Final Flashcards
(40 cards)
Weapons of Math Destruction
- policing “nuisance” crimes is just a matter of being there–not reported to police otherwise
- difference between crimes of poverty and massive financial crimes–but only one type gets policed (criminalization of poverty)
- WMDs favor efficiency, the Constitution favors fairness
- Amazon model for recidivism vs what actually happens
- the actual “broken windows” study was based on community policing
Role of Punishment
- philosophy of punishment (what ought to be) conflicts with sociology of control (what is really happening)
- by what right do you punish? (Tolstoy)
- gov is supposed to let us go around free of crime
Eastern State Penitentiary
1829-1970
- embodiment of reformer ideals–had running water and central heating before White House
- wanted to be ideal–go beyond punishment
- middle of Philadelphia, and massive
- each prisoner got private exercise yard and skylight
- no slacking off–if in cell reading Bible or making craft
Auburn Prison
- also considered penitentiary–but alternative model
- confinement at night, work together during day (in silence)
- effort to break sense of self
- 10 hour workdays and chain gangs
- state funded, but prisoners isolated so only recourse was God
Reductivist
- utilitarian justification
- good outcomes of punishment:
1) Deterrence
2) Reform & Rehabilitation
3) Incapacitation (can’t commit crimes while locked up)
Retributivist
- not concerned with future beneficial consequences
- goes back to code of Hammurabi–“eye for an eye”
“Just desserts”
- in 1950s and 60s, penal system was part of robust welfare state (social engineering)
- we don’t want to over-punish people–proportionality is very important
- CONCERN: people who are marginalized actually get INCREASED punishment–not just at all
Current system:
Tension-filled synthesis
Durkheim
Social solidarity (structural functionalist)
- “passion is the soul of punishment”
- moral indignation is ritualized expression of social values
- punishment is an affirmation of shared beliefs through dutiful outrage which constructs a public wrath
Nietzsche
- “in punishment there is so much that is FESTIVE”
- punishment gratifies cruel tendencies
- “to witness suffering does one good; to inflict it, even more so”
Mead
- emotional solidarity of aggression (caused by collective hostility toward offender–ex outside White House when SEAL team 6 killed Bin Laden)
- often it is middle-class moral indignation which gets codified
- courtroom degradation ceremony–ritualized destruction–define accused as enemy of all that is good
- disconnect between declaration (media, public, news) and delivery (behind closed doors)
Marx
(political economy)
- how is the status quo supported by punishment? (ex we don’t police white-collar crimes)
- all about maintenance and reinforcement
- punishment maps onto economic needs of an era (ex prison labor for industry, monetary fines in monetary economies)
- “less eligibility”–prison makes one less eligible to make money for oneself, which is we do time (money/hr)
“less eligibility”
prison makes one less eligible to make money for oneself, which is we do time (money/hr)
Foucault
The "Great Incarcerations": - Thieves into prisons - Lunatics into asylums - Conscripts into barracks - Workers into factories - Children into school We have a lack of imagination
Class and Incarceration
- Class provides resources to overcome convictions–ex OJ Simpson could get an excellent lawyer, cash bail, and fly in a DNA expert
- our criminal justice system (and prisons in particular) are positioned to respond to the crimes of lower-income people
- also education–75% of state prison inmates did NOT graduate high school, and incarcerated people had 40% less income prior to incarceration
Race and Incarceration
- little difference in violent crime across races
- disadvantaged neighborhoods (female-headed households, low male economic opportunity, poor schools) experience higher crime rate REGARDLESS of race, but see substantial differences in arrest rates
- National Youth Survey: 3:2 offending rates (African-American vs white), but 4:1 arrest rate–access to lawyers, overpricing, etc
- though African-American youth do tend to do violent behavior longer (normally peaks at 17 and half that by 24)
- longer time spent in poverty, higher consequences, because people are getting married, going to college, and getting jobs
- no difference along race once stepping into adult roles, so labor opportunity is CRUCIAL
Poverty and Crime
4 Related Issues:
1) Pre-trial detainees–local jails hold far more people who can’t pay bail than have been convicted
2) Homelessness–significant increase in laws which criminalize behaviors relating to homelessness
- also if you’re homeless you’re 11x more likely to be incarcerated, and if you’ve been incarcerated you’re 10x more likely to be homeless
3) inability to pay fines–even though court-related fees have been ruled unconstitutional, the practice continues, because local govs receive a lot of revenue from fines
4) Income inequality–better predictor of crime rates than poverty–the greater the inequality, the more the crime
“Addition by subtraction”
- if we subtract problematic people, we make the community better–except that high incarceration destabilizes communities because it erodes “informal social controls”
- social disorganization theory–high mobility is fertile for crime
- Tallahassee study–neighborhoods with the highest levels of incarceration one year saw increased crime the next year
- “double whammy”–lots of people removed, then return with few resources and little opportunity
- incarceration DOES NOT cause crime–it causes circumstances which undermine the building blocks of public safety
Building blocks of public safety
1) Human capital–some innate (ex privilege), some required (ex college education)
2) Social capital–your capacity to accomplish things (quality and potency of your interpersonal attachments)
3) Social networks–webs of connection through which social action occurs–potency of social capital depends on social networks (how much you have to spend depends on who you know)
4) Collective Efficacy–ability of an aggregate to achieve desired qualities of human life
Worst situation: low human & social capital, segregated together
Parochial Controls
schools, church, workplace, community events, volunteer groups, neighborhood associations are parochial controls
- intermediary–between private social control (family) and public social control (state)
3 ways they add to public safety:
1) occupy free time (less time for antisocial behavior)
2) parental substitute
3) behavior influence (norms and expectations)
families who have had someone incarcerated tend to withdraw from parochial controls due to stigma
Civil Death
Denial of rights via incarceration throughout history–“outlawry” in Germanic tribes, “infamy” in Athens
- civil death–lost right to inherit/bequeath property, enter into contracts, vote
also Instruments of Social Exclusion
- denied participation in welfare state
Convict leasing system
- only took convicts during busy times, didn’t pay medical expenses, and didn’t have to provide for whole families–just the labor
- mortality rate in Mississippi was 9-16%
Civil Rights Mvmt and Mass Incarceration
after all the advances of the Civil Rights movement–actually saw INCREASE in mass incarceration
Rural prison sites
- was supposed to be “you produce them, you house them”–in face of determined opposition (ex Las Madres in LA) and pull factors from communities that had lost extractive industry jobs, went to rural communities instead–“recession-proof industry”
