THE HONOR KILLING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

Honor killing and honor crime involve violence against women and girls, including such acts as beating, battering, or killing, by a family member or  relative. The attacks are provoked by the belief or perception that an individual’s or family’s honor has been threatened  because of the actual or perceived sexual misconduct of the female. Honor killings are most common in traditional societies in the Middle East, Southwest Asia,  India, China, and Latin America. Honor killing of a woman or girl by her father, brother, or other male relative may occur because of a suspicion that she engaged in sexual activities before or outside marriage and thus has dishonored the family. Even when rape of a woman or girl has occurred this may be seen as violation of the honor of the family for which the female must be killed. Wives’ adultery and daughters’ premarital “sexual activity,” including rape, are seen as extreme violations of the codes of behavior and thus may result in the death of the female through this so-called “honor” killing. Honor  killing/crime is based on the shame that a loss of control of the woman or girl brings to the family and to the male heads of the family. According to  criminologist Linda Williams, men consider honor killings culturally necessary, because any suspicion of sexual activity or suspicion that a girl or a woman was touched by another in a sexual manner is enough to raise questions about the family’s honor. Consequently, strict control of women and girls within the home and outside the home is justifi ed. Women are restricted in their activities in the community, religion, and politics. These institutions, in turn, support the control of females. Williams believes that the existence of honor killing is designed for maintaining male dominance. Submissiveness may be seen as a sign of sexual purity and a woman’s or girl’s attempts to assert her rights can
be seen as a violation of the family’s honor that needs to be redressed. Rules of honor and threats against females who “violate” such rules reinforce the control of women and have a powerful impact on their lives. Honor killings/crimes serve to keep women and girls from “stepping out of line.” The manner in which such behaviors silence women and kill their spirit has led some to label honor killings/crimes more broadly as “femicide.”


Sources: Linda M. Williams, “Honor Killings,” in  Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Violence, eds. Claire M. Renzetti and Jeffrey I. Edelson (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2007); Dan Bilefsky, “How to Avoid Honor Killing in Turkey? Honor S uicide,” New York Times, 16 July 2006, p. 3; Nadera  Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 

Crimes Against Humanity

On May 26, 2006, James Paul Lewis, Jr., the former director of Orange County, California–based Financial Advisory Consultants (FAC), was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for running a massive Ponzi scheme that raised more than $300 million and caused more than 1,600 victims to lose more than $156 million of their hardearned money. What exactly did James Lewis do to earn a 30-year prison sentence? He offered investors opportunities to invest in two mutual funds. Through false and fraudulent brochures and other promotional material issued by FAC, he told investors that they would earn annual rates of return of up to 18 percent in an Income Fund, which claimed to generate revenue from the leasing of medical equipment, commercial lending, and fi nancing insurance premiums, and 40 percent annual returns in a Growth Fund, which claimed to generate revenue through the purchase and sale of distressed businesses. Instead of investing the investors’ money as promised, Lewis used the funds to purchase homes in Villa Park, Laguna Niguel, Palm Desert, San Diego, and Greenwich, Connecticut. He also used investors’ money to purchase luxury automobiles for himself, his wife, and his girlfriend. Among other schemes, he used investor money to trade currency futures, managing to lose at least $22 million. To conceal the scheme at FAC, Lewis ran a Ponzi scheme: he took the money of new investors (and new purchases of those who had already bought into the funds) to pay the rates of return promised to investors. In other words, he used the principal to pay the interest! That is, until the money ran out. At one point nearly 3,300 investors had a total balance of $813,932,080 in the funds, but FAC and Lewis’s bank accounts held only slightly more than $2 million. At Lewis’s sentencing hearing, United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney ordered him to pay $156 million in restitution. Because many of this victims were elderly, Judge Carney described the scheme as a “crime against humanity.” Several victims told the court about their losses, which included life savings and college funds. Many victims described being forced back to work after losing their retirement savings in the scheme. How would Gottfredson and Hirschi explain Lewis’s ongoing criminal activities? Can someone so calculating lack self-control?


