| HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE SOCIAL CONTROL, LAW & CRIME Modern (Western) legal systems (laws, police, courts, prisons) and modern forms of crime originated with the industrial revolutions in Europe between about 1000ad and the 1700s -1800s. Before the Industrial Revolutions (Agricultural/Feudal societies) Agricultural economy (production of food and basic necessities of life) was the foundation of society. Most of the population (98%+) were peasants who lived in rural areas spread over a lot of land. Social units (who people interact with) were small (kinship, extended family) and homogeneous (alike). Local cultures were stable and traditional � local religions encoded and passed on long cultural traditions. There was very little mobility and everyone had a traditional (inherited) �place� in the social order. This set of circumstances is what sociologists call �community� � everybody knows everybody else, everybody is pretty much the same, there is little individuality (self-interest, privacy, etc.), and nothing changes very much � the past, present, and future all look pretty much alike, and thus appear �natural.� Community generates strong informal social control � social control without explicit rules/laws. After the Industrial Revolution (and still continuing with post-industrialism!) Industrial economy (manufacturing, technology, etc.) increasingly becomes the foundation of society. Most of the population gradually shifts to densely populated urban areas and become wageworkers. Social units become larger and more diverse (heterogeneity) and family/kinship ties gradually erode. Urban culture is continuously changing and involves merging different values � �compromise culture.� Mobility increases in every way and changing circumstances continually produce displaced people. (Post-industrialism emerges when agricultural and industrial work are done by only a small part of the pop.) This set of circumstances is what sociologists call �society� � we don�t know most of the people we interact with, everybody is different (backgrounds, values, etc.), we become highly individualized and pursue our self-interest, identities, and personal privacy, and things around us are constantly changing. The transition away from traditional communities slowly breaks down informal (traditional) social control and increasingly generates "formal-rational" social control systems - the �rule of law� � and this is what leads to the development of legal systems, law enforcement, courts, prisons, etc. During the transition, there is typically a lot of conflict and violence as people from very different backgrounds meet in a new cultural context lacking community and informal social control structures. Three Levels of Social Control: 1. Informal Social Control (shaping behavior to fit the culture's ways of doing things) A. Reward - Punishment (esteem & rejection by community control behavior) B. Surveillance (no concept of distinct individuality or right to privacy) 2. Self-control -- internalized social control (your culture's ways of doing things is learned). A. Internalized Reward - Punishment (self-esteem & embarrassment/guilt) B. Internalized Surveillance (self-consciousness, �conscience�) The relationship between informal social control and self-control is developmental - activities of small children are subject to informal social control involving close surveillance (no privacy) and rewards/punishments by specific people (e.g. parents). As children grow up and their range of activities expands, control by others is gradually replaced by self-control, backed up by continuing surveillance (with some privacy) and rewards/punishments (e.g. �reputation�) by a larger segment of the community. By adulthood, self-control almost completely replaces informal social control, which recedes into the background (as ritual, ceremony, rites of passage, etc.). This whole process is what sociologists call the �internalization of social norms.� Most norms are very deeply embedded in customary and traditional ways of doing things and thus are opaque and seem natural to the people who internalize them (this is called �reification�). 3. Formal Social Control -- based on explicit and rational norms (rules and laws) Formal social control develops where informal social control (+ self-control) is unable to adequately regulate social interaction (e.g. social change like industrialization/urbanization processes). Formal social control can be fairly simple (like rules for playing a game) or very complex (like elaborate legal systems in modern societies with large institutions set up to interpret and administer the rules). The social aspect of formal social control tends to emphasize punishment over reward, and surveillance tends to be reactive rather than proactive/preventive. The self-control aspect emphasizes the rational attachment to law (respect for and fear of the law), individual responsibility, and knowledge of the law. Formal social control is not as effective as informal social control. Punishment is not as effective as reward, reactive enforcement is not as effective as proactive/preventive enforcement, individual/rational attachment to law is not as effective as social/emotional attachment to reified traditional norms. CHANGES IN THE US WORK FORCE ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Work