier white people may be more likely to engage in white-collar crime. 
6. Consequences of crime include financial costs for individuals, families, and society at large as well as adverse physical and mental health outcomes. White collar crime in particular has enormous economic and health costs, and violence against women perpetuates gender inequality in the US and internationally. 
7. The link between immigration and crime has been fueled by racialized stereotyping and myths about immigrants. In reality, immigrants are less likely to commit crime than US-born people, and contribute strongly to the economy. 
8. Social control refers to efforts to control the population. The institution of the state engages in formal social control, which involves laws and punishments for violating them. The state has also engaged in racialized social control, targeting Black and Brown people through criminal justice and immigration systems, and fueling the prison industrial complex which links mass incarceration to capitalism and slavery. 
9. Several problems also exist in the criminal justice system itself. Police corruption, bias, and brutality remain serious concerns, while low-income defendants receive inadequate legal representation, if at all. Prisons, jails, and immigrant detention facilities involve overcrowding and other horrendous conditions. The criminal justice system costs tens of billions of dollars annually, yet scholars question the potential of this system to reduce crime. 
10. Proposals to address crime and social control problems aim to reduce poverty and improve neighborhood living conditions. to change gender socialization patterns and other cultural ideas. to expand early childhood intervention programs and nutrition services, and to implement reforms in policing, sentencing, and bail processes. Strategies also include individual agency and collective action such as establishing community-based organizations. 

  

Questions

1. Why (else) do you think that so many Americans are afraid of crime even though the crime rate has greatly declined since the early 1990s?
2. Why is it difficult to measure crime accurately, and which do you think is the best measurement tool? 
3. If homicide is a relatively emotional, spontaneous crime, what does that imply for efforts to use harsh legal punishment, including the death penalty, to deter people from committing homicide?
4. Do you think that consensual or victimless crimes should be made legal, and why or why not?
5. Which specific theory of crime do you think best explains property, violent, and white-collar crime, and why? 
6. How would you outline differences in crime by social location and explain the reasons for these differences?
7. If you've had an encounter with a police officer, how would you describe the officer’s demeanor, and how do you think your own race, class, or gender impacted that encounter?
8. If immigrants seem to be faring fairly well and abiding by the law, why do you think that so many Americans have negative attitudes about immigrants?
9. Social science research has not shown the get-tough approach to be effective or cost-efficient – why do you think that this approach has been so popular in the US since the 1970s?
10. Of the strategies outlined to reduce crime or problems in the criminal justice system, which do you think would be most effective if it were implemented with adequate funding, and why?

  

Action Steps

1. Use your sociological imagination: When you hear anti-immigrant sentiment or stereotyping, help the person use a sociological imagination to explain why they might believe those ideas or stereotypes, especially from a historical perspective. 
2. Support nonprofits and similar organizations: Contribute money or volunteer time to community-based organizations that try to address problems in the criminal justice system and support people impacted by it. 
3. Use your individual agency: Write a plan for a small action or establish a campus group that will help support people impacted by problems of crime or social control, or work for an organization that provides early childhood intervention services.
4. Engage in collective action: Research organizations that are planning action toward, raising awareness about, or educating the public or legislators on problems in the criminal justice system.