Video and Multimedia

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Video Links

  • 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 Release
    This program is a follow-up to The New Asylums (see above). Filmed 5 years after the original program, it examines how mentally ill ex-convicts fare after release. 

This video examines white-collar crimes and how many of these crimes go undetected.  It is estimated that a great deal of white-collar crime is undetected or, if detected, it is not reported. Many believe for years, white collar criminals routinely received a "slap on the wrist" — sentences of probation, or at worst a prison term measured in months, not year and they eroded people's faith in the financial system. In the wake of corporate scandals at Enron, World Com, Tyco and Global Crossing, there's little doubt that serious corporate crime warranted serious sentences that could deter future fraud of that magnitude.

  • Amy Winehouse Dead: Why Did No One Help Her?
    News segment from the day following the death of soul singer Amy Winehouse. The clip contains footage from the makeshift memorial that fans created outside of her house as well as a recap of her brief career.

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. 

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 nondisabled director, Arthur Bradford. In Act Two we hear from a mother and her son. By age 7, 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. 
  • Chicago Residents Fight Crime One Vacant Lot at a Time
    The Chicago program announced 2 years ago that allows homeowners in impoverished neighborhoods to buy vacant lots on their block for a dollar is off to a very slow start. Residents hoping to spruce up the lots, plant community gardens, or turn them into gathering places are frustrated by slow city bureaucracy.​
  • This American 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.

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Web Resources

Professional Resources

The study of deviant behavior has long been central to sociology, and it is the focus of affiliates of the American Sociological Association (ASA). These are various sections that pertain to the issue of deviance.
 

 

​Data Resources

  • 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.
     
  • FBI-Uniform Crime Reports
    The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) consists of data which are reported to the FBI from law enforcement agencies across the United States. The UCR compiles data on the major index crimes that are committed each year in the United States and is a source of information for researchers and law enforcement executives.
     
  • The National Institute of Justice
    The National Institute of Justice’s Data Resources Program was established to ensure the preservation and availability of research and evaluation data collected through NIJ-funded research. 
     
  • The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS)
    The NCJRS is a federally sponsored information clearinghouse for people around the country and the world involved with research, policy, and practice related to criminal and juvenile justice and drug control. 
     
  • The Urban Ethnography of Latino Street Gangs
    The Urban Ethnography of Latino Street Gangs site originally focused on Los Angeles and Ventura counties. It has expanded to include studies of street gangs in Albuquerque and Phoenix. The goal of this site is to find solutions, to share an ever-expanding body of data and literature on Latino street gangs, and to locate successful strategies for prevention and intervention with at-risk youths.

 

​Other Resources

  • It's High Time
    This article from Contexts, which is published by the American Sociological Association, explores the issue of legalizing marijuana. The article highlights the number of people who have been using marijuana for medical purposes and the penalties still associated for using marijuana in a state where it is illegal.
     
  • Do Bright Street Lights Actually Reduce Crime?
    This article from the Pacific Standard magazine discusses the implementation of bright street lights and the relationship this has to preventing crime in certain areas. Since 2000, cities in England and Wales have reduced street lighting to save money and reduce carbon emissions. This is one example of how changing the environment could lead to a decrease in certain types of crimes.
     
  • The Women’s Prison Association (WPA)
    The WPA is a service and advocacy organization committed to helping women with criminal justice histories realize new possibilities for themselves and their families. Our program services make it possible for women to obtain work, housing, and health care; to rebuild their families; and to participate fully in civic life. Through the Institute on Women & Criminal Justice, WPA pursues a rigorous policy, advocacy, and research agenda to bring new perspectives to public debates on women and criminal justice.
     
  • The Innocence Project
    The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, 273 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release. The Innocence Project’s full-time staff attorneys and Cardozo clinic students provide direct representation or critical assistance in most of these cases. The Innocence Project’s groundbreaking use of DNA technology to free innocent people has provided irrefutable proof that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead arise from systemic defects. Now an independent nonprofit organization closely affiliated with Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the Innocence Project’s mission is nothing less than to free the staggering numbers of innocent people who remain incarcerated and to bring substantive reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment.