Teaching about Crime

Byers, Bryan. (1993) Teaching about Judgments of Crime Seriousness
Teaching Sociology, 21(1) pp. 33-41


Since I am teaching about deviance and crime at this point in the semester, I browsed the teaching sociology journal for a relevant activity. I came across this article and although I don't have time to integrate it this semester, I plan on using it in my summer courses.

The article suggest starting an activity by writing 22 deviant behaviors (Some are crimes, some are not), and asking student to individually rank them by seriousness. The students are then split into groups and asked to negotiate and present one group consensus rating. The list is a little bit dated (1993), but the author does suggest modifying the list.

The exercise is supposed to help introduce the idea that deviance is socially constructed, and that perceptions of deviance very by society and even individuals with the class. I plan on adding corporate deviance that is legal (A CEO increasing their pay, while reducing worker's pay or benefits, Marketing of fast food to children, etc.) and using this activity to introduce how as a society we tend to focus on crime from below, more than crime from above.