History 349. History of Crime in America. Spring 2008.
Outlines of lectures
Crime Theory/Sociology
motive(s)
parameters of crime
access to persons and property
access to means/weapons
freedom/free
time
pre-modernity/antiquity vs. modernity
primary vs secondary relationships
(etc.)
Crime in England and America's
Origins
England: 1550-1700 (16th and 17th-Centuries/Tudor-Stuart period)
migration to
America
causes of migration: conditions in England
population growth
poverty, inflation, wages, unemployment, starvation, and disease
vagrants and fear
vagrancy and criminalization of poverty
prosecution and punishment of crime
Infanticide (1624+)
1624 law and motives
reality
nullification in 18th century
Virginia/Chesapeake region (1607+)
immigration and immigrants
(1607-1680s)
[violence against Indians]
tobacco (1617+)
masters' abuse of indentured servants
freed servants and their
"crime" (ca.1645+)
transients
theft
luring servants to escape
arms
fear of treason & rebellion (esp. 1672)
Bacon's Rebellion (May-Oct. 1676)
Slavery and the "solution"
to crime (1680s+)
slavery's advantages over white servitude
race prejudice and racial solidarity
legacy
Jefferson's and others' ("wolf by the ears") dilemma
emancipation and threat of "crime"
New England (Massachusetts, Plymouth,
Connecticut, New Hampshire mostly), 1620+
society
immigration and immigrants (1630s)
motives for immigrating
demographic data
community and religious ideals
closed society
physical community, land, economy and classes
family and authority (patriarchy)
family links
surveillance and privacy
crime
crime data and chronological change (various Mass. jurisdictions and periods_
morals/sexual crimes: New Haven County (Connecticut)
fornication (Tables 7 & 8)
changes in prosecutions, behavior, and values
gender
other sexual crimes
adultery
sodomy
bestiality
Pennsylvania (1682-1800)
liberal character:
openness and growth
religious liberty & religious impotence
government & law enforcement
select crimes
rape
Native Americans
Conestoga massacres (1763) and absence of law enforcement on frontier
"Black Boys" (1765), treason and local grand juries
Frederick Stump murders (1768) and jury nullification
ironies of liberty, rights, and justice
African-Americans, Crime, and Justice
test of emancipation
outcome
Philadelphia
African-American migration and population
crime and justice system
FIRST
MIDTERM EXAM-- Feb. 27, Wednesday
Nineteenth-Century
Republican fears: industrialization, urbanization, labor class
Thomas Jefferson
Growth and Industrialization
transportation change
growth of cities and transience
labor (slave, free wage labor, size of workplace)
Class and denial of class/social-economic mobility
New reform institutions and
discipline:
temperance
public schools & Sunday schools
[also orphanages, asylums, etc.]
penology & punishment
John Locke (1690)
Cesare
Becarria (1764)
Benjamin
Rush and American republicanism (1776)
reforms in Pennsylvania laws, 1786-1794
penitentiaries
Walnut Street prison (1790)
two systems: Pennsylvania and Auburn (NY)
isolation, walls
discipline (hygiene, food, clothing, etc.)
solitary confinement (Pa. system)
prison guards
prison subcultures
decline in corrections ideal
immigration--Irish
urban riots and gangs
anti-Negro riots
ethnic-religious riots
police and justice system functions
change: prevention
labeling/profiling
expectations and accomplishments
liberty and security
The South, End of Slavery, and Crime
Louisiana (1867-1884)
homicide rates: New Orleans and rural Louisiana
press interpretation of homicide in La.
alleged causes
interpretation in American history books
reality: color and homicides
perpetrators and victims
acting alone
class
motives
South Carolina
Edgefield County histories, 1781 through 1910
Scots-Irish, honor
Northern urban life, crime and race
(Philadelphia, 1871-1900)
white Philadelphia
public life
police, fire companies, gangs
private life
civilizing institutions
prosperity--real wages
mortgage and home loan associations
home ownership
crime rate (all Philadelphia) [See Lane, page 185]
black Philadelphia
populations
quasi-segregation
residential
religion and churches
social and educational (inverted pyramid)
sports
saloons, taverns, bars
marriage
economic exclusion
education and training
exclusion from urban, industrial employment
blue-collar and white-collar jobs
professionals and self-employed businessmen
unskilled labor
employers, unions, strikebreakers
justice system [See Lane, pages 197-199]
government and politics
African-American crime
1. theft
convictions, hierarchy, futility
women
net gain?
2. alcohol
enterprises
"reform" and licensing
cultural discrimination
net gain?
3. gambling
popularity
hierarchy
prosecutions
net gain?
4. prostitution
profits
hidden costs/public health
net gain
Crime, Culture, and Division in the African-American Community
middle class and its values
lower
class and its threatening culture
1. popular culture 2. economic realities 3. white
prejudice
middle
class defense/reactions
epilogue:
Philadelphia murder rates in the early 20th century
SECOND MIDTERM EXAM Wednesday, April 9 (Please
bring a bluebook and come at 7:50am)
Intimate/Domestic
Violence: Chicago, 1875-1920
domestic homicide rate and volume
statistical profile
motive: masculinity
ethnics and domestic violence
Germans
all homicides share
intimate victims
newborn/child victims
perpetrators: men, age, wealth
planning
suicide
cause/motive
women perpetrators
Italians
difference from Germans
overall homicide rate
low family victims
non-victims
suicide
victims
motives
African-Americans
overall homicide rate
public reputation/misconception
location of crime
family homicide rates
victims
perpetrators
women perpetrators
women's victims
women's suicides (?)
causes
economics and family & patriarchy tensions