Lecture 5 (~20 slides)Assumes audience reads: * Kitsuse and Cicourel “A Note on the Uses of Official Statistics.”

* Robert O’Brien. 1996. “Police Productivity and Crime Rates: 1973-1992.” Criminology 34 (2): 183-207. [PREFERABLY SELECTIONS THAT ARE RELEVANT, REDACTING THE HIGHLY TECHNICAL STATISTICS

* On the NCVS— http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htmOn the UCR— http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htmComparing the National Crime Victims Survey (NCVS) and Uniform Crime Reports methodologies: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ntmc.htm

-(Optionally: Biderman & Reiss. 1967. “On Exploring the ‘Dark Figure’ of Crime.” AAAPS 374: 1-15).-(Optionally: Donald Black. 1970. “Production of Crime Rates.” American Sociological Review 35 (4): 63-77.)

Lecture 5

The Social Reality of Crime

Discussion question…

• Let us focus on probably the most formal kind of deviance: crime

• Notice two themes…1. Why “formal” social control?

Discussion question…• We’re going to focus on probably the most formal kind of

deviance: crime

• Notice two themes…1. Why “formal”?

Because it is actually codified in law, courts, prisons, unlike “informal” deviance? Recorded bureaucratically;

By institutions.

2. What would count as “informal” deviance?

Discussion question…• We’re going to focus on probably the most formal kind of

deviance: crime

• Notice two themes…1. Why “formal”?

Because it is actually codified in law, courts, prisons, unlike “informal” deviance?

By institutions.

2. What would count as “informal” deviance?Getting drunk (over 21); is that deviant? Keeping a messy house; urinating/defecating in a cat box (if you’re a human)

Discussion question…

• Even though crime is formal and written down, definitions of crime still ______________(?)

Discussion …

• Even the crime is formal and written down, definitions of crime still change – all the time

Across time, place, social situations.There is no specific act that is considered

everywhere and always deviant.

Crime rates

• We generally hear about “the crime rate” in the news.– Is there such a thing as “the crime rate”?

– Is it “real”? What would that question even mean?

The “Reality” of Crime

Sociological Viewpoints:– As an “imperfect measure”—or “realist” view– As a social process of “defining crime”—or

“institutionalist” view

• Different Sociologists Use Crime Rates for Different Purposes– To study criminality or to study social control

Crime rates

• We generally hear about “the crime rate” in the news.– Is there such a thing as “the crime rate”?

• Different views, but the most sociologically sophisticated ones recognize that “the” crime rate (actually two official ones) is produced through a social process, involving not simply crime (or “reports of crime”) but mainly institutional records

Challenges to the “Objective Reality” of Crime Rates

• Some people argue there is no final “objective” standard – what counts as crime is not a fixed variable (e.g., the law changes every year!)

• Different agents of formal social control may disagree, reach different definitions dbout the same case

• Impossible to Remove Disagreement

When does the Process/Institutionalist View Matter?

• Theory and philosophy of modern social control (technology of information).

• A window onto criminal justice system operations

• Understanding how crime rates are part of culture

Institutionalist View

• Social & Organizational Process of Defining Crime

• All Definitions Are Socially Processed• Interest in how crimes are recorded and used

by control agencies• Records are shaped by organizational actors—

police, prosecutors, juries/judges

Realist Solution to Insitutionalist Challenge

• Give most credence to the first official definitions: Reports > Arrest > Conviction

• Page 4: “…in theory at least, the police function most nearly as passive recorders and nondiscretionary classifiers of events that take place.”

How Much Crime is There?

• Answer Depends on Your View of Statistics• Rates Are Always Created by Organizations• Institutionalists: Police are administrators of

technology of “knowing, defining, and processing.”

• Realists: Police are “information collectors.”

Realist Perspectiveon Police Organizations:

• Police try, but have reasons to record inaccurately– Resources are limited– Public Image– Securing Additional Resources

• Understand in Order to Improve Accuracy• Victimization Surveys are Better (NCVS)

Victimization Statistics

• Also Simplifications of Complicated Social Processes

• One Event May Have Multiple Victims• Problems with Victim Surveys:

1. Memory2. Embarrassment3. Police Involvement

Kitsuse and Cicourel. “A Note on the Uses of Official Statistics.”

• Distinguish between deviant behaviors & organizationally-produced rates of behavior

• What criminals do vs. what police do• Are police definitions of crime appropriate for

sociological questions? Which questions?

• Why would crime statistics, read literally, be inappropriate for sociological questions?

• Definitional grounds: formal definitions assume objective reality. Sociology assumes competing definitions.

• Use rates to study what control agents do, not what criminals do

Institutionalist Questions:

1. How do different forms of behavior come to be defined as deviant by different groups in society?

2. How are different kinds of individuals organizationally processed?

3. How do social circumstances contributed to these definitional outcomes?

Institutionalists

• How do criminal justice agents make decisions, use discretion?

• What are the effects of the social control on the people defined as criminal?

• Are there organizational reasons why poor people are over-represented in crime statistics?

• How many citizen complaints receive official attention?

To ConcludeHow to reconcile different views?• Each is practical for certain purposes• Policy questions, I view from realist-

measurement perspective• I use process-institutional perspective to

answer questions like: How do some groups become defined as more criminal? How do people use statistics to define certain groups as criminal (e.g. gang members, crack cocaine users)? How do social control agents use statistics for political purposes?