Everyday Sociology Blog

Girls, Boys, and Violence: Who's Really at Risk?

By Sally Raskoff

I was in a hotel elevator recently, heading down for breakfast. The doors opened on a floor and there were two women and about eight girls who looked to be around the ages of seven or eight. To the side was a man who gestured them to enter the elevator and follow them in. The women declined his offer and gestured for him to go ahead and one said that they would catch the next elevator. He continued to gesture them towards the elevator, the women did their best to stop the girls from entering and said very politely to him, “No, you go ahead.” 

Eventually he laughed and said as he continued to gesture, “Hey, I’m not one of those, I’m not one of those guys on the post office wall, I’m OK! Really, I’m an OK guy!” 

When he said this, the girls seemed oblivious to his meaning but the women recoiled and put their arms around the girls and pulled them back while the one woman said louder and with emphasis, “No, really, you go ahead, we’re fine.”

He got on the elevator, the group of girls did not, and we rode down to the ground floor. 

I was a bit creeped out by his response and turned to look out the elevator windows and away from him. Later I asked my spouse, who was with me for that exchange, if he had noticed it and thought anything about it. He hadn’t really paid attention to the content of the interaction, since he was ready to get breakfast and didn’t care who got on the elevator as long as someone did! (He’s not a sociologist although he has developed a sociological imagination from living with me for the last 24 years!)

Later at the family gathering we were attending, I asked my relatives their opinion about the exchange. All the women were as appalled as I was at the man’s comments. 

Our reactions had strong commonalities: why did the man choose to define himself as a non-predator? Why did his mind go there so fast when there were a myriad of other things he could have said? And, why was he laughing about such a premise, when his comments had made the women visibly uncomfortable?

In our society, we socialize women to be aware of threats, especially from strangers. Girls are kept closer than boys when they are playing outside. Women don’t tend to go out alone at night, and there are a host of other protective behaviors that constrain what they do on a daily basis. We are taught these things to stay safe. In general, men don’t learn these things and they don’t grow up thinking about how safe they are at any given moment.

Whether or not there are real threats, girls and women often assume that we must not trust strangers and not expose ourselves to outside dangers, especially when we’re young.

Let’s look at the data on violence and assault to see if these protective behaviors are useful for women and girls. The National Violence against Women Survey, published in 2000 and sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, validates what we know from other studies on these issues.

In Exhibit 12, from the NIJ/CDC study, among those victimized as a minor, physical assault by a caretaker is the most likely threat for both gender groups while rape (by any perpetrator) is slightly more likely for women compared to men. This data show that 40% of women and 53.8% of men have been physically assaulted by a caretaker before they were eighteen; 9% of women and 1.9% of men were raped before they were eighteen.

Exhibit 14 illustrates that relatives and acquaintances are the most likely perpetrator of rape for both men and women prior to the age of eighteen. Stranger rape accounts for a smaller portion of rapes for females than for males.

If you’re wondering about the age distribution of rape victims, Exhibit 13 shows us that 21.6% of female victims and 48.0% of male victims are less than 12 years old. Note how the pattern is different for females and males: rape becomes less likely for males as they get older while for females, there is a more gradual distribution and the most prevalent ages are 12-17 years old and 18-24. 

Exhibit 21 illustrates the adult victimization types and shows that, compared to childhood and adolescence, the rates of physical assault decline for both men and women while the stalking threat increases along with the rape risk for men – and only slightly for women. 

If our main question is the source of the threat and from whom should be protecting ourselves, let’s take one more look at the data: what are the victim-perpetrator relationship patterns for adults?

Exhibit 27 shows that once we are adults, the source of the greatest threat changes-- although the most radical change is for men. Adult males are much more likely to be raped or assaulted by strangers while women’s threat comes primarily from their intimate partners.

Considering this data, do we socialize men and women appropriately? 

If we socialize girls and women to suspect strangers and people outside their families, does that work effectively to protect them since most of the real threat comes from people they know?

If we socialize boys and men to assume they are safe from outside threats, are they adequately prepared to protect themselves in childhood and adolescence from people they know and from strangers when they are adults? 

In any case, should we be socializing people at all to be fearful of attack? If we do that consistently, what might happen to the fabric of our society? Will we retreat from social life, as we fear people we know and those we don’t?

It is not effective to teach people to fear those who are less threatening and to trust those who could be a threat, but this is exactly what we socialize women to do. It is also not effective to teach people they are not at risk and can do just about anything they want, yet this is how we socialize men. 

If you were crafting a social policy and educational plan to effectively reduce violent behavior, what would you focus on?

The Economics of Selling Drugs

By Bradley Wright

One of the joys of doing social research is the constant exposure to empirical data. I can’t count the number of times that I was sure that the world worked in one way only to be corrected by data (and sometimes my research corrects others’ misperceptions).

