Suite Crime and Making a Choice

In my Intro to Soc class my freshman year of college, I remember my professor saying that while social forces may influence what we do, in the end we still make the choice. Being a delinquency specialist within the sociology field, he was specifically referring to crime. This concept was very forefront in my mind when Lois Presser, in her article "Negotiating Power and Narrative in Research: Implications for Feminist Methodology," mentioned how when she talked with men who had committed violent crimes they started to construct a reality to excuse their behavior. While it is entirely tragic that we punish those who have less power within our society, and then punish them again when they do wrong, in the end they did make the choice, and except for the few mentally ill, violence is largely understood to be bad. For example, when Dwight had to get high before he could go and shoot the rapist of his girlfriend's daughter. In this same intro class, we also watched a documentary on men who were tried and convicted as adults when they were still minors, and sentenced to life. The film really spoke to how as a society we have a failed penal system, and this article reflected some of the same themes.

When Presser discussed how "political and economic interests shape definitions of violence," in regards to our definitions of violence and crime, I again hearkened back to my intro professor who constantly railed against "suite crime," or crime committed in office suites, corporate crime. White collar crime hurts so many more people than petty crime. When someone robs a convenience store they get what, maybe $50, and maybe they hurt or kill one person. Bernie Madoff stole my father's retirement. My father has to work 5 more years of his life to regain what Madoff stole. Now my father is a plumber for a union, and his job is physically tough. He is already beginning to break as a 46 year old man, who can't kneel without wincing and who needs a steroid shot once a month in his hand to prevent crippling pain. Now, Madoff did this to many many more people than my father -- I'd say he stole many lives, and yet, what is his punishment? Will it ever be enough? Why do we let our perceptions of violence be so influenced by political and economic elite? Why are we so concerned with getting crime off the streets but not out of the elites?