Topic
Crime and Deviance
Instructions
-What purposes do deviance and crime serve?
– How has technology, especially 24/7 global news impacted our awareness of deviance and crime?
– How are crime and deviance both relative and universal?
– In what ways are the attitudes towards incest both relative and universal?
– How are attitudes towards use of drugs relative?
– How can the power conflict perspective be applied to drug usage? How does this help explain cigarettes and alcohol being legal and marijuana being illegal?
– What is the significance of Stonewall? Do all societies view homosexuality in a negative manor? Why do
some societies perceive homosexual / transgender individuals as having higher status?
– Has the ‘sexual revolution’ resulting in more sexual activity?
– How did the attitude of the American Psychiatric Association towards homosexuality change in 1972? Was
this change immediately accepted by the rest of society?
– How far back is there evidence of the use of opiates both medicinally and recreational? What community
was targeted in the first anti-opium laws?
– Why are the legal consequences different for use of crack cocaine and powder cocaine?
– How have attitudes towards the nicotine in tobacco changed?
– What did the National Commission of Marijuana and Drug Abuse propose in 1972?
– What happens in the cultural production of crime and deviance?
– What are the concerns about trying to measure crime and deviance?
– Are property crimes or violent crimes more common?
– What happens when there is more reporting of random crimes?
– How have we been impacted by crime scares?
– How have we been impacted by the missing children scare?
– How have we been impacted by the serial murder scare?
– How have we been impacted by the drug scare?
– According to Robert Merton, how does the ‘American Dream’ (i.e. ‘American values’) affect crime in the US? What is the role of our emphasis on individualism and competition?
– How has social Darwinism impacted US views on the poor?
– Is our judicial system consistent across racial groups?
– What does the prison-industrial complex refer to? How is this potentially problematic for our society?
– How is education (as opposed to incarceration) better in deterring crime?
– According to Mencken (1925) what impact did the prohibition of alcohol have on US society?
Answer preview
– What purposes do deviance and crime serve? Determines what is OK and not OK and makes distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’
– How has technology, especially 24/7 global news impacted our awareness of deviance and crime? We hear about things quickly, hear about things far away and makes us think that there is more deviance / crime than in reality.
– How are crime and deviance both relative and universal? Crime in a society does not indicate something is wrong with society. Since all societies have deviance / crime, it must be functional. Behaviors, attitudes considered deviant at one time period, in one place can change. What acts are considered criminal differ among societies
– In what ways are the attitudes towards incest both relative and universal? All societies have norms prohibiting incest, however, how relationships are determined and which relationships are considered potentially incestuous differ. In some societies not all children of your parents’ siblings are considered cousins; sometimes only the father’s kin are considered cousins; in others only the mother’s kin are considered cousins
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