Force Segmentation - % of workers in the 3 basic sectors of economic production. (Illustrates US transition from agricultural to industrial to post-industrial society/culture) 1800 1850 1900 1925 1950 1975 2000 AGRI % 93 56 40 26 16 4 2 INDUS % 3 32 44 53 36 30 23 SERV % 4 12 16 21 48 66 75 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CLASS Robert Reich: US is not autonomous - increasingly only one �region� of a massive global economy. (an economist, Reich served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration) Three basic categories of US private service jobs as they relate to the global economy: 1. Symbolic-analytic services (20% of workforce, 28 million workers, mostly white males) Salaried �Professionals� create and manipulate information (lawyers, financial, management, and education professionals, scientists, engineers, planner/developer profs, entertainment profs, etc). - Work alone or in small groups with little or no supervision. - College + graduate/professional degrees, cosmopolitan, socially liberal. - Roots in universities, geographically concentrated in/near urban educational centers. - Globally dominant (and increasingly so). This is our strongest area in the global economy. 2. Routine production services (25% of workforce, 35 million workers) Hourly medium-wage workers doing simple, repetitive, monotonous tasks in manufacturing, banking, insurance, retail sales, healthcare industry (manufacturing is a declining segment; data work is an increasing segment, putting data in and taking data out of computers). - Work in large group settings, hierarchical, closely supervised. - High school, some college. - Metals - white men, Fabrics/Information - women and minorities - Subject to heavy global competition - both types can be done by cheap labor overseas. - Jobs disappearing (1950 50%+ of work force), wages steadily dropping (global competition). 3. Routine personal services (30% of workforce, 42 million, mostly women/minorities) Hourly low-wage workers doing simple, repetitive, monotonous tasks on site/in person -- security guards, drivers, attendants, cleaners, grooming, restaurant-hotel, retail sales, etc. - "McJobs" � Work in small businesses (often franchises), hierarchical, very closely supervised. - High school education or less. - Sheltered from direct global competition (but competition from poor immigrants). - Largest area of job growth - increasingly. - About half of this sector poor or �near poor� � low wages. The other 25% of the work force (35 million) non-private (government) workers with medium wages, salaries, and benefits, mostly sheltered from global competition. This segment is slowly shrinking mostly through attrition (intergenerational & �invisible�) because of eroding tax bases, tax cuts, and technology. The Poor - 20-25 million adults (+children), overlap with the work force (work available sporadically). - About10 million permanent hard-core poverty � the �underclass� - About10 million in poverty most of the time � the �deserving poor� - About10 million cycle in and out of poverty -- �working poor� The Contemporary U.S. Class System (based on families, not individuals) - (emerged from �socialist" economic reforms after World War II - child labor laws and public education, social security, minimum wage laws, legitimation of unions, expansion of public services, etc.) 1% Capitalist Class (own most wealth - live off of income from capital) 10% Business/Professsional Class (service & management workers - high salary + full benefits) 30% Stable Working Class (union/bureaucracy workers - medium wages + good benefits) 40% Unstable� Working Class (non-union, unprotected workers - low wages, few benefits) 20% The Poor (unemployed, under-employed, the �underclass�) Class Reproduction (how the classes are reproduced from generation to generation) Note: People usually know little about those in other social classes because they rarely interact. Capitalist Class - Parents are college educated and inherited wealth from their families, live off of inherited wealth in rich areas, run their own businesses, sit on corporate boards, manage family wealth, and own several homes. Kids grow up in wealthy areas, attend private prep schools, attend major state and private universities (Stanford, UC, etc.). After graduation, they use family contacts to start businesses, sit on corporate boards, and manage their inherited wealth. They marry a person they met in college (from a similar background), establish a home in a wealthy area, and become parents of the next generation. Business/Professsional Class - Parents are college educated and live in suburbs off of salaries and benefits derived from managing businesses and/or working as professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.), and own their own homes. Kids grow up in �middle class� suburbs, attend prosperous public schools with college-bound curriculum, and attend major state and private universities. They often work part-time while in high school and college. After graduation, they use their education to move into entry-level business/professional jobs, which develop over time into professional careers. They marry a person they met in college (from a similar background), buy a house in a middle class suburb (often in a different city from their parents), and