Here’s a great example of how actual data about a topic can correct prevailing misconceptions. I think that most people in society would view drug dealing as a fairly lucrative business. Illegal drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, are bought from growers and resold at a substantial mark-up. Somebody has to be making lots of money, no? Stories of drug busts often emphasize the enormous amounts of money involved. In movies and television, drug dealers usually seem to live on yachts and have private airplanes and waiting, chauffeured cars. 

Well, it turns out that once social scientists actually measured how much money that drug dealers were making, the results suggested that most dealers work for close to minimum wage. That’s right—that make about as much money selling drugs as if they were working at McDonalds or at the mall.

The best known study of the drug dealers’ finances was conducted by Levitt and Venkatesh. While they published it as an academic article, it is best known from a chapter in their best-selling book Freakonomics. What’s unique about this research is its data. Venkatesh, a sociologist, spent years living with a crack-dealing gang in Chicago.

(Check out the video clip of Venkatesh describing some of his work on the right.)

In the process of getting to know the gang members, Venkatesh was given financial records covering four years of the gang’s activities. These were the accounting books of the gang—the amount of drugs sold, expenses, and the pay given to each member of the gang. This remarkable data gave insight to the inside workings of a drug-dealing street gang.

The data indicated that the gang received its money from selling drugs, collecting dues from its members, and extorting individuals and companies doing business in the gang’s turf. The majority of money came from selling drugs. The gang’s expenses went to buying the drugs, hiring mercenary fighters, giving money to the gang hierarchy, paying for funerals for its members, buying weapons, and paying its members.

The picture that emerged from the wage data was one very similar to a conventional corporation. A few members made lots of money, but the majority made barely enough to live on; in fact, some of the dealers had to live with their mothers because they couldn’t afford to move out. The actual hourly wage earned by a gang’s foot soldier—the person on the street making the sales—ranged from $2.50 to $7.10 an hour (in 1995 dollars). That’s not much money at all. The gang leaders or “officers” did much better. They earned from $32 to $97 dollars an hour. These are data for one local gang. The central gang, which oversaw the local gangs much like a company would oversee its franchises, made substantially more money. As with a regular, legal corporation, the low-level workers of the gang did most of the work but the high-level members received most the pay. 

An interesting question arises from these data: Why do foot soldiers sell drugs for so little money? Any job has its potential costs—a worker at McDonalds might get sore feet, occasional grease burns, and probably some weight gain—but selling drugs is extraordinarily dangerous. The death rates in Venkatesh and Levitt’s sample was 7% annually. That means that, on average, about 1 in 14 gang members was killed. Why would anyone risk so much for so little?

A standard sociological answer would hold that the gang members had few opportunities for legitimate wages. In addition, the sample members spoke of being foot soldiers as a way of stepping up to becoming an officer of the gang and make much better money. Just as a college student might work in the mail room of a large corporation, in order to start climbing the ladder, these gang members started with selling drugs on the street for near minimum wage pay.

Despite the considerably different cultural context between gangs and corporate America, it seems that they share a lot of similarities. Both have hierarchical pay scales that represent inequality, and both have individuals willing to suffer through the lower ranks in hopes of getting to the higher ranks.

Who would have thought? 

Want to learn more? Here’s a presentation by Steven Levitt about this research.

Is Stealing "Mad Money" a Crime?

By Janis Prince Inniss

A few days ago, I saw the film Mad Money. (Spoiler alert: The movie is summarized here, ending and all.) The film is about three women (played by Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes) who work at the local Federal Reserve Bank. Queen Latifah is Nina, the single mother of two boys while Katie Holmes plays Jackie, a gum smacking, head-phone wearing married kook. Diane Keaton plays Bridget, the stay at home wife of Ted Danson (Don). 

When Don is laid off and their upper middle life class life is threatened, Bridget goes to work at the bank as a janitor. (As a wife and mother, albeit with a college degree, Bridget has no marketable job skills.) Shortly after she starts the job, Bridget has the bright idea of robbing the bank by enlisting the help of the other two women who work with her there. After relatively little resistance to this idea, the three women join forces and despite lots of bank security, the three are successful. 

The women target old money that is being taken out of circulation. With one successful theft completed the threesome steal again. Except a security guard who has a crush on Nina, no one catches on to their crime. His silence is bought and the spree goes on for three years. Finally, an outsider comes along and fingers the group and everyone but the instigator, Bridget, is arrested. The police are forced to release them, however, because the only confession is recanted and because the prideful bank manager insists that there is no way to breach his security. 

At this point in the movie the women don’t appear to have gotten much for their years of stealing, given that they have destroyed most of the money they stole. True, they have spent some of it: The single mother has used her money to put her children into private school and to buy a home in a better neighborhood. Don and Bridget are able to keep their upper-middle class lifestyle and all its perks. Jackie and her husband buy a new trailer and a few other toys and he is able to leave his meat plant job. 

But overall, they haven’t gone mad spending the money—and this is intentional; they do not want to draw attention to themselves and arouse suspicions. Nor do they seem much like criminals, at least as they are generally portrayed on film. They’re well-dressed as only women in film can be, are shown having a good time and living “respectable” lives. It’s not like they’re grungy men with masks, hurting people by robbing commercial banks. I thought the film would end here, with the women having received their own private stimulus package, free to enjoy their cash influx. But no, fast-forward months later, and Bridget gathers the group together to show them tons of money she had stashed at a bar they frequented. So they’re free and rich! 

Deviance is defined as ignoring societal norms. The concept includes a wide range of individual and group transgressions. Stealing is generally considered deviant behavior in this culture, but in this movie none of the thieves received any of the sanctions that deviant behavior typically prompts. In fact it seems a stretch to call them thieves. Any attempt at formal sanctions, such as prosecuting the three women, was abandoned. As for informal sanctions, there is little indication that any of their friends or neighbors view the women differently. The lone source of informal sanction I recall in the film was a neighbor who gave Bridget the cold shoulder. 

Interactionist theorists focus on how particular behaviors receive the label “deviant”, and in this tradition labeling theorists examine the relationship between deviants and nondeviants. Those in positions of power, according to labeling theorists, make the labels. Bridget represents wealth to the other two relatively poor women; she says they are “recycling” because the money they take is old and on its way to being shredded. In the context of this film, it is Bridget’s definition of the group as “recyclers” that explain why the women receive no punishment and are able to walk away with wads of cash. 

A simplistic summary of many movies is that the good guys catch the bad guys. (And they are usually guys, not women). The crimes of the bad guys are often clear-cut and we root for James Bond, Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt to catch and punish them. But if no one is the “bad guy”, what does that mean? Ultimately, does “Mad Money” depict a crime?

Informal Social Sanctions, Prostitution, and Johntv.com

By Bradley Wright

When we think of preventing crime, we usually think of the government punishing people with fines, arrest, jail time, and so forth. It turns out, however, that informal punishments by friends, family, and neighbors also deters crime as much, if not more, than formal punishments. These informal punishments can take many forms. A family member might express disapproval; a friend might cut off the friendship, and even passing strangers looking askance can prevent crime.

These informal social sanctions are part of daily life, and they aren’t necessarily planned ahead of time as a way of preventing crime. It’s in this context that we can think about a class of informal sanctions developed explicitly to prevent crime. These sanctions threaten public embarrassment as a way of deterring criminal behavior (as former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer might for other politicians). The logic here is that people sometimes care deeply about their good reputation, and will avoid activities that would threaten it. As such, threatening reputations might be a way to influence peoples’ behavior more effectively than threatened jail time.

Recently an individual in Oklahoma City has been getting a lot of attention for his efforts to use shame to prevent crime. His name is Brian Bates, and he styles himself as a video vigilante in his efforts to prevent prostitution. Brian started some years ago when he got frustrated with the high levels of prostitution in his neighborhood. At one point, he came out of his house to find a prostitute and her client conducting business while parked in his driveway. He eventually testified in court for several cases, but no convictions resulted. Off-handedly, a prosecutor joked that maybe next time he could bring in a video clip, and he thought that was a good idea.

Armed with only a video camera, Bates drives around areas of Oklahoma City to video tape men who frequent prostitutes. He starts video taping when he sees a car slow down to pick up the prostitute, and then he follows them until they stop. After they engage their transaction, Bates will typically approach the car to film the customer. He confronts the man, asking him to explain his behavior, which the man usually denies, and Bates films the conversation.

Bates then posts his videos on-line for the whole world to see. Here is one of them, in which an Army recruiter, dressed in his uniform and driving a military car, gets caught “recruiting” paid sex. This video, and many more like it, are available on youtube.com. (In fact, Brian Bates gets a cut of the advertising dollars associated with each online view of these videotapes).

On Bates’ website, he says that deterring crime is his motivation. One of the goals of his work, he writes, is to “use those caught and published here as an example to hopefully dissuade others.” Elsewhere, Bates has been quoted as saying "If you get caught by the cops, you pay a fine. If you get caught by me, you get a life sentence… there's no reprieve, no probation. People will be hitting that video on Google searches as long as you live."

(Somewhat surprisingly, Bates supports the legalization of prostitution, in private settings. His focus is on “street” prostitution.)

Bates’ actions have raised various ethical concerns—does he have the right to follow people around and videotape them? Apparently, he does, as long as it’s all done in public. Bates also turns over his videos to the police in an effort to assist them in getting convictions for prostitution. The police, however, have reported that they tend not to be of much use.

A remaining question is whether his work is effective in deterring street prostitution in Oklahoma City. It’s difficult to know, but my guess would be that it does deter individuals who are caught once from doing it again. It seems like the shame of having friends, family, and coworkers watch such activities on-line would lead a person to find some other outlet for their desires. It’s less clear, however, that his work discourages customers who have not previously been caught. Probably many of them have never heard of Bates and his video camera, and others are from out of town.

Ironically, there could well be some reverse shaming going on here. While Bates emphasizes that he’s the good-guy here, and he’s bringing justice to the community, perhaps people have begun to wonder about somebody spending his days trying to film other people having sex.

Who knows, maybe someday we’ll all have video cameras, and we’ll be so busy videotaping each other that we won’t have time to break the law.

Broken Windows

By Bradley Wright

A funny thing happens in our kitchen sink. Sometimes it doesn’t have any dirty dishes in it (okay, not that often, but it does happen). When the sink is empty, my family and I usually put our dishes straight into the dishwasher. At other times, however, there are dirty dishes sitting in the sink. When this happens, we all put any additional dishes straight into the sink, not even considering the extra several seconds it takes to put them into the dishwasher. Why in the world am I writing about my kitchen sink? It turns out that what happens with the sink is a reasonable analogy for one of the more important crime-prevention theories: the theory of broken windows.

The theory of broken windows originated from a 1982 article by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in The Atlantic Monthly. They started with the idea that some broken windows in a building invite more broken windows. In their words:

“Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.” 

“Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars."

According to Wilson and Kelling, the same holds true for neighborhoods and crime. Just as broken windows invite rocks, and dirty sinks get more dishes, so too certain characteristics of neighborhoods attract and promote crime. A neighborhood that is riddled with vandalism, litter, abandoned buildings and cars signals that no one is taking care of the neighborhood. A neighborhood that has lots of petty crime, such as public drunkenness, pickpockets, traffic violations, this signals that crime is accepted. In both cases the neighborhood is sending out a signal that crime is tolerated if not outright accepted. This encourages crime among residents of the neighborhood and it attracts criminals from other neighborhoods as well.

The importance of this theory is its implications for crime prevention. The way to cut down on crime in a given location, according to the broken window theory, is to change its physical and social characteristics. This can be done by repairing buildings, sidewalks, and roads, and fixing anything that makes a neighborhood look run down. It also means enforcing the law for even the smallest infractions. Police should ticket and/or arrest people for things as small as jaywalking, illegal panhandling, and public disorder. The logic is that by cracking down on small problems, the police are preventing more serious crimes.

The best known application of broken windows theory occurred in New York City, and depending on who you talk to, it was a smashing success in preventing crime, an irrelevant policy, or an invasion of individuals’ rights.

In 1993, Rudy Guiliani—a current presidential candidate—was elected mayor of New York City based on his “get tough on crime” platform. He hired William Bratton as the police chief. Bratton, who was heavily influenced by George Kelling, applied the principles of broken windows theory. Bratton initiated a program of zero-tolerance in which the NYPD cracked down on all sorts of minor infractions, including subway fare dodging, public drinking urinating in public, and even the squeegee men—people who would wipe the windows of stopped cars and demand payment. A friend of mine who lived in New York City at that time even saw police telling people they could not sit on milk crates on the sidewalk-- apparently that was against the law as well.

Almost immediately rates of both petty and serious crimes dropped substantially. In the first year alone, murders were down 19% and car thefts fell by 15%, and crime continued to drop ever year for the following ten years.

So, was this application of broken windows an unqualified success? Some critics say no.

In the same time period, crime dropped significantly in other major cities around the country, cities that had not adopted broken windows policy. (See figure below). Crime dropped nationwide in the 1990s, and various reasons have been given for this overall crime drop. The crack epidemic of the 1980s was subsiding, and there were fewer people in the 15 to 25 year age group, which accounts for so much crime. As such, the declines seen in New York City did not result from new police policies but rather they would have happened anyway. 

(The light blue line represents crime in Newark, NJ, purple Los Angles, red New York, and black the U.S. as a whole)

Other critics argue that regardless of the effectiveness of broken windows, it was too costly in terms of individual rights. They claim that the police, emboldened by the mandate to enforce even the smallest of laws, frequently crossed over into harassment of individuals, especially racial minorities and the poor. The application of broken windows, with its zeal for reducing crime, produced unacceptable police behavior.

Nonetheless, the results in New York City were sufficiently interesting that various police departments around the country have adopted principles of broken windows theory. In fact, William Bratton is now the police chief of Los Angeles.

P.S., this post shows that everydaysociologyblog.com covers everything of social importance, including the kitchen sink.

Are America's Schools Safe?

By Karen Sternheimer 

The elementary school on my street is once again brimming with excitement and back-to-school jitters. (It’s always hard to tell who is more nervous, the children or the parents.)   

As the new school year began and parents packed their kids off for classrooms and dorm rooms, this school year might bring some extra worry, with the Virginia Tech shooting last April reopening old Columbine High School-style wounds. And last year’s shocking shooting in a rural Pennsylvania Amish school made it seem like no school was really safe. 

But the truth is schools are among the safest places for young people to be. 