Sources: Department of Justice press release, “Operator of Orange County– Based Ponzi Scheme that Caused More than $150 Million in Losses Sentenced to 30 Years in Federal Prison,” May 30, 2006, 

Willem Bonger, Ralf Dahrendorf, and George Vold on Crime

Willem Bonger
Bonger believed that society is divided into have and have-not groups, not on the basis of people’s innate ability, but because of the system of production that is in force. In every society that is divided into a ruling class and an inferior class, penal law serves the will of the ruling class. Even though criminal laws may appear to protect members of both classes, hardly any act is punished that does not injure the interests of the dominant ruling class. Crimes, then, are considered to be antisocial acts because they are harmful to those who have the power at their command to control society. Under capitalism, the legal system discriminates against the poor by defending the actions of the wealthy. Because the proletariat are deprived of the materials that are monopolized by the bourgeoisie they are more likely to violate the law.

Ralf Dahrendorf
Dahrendorf argued that modern society is organized into what he called imperatively coordinated associations. These associations comprise two groups: those who possess authority and use it for social domination and those who lack authority and are dominated. Society is a plurality of competing interest groups. He proposed a unifi ed confl ict theory of human behavior, which can be summarized as follows:
❚ Every society is at every point subject to processes of change; social change is everywhere.
❚ Every society displays at every point dissent and confl ict; social confl ict is everywhere.
❚ Every element in a society renders a contribution to its disintegration and change.
❚ Every society is based on the coercion of some of its members by others.

George Vold
Vold argued that laws are created by politically oriented groups who seek the government’s assistance to help them defend their rights and protect their interests. If a group can marshal enough support, a law will be created to hamper and curb the interests of some opposition group. Every stage of the process—from passing the law, to prosecuting the case, to developing relationships between inmate and guard, parole agent and parolee—is marked by confl ict. Criminal acts are a consequence of direct contact between forces struggling to control society.


Sources: Willem Bonger, Criminality and Economic Conditions, abridged ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969, fi rst published 1916); Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Confl ict in Industrial Society (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1959); George Vold, Theoretical Criminology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958).

Alpha DOG (Crime story)

Twenty-five-year-old Jesse James Hollywood (his real name) was living a comfortable life in Brazil, teaching English and living in a fashionable neighborhood, when he was arrested in November of 2005 and sent back to California, where he faces charges of kidnapping and  killing a 15-year-old boy. Though Hollywood never held a job, by age 19 he was able to purchase a Mercedes and a $200,000 house in West Hills, California. His place became a popular spot for local kids who came and went at all hours of the day. Jesse was a popular guy, an outgoing kid who, despite being short in stature, was an excellent athlete. How was Jesse able to do all this? Unbeknownst to many, he was a largescale marijuana dealer. Jesse’s world began to unravel when he came up with a scheme to get money owed to him by Benjamin Markowitz, 22, one of his customers. Hollywood went to Markowitz’s family home on August 6, 2000, in order to kidnap him and hold him for ransom. According to authorities, on the way there, Jesse and his friends spotted Markowitz’s 15-year-old stepbrother, Nicholas, whom they forced into a van and transported to the home of another accomplice. After being held captive for a few days, Nick Markowitz was made to walk a mile into the Los Padres National  Forest before being shot nine times with a high-powered  assault rifl e and  buried in a shallow grave. His body was discovered four days later by hikers. While four other kids were tried and convicted in the case, Hollywood e scaped and became the subject of an  international manhunt, his mug shot plastered on the FBI’s website. He wound up in Brazil, where he used fake papers that identifi ed him as Michael Costa Giroux, a native of Rio de J aneiro. In 2005, Brazilian authorities d eported him as an  illegal alien. A 2007 fi lm, Alpha Dog, starring Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake, and Sharon Stone, is based on the case. He is currently a waiting trial for the m urder. Jesse James Hollywood grew up in an affl uent family and seemed to be popular and successful. How could he have become involved in an awful, violent crime? How would a control theorist explain his actions?


Sources: Tim Uehlinger, “The Long Hunt for Jesse James Hollywood,” Dateline, April 12, 2006, (accessed June 9, 2007; Ted Rowlands, “ ‘Hollywood’ Faces Murder Charge,” April 19, 2006, (accessed June 9, 2007).

