Tags:  crime/law/deviance, government/the state, drugs, medical marijuana, mandatory minimum sentencing, states rights, 06 to 10 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 6:54
Access: New York Times

Summary: This NYT video illuminates the tension between state and federal law in medical marijuana. It focuses on the story of Chris Williams, a medical marijuana producer. Before starting his business, Williams consulted a lawyer and county attorneys. He and his partner gave tours to state lawmakers, who had legalized medical marijuana back in 2004. And while medical marijuana is illegal under national law (the federal government has classified marijuana among the most dangerous drugs), a 2009 memo from the federal Bureau of Justice noted that the government "should not focus federal resources on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws." Williams felt he and his family were safe in operating his business under the law. However, in 2011, the federal government began cracking down on medical marijuana growers in states across the country. Along with many others, Chris Williams was arrested and now faces life in prison. The video documents some of the challenges that he and his son have faced since the arrest. In September 2012, Chris went before a jury and "was convicted on marijuana charges and for possessing firearms during a drug trafficking offense. He is currently behind bars and faces a minimum mandatory sentence of more than 80 years in prison." The video concludes by noting that 75% of Americans support medical marijuana and argues that federal law should be reformed to be consistent with state law and public will. Viewers may reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of medical marijuana and if states should be permitted to develop laws that contradict federal legislation. Do federal minimum sentencing laws make sense in Williams' case?

Submitted By: Paul Dean

Tags: crime/law/deviance, race/ethnicity, rural/urban, drug war, incarceration, poverty, prisons, school-to-prison pipeline, the wire, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 24:11
Access: Al Jazeera

Summary: This short news documentary examines the relationships between race, poverty, incarceration, crime, and the war on drugs. It focuses on Baltimore, and its very high crime rates, showing how poor residents get attracted to crime and the drug business as a means of economic survival. With the war on drugs and its harsh prison sentences, many poor people are getting put behind bars. But despite harsh prison sentences and incarceration, these individuals continue to be drawn into selling drugs. Ed Burns, one of the writers behind The Wire, says "I don't know how much progress is being made because we're not dealing with the root causes." For example, jobs have been leaving Baltimore (and other US cities) since the late 1960s as a result of suburbanization and deindustrialization. Donnie Andrews (the real-life inspiration for Omar, a popular character from The Wire) notes that when people come out of prison, they are not able to find affordable housing, jobs, or health care, so people are likely to end up back in crime to survive. But rather than addressing the causes, since Nixon started the war on drugs in the early 1970s, our means of addressing the problem is through punishment and incarceration. This has caused an explosion in the US prison population, and the US now incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. This issue of drugs and incarceration also has a significant racial dimension. Despite the fact that black people are only slightly more likely to be involved in drugs than white people, they are seven times more likely to be incarcerated for drugs. The narrator notes that "if current incarceration rates remain unchanged, 1 in 3 black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime." In the video, Ed Burns adds that it is not really a war on drugs, but a war on black people (which has also now spread to a war on poor whites) that was started to take away energy from the Civil Rights movement. Viewers may be encouraged to reflect on what is the objective in the war on drugs? To what degree is it successful? What kind of policies would help rehabilitate perpetrators and help them to avoid returning to prison? For a shorter 2008 news clip (6:40) that more narrowly focuses on drug use in Baltimore, see here.

Submitted By: Paul Dean

Tags:  children/youth, crime/law/deviance, juvenile delinquincy, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 1961
Length: 5:44
Access: YouTube

Summary: Why do people break society's laws and norms? In this scene ("Gee, Officer Krupke") from the musical West Side Story, members of a gang (the Jets) are confronted by a police officer who sees them as trouble makers. After he leaves, the men mock various authority figures by sarcastically singing about the causes of their behavior. For example, they sing "all our mothers are junkies ... we're misunderstood ... deep down inside us, there is good ... my parents treat me rough ... they didn't want to have me ... we're psychologically disturbed." Despite their sarcasm, they accurately identify the various reasons that psychologists, judges, social workers, and society more generally gives for explaining crime and deviance, further noting "juvenile delinquency is a social disease." As an intro to teaching a module on Crime & Deviance I regularly introduce the idea that there is more than one point of view of why people offend. I ask students before and after showing the clip to mind map as many reasons as they can think of as to "Why do People Offend?" Viewers may be encouraged to identify the various factors shaping crime and deviance, and how people perceive these factors from different social positions. Going deeper, we can also consider the role of reflexivity in their actions. What does their sarcasm say about these causes and their attempt to understand them? In his essay, “Some Politically Incorrect Reflections on Violence in France and Related Matters,” Slavoj Zizek argues this about violent offenders: "when really pressed for the reasons for his violence, and if capable of minimal theoretical reflection, he will suddenly start to talk like social workers, sociologists and social psychologists, quoting diminished social mobility, rising insecurity, the disintegration of paternal authority, the lack of maternal love in his early childhood… in short, he will provide a more or less precise psycho-sociological account of his acts so dear to enlightened liberals eager to 'understand' the violent youth as a tragic victim of their social and familial conditions." As noted in The Kugelmass Episodes, "the members of the Jets can easily re-frame their own experiences to win the maximum of sympathy from each successive 'handler' ... [but] the Jets aren’t simply making fun of the notion of delinquency. They are genuinely confused about their own actions, and suspect that somebody educated has the answer, but meanwhile there is a fundamental and unresolvable problem: the Jets like their gang, and the people in authority don’t."

Submitted By: Stephen Base

Tags: crime/law/deviance, inequality, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, violence, criminology, new york city, police, racial profiling, 11 to 20 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 13:15
Access: YouTube

Summary: [Trigger Warning: this clip contains profanity and some incidents of violence.] "We're gonna go out there and we're gonna violate some rights." These are the words of a police captain, as reported by a New York Police Department (NYPD) veteran of over 10 years. This exposé produced by The Nation reveals the NYPD's blatant racial profiling/stop-and-frisk practices. The video begins with an audio recording of an actual stop-and-frisk incident of a Latino man for "looking suspicious," then moves to interviews with anonymized police officers about the policy and practices involved with it. Not only does the video expose the racial profiling of the targets, but the pressure put on line officers by sergeants, lieutenants, and captains to continue issuing summons and performing arrests, both to keep their jobs and to get promoted through the ranks. This video would be excellent for any course on criminology, justice studies, race, or law to discuss the intersection of power, race, inequality, and/or corruption.

Submitted By: Anonymous

Tags: crime/law/deviance, durkheim, theory, anomie, collective conscience, functionalism, mechanical social sanctions, norms, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 1:14
Access: YouTube

Summary: Deviant acts are transgressions of social norms. For instance, when a woman uses the urinal in the men's restroom she is clearly breaking a social norm. Her transgression is an act of deviance. But people break rules all the time. Norms after all are only informal directives for action, and humans aren't programmable. In some cases, norms are accidentally broken, and in other cases, they are purposely broken by a rebellious actor, who is unafraid of the potential sanctions. In still other cases, social actors improvise to redefine the situation, thereby temporarily changing the set of applicable norms. For instance, the bathroom bound woman may signal verbally or through her body language that in order to avoid an embarrassing public scene she needs immediate access to a toilet, which just happens to be available in the men's room. By redefining the situation as an emergency, she gains access to the men's room. Norms are relatively malleable, but once they are codified as laws, much of this malleability is lost. Breaking a law is no less an act of deviance, but this particular type of transgression is known as a crime. Unlike norms, laws are generally more difficult to circumvent, and the formal social sanctions applied to law breakers are far more severe. The above clip features a school bus driver's amateur footage of an impatient woman illegally zooming past his bus' stop sign. In this unambiguous criminal act of deviance, she drives her car on a sidewalk next to the bus, just in front of a daycare center. Note the glee in the voices of the school children, who watch as the woman is stopped by a police officer who witnessed the entire event. In addition to catalyzing a conversation about deviance, norms, and law, the video can also be drawn on to discuss Durkheim's insight that just as this woman's crime seems to have improved the solidarity among children in the bus, crime in general can paradoxically improve the social solidarity within a society. In this case, the woman's $500.00 fine can be understood as a mechanical social sanction. It is an opportunity for those who witness and hear about the event to unite in their shared disgust over the brazen disregard for laws designed to protect the lives of children, and it's an opportunity to further promote the sacred values of the community.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

