SOC 255 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: True Crime, White-Collar Crime, Insider Trading
Document Summary
Fear of government power = more rules, more procedural safeguards but. Fear of crime = more discretion, fewer rules, fewer obstacles. Power tends to corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, thus, we must have laws in place that protect against tyranny -> the u. s. constitution and bill of rights seeks to insure individual protections against the coercive government. The past 50 years have been a period of growth in legal protections for individuals and in the 1960s, there was a revolution in due process that entailed . Expanded protections in both federal and state criminal proceedings. Expand protections for minorities and the poor, criminal suspects, defendants, and offenders e. g. , miranda rights. Happens at the stage of police suspicion, arrests, at the jails (who gets bail, who gets released), court (death penalty, sentencing disparity, plea bargains, etc. Higher concentrations of crime in poorer areas, which may have high minority populations. Thus, higher degree of policing in these areas.