A LIFE IN THE DRUG TRADE

In summer 2004, a dramatic murder trial took place in New York City that aptly illustrates how lower-class cultural concerns—the code of the streets—clash with the rules and values of American culture and how deviant cultures can exist side by side with middle-class culture. Two Bronx men, Alan Quiñones and Diego Rodriguez, were accused of heroin traffi cking and killing a police informant. The trial hinged on the testimony of one of their confederates—Hector Vega, a key government witness who had previously pleaded guilty to taking part in the murder. He described in vivid detail how he watched the defendants beat the victim, Edwin Santiago, as he lay handcuffed on the fl oor of a Bronx apartment. He told the jury how the defendants Quiñones and Rodriguez spit in Santiago’s face to show what they thought of police informants. Santiago’s body was found mutilated and burned beyond recognition on June 28, 1999. During the trial, Vega gave the jury a detailed lesson in retail drug operations. In the Bronx, beatings, slashings, and shootings are routinely used to enforce what he called “the drug law”: “If people deserved it, I beat them up.” He showed them a tattoo on his upper right arm that meant “Money, Power, Respect.” Vega, 31, also told the jury that he headed a group of heroin vendors who did business from his “spot,” his sales area, between Daly and Honeywell Avenues in the Bronx. He said he had learned the trade from a stepfather, a building superintendent who he said had a second job as a narcotics entrepreneur: “I always knew about the drug business. I was raised around it.” As a mid-level drug dealer, Vega received heroin on consignment from big-time drug wholesalers and turned it over in $100 packages to people he called his “managers,” who in turn found “runners” to sell it on the street. His job was to “make sure everybody is working, and I will make sure everything is running correctly.” Vega received a “commission” of about 35 percent of all sales in his organization; he estimated that he made a total of at least $500,000 in the fi ve years before his arrest. Vega told how he used strict rules to run his organization. He did not sell between 1 and 3 P.M. because of “school hours.” He did not allow anyone to sell at his spot without his approval, or steal drugs from him, or pass him a counterfeit bill, or taint the quality of drugs sold under his name. If that happened, he said, “I’d be looking like a fool. The drug spot will go down.” When Manny, one of his workers, stole one package of heroin, Vega slashed his face with a box cutter. When the wound did not immediately bleed, “I didn’t see nothing cut, I didn’t see anything I did, so I did it a second time,” he said, until he saw blood. Angered by a counterfeit bill he received from a crack addict, “I punched him in the face, I kicked him, I threw him on the fl oor and kicked him again.” He disciplined one stranger who cheated him by hitting the man in the back of the head with a three-foot tree branch. Police informants were given special treatment. “In the drug world, in the drug law, we say that snitches get stitches,” he said. “In jail you cut their face. In the street, you beat them. You kill them.” Vega testifi ed that the defendants Quiñones and Rodriguez were heroin wholesalers and that he began buying drugs from them a few months before Santiago’s death. After he learned that Quiñones suspected Santiago of working undercover for the police, he helped him lure Santiago to the apartment of a girlfriend where the beatings and murder took place. For his cooperation, Vega faced a 15-year sentence rather than the death penalty.


Source: Julia Preston, “Witness Gives Details of Life as Drug Dealer,” New York Times, 12 July 2004.

TEENAGE BEHAVIOR: IS IT THE BRAIN?

Teenagers and adults often don’t see eye to eye, and new brain research is now shedding light on some of the reasons why so much confl ict exists. Although adolescence is often characterized by increased independence and a desire for knowledge and exploration, it also is a time when the brain matures at different rates, and the resulting instability can result in high-risk behaviors, vulnerability to substance abuse, and mental distress. Recent imaging studies in humans show that brain development and connectivity are not complete until the late teens
or early twenties. It is becoming clear that the status of brain chemical systems and connectivity between brain regions make teenagers different from both the young child and the fully mature adult. In other words, as if you did not already know, there really is a big difference between the teenage and adult brains!
Brain Structure and Aggression
One area of teen brain functioning that has piqued the interests of neurscientists is aggression. Adolescent aggressive behavior can be divided into two types: proactive and reactive. Proactive aggressors plan how they’re going to hurt and bully others. Reactive aggression, however, is not premeditated; it occurs in response to an upsetting trigger from the environment. Research psychiatrist Frank Guido fi nds that aggressive teen behavior may be linked to the amygdala, an area of the brain that processes information regarding threats and fear. Aggressive behavior may also be associated with a lessening of activity in the frontal lobe, a brain region linked to decisionmaking and impulse control. Guido’s research indicates that reactively aggressive adolescents—most commonly boys—frequently misinterpret their surroundings, feel threatened, and act inappropriately aggressive. They tend to strike back when being teased, blame others when getting into a fight, and overreact to accidents.