become parents of the next generation. Stable Working Class � Parents have a high school education and often some college and live in suburban working class areas off of moderate hourly wages and moderate benefits (based on union scale) from production and personal service jobs, and own their own homes. Kids grow up in suburban working class neighborhoods, graduate from public high schools usually lacking a college-bound curriculum, and often attend community colleges or trade schools. They usually work part-time while in high school. After graduation, they hold a series of entry-level jobs, eventually settling into a more permanent production or personal service hourly-wage job. They marry a person they met in high school (usually from their own neighborhood), buy a house in a working class neighborhood in the same city, and become parents of the next generation. Unstable Working Class - Parents have a high school education or less, live in urban working class areas off of low hourly wages and few benefits (not based on union scale) from transient production and personal service jobs, and usually rent apartments or own small houses. Kids grow up in urban working class neighborhoods, graduate from poorer public high schools completely lacking a college-bound curriculum, and often attend community colleges or trade schools. They usually work part-time while in high school. After high school, they hold a series of low-wage entry-level jobs, but getting permanent positions is hard because of the transience of these jobs. They marry a person they met in school (from their own neighborhood), rent housing near where their parents live, and then become parents of the next generation. The Poor - Parents have less than a high school education, and live in poor and transient urban areas off of minimum wages and few benefits from transient personal service jobs, and usually rent apartments, live in projects, or live with relatives in crowded housing. Kids grow up in poor and transient urban areas, attend poor public high schools completely lacking a college-bound curriculum, sometimes graduate high school. They usually don�t work part-time because these jobs are needed by poor adults. After leaving school, they hold a series of low-wage menial jobs, but getting permanent jobs is very hard because of the transience of these jobs and their lack of education and work skills. They marry a poor person from their own neighborhood, and live with parents or rent near their parents, and then become parents of the next generation. How does all of this relate to crime? 1. Because of community and informal social control, crime is low in agricultural societies. 2. Rising agricultural productivity (fewer people can produce more food) produces huge surplus populations and this leads to crime and violence (it also produces the new work force for factories - industrialization). 3. As surplus pops are forced into factory towns (mostly young males from different backgrounds and little informal social control) crime and violence skyrocket. When the crime and violence threaten them, the elites/rich usually respond with severe repression (public torture and executions, etc.). 4. Eventually formal social control (law) emerges in the towns, but it is not very effective - crime and violence decrease only when the surplus pops decrease (in this case, out migration to the "new world"). 5. In the U.S. we got Europe's surplus pops. But as they became surplus here, they continually moved west so we had relatively low crime rates for about two centuries (1700s and 1800s). Note: unless we consider slavery and the genocide directed against Native Americans to be "criminal," which some of us do! 6. Our crime rates remained relatively low as we industrialized (late 1800's through 1920s) but in the 1920s we began to produce large surplus pops and this led to more crime, and later to the Depression and World War 2. 7. After WW 2 there was a "baby boom." The baby boomers reached the prime crime age (15-25) in the 1960s and crime skyrocketed as we had millions more young people and not enough entry-level jobs (the poorer baby boomers became surplus pops!). 8. Crime started to level off in the 1970s as the baby boomers "aged out" of crime but changes in the class system and globalization led to the "bottom half" of the population being "trapped" in an economic downward spiral - jobs are going overseas (for cheap labor) and wages are dropping (cheap labor competition). 9. The economic dilemma and related stresses of bottom half life (unstable wc and poor) leads to huge amounts of petty street crime embedded in "illegal economies" (stolen goods, drugs, the sex/porn industry, etc.). 10. In summary, the bottom half is a new form of surplus population - increasingly extraneous to a high tech economy, no place to go like previous surplus pops, and the stresses are increasing with globalization. 11. Further, most social policy (e.g., crime policy) benefits the "top half" at the expense of the bottom half - top half people are organized (professional organizations), have money to influence politics, and regularly vote. So high crime rates (and other social problems) among the poor are now chronic problems in the US. 12. As we will see later, the "criminal justice system" (CJS) is completely ineffective in dealing with street crime. |