SOC 1500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Victimless Crime, Property Crime, Public Knowledge

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1500
• Professor: Ryan Broll

Document Summary

How academics and the media think about crime. Criminologist disagree on many things, most commonly, how to study crime. Soc*1500: wealthy people benefit from panhandling being illegal whereas the panhandlers are left with poverty, grounded in social constructionism. Deviance exists on a continuum and criminal behaviour can change over time. Criminal behaviour is deviant but not all deviant behaviour is criminal. Changing with the times: decriminalizing marijuana, prohibition, until 1983 men were legally allowed to rape their wives, doctor assisted suicide. Empirically: empirical, systematic collection of observable data, criminologists focus on two things, measuring crime in society, understanding the nature of crime. Primary methods of measuring crime: official statistics, measure police reported crime, ex. In 2014, there were 516 homicides in canada: crime rates, ex. In 2014, the canadian homicide rate was 1. 45 per 100 000: crime rate = #of reported crimes/total pop. The more crime is to be committed: self-report surveys, asks participants about crimes they have committed, ex.