Tags: crime/law/deviance, discourse/language, inequality, intersectionality, knowledge, lgbtq, marriage/family, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, sex/sexuality, social mvmts/social change/resistance, theory, civil unions, collective action frames, marriage equality, same-sex marriage, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 4:24
Access: YouTube

Summary: In Part I we explored the concept of a collective action frame in the context of the vote on North Carolina's Amendment One, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Reverend Dr. William J. Barber argues in this clip that the amendment passed because the wrong frame dominated the public understanding of the issue. In Part II we want to further interrogate Barber's own frame, which posits that the amendment writes discrimination into the state constitution. We think Barber’s argument draws on key insights from intersectionality theory in sociology. In short, this theory draws attention to the relationships among multiple dimensions of social inequality (e.g., race, sexuality, gender, etc.) and insists that the formation of any subject happens at the intersections of these dimensions. Similarly, systems of domination, such as racism and heterosexism, work through this invisible, intersectional scaffolding. Echoing an insight from Kimberlé Crenshaw's path breaking article on the theory, the failure of antiracism to interrogate heterosexism means that antiracist activists are doomed to reproduce the subordination of racial minorities in the LGBTQ community. Indeed, this is what might very well have happened in North Carolina. In the lead up to the vote on Amendment One, it is now clear that there was a coordinated strategy from a political group calling itself the National Organization for Marriage. The group aimed to drive a wedge between members of LGBTQ and Black communities (here and here). Recently unsealed memos from the group state clearly that “The strategic goal of the project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks” and another memo noted the group's aspirations to make the exclusion of gay people from marriage “a key badge of Latino identity.” Barber's frame, then, grasps the way racial and sexual identities were strategically pitted against each other in the vote on Amendment One, but his frame also grasps that violations of equal protection under the law for members of the LGBTQ community in this instance, leaves the door open for violations against racial minorities in the next. As illustrated in this moving speech, intersectionality theory, not only describes how political power relies on manipulating social constructed racial and sexual identities, but also how political resistance must take these constructs into account when formulating effective collective action frames.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

Tags: crime/law/deviance, psychology/social psychology, broken windows theory, labeling theory, research ethics, social experiment, 21 to 60 mins 
Year: 1992 
Length: 28:46 
Access: YouTube (part 1; part 2; part 3)

Summary: In 1971, psychologist Philip Zimbardo set out to discover whether good people can do evil things if placed within particular social contexts. To examine this, he and his colleagues transformed the basement of Stanford University's Psychology Department into a makeshift prison, recruiting local college students to play the roles of prison guards and prisoners. This social experiment would later become known for its controversial nature, testing the ethical boundaries of social scientific research on human subjects. These clips are from the 1992 documentary film, Quiet Rage, which features original footage of the experiment along with follow-up interviews with research subjects. The documentary is excellent for teaching concepts central to the field of deviance and social control, including broken windows theory and labeling theory, as well as other core sociological concepts such as norms, roles, social expectations, and research ethics. This documentary was written by Zimbardo and directed and produced by Ken Musen. The Stanford Prison Experiment website features additional information and resources. 

I would like to thank Audrey Sprenger for suggesting this clip.

Submitted By: Valerie Chepp

Tags: crime/law/deviance, discourse/language, goffman, government/the state, inequality, knowledge, lgbtq, prejudice/discrimination, social mvmts/social change/resistance, theory, civil unions, collective action frames, marriage equality, same-sex marriage, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 4:24
Access: YouTube

Summary: In previous posts on The Sociological Cinema, we have explored Erving Goffman's concept of framing (here, here, and here). To recap, the concept has been useful for scholars of social movements, who have rebranded the term collective action framing. The concept denotes the active and processual sense-making and signification of phenomena done by social actors. In other words, the realization that a conflict with police is evidence of a repressive state and that the passage of a new law is an effort to codify division and discrimination are socially "made" interpretations or meanings. They are the social achievements sociologists refer to as frames. The success then of passing a new law or amending an old one often hinges on how the proposed change is framed for the public and how influential that particular frame is in shaping the terms of the debate. The above clip is a speech from Reverend Dr. William J. Barber. who rebukes the media for using the "wrong" frame to report on the recent amendment to North Carolina's state constitution, which passed on May 8, 2012 and defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The amendment also bans any other type of "domestic legal union," such as civil unions and domestic partnerships. Barber asserts that the media frequently polled the public asking, "How do you feel about same-sex marriage?" but a better question—a better frame—would have been whether a majority should be able to decide on the rights of a minority, or should discrimination should be written into the constitution? Here Barber is clearly attempting to key the struggle against Amendment One to the protests of the Civil Rights Era, and he even mentions the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by name. In Part II, we'll move beyond framing and explore how this video can be used to illustrate insights from intersectionality theory, a theory that offers promise in overcoming the divisions of identity politics.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

Tags: crime/law/deviance, education, gender, inequality, organizations/occupations/work, comedy, sexual harassment, workplace ethics, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2009
Length: 4:42
Access: YouTube 

Summary: This comedy skit from Madtv depicts a group of employees receiving a lesson around sexual harassment awareness. When one employee does not understand the concept of what sexual harassment entails, he articulates several commonplace statements frequently used to justify or diminish the seriousness of sexual harassment in the workplace. Such statements include notions around women not knowing "how to take a compliment" and "over-reacting" (or, as he says, "flying off the handle"). He also suggests that men are simply trying to "boost women's spirits" through compliments or that sometimes men "accidentally" touch women inappropriately. The workshop facilitator, increasingly frustrated, highlights the ways in which sexual harassment, though sometimes difficult to articulate through words (and, by extension, rules and policies), can come into sharper focus when experienced firsthand. In addition to illustrating basic concepts around what sexual harassment entails, this clip offers a nice launching pad for a discussion of what sexual harassment feels like (and why this feeling or interactional dynamic might be challenging to sufficiently codify into rules and policies).

Submitted By: J. Deluna, L. Teniente, R. Nuñez

 

Tags: capitalism, children/youth, commodification, consumption/consumerism, crime/law/deviance, gender, globalization, sex/sexuality, human trafficking, prostitution, sex trafficking, slavery, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 1:40
Access: YouTube

Summary: This short clip is a PSA from Stop The Traffik (STT), an international charity focused on ending human trafficking. The clip was shot in the famous De Wallen red-light district in Amsterdam and features six women dancing in a typical brothel. Their performance captivates, and a crowd of men soon gathers in the street to watch. The performance abruptly ends and an electronic billboard overhead reads, "Every year, thousands of women are promised a dance career in Western Europe. Sadly, they end up here." Many people are aware of the connection between human trafficking and sexual exploitation, and indeed the Netherlands is listed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as a primary country of destination for victims of human trafficking. The reality is people are trafficked for a number of reasons, not all having to do with sexual slavery. STT defines human trafficking as the act of deceiving or taking people against their will, to be bought, sold and transported into slavery for sexual exploitation, to be used in sweat shops, circuses, in sacrificial worship, forced begging, or to be used as child brides, farm laborers, unwilling human organ donors, and as domestic servants. Human trafficking appears to be growing, and according to STT, 2 to 4 million men, women and children are trafficked across borders and within their own country every year. More than one person is trafficked across borders every minute, which is equivalent to ten jumbo jets every day. The clip does well to capture viewers' attention and might be an effective foray into what must be a much deeper discussion about trafficking. One can approach the issue in terms of globalization by considering the global flows of trafficked humans from less developed countries to more developed countries. To what extent is human trafficking explained by the conditions of the global economy, where a steady supply of children are sold by people in the global south, who face extreme poverty, in order to meet the demands of those in the global north, who have more than enough? This video would work well in tandem with another clip on The Sociological Cinema, which explores the biography of a young woman who was forced into prostitution in the United States.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist