Rising crime affects society
Dr Ruwan M Jayatunge
A crime is an offence against the
public law. It is an act committed or omitted in violation of a law
forbidding or commanding it and for which punishment is imposed upon
conviction.
First part of this article was published yesterday
Emile Durkheim
Durkheim viewed crime (deviancy) as being just another function of
society. He noted that it forms part of every society and was therefore
a natural occurrence. In fact, he viewed it as fulfilling various
important social needs; it acted to unify law-abiding citizens against
the criminal, thus “crime brings together honest men and concentrates
them.” Recognition of crime was a validation of the existence of laws,
which were in turn a reinforcement of our central values - after all,
“we do not condemn (an act) because it is a crime, but it is a crime
because we condemn it.” (Durkheim and the philosophy of causation -MTravis)
The Functionalist Robert Merton observed the colossal social changes
during the Great Depression. The crime rate plummeted and Merton focused
his attention on the imbalance of power, disproportional distribution of
wealth in an era of economic debacle. Merton in his famous essay, Social
Structure and Anomie (1938) largely discusses crime and criminality.
Robert Merton described so called manifest and latent functions. Like
any other social phenomenon, crime has its manifest and latent
functions. Manifest functions are open and conscious; where as latent
functions remain unconscious.
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Emile Durkheim |
Robert K Merton |
Karl Marx |
* Born:
April 15, 1858
* Died: November 15, 1917 (aged 59)
* Nationality: French
* Fields: Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, Religious Studies
* Known for: Institutionalizing Sociology |
* Born: July
4, 1910
*Died: February 23, 2003 (aged 92)
*Occupation: Sociologist
* Known for: Advancements in sociology |
* Born: May
5, 1818
* Died: March 14, 1883 (aged 64)
* Era: 19th century philosophy
* Region: Western Philosophy
* School: Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Hegelianism
* Main interests: Politics, economics, philosophy, sociology,
history, class struggle |
The Functionalists agree that the society is connected to each other
within various systems and thus maintaining an optimal stability. Crime
shakes the stability and making the society dysfunctional.
When the crime rate goes up societies become dysfunctional. The 19th
Century Sicily was shaken by the series of criminal acts that was
launched by the Cosa Nostra or the Sicilian mafia. The ill effects of
crime affected almost all the social layers of the Sicilian society.
People lived in fear and tension maintaining a conspiracy of silence.
The phenomenon of organized crime in Sicily has survived throughout
all political changes and economic transformations that have taken place
in Italy in the post war period. In search of an explanation, some
scholars have blamed the absence of the State; some others have stressed
the historically predatory relation between the State and the Southern
regions; recently it has been argued that what makes Sicilian organized
crime successful is the fact that it sells protection in a market
characterized by an endemic lack of trust. (Cottino 2006)
Conflict perspective
Karl Marx believed that ruling class keeps the other classes in a
disadvantaged position and Proletariat were always being exploited by
the Bourgeoisie. According to Marxist view, Social injustice and uneven
distribution of wealth give rise to crime and criminogenic conditions.
Karl Marx’s article on Capital Punishment published in the New York
Daily Tribune in 1853 comments on the genesis of crime in the society
following economic causes.
Although the basic Marxist premise is that crime is a socio-economic
phenomenon, the Soviet Union experienced deadly waves of crime from the
1917 Socialist Revolution. Some of the violent acts were committed by
various political fractions like Stephen Bandera group. The Soviet
authorities believed that the elimination of private property in the
means of production, the eradication of the exploitation of one person
by another and the resolution of social antagonisms led to the
disappearance of basic social roots of crime in the USSR. Despite their
belief, the crimes were prevailing in the Soviet Union and like in the
Western societies serial murders emerged under the Socialist system.
(The serial murder Andriy Chykatylo or the Red Ripper of Rostov had
killed over 50 children and women) The strict censorship limited the
publishing of comprehensive crime statistics in the Soviet Union.
Interactionism and crime
The sociological theoretical perspective of interactionism explains
that crime emerge as a result of human interaction. Crime is a form of
social interaction consisting of actions and reactions. The
interactionism elucidates crime and how criminals to act within society.
According to the interactionism, everyone has different attitudes,
values, culture and beliefs so as criminals. The Interactionist Herbert
Blumer in his 1933 publication Movies, Delinquency, and Crime explains
the media influence on criminal behaviour.
The criminals as Herbert Blumer views unable to establish empathy. He
further says that in phenomenology (one of the subdivisions of symbolic
interactionism) empathy plays a greater role. Empathy refers to the
experience of another human body as another. While people often identify
others with their physical bodies, this type of phenomenology requires
that we focus on the subjectivity of the other, as well as our
intersubjective engagement with them.
Crime
|
* Offence
against public
* Act committed in violation of law
* Has negative impact on society
* Impacts on values, morale
* Vary from society to society
* Can be divided into broad categories |
The non-empathic factor was apparent in many crimes. For example,
people who committed crimes against humanity (Hitler, Pol Pot etc)
lacked empathy. The psychological profile of the serial murder Charles
Sobhraj alias Bikini Killer indicates that he had no violent impulses.
Sobhraj had excellent communication skills and his social interaction
was tightly connected with a process of communication. Charles Sobhraj
allegedly committed at least 12 murders including a Canadian tourist.
The psychological profile also indicate is lack of empathy.
Feminist perspectives
According to the feminist perspective, male domination in society
(patriarchy) and gender inequality have an enormous disadvantage to the
women. The feminists argue that often women become the victims of crime
rather than the perpetrators. The women are subjected to crimes like
rape, abuse, exploitation etc around the globe. As they point out on
most occasions, the women perpetrators of crime had no control over
their situation and they were forced to commit these anti social acts
following the social injustices created by the male dominated society.
The Indian Feminists give a solid example of Phoolan Devi or the
Bandit Queen of India and how she became a criminal. Phoolan was forced
to marry an elderly man at the age of 11 and she underwent mistreatments
by her husband and his relatives. Following unbearable domestic abuse,
she ran away from her husband. When she came back to her village, the
son of the village headman tried to molest her. Although she was the
victim Phoolan was publicly humiliated by high cast villagers and she
was banished from her native village. When she returned to her village
after a few months, the police unjustly arrested her and a group of
policemen raped Phoolan. These mental and physical traumas led her to
form a bandit group and she unleashed a deadly violence committing
murder and robberies in rural India.
The American society was shocked by the crimes committed by a female
named Aileen Wuornos. Aileen was born in 1956 in Michigan. Her father
was a habitual child molester and felon and was imprisoned for rape and
attempted murder and committed suicide while in prison. Soon after his
death, Aileen’s mother left her. She was raised by her grandparents who
had no constant income. Aileen Wuornos had a tormented childhood and she
entered the society as a misfit. At the age of 15, Aileen ran away and
became a petty criminal and a prostitute. While working as a sex worker
many times she was brutally raped and she sustained physical injuries.
In later years, Aileen Wuornos killed seven men by shooting her victims
multiple times and dumping their bodies in remote locations. Aileen
Wuornos was arrested for murder and faced a trial. She was executed in
Florida in 2002 by a lethal injection.
The stories of Phoolan Devi of the Indian society and Aileen Wuornos
of the North American society evidently show the validity of the
arguments presented by feminists on crime. The Canadian sociologist
Dorothy E. Smith in her Standpoint theory suggests that the predominant
culture in which all groups exist is not experienced in the same way by
all persons or groups. The marginalized groups live in the predominant
culture must learn to be bicultural or to pass in the dominant culture
to survive, even though that perspective is not there own. (DeFrancisco
2007)
Post-modern perspective
According to the post-modern perspective, social changes give rise to
crime and there is no single theory to explain the genesis of crime.
Postmodernists view that all truth is relative. Under these
circumstances, individuals have lost faith in universal belief systems
or ‘grand narratives. The contemporary culture is characterized by the
problematization of objective truth.
The modern society is exemplified by consumerism and influence by the
media. To explain the crime and criminal behaviour Postmodernists use
critical theory, which is a social theory, oriented toward critiquing
and changing society as a whole.
According to Hannah Arendt, men are not capable of forgiving what
they cannot punish, nor of punishing the unforgivable. On the other
hand, Jacques Derrida states that we can maintain a legal accusation
even when we forgive, or inversely, we are able not to judge but we can
forgive.
Michel Foucault in his alluring book ‘Discipline and Punish: The
Birth of the Prison’ examines the social and theoretical mechanisms
behind the massive changes that occurred in Western penal systems during
the modern age. Several centuries ago, criminals were punished in public
to discourage committing crimes. According to Michel Foucault, the
public spectacle of torture was a theatrical forum that served several
intended and unintended purposes for society. Based on Foucault’s
argument reflecting the violence of the original crime onto the
convict’s body for all to see remained as the main purpose.
In the modernist approach, crime is a multifactoral phenomenon and
some postmodernists try to explain the crime and criminal behaviour via
Chaos theory. Based on the common notion murders and the rapes as the
manifestations of crime, but in reality they are the consequences of
other social occurrences. Chaos Theory holds that it is virtually
impossible to predict the outcome of any social phenomenon because
social events are susceptible to change. In the postmodern condition,
life is in fragments and people experience everyday life as an open
space of moral, political and personal dilemmas.
The concept of crime can vary from society to society. Sociological
aspects of crime can be divided into broad categories in relation to
social determinants. In the sociological perspective, crime and criminal
behaviour is viewed in defiant standpoints.
According to the functionalist perspective, the society is
interlinked with various systems and crimes make the society
dysfunctional. The conflict theorists believe that social exploitation
and unequal distribution of wealth trigger criminality in the society.
The sociological theoretical perspective of interactionism explains that
crime emerge as a result of human interaction.
The feminists argue that often women become the victims of crime
rather than the perpetrators. The post modern perspective explains that
social changes give rise to crime and there is no single theory to
explain the genesis of crime.
Concluded |