The Criminological Mind

In class we discussed a study by Robert Agnew, that used Strain Theory to determine the factors that cause delinquency with children.  This reading was interesting because of the attempt to predict why children behave the way they do with data that is limited to only a few criteria.  With other readings we have discussed various models for human behavior, but we have not yet discussed how people are punished for any deviance or delinquency. I found this article on the New York Times website, which was about the recent Supreme Court case that ruled on the harshness of sentences for minors, specifically life without chance for parole.  While reading the article I noticed that many issues that we have discussed in class are present in this article. How we label people and the implications of that label are extremely important to how someone gets punished for a crime.  Then there is also the issue of rating a crime’s severity, but the age of the offender must also be considered while determining that. This article quotes Supreme Court justices,  an assistant state attorney general, and lawyers who work for juvenile advocacy groups. This article if anything showed me that people will use the label minors to restrict rights and enforce rules of society under this guise of  minors being “immature, impulsive, susceptible to peer pressure and able to change for the better over time,” but then punish them as full grown people without taking these same factors into consideration.

Andrew Conyers

Within the article “Deviance Gendered, Criminology Exposed” written by Dawn Rae the relationship between crime and gender is presented. Based on information  in the article Cesare Lombroso perceived women as being the “kinder, gentler sex,” because of this he was very intrigued that such a sex would be able to commit various crimes; crimes that are very much similar to that of males. Lombroso believed that both men and women had the potential to be born criminals. This was led  to be an explanation as to why the passive female could engage in violent behaviors. Lombroso also went on to say that “women’s very inferiority made them less criminally prone than men” and later contradicted his hypothesis by stating that women were less atavistic than men.  After reading  the article the one question that I had  was, what could possibly make a woman go against everything that she is (kind and gentle) and commit murder? In an episode of “Women Behind Bars” the story of how Lori Mcluckie ended up having to spend time behind bars is told. Mcluckie had just broken up with her boyfriend and attempted to commit suicide before graduating college. Mcluckie hoped to start anew life where no one knew her and made the decision to relocate to Denver, Colorado. Unable to adjust to life in Denver and make friends Mcluckie turned her attention to dating men, men in which she referred to as “losers,” men who were either alcoholics or jobless. By dating men who were inferior to her Mcluckie was able to boost her self-esteem. One man in particular that Mcluckie dated was a twenty-two year old by the name of Andrew who according to Mcluckie drank alcohol excessively and would come home and repeatedly slap her causing Mcluckie to develop hatred towards Andrew and lash out to him verbally. One night Andrew arrived home drunk and passed out and Mcluckie tied him to the radiator, restrained him, beat him and killed him. Mcluckie  says that she was afraid and had no way out. According to district attorney Nathan Chambers people commit murder for a number of different reasons such as, greed, jealousy and anger. It appears to be the case that Lori Mcluckie committed murder out of extreme anger.

Episode Below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxsEQ5ovUUc

Today in class we reviewed an excerpt written by Robert Agnew entitled A Revised Strain Theory of Delinquency. This piece displayed the fact that many potential delinquents are influenced to commit certain crimes because of the many obstacles that they experience throughout their life which result in these children being “unable to achieve their goals through legitimate channels. Unfortunately, this theory is true for many of the criminal cases involving underpriveldged and poverty stricken children across the globe. Years ago, about seventy years ago there was an article published in the New York Times attempting to answer this same question: What causes child delinquency? This article was written by Sigmund Mendelsohn, a man who believed then that the poverty theory regarding delinquents only held a certain amount of truth to it. He believed that many children become delinquents because many during that time had immigrated to New York and came equipped with cultures, values and experiences. Because these children weren’t fond of the American lifestyle, many of the activities that they participated in were frowned upon causing them to be labeled delinquents. He states that “one nationality cannot be cultivated in another without disturbing existing conditions.” Foreigners who immigrated to New York didn’t neccessarily see eye to eye with the native residents and a result they were displayed as rebels and individuals who went against the grain. Many who immigrated to New York at the time hailed from European countries and felt oppressed, helpless, hopeless and trapped. Once they arrived here they felt an undescribable amount of freedom resulting in behavior that wasn’t considered the social norm in America. From this article which was published in 1915 to now, it’s relatively easy to observe the evolution in social theory and fascinating to see that many of the theories behind child delinquency today were being thought of then. Past theories which transcend into modern thinking are reminiscent of old-school samples in modern production, before there was now there was then.

For Further Information:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10814F63D5512738FDDAE0A94DE405B858DF1D3

Travis S.

Exploring Technology to Protect Passengers With Fingerprint or Retina Scans is an interesting article on biometrics and airport security. This article appeared in the New York Times just eight days after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Author Barnaby J. Feder tells the reader that due to the recent attacks, there had been an increase in sales of fingerprint recognition, facial structure detection software and retina scanning equipment. He noted, that though most stocks had felt a significant loss following the attacks, there was however an increase in sales and profits in companies in the field of biometrics. Airplane travel is one noteworthy example of how society has been increasingly presented with the difficult question of security vurses privacy.  Although retina scans have proven to be one of the most successful methods in determining an individual’s identity, some civil libertarian advocates argue that this technology leaves little for health privacy of the private citizen.   Without becoming too political or referring to the Bill of Rights for validation, this article can be examined with a simpler yet finer sociological approach. It could be said that, it is the security of the group that relies on the amount of privacy that the individual is willing to give up. One may argue, that the Patriot Act fallowing September eleventh not only created a safer country but one with far less individual privacy.

-Andrew McCasland

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/nyregion/19TECH.html

http://wgrd.com/brought-down-by-their-ink-7-dumb-criminals-whose-tattoos-brought-them-to-justice/

… if they had made a better choice of tattoos.  It was discussed in class that tattoos are usually associated with criminals and this post talks about how these criminals actually made themselves distintive for them to get caught.  I feel like some criminals are either proud of their actions or on the other hand disgraced so they tattoo certain symbols to remind themselves.  There was one criminal that even tattooed the whole crime scene across his chest.  The post ends with a lesson to be learned: “discretion is key”.  These 7 criminals made themselves so easy for their identity to be disclosed.  So the question is WHY? I feel like if you’re going to decide and commit a crime, should you not try and look like a smart college student instead of a “thug” with markings all over the face/body?  But I guess the main question should be “why commit the crime in the first place?”

Eugenics In America     << Click

I believe that Galton’s discovery of eugenic trait has considerable biological meaning. However, he should have not create the new term ‘eugenics’, which is the error to simplify everything, that falls into the logical error of superiority and inferiority. Currently, we are living in a professionalized world with presence of various careers. There is a supporting actor, who calls himself as a level B actor, in my country, Korea. Despite of this, he is one of the most popular actors, who get much love for 19 years. The society does not only want level A. The ideal society has to have the coexistence of various people. This diverse world requires people with various thoughts and talents. One of the well known negative effects caused by eugenics is Nazi the Third Reich. Obviously, it is a negative event to justify the events like the holocaust done by Hitler. The U.S is not an exception. In the past, the victim of the compulsory eugenic sterilization operation was 60,000 in the U.S. The above video is about the payment of compensation for the victims of eugenic sterilization operation in North Carolina from 1929 to 1974, who are still alive until now. Although much time has passed and the compensation is paid to the victims, their pain will not go away easily. Currently, we may commit another simplification error. Commonly, we are evaluated or evaluating by education, wealth basis from the others. Money, which was the carrier of exchange, has deteriorated its meaning. Could this completely represent our identity in deed?

For years private institutions and governments have developed  different methods to identify people. Methods like fingerprinting and  Register of Distinctive Marks pinpoint Bertillon’s view that every individual are physically different. The article “New lab working on security shoe sole to ID people” as well emphasis the notion that every person is physically different. The company Autonomous ID is working with a lab in creating shoe soles that will monitor and identify people. Similar to fingerprinting, researchers claim that every person has different feet and  different ways of walking. The bio-soles detects whether the shoes belongs to the rightful owner, if not a wireless alarm message will be sent. According to Todd Gray, sample of bio-soles have been tested and return 99 percent results. If approved the bio-soles can be sold in the market and use to spy on people. The bio-soles product can fall in the wrong hands of  a potential criminal.  There are always disadvantages and advantages when it comes to technology. As mentioned in the article, the U.S government as well as the Chinese government have been invested millions  in gait research. It has also been known that The Institute of Intelligent Machines are working on a system where floors can detect a person’s footstep without them knowing.  Government are consently  developing new ideas to identify people with the  easiness and accuracy of new technology. New high-security systems raises the issue of privacy, many people think it can be invasive. Lee Tien, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, thinks the bio-sole is a “potential tracking device” just like an iphone. Products like the bio-soles can increase paranoia among the community and can be use as an device to track down non-criminals. High-tech security can be very helpful and safe when trying to identify or monitor a dangerous person but in the other hand how much is too much when being invasive.

Ivana Vidals

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/07/21/new-lab-working-on-security-shoe-sole-to-id-people-825803910/

Our class has been discussing how to identify people and the reasons to document individuals and analyze their appearance. In our last class credit scores and Social Security numbers came up.  In recent times people in America have become whatever their credit score allows them to be.  Before you buy anything or open various types of accounts, either cell phone or signing a lease, your credit score is checked.  The individual in America is now whoever has a social security number attached to a credit report.  This article from the New York Times is about a new form of crime involving social security numbers.  People are stealing the social security numbers of random people, to file the taxes before their victim can so they can get the cash refund.  What stood out most to me was the author of the piece, Lizette Alvarez, makes a point of stating “some violent criminals have traded their guns for laptops.” It was interesting that Ms. Alvarez felt the need to emphasize that a certain type of criminal is committing this crime. Later on in the article she writes “The criminals, some of them former drug dealers…” I do not understand the need to qualify the crime by stating that criminals of other crimes do this.  The article explains the vulnerability of people’s identity and the way in which criminals use social security numbers and other information to commit the crime of Identity Theft.  It is interesting to me because this is a crime based on the idea that we all need a number to identify who we are and how vulnerable we are because of it.

Andrew Conyers

According to the article “Fingerprints: Infallible Evidence?” the FBI rely too much on the fingerprints. It is easy to make a mistake, especially with fingerprints. There was a case with Rick Jackson and he was accused of murdering his friend. The police said that they had his bloody fingerprints at the crime scene and that was the reason why they arrested him. Jackson’s attorney decided to call his own experts one of which who was a retired FBI examiner to look over the evidence, and when he did he said they did not match at all. The second expert who had over 75 years of fingerprint experience has said the same thing, that it is not even a close match. Usually police lift off only a partial of a fingerprint at the crime scenes, and they can be contaminated or distorted. Most examiners in the United States don’t even use a point system unlike Italy, who says that they need to see 16 to 17 points of similarity on a fingerprint, or like in Brazil who need a 30 point match to make sure. There are a lot of cases that have innocent people being convicted because of faulty fingerprint identification. The issue of fingerprints being used as evidence alone to convict the person needs to be looked over. The examiners need to be a certified experts and also when testifying in court. They have to be certain of their result and make sure we can rely on it as reliable evidence. People could spent years or even a lifetime because of a mistake examiners make just based on fingerprints that might not even be a close match as they have sworn it is. In my opinion, I believe that you can not depend on fingerprints as evidence alone, it is very easy to make a mistake.

Article:

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18560_162-563607.html

Before technological advances people have struggled with being able to identify others. For example shown in the reading “A History of Fingerprinting and identification” in the late 1800’s European authorities tried different methods such as keeping a register of descriptive marks to identify repeat offenders or “Recidivist”. Authorities would use distinctive marks on criminals such as, a scar on the left arm or, a a tattoo on the chest of a criminal. This way if the offender came back to jail after being let go it would be easy to identify them as a repeat offender. Although this sounds like a good idea the labor became way to high for little results and very little was being done about repeat offenders.

Believe it or not even in every day life we use these sort of techniques to identify one another. An example of this is from the movie American History X which as a scene (provided below) following Derek, a white supremacist, into prison. On his way out to the yard he states “Im just going to throw up a flag and hope a friend sees it” which in this case was his white supremacy tattoos. In an attempt to find a “friend” as he puts it he proceeds to take off his shirt exposing his tattoos and who he is. This does draw the attention of other Neo-Nazi members. Although it does not directly tell you who he is it shows what he represents and others can identify him as either a friend or an enemy. Just like lambroso used tattoos to identify people so did derek in this situation.

*NOTE: Only watch from 1:36-2:30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_-KH03ozR0&bpctr=1342910620&skipcontrinter=1