CRIMEDEVIATION from FORMAL social norms and

is subject to FORMAL penaltiesHOW ARE AGE, GENDER, SOCIAL

CLASS AND RACE/ETHNICITY RELATED TO CRIME?

■ WHAT DO THESE TWO SETS OF IMAGES SHOW YOU ABOUT THE CHANGING VIEWS ON CRIME OVER TIME?

TYPES OF CRIMES

LIKELY OFFENDERSWhat do you think is the most significant factor associated with crimes/deviance?

AGE

■Start to increase in early adolescence, peak in young adulthood, decline with age

■Separate justice systems

■In what province do you think youth commit the MOST crime?

GENDER■ Correlates consistently with crime■ Who commits the most crimes? ■ What is the most common type of crime?

Social Class*(most debated among social scientists)

■ ASSUMPTION: sociological theorists make the assumption that crime is economically motivated; poverty leads to criminal behavior

■ Evidence is not entirely clear

WHAT DOES RESEARCH INDICATE? LOWER SOCIO-ECONOMIC BACKGROUND = MORE LIKELY TO BE ARRESTED FOR

VIOLENT AND PROPERTY CRIMES CRIMES COMMITTED BY LOWER CLASS = MORE MEDIA ATTENTION

DO A LITTLE RESEARCH! FOR ONE OF THE FOLLOWING

CRIMINAL CASES, IDENTIFY: WHO WERE THE VICTIMS? WHAT TYPE OF CRIME WAS

COMMITTED? WHAT WERE THE SENTENCES?

ENRON SCANDAL BERNIE MADOFF PONZI SCHEME

SUBPRIME MORTGAGE CRISIS

WHITE COLLAR CRIME■ More likely to be committed by upper class■ VERY little research (interesting huh?)■ Until recently, not even reported! (so can’t

correlate social class with crime yet)

CONCLUSIONS- DO DISADVANTAGED PEOPLE COMMIT MORE CRIMES?

Minimal research into class and crime shows that economically, educationally,

and socially disadvantaged people are OVER REPRESENTED in arrest and prison

stats

RACE AND ETHNICITY

Over-representation of FNMI inmates(what reasons are offered?)

CURRENT CANADIAN STATS■ Close to 25% of all inmates are Aboriginal make up only 4% of the general

population■ Inmate population growth almost exclusively Aboriginal and visible minority groups

■EXPLANATIONS???

 

• IMMIGRATION• DISCRIMINATION• FOCUS ON CRIME COMMITTED

BY LOW-INCOME GROUPS = OVER-REPRESENTATION

TORONTO: RACE AND CARDING