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As I was completing this assignment, I was watching the infamous Netflix documentary entitled Making a Murderer. The documentary follows the story of Steven Avery, who is currently in prison for the death of a woman, Teresa Halbach, in 2005. Steven Avery has been denying any involvement in the murder of Teresa Halbach for the past eleven years. In the middle of the reading, the documentary was exploring and analyzing Steven Avery’s deviant behavior as a young man (Making). As I observed what was being discussed about Steven Avery, I was able to build the connection between how society, and the community from which he came from, perceived Steven Avery and what Kai Erikson discussed in the first couple pages of the book with regards to deviance and its relation with regards to society. First and foremost, it is important to …show more content…
Crime and deviant behavior surprisingly helps increase “social activity” among various different people within a society. Therefore, crime and deviant behavior brings “people together in a common posture of anger and indignation…when these people come together to express their outrage over the offense…they develop a tighter sense of solidarity than existed earlier” (Erikson 4). For example, in the Steven Avery case, the people of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, all had very strong feelings of Steven Avery and his family, and as a result they were seen as deviant people in their own hometown. Those feelings towards him, and his family, would be a critical factor when he was accused of the horrendous crime (Making). Based on their feelings towards the Avery family, the society in which he lived developed the overall concept of us versus them (Erikson 11). Therefore, another concept that arises as a result of crime and deviant behavior is public temper, which is described as a “mutual group feeling” (Erikson
The Murderers Are Among Us, directed by Wolfe Gang Staudte, is the first postwar film. The film takes place in Berlin right after the war. Susan Wallner, a young women who has returned from a concentration camp, goes to her old apartment to find Hans Mertens living there. Hans took up there after returning home from war and finding out his house was destroyed. Hans would not leave, even after Susan returned home. Later on in the film we find out Hans was a former surgeon but can no longer deal with human suffering because of his traumatic experience in war. We find out about this traumatic experience when Ferdinand Bruckner comes into the film. Bruckner, Hans’ former captain, was responsible for killing hundreds
The sentencing of underage criminals has remained a logistical and moral issue in the world for a very long time. The issue is brought to our perspective in the documentary Making a Murderer and the audio podcast Serial. When trying to overcome this issue, we ask ourselves, “When should juveniles receive life sentences?” or “Should young inmates be housed with adults?” or “Was the Supreme Court right to make it illegal to sentence a minor to death?”. There are multiple answers to these questions, and it’s necessary to either take a moral or logical approach to the problem.
Adler, Patricia A., and Adler Peter. Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction. 6th ed. Belmont: Thomas/Wadsworth, 2009.
Throughout the history of law enforcement within the United States, theories has been explored and implemented as polices in addressing deviant behaviors produced by humans. Models such as Crime Control through the Conflict perceptive suggest the human nature is persuaded by social opportunities and considered a fundamental aspect of social life (Schmalleger, 2009, p. 347). However, social disorders must be addressed in a cordial and civil procedural fairness; thus, individual rights guaranteed by policies such as Due Process ensure that individuals under allegations are treated equally and just. Although crime and deviant behaviors exist within our communities, policies are intended to reduce such disorders by following cohesive criminal justice frameworks with the intentions of protecting individuals accused of crimes. Crime Contro...
The TV show, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, often addresses criminal deviance such as rape and murder. In the episode, “Scorched Earth,” an African immigrant maid becomes a rape victim of a rich, Italian prime minister named Distascio (Wolf). This episode highlights how status can affect perception of certain deviant behaviors. Additionally, it addresses contemporary America’s values toward types of deviant acts, and sanctions that go along with them.
Before the 1950’s theorists focused on what the difference was between deviants and criminals from “normal” citizens. In the 1950’s researchers were more involved exploring meaning and reasons behind deviant acts. This led to the most dominant question in the field of deviance, “what is the structural and culture factors that lead to deviant behavior?” This question is important when studying deviance because there is no clear answer, everyone sees deviance in different ways, and how deviance is created. Short and Meier states that in the 1960’s there was another shift in focus on the subject of deviance. The focus was what causes deviance, the study of reactions to deviance, and the study of rule breaking and rule making. In the 1960’s society was starting to speak out on what they believed should be a rule and what should not; this movement create chaos in the streets. However, it gave us a glimpse into what makes people become deviant, in the case it was the Vietnam War and the government. Short and Meier also write about the three levels that might help us understand were deviance comes from and how people interact to deviance. The first is the micro level, which emphasizes individual characteristics by biological, psychological, and social sciences. The second level is macrosociological that explains culture and
Frank Trippett, in his excerpt,”A Red Light for Scofflaws,” argues that social order is affected by law-abiding citizens casually breaking the law. Frank supports this argument by asserting that more and more people today are becoming scofflaws. He continues by saying “people only think law-and-order is affected by violent crime.” The author's purpose is to inform people that casually breaking the law has a larger impact on society than just an innocent piece of trash on the ground. The author creates an informative one for ignorant citizens. The casual breakage of laws has a large effect on the grand scheme of social order in a society.
Frank Trippett, in his prompt A Red Light for Scofflaws, informs that “foundations of social order are profoundly shaken when ordinary law-abiding citizens take to skirting the law.” He backs up his claim by first saying that these small laws being broken are made to protect to nourish society. He then explains that americans think that law and order can only happen when a violent crime is committed. He speaks in an informative tone for young adult audiences. Some laws in society are harmless when broken, scofflaws never affect anyone.
In today’s society, it seems criminality runs rampant. The sheer number of people who become incarcerated each year is staggering, and growing. Aside from the outrageous costs for housing these offenders, it becomes increasingly difficult to decipher the true nature of the crime committed and whether or not the suspect in question is the culprit. This concept begs the question, are all of the people currently incarcerated actually guilty of the crimes they allegedly committed? This idea serves as the foundation for the structure of the book Actual Innocence, where it is found that people frequently become wrongly convicted of heinous crimes on the basis of illegitimate confession, white coat fraud, prosecutorial misconduct, snitch evidence
An ordinary night took an unexpected turn, on the ground lay a lifeless man. Everyone was in full shock and could not believe what happened. Every year television networks debut new shows and my favorite one this year was How To Get Away With Murder. It had the most intense scenes I have seen on a television screen; every week you had to expect the unexpected. I found this show to be like no other and was a not copycat.
This section asks various questions relating to the treatment of criminals, most notably, “are those who violate such norms automatically dealt with as enemies within?” (220). Rather than attempting to answer the question, the author explains that in the United States, many people feel little to no empathy for criminals, and therefore, little desire to show criminals any mercy. While the city attorney's office handles only civil crimes, I often see this societal attitude towards criminals during the weekly pre-trial meetings. Many defendants with otherwise clean records often worry that their offense will appear on their criminal record, and that they are in for further punishments. For example, this week a defendant who was caught operating while suspended came to the pre-trial meeting very worked up about this going on his record. He feared that he might not be able to obtain a new license due to this violation. I think it is great that many people have a fear of breaking the law, and take it seriously when they do violate the law, however, it once again goes to show the lack of education about the law when defendants guilty of a speeding ticket react as though they are guilty of murder. Along with enhanced legal education, I believe that society needs to develop a greater sense of morality. While
According to Sutherland (1947) the excess of definitions favourable to violation of law enforces person become a deviant while associating with other people. Criminal behaviour is a learnable and learned in interaction with other deviant people. Through this association, they learn only techniques of certain crimes, but also specific rationale, motives and so forth. This association differs in frequency, duration and so on. Differential association theory explains why any individual forwards towards...
Truly understanding the motivation and rationale behind action is often subjective. Biases are evident within society and can skew perceptions of behaviour. However, the foundation for action can be understood by looking at what role societal or cultural pressures have become placed upon individuals. Furthuremore, Militia movements that have evolved into modern socetiy must be understood from a strucutral, soiteal vantage point instaed of an individual pathology ( 223). Traditional theories for studying criminals focus on the brain pathology or childhood trauma which shaped an individual into a degranged killer. However, strucural changes within society have the ability to push anyone over the edge. Economic and deccelopmental changes that
The Social Organization Theory teaches that frameworks provide a way to account for relationships between and among deviants and how these social relationships form, persist, and operate. A behavior is focused toward a particular goal. When most criminal transactions takes place, participants are seekinga common goal that brings satisfaction. Best and LuckenBill argue that deviants are organized in different ways based on the type of deviant or crime they engage in over time. Organization differ in their division of labor, how frequent and successfully members associate with one another, if they participate in deviance collectively or alone, and how long their deviant activities extend over time and space.
I now know that criminology prefer to highlight the correlations between crimes’ social climates and criminals’ psychological states of mind. While some argues that criminal behavior is a result of individuals’ association with criminal peers, other claims that crime is a reflection of an individual’s genetic disadvantages. I have come to learn that there are no universally agreed formulas on decoding crimes and criminal behaviors. What we have, however, is a manual full of academic opinions and subjective views that have emerged alongside of the development of criminology. At the same time, the volume of conflicting perspectives that I have stumble upon in studying criminology reminded me again that the success of our current assessment models has yet to be determined. Thus, the study of criminology is an appropriate practice that will further prepare me to conduct meaningful research on legal studies and to provide accurate and in-depth findings in the near