Assignment 3: Crimes of Sex and Violence (15%)

This assignment is graded out of 100 marks and is worth 15 per cent of your final course grade. It is due at the end of Unit 3.

The assignment has three parts:

• Part A: Choose two questions and provide one or two short paragraph answers of 150–250 words for each.
• Part B: Write one short essay of 600–800 words.
• Part C: Write one short essay of 600–800 words applying the concepts from the course readings.

See the assignment evaluation criteria for details on how you will be graded.

Part A: Short Answer (20 marks)

Answer two of the following questions and provide one or two short paragraph answers of 150–250 words for each. (10 marks each)

• What theory of deviance best explains why the Libyans from Darnah (Ch. 11) became suicide bombers?
• What are the advantages of considering serial killers sociologically rather than psychologically or biologically? Use at least one of the serial killer myths to illustrate your answer.
• According to Kimmel and Mahler (Ch. 13), what is the relationship between hegemonic masculinity, homophobia and school shootings? (Please make sure to define “hegemonic masculinity” and “homophobia” in your answer)
• What is the difference between right-wing skinheads and neo-Nazis? How did this difference function in what Ostow, (“Ne Art Bürgerwehr in Form von Skins”), calls the prepolitical violence of Hanna and Hackie?
• Why do some people stay in abusive relationships?
• If an “account” is a “linguistic device that is employed whenever an action is subjected to a valuative inquiry” as a “stigma management technique” (Durkin, Ch. 35) in Thio, Calhoun and Conyers) what three types of account do child sexual abusers use to describe their sexual relationship with children? Why is it important to understand their point of view? To answer this question, please refer to p. 243 in your textbook for more information. Please note that page numbers may change with various editions.
• How do changes in global sex tourism affect the local conditions under which prostitution is practiced? Illustrate briefly using the different examples provided about Amsterdam and Havana (Ch. 27).
• What factors of the life course pathway are significantly related to involvement in the sex industry according to McCarthy, Benoit, and Jansson (“Sex Work: A Comparative Study”)? Does their study address the flaws in prostitution research described by Weitzer (Ch. 28)?

Part B: Short Essay (40 marks)

Answer one of the following questions in a short essay of 500–800 words.

• Compare the factors that lead the young men of Darnah, Libya to volunteer as suicide bombers in Iraq, the factors that lead white, suburban boys to go on school shooting sprees, and the factors leading to neo-Nazi violence. What common factors explain the violence or are the situations too dissimilar to compare?
• What common features do the problems of domestic violence, stalking, child-to-mother violence, and child sexual abuse share as crimes of the private, family or domestic sphere? What problems do the victims face in disengaging from these forms of violence?

Part C: Applied Short Essay (40 marks)

Review the readings from Unit 3 and then read the following reports. Answer one of the following questions in a short essay of 500-800 words.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police. (2014). Missing and murdered Aboriginal women: A national operational overview. Retrieved from http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/mmaw-faapd-eng.htm

Shaver, F. M. (2014, July 7). Bill C-36: Entrