**USE Only Book ISBN – 9780078026720 Title: Sociology A Brief Introduction 10th edition Authors: Schaefer, Richard T
Schaefer**
READ Chapter 7
Chapter 7 – Assignment 2
Be sure to include any questions number in you answer. Look at how the questions is asked and answer it the same way.
Submit your answers to questions to the appropriate discussion group and respond to two of your classmates on differing
questions.
6 points
People across the United States are fearful – and fed up- with crime. Dogs for protection, special locks, and security systems
have never been more popular. And no wonder: Almost half of U.S. adults claim that they are afraid to walk alone at night in
the vicinity of their own homes. Government spending on crime prevention has risen steadily during the past thirty years, but
so has the crime rate.
At the same time, as noted at the beginning of this chapter, violent crime has gone down in the last few years. New York City
is a case in point: Murders in the Big Apple dropped from 2,245 in 1990 to 803 in 1997. Are we beginning to learn something
more about controlling crime?
Three factors seem to account for the New York turnaround. First, more police are on the streets than ever before. Second, a
program of “community policing” makes police commanders directly responsible for controlling crime in their district. Third,
and probably more important, police are less focused on making arrests and more concerned with preventing crime in the first
place. For example, police officers have begun stopping young men for jaywalking or even spitting on the sidewalk in order to
check them for concealed weapons (as a result the word is getting around that you risk arrest for carrying a gun) and even
blocking off streets to traffic if that’s what it takes to put local drug dealers out of business (the policy seems to work:
the drug trade is down).
Travis Hirschi (author of control theory) offers his own version of a community approach to crime. Hirschi notes that
criminals today have two things in common. The first is age; most offenders are young. Crime rates are high in the late teens
and early twenties, and they fall quickly thereafter. Second, most offenders take a short-term view of their lives.
Lawbreakers, as Hirschi sees it, are people who have trouble working toward any long-term goal, including an educational
degree, a career, a successful marriage, or even keeping a steady friendship. More than anything else, in fact, offenders are
people characterized by low self-control.
That is why, according to Hirschi, our present criminal justice system can never control crime effectively. For one thing,
going to jail is too uncertain (most crimes go unpunished) and too far removed in time (catching, trying, and jailing
criminals often takes a year or more) to deter the typical offender. Thus, Hirschi explains, popular calls for “stiffer
sentences” actually have little effect in suppressing crime. Moreover, by the time many offenders are sent to prison, they are
moving beyond the “crime years” simply because they are growing older. Statistically speaking, then, offenders aging in prison
represent a crime threat already shrinking on its own.
Therefore, rather than locking up adults, Hirschi argues that society needs to focus on younger people before they commit
crimes. /similar to the new approach in New York City, Hirschi’s approach calls for closer attention to teenagers – those at
highest risk for criminal behavior. Effective crime control depends on devising policies to keep teens away not only from guns
and drugs, but also alcohol and, if necessary, cars.
Ultimately, though, the most effective way to control crime, Hirschi concludes, is to teach children self-control . This is a
reasonability that falls upon parents. Government can help, however, by intervening in dysfunctional families and by
developing strategies that help build strong-preferably two parent- families. Eliminating pregnancy among teenage girls would
do far more to reduce crime, Hirschi contends, than all the actions of today’s criminal justice system.
QUESTIONS
1. Do you thing we need more prisons? Is that an effective way to deal with the crime problem? What else might be done?
2. Hirschi’s recommendations are controversial because he opposes the popular practice of building more prisons. What do you
thing?
3. If we don’t lock up today’s offenders swiftly and surely, how can we satisfy society’s demand for retribution?
4. Do you think that New York City’s new crime approach and Hirschi’s suggestions attack the broader conditions that breed
crime, such as poverty, racial prejudice, and weak families? Why or why not?
5. Does lethal injection illustrate the “medicalization of death”? How or how not?
6. Does lethal injection “sugar coat” capital punishment by making suffering less apparent? Is lethal injection more humane?
Why or why not?
Place this order with us and get 18% discount now! to earn your discount enter this code: special18 If you need assistance chat with us now by clicking the live chat button.