Still, fears of a rampage-style shooting linger as the school year begins again. School-based law enforcement, which is lobbying for a piece of Homeland Security funding, is among the fastest growing sectors of the security industry. 

In our quest to ensure that kids are safe, we’ve overlooked one key fact: crime in America’s schools is on the decline. 

Overall, violent crime has fallen sharply since the early 1990s. Homicide arrest rates among juveniles in particular plunged by 77 percent between 1993 and 2003. School-aged kids are 122 times more likely to die in an accident than die at school. Five- to 14-year-olds are four times more likely to die of pneumonia or the flu than to die at school. 

According to the U.S. Department of Education, crime in schools was cut in half between 1992 and 2002 and has continued to decline since. Serious violent crime remains rare in school – the vast majority of schools report none. The most common form of violence is one many of us likely remember well: the old-fashioned fistfight. 

Even during the 1990s, when fears of school shootings ran high and violence was at its peak, students had less than a seven in 10 million chance of being killed at school. College campuses are also very safe. This year’s horrific incident at Virginia Tech was clearly an aberration—campus violence is considerably lower than it is off-campus across the nation. 

The few schools that do have considerable safety problems still tend to have far lower crime rates than their surrounding neighborhoods do. Urban high school students are three times more likely to be victimized away from school than on school property. And in suburbia, students are still twice as likely to be victims of violence away from school grounds than while at school. 

Regardless of where they live, kids are significantly safer at school than anywhere else. Children are much more likely to be victimized by adults than by each other. Statistically, kids are actually safer in the company of other students than they are with their parents. And for young people, being engaged in education may itself act as a protective factor against violent victimization and criminal involvement. 

While killings within families and at workplaces vastly outnumber school shootings overall, when violence does happen at schools it strikes a particular chord. As sites connected with both learning and youth, schools represent repositories of hope for the future. 

Children’s safety in schools should remain a primary concern. We may all feel better knowing that security equipment and emergency procedures are in place. But some districts have arguably overreacted and put policies in place that may satisfy anxious parents but do little to improve school safety. 

For example, so-called "zero tolerance" policies employed in schools across the country mandate increased punishments for the most minor infractions. Sounds good on paper, but the reality is that many kids who have been suspended based on these rules had “weapons” such as manicure kits and fingers pointed like guns, or had thrown potato chips at another student. Understanding intent goes out the window when we become so afraid that a student with a steak knife used to cut an onion for a science project demonstration gets suspended. A 2001 study, published in the journal Educational Leadership, found that eight in ten students disciplined under zero tolerance rules were not serious threats to school safety. 

Recent events can re-open old worries about school violence and mask the reality that schools are significantly safer now than they were a decade ago. Safety is an emotional issue, one that parents and politicians can agree is important. 

There is a danger, however, in focusing so much on unlikely events that we ignore many of the complex issues plaguing so many schools: overcrowding, outdated materials, decaying facilities and overwhelmed teachers, not to mention alienating students with rigid one-size-fits-all policies. This, coupled with skyrocketing tuition at colleges and universities means that many are being shut out of higher education entirely, giving them less reason to commit themselves to education. Perhaps the biggest danger facing our nation’s schools is using our scarce resources to massage our fears rather than to educate a generation.

The Social Construction of Crime

By Bradley Wright 

What is a crime? This simple question turns out to have a variety of answers. 

A simple answer would be that a crime is doing anything that is against the law. The problem with this, however, is that there are tens of thousands of laws, and who could possibly remember all of them? Did you know that here in Connecticut it is illegal to throw away used razor blades? In Massachusetts, it’s illegal to use bullets as currency? In Arkansas, it is illegal to drive barefoot?  

Some laws may be well-known but rarely or never enforced. For example, when was the last time you got a ticket for driving five miles over the speed limit? If a law is either not known or not enforced, does breaking it constitute a crime? 

This raises the issue of which laws actually get enforced, and one answer uses the social psychological principle of social construction. Rooted in the sociological perspective of symbolic interactionism, social construction is the idea that social realities happens as people interact and come to an agreement about what a situation means. 

Here’s an example that happens fairly regularly here at UConn: A student walks around at night with a beer in their hand, and they see a police officer. Not only are they underage, but they are also not supposed to have an open container in public, so they drop the beer. The student defines the situation as one of avoiding an alcohol-related crime. The police officer sees the dropped bottle or cup, goes over to the student, and tells them to pick it up and dispose of it properly. The police officer defines the situation as one of littering. This situation is pretty straightforward—the student readily accepts the police officer’s definition and throws away the cup or bottle. 

In other situations, however, there is protracted negotiation about what is happening and what is right and wrong.

 

Here’s a video shot in St. George Missouri. Police Sergeant Sgt. James Kuehnlein confronts 20-year-old Brett Darrow for being stopped in a parking lot. It turns out that Brett had a video camera on in the back of his car, and so we are able to hear the whole interaction. Here’s a snippet of the conversation:

Kuehnlein asks for identification. When Darrow asks whether he did anything wrong, the officer orders him out of the car and begins shouting.
"You want to try me? You want to try me tonight? You think you have a bad night? I will ruin your night. … Do you want to try me tonight, young boy?"
Darrow says no.
"Do you want to go to jail for some (expletive) reason I come up with?" the police officer says. Later, Darrow says, "I don't want any problems, officer."
"You're about to get it," Kuehnlein is heard saying. "You already started your (expletive) problems with your attitude."

(Here’s the eventual outcome).

There are various implications of crime being socially negotiated. Most obviously, justice isn’t a predetermined outcome based on what you actually do, instead it’s sometimes what you can negotiate. This puts a premium on your ability to negotiate a successful outcome with police officers and other members of the criminal justice system. That’s why it’s such a good idea to be polite and deferential to the police when you interact with them. “Yes officer” and “no officer” are very good things to say, for a pleasant interaction paves the way for a more successful negotiation of what’s going on. 

The criminal justice system may not always enforce all written laws, but they do sometimes enforce unwritten laws. There are various norms of how to deal with the police and other officials, such as being polite, and even though these norms are not official laws, they are enforced as if they were. 

For example, having a sarcastic tone with a police officer isn’t illegal, but it can change the amount of punishment you get for a crime. Likewise, there is no law saying that defendants in court have to present themselves well and be apologetic, but it’s quite possible that poor self-presentation in the courtroom will lead to a harsher sentence. 

This social construction of crime can also be affected by individuals’ place in society. The police and courtroom actors, like anyone, have their preconceptions about different types of people. That means that going into their interaction with somebody they might already have an idea as to whether  that person is guilty or how that person will act. 

These preconceptions, which we can also call stereotypes, can affect the interaction between the official and the person in question. In the video clip,  the police officer clearly has some ideas about young people in fast cars, and he projected them onto the person he stopped. Not only age, but also race, gender, clothing, and general appearance can affect expectations of law enforcement officials which in turn, via social construction, can alter the way someone is treated by the police or the courts. 

The next time that you get pulled over, maybe the real question is not what you did but rather what you can construct through social interaction.

Football, Vice and Violence

By Sally Raskoff

As you probably have heard, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was recently suspended from the NFL for his “illegal, cruel, and reprehensible” behavior. It looks like Vick’s ownership and involvement with dog fighting and gambling has ended—or at least suspended—his football career.

The dog fighting ”ring” was located on Vick’s property, and apparently he personally harmed the dogs--especially those who didn’t win their bouts. Gambling on the dog fights was perhaps the biggest problem from the National Football League’s (NFL) perspective. But football is a sport in which bettors, both formal and informal, are found just about everywhere. Super Bowl pool, anyone?

The NFL Players Association general conduct policy states: “Engaging in violent and/or criminal activity is unacceptable and constitutes conduct detrimental to the integrity of and public confidence in the National Football League. Such conduct alienates the fans on whom the success of the League depends and has negative and sometimes tragic consequences for both the victim and the perpetrator. The League is committed to promoting and encouraging lawful conduct and to providing a safe and professional workplace for its employees.” [Emphasis added]

The billions in football profits depend on the public remaining confident that the games are fair contests, and on teams and players not alienating the fans. I find it interesting that the policy above mentions the consequences for the victim after the concerns for integrity, confidence, and alienation. There have been several players suspended for gambling: Paul Hornung and Alex Karras had bet on NFL games and thus missed the 1963 season and Art Schlichter left the field in 1983 because of substantial gambling debt. Joe Namath was forced to sell a nightclub because gamblers might be patrons. 

The suspensions in the NFL run the gamut from substance abuse and banned substance (steroid) use to assault, battery, and domestic violence. The Vick case has garnered much press due to its unique combination of vice and violence. 

Most media reports about the case focus on the gambling angle rather than on the violence. This was puzzling to me—until I looked at it through a sociological lens. At first glance, the gambling seems rather peripheral since betting on dog fights, or profiting from letting others do so, certainly isn’t equivalent to fixing a football game. The two are apples and oranges; betting in one arena doesn’t assume betting—or fixing the outcome—in the other. The violence seems more disturbing to me than the gambling. After all, reports indicate that Vick killed losing dogs with his own hands.

Using one’s sociological imagination to understand the news media’s emphasis on gambling highlights the importance of our societal institutions. Why would gambling be a larger issue in media discussions than the violence? Both topics are ratings magnets, yet they are not equally emphasized in this case. Marx and Weber remind us to identify who benefits from emphasizing gambling over violence. The “ruling elite” or the powers-that-be are interested in keeping our economy and financial markets healthy, and football is certainly a huge financial enterprise. To chastise and emphasize the gambling aspect of the Vick case could be an attempt to repair any alienation or loss of confidence in the NFL and its teams. 

