Multimedia Resources

Video Links

Deviance
This video explores the concept of deviance in sociology.

The New Asylums
Many of those incarcerated in the nation’s prisons have a diagnosable mental illness. This program goes inside an Ohio correctional facility that is making an effort to address the mental health needs of prisoners.

The Released
This program is a follow-up to The New Asylums (see above). Filmed five years after the original program it examines how mentally ill ex-convicts fare after release.

Sex Offender Village
The stigma attached to the label “sex-offender” is strong and this makes it difficult for those who have been convicted of sexual crimes to reenter society following incarceration. In fact many communities have rules in place that prevent sex-offenders from living in certain areas--within so many miles of a school, for example. Miracle Village was established to address the problem of sex-offender reentry. This video offers a tour of the village that houses up to 100 offenders.

Perspectives on deviance: Differential Association, theory, and strain theory
This Khan Academy video presents the sociological perspectives on deviance.

Audio Links

This American Life 207: Special Ed
This program is composed of stories about people who were told that they're different. Some of them were comfortable with it. Some didn't understand it. And some understood, but didn't like it. Act one is a series of interviews with three of the people involved in making the documentary How’s Your News?, about a team of developmentally disabled people who travel across the country doing man-on-the-street interviews. The interviewer talks to two of the developmentally disabled reporters, Susan Harrington and Joe Simon, and to the film's non-disabled director, Arthur Bradford. Act two we hear from a mother and her son. By age seven, he'd had heart failure and been diagnosed as bipolar. And then--after a period as the world's youngest Stephen Hawking fan--he got better. In the third act a woman tells the story of her developmentally disabled brother Vincent, who one day quit his job and then quit everything else, mystifying everyone in his life.

356: The Prosecutor

A lawyer in the Justice Department gets the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to be the lead prosecutor in one of the first high-profile terrorist cases since 9/11. But things go badly for him. His convictions get overturned, he loses his job, and he ends up on trial himself, in federal court.

Web Links

Society for the Study of Social Problems
Although their interests extend beyond crime and deviance, members of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) frequently study these issues. The official journal of the SSSP is Social Problems.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) collects, analyzes, publishes, and disseminates statistics on crime, victims of crime, criminal offenders, and operations of justice systems at all levels of government throughout the United States.