Chapter 5 Summary - Correlates of Criminal Behaviour - Introduction to Criminology PDF

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Correlates of Criminal Behaviour...

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Chapter 5: Correlates of Criminal Behaviour - This chapter focuses on correlates of criminal behaviour. Correlates of crime are variables that are connected with crime. - It is important to understand that correlation is not the same as causation. Thus, while the correlates we will be examining are in some ways connected with criminal behaviour, they do not necessarily cause crime. - Six major correlates of crime are examined in this chapter: age, gender, race, drug and alcohol use, socioeconomic status, and spatial location. Age as a Correlate of Criminal Behaviour - Young people are disproportionately represented in crime generally and in violent crime in particular. - An established pattern: criminal activity intensifies in adolescence and young adulthood and declines thereafter. - Most crimes committed by Canadian youth are nonviolent. Theft under $5,000 is the most common offence committed by youth. - The most common violent crime among Canadian youth is Level 1 assault. Level 1 assaults are assaultive acts that do not cause any physical harm to victims, so assault without a weapon. Why Do Young People Commit More Crimes Than Adults? - Matza first drew attention to the notion of maturational reform - that there is a reduction in criminal offending as individuals get older. - The notion of maturational reform encompasses three factors that may cause crime to decline. 1. Aging brings physiological limitations. 2. The formation of various types of social bonds, such as work, marriage, and children, means that individuals have other people who depend on them to make the right choices 3. Maturational reform involves a more socially responsible trajectory of human agency. A relatively simple example of this is that beyond a certain age, “getting wasted” on weekends may no longer sound as attractive a course of individual or group action as it is for younger people. - The notion of maturational reform is intertwined with life course theory - Life course theorists articulate how social bonds such as attachment to a spouse, pursuit of education, and the onset of major life events help reduce the likelihood of involvement in crime. Gender as a Correlate of Crime - This section focuses on four key questions in the gender distribution of police reported crime. 1. What is the proportion of females accused of crime compared to males? 2. What are the percentages of females and males under the supervision of correctional services at the provincial and federal levels? 3. What is the gender distribution of convicted persons who have been designated

“dangerous offenders” in Canada? 4. Is there evidence supporting the notion of role convergence between males and females as regards crime? - The answers to these questions provide a gendered picture of criminality. - Females are less likely to be charged with criminal offences - According to Mahony, there are gender dynamics at the prosecution and sentencing stages. Women were less likely than men to be found guilty of a crime. - Why do women receive more lenient treatment in the courts? One reason is that males commit more serious crimes, especially more violent offences. A second factor that influences court decisions is female offenders’ responsibility for young children. - Role Convergence Hypothesis is a theory that as the work roles of women become similar to those of men, so will their involvement in crime. Race and Crime - Race is not as strongly related to crime as age and sex - This is partly because police in Canada rarely report information on race. The exception is information about Aboriginal Offenders. - An attempt in 1990 by Statistics Canada to collect data on the race of offenders was rejected because of lack of cooperation from most police organizations and because of broad criticism of the policy. Why are Aboriginal Peoples Overrepresented in the Criminal Justice System? - Several explanations have been offered for the overrepresentation of Aboriginal peoples in the criminal justice system. - They include cultural theories, the colonial model, the trauma transmission model, and the critical race theory. Cultural Theories - Cultural theories of crime examine the traits, characteristics, or way of life of an identifiable group to explain the involvement of members of that group in the criminal justice process. - There are two major strands in cultural theories of Aboriginal overrepresentation in the criminal justice process. - The first views Aboriginal cultures as inherently violent. - The second strand come close to cultural conflict theory. - This perspective views Aboriginal cultures as different from the dominant EuroCanadian culture in content and/or manner of expression. - The common law system’s norms, values, and procedures are alien to Aboriginal peoples and predispose them to conflict with the law. Structural Theories The Colonial Model - The colonial model is a socio-psychological perspective. It focuses on the intersection of “structural oppression, alienation and three adaptive forms of behaviour - assimilation, crime or deviance, and protest”. - Tatum’s typology includes four stages of colonization.

1. In the first, the territory of one racial group is invaded by another. 2. In the second stage, a colonial society is formed. At this stage, processes of cultural imposition, cultural disintegration, and cultural re-creations occur. Cultural implosion means that the native populations are forced to adopt the values and ways of life of the colonial power. 3. In the third stage, Native peoples find themselves governed by representatives of the colonizer’s power, such as the police and military. 4. Fourth, the colonial society develops a caste system based on race. As a result, access to socially valuable resources such as land, jobs, and education is shaped by racial considerations. Historic Trauma Transmission Model - This model is closely related to the colonial model in that it emphasizes the social and psychological consequences of colonialism. - This model argues that when a group of people experience physical extermination, cultural genocide, and colonial subjugation, member s of the group develop “learned helplessness”. - “Such a person or group becomes passive, inactive, and hostile, ascribing social failures to personal, internal causes and blaming themselves for their helplessness”. Critical Race Theory - Critical race theory makes several assumptions. - These include the idea that the law reflects the dominant group’s norms and values and favours that group. Drug and Alcohol Misuse as a Correlate of Crime - The use of illicit drugs is strongly correlated with street crimes including murder, robbery, auto theft, and mischief. - Drugs such as cocaine, crack, and heroin are often involved in debates about the drugcrime nexus. - Three factors link drug and alcohol use and crime: 1. First, efforts to support an addiction can lead to involvement in crimes; 2. Second, individuals may commit crimes because they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol; 3. Third, the mere possession of illegal drugs in and of itself is a crime. - Drugs cause crime in three ways: psychopharmacological, economic compulsive, and systemic. 1. Psychopharmacological dimension means that drugs have the capacity to change behaviour and make people break laws. 2. Second, the economically compulsive dimension implies that crime may be committed in order to secure drugs to feed a habit. 3. Third, the systemic dimension indicates that “violence is intrinsic to involvement with any illicit substance”. In other words, being involved in the sale and use of banned commodities connects individuals with a complex web of interactions with criminal actors and networks.

Socio-Economic Status and Criminal Behaviour - Historically, the lower classes have been seen as responsible for crime. - The underclass is defined by “poverty, crime, poor education, dependency, and teenage out-of-wedlock childbearing”. - This category often has political and racial connotations. - Police-reported statistics primarily identify lower-class offenders. - This view was challenged when Edwin Sutherland brought attention to white collar crime; - This generated a major debate that concluded that the negative association between socioeconomic status and crime was small and had declined over the previous four decades. - SES is typically measured as a composite of three key variables - education, income, and occupation. - Criminologists now recognize that people with low SES are overrepresented in policereported statistics partly because the criminal behaviour of the “middle and upper crime class systematically escaped official notice”. - Wright and colleagues made three fundamental findings concerning the link between SES and crime or delinquency. 1. First, the link between SES and crime is an indirect one that operates through mediating variables, which include people’s attitudes, behaviours, neighborhood, etc. 2. Second, low SES promotes delinquency - that is, it serves as a catalyst for delinquency because it causes alienation, financial strain, and aggression. 3. Third, and rather counterintuitively, high SES promotes delinquency by reducing adherence to conventional values while increasing social power and risk-taking behaviours. - Sampson and Laub argue that finding a stable job is a watershed event that reduces recidivism. - Conversely, high unemployment rates lead to intensification of criminal acts. Spatial Location as a Correlate of Crime - Studies of Crime and place show that different streets, neighbourhoods, cities, states/provinces, and countries have different patterns of crime. - The territories have the highest rates of crime, followed by Saskatchewan, and the other western Provinces. - The relationship between neighbourhood characteristics and crime is a hot topic among criminologists today. - There is evidence that violent juvenile criminal behavior declines when families move to wealthier neighbourhoods....