Why, then is the violence angle not given as much air time? It is not trivial that violence is linked to gender—which is one of the pillars of our societal structure. The gender order that currently structures our definitions of men and women links certain traits to one gender or the other. Aggressiveness and violence are linked to masculinity, a pattern not lost on current theorists of sports and masculinity. Aggressive and violent behavior is called upon or otherwise seen as functional in the service of or for protecting the family (or team) from outside threats. When men exhibit such behavior outside of these situations, the sanctions vary and are sometimes very minimal. For example, domestic violence is a major cause of injury and death for women. But most of our institutions, including the justice system, don’t have any effective remedies for it. (Restraining orders are not always effective nor do they prevent violence.)

There is no shortage of links between violent behavior and male athletes, particularly those in football. (Mentioning OJ Simpson here seems too obvious a connection.) Even at Harvard University, a recent incident involving domestic abuse and intoxication led to the football team captain’s suspension. While some of the recent NFL suspensions have been for domestic violence, most suspensions rest with violations of banned substances, substance abuse, or assaults involving the police. Those who are suspended for domestic violence often return to the field in a relatively short time, sometimes after mandated anger management courses. 

The violent behavior of football players is not taken as seriously as violent behavior in an average person; it is rationalized as a residual or echo of the behavior they need on the field to win their games. Thus it is excused either as a typical male behavior or as one honed to perfection by elite football players. 

The bottom line is that real violence is de-emphasized or ignored in favor of potential gambling crimes because the former is seen as natural or inevitable while the latter is a threat to the profit margin. Our capitalist economy drives the news media to reinforce our norms of gender and of consumer behavior. In the Vick case, gambling, or vice, outsells violence because it threatens profits.

Role Conflict

By Bradley Wright

Let me tell you a story about a college student who saved the monkeys and got to hang out with Pamela Anderson.

Justin attends the University of Connecticut. He is also into animal rights. Now, saying that Justin is “into” animal rights is like saying Paris Hilton is “into” clothes or Donald Trump is “into” money (or bad hair). Justin is an animal rights activist. It’s not uncommon to see pictures in newspaper of him leading some protest or another. Heck, he even has animal-rights themed tattoos across his body.

In the last few years, Justin has been protesting the University of Connecticut’s use of monkeys in medical research. Apparently, an on-going medical experiment would buy monkeys, drill holes in their heads, stick metal rods into their eyes, and then start destroying parts of their brains to see what would happen. When he learned about this, Justin started protesting, holding press conferences, and sending letters to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)—the government agency that overseas animal use in experiments. When Justin could document violations of government policy, the USDA would send a warning letter to the medical researcher conducting these experiments. Eventually, the medical researcher gave up, saying that he was “voluntarily” terminating his study, but it’s clear that Justin single-handedly stopped the experiment.

In recognition of Justin’s achievements, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) gave him an award as the national animal-rights activist of the year, and a Hartford Courant story about the ceremony shows Justin smiling, with his arm around noted PETA supporter, actress Pamela Anderson. Maybe they just smiled for a photo-op, maybe they danced the night away—who knows?—but there they are together in the picture.

There’s a problem, though. All this recognition has come at a price for Justin—he says that his grades have suffered. This makes sense. It’s hard to study for a midterm when you’re chained to a laboratory’s fence or to write a paper when you’re writing press releases.

Justin’s dilemma, the trade-off between getting good grades and advancing animal rights, points to the concept of role conflict. As I wrote about in my last blog entry, roles are social positions that hold expectations for what we do. Each one of us holds multiple roles, and sometimes the expectations of our roles are mutually incompatible—they can’t all be met. This often happens to college students. As a student you should study for tomorrow’s midterm but as an employee you have to work tonight. As a son/daughter you should go home for the three-day weekend but as a friend you should go to the concert with your friends. As a boyfriend/girlfriend you should go out for dinner with your partner but as a dorm resident you should go to the floor’s intramural game.

The more roles one serves, the more often this role conflict happens, and it causes various problems. Role conflict can be stressful. Trying to manage the demands of different roles takes energy and time, and it can be overwhelming. People often get sick when they have too many roles to fulfill. For example, it’s a common sight during finals to see students sniffling away with a tissue box next to their bluebook.

Another consequence of role conflict is deviance. The expectations of any given role can be thought of as norms—like the laws of our country—and violating these norms can lead to punishment. If you show up late for work because of class, you can be fired. If you neglect your boyfriend/girlfriend to play intramurals, you might be dumped. If you go home to your parents’ house instead of going out with your friends, they might not invite you next time.

Usually we think of deviance as a part of who a person is. “This person likes to break rules,” “That person is a criminal;” but from the perspective of role theory, deviance is a function of the roles we serve, not of who we are. So, put anyone into incompatible roles, and the resulting role conflict will turn them into deviants of a sort. Take a nun in a convent, give her contradictory role expectations, and you have someone violating norms—a deviant.

This is not to say that people are helpless against role conflict; in fact, we do lots of things to successfully manage role expectations. We make detailed plans for out days and write them down in little books or PDAs—as a way of fitting everything in. We change one role make it fit with another. We read books and take seminars on how to manage our lives.

Still, as Justin found out, role conflict is part of life, and sometimes there is just no way of getting around it… at least not if you are going to hang out with Pamela Anderson.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

Murder and Statistics

By Karen Sternheimer

If you saw the national news on June 4^th, you probably heard a frightening story. The FBI released their preliminary report of crimes that occurred in 2006. According to the report, murder is on the rise—up 6.7 percent in America's  biggest cities. Experts warned we could be in for a new crime wave, and offered explanations for the upswing. Should we be afraid?

Maybe. Or Maybe not.

Let’s consider the basic implication when we hear grim statistics like this: things really are getting worse, and there is a number to prove it. But in this case, and in many others, we only hear some of the numbers; maybe just one if it seems to tell a dramatic story. What else should we consider before deciding that America really is a more dangerous place?

First, fortunately, murder is one of the rarest crimes. Of all violent crimes reported to police in 2005 (which includes crimes like rape, assault, and robbery), only 1.2 percent of those were homicides. But we have a fascination with murder—think of what would become of network television dramas if shows like CSI or Law and Order weren’t on the air? We are attracted to popular culture that helps us to deal with the scariest parts of the human experience from a safe distance. But sometimes this focus can make us think that the world is a more dangerous place than it actually is.

Second, let’s get back to the 6.7 percent rise that the major news networks grimly reported. Based on ten cities with populations over one million, this number reflects approximately 194 more homicides than in 2005. No doubt, every homicide is a tragedy and has a ripple effect that goes way beyond the victims themselves, but this is a relatively small number when you consider the combined populations of those ten cities.

Just over 25 million people live in the nation’s largest cities, and according to these early reports in 2006 3,085 people were killed, or one-tenth of one percent of the population.

By contrast, nearly 95 million Americans live in smaller cities that experienced reductions in homicide. Cities with 50,000 to 99,000 residents actually experienced a 6.9 percent decline in 2006, but this rarely made it into the news reports.

Why the omission? Could it be that fewer people would be affected in smaller cities, and the national news media wouldn’t report on something that only impacts a small group? Actually, more people live in mid-sized cities than those with more than one million residents.

Bad news gets our attention. Consider this headline: “Murder Rises Three-Tenths of a Percent!” Not impressed? Apparently news organizations weren’t either, but that’s the overall change from 2005 to 2006 nationwide. This change translates to about fifty more homicides in a population of 300 million. Again, each murder is a tragedy, but three-tenths of a percent raise hardly suggests a major upward trend.

Hearing about rises in crime from year to year, no matter how remote, is still frightening--sort of like a reverse-lottery you don’t want to win. News reports have a way to stoke this fear. They are not lying when they say that we have experienced increases in homicides in three of the last four years. That sounds like an ominous trend, no matter how small.

But since spiking in 1991, both murder and violent crimes in general have plummeted. Even with the estimated increase in 2006, nearly 8,000 fewer people were murdered last year compared with the period when homicide rates were highest. The graph below gives you a visual perspective of the long-term trends, and how the mostly good news has been distorted.

 

It’s also important to keep in mind that we are not all at equal risk for being the victims of homicide. Murder victims are overwhelmingly male; despite the long-held beliefs of female vulnerability, fully 79 percent of those killed are male.

Nearly half of all of these mostly male victims are African American, yet African Americans comprise only about eleven percent of the total population. This means that African Americans are four times more likely to be killed than we would expect by chance. The odds of an African American male becoming a homicide victim (33.4 per 100,000 people) is six times greater than the general population (5.6 per 100,000), and eight times greater than for white males (4.4 per 100,000).

In addition to masking racial inequality, a big drawback to national data is that homicide is a local, rather than national problem. Some cities experienced major declines in homicides, while others, such as New Orleans, had large increases. Especially since the hurricanes of 2005, this city has faced many well-documented problems that can’t be generalized to the country as a whole.

New Orleans has traditionally been a city with a high poverty rate. Within cities,homicide rates also tend to be higher within areas with large concentrations of people living in poverty. While the FBI data contains information about the race of the victim and offender (but still uses the categories “white,” “black,” “other,” an issue for another column), there is no information on the income levels of those involved.

So do national murder rates matter at all? On many levels, not really. The numbers help us overlook the very real disparities in safety in our country, and they elide some of the major causes for these differences--such as racial segregation and the lack of opportunity many Americans experience.

National numbers aren’t totally useless, though. We can compare our figures to those of other industrialized nations to see that far more people are killed in the U.S. than in many countries around the world.

Seemingly simple numbers, like those presented in June 4^th news reports, actually create more sociological questions than they answer. And the answers are invariably complex, varied, and probably don’t make easy-to-digest sound bites. What do you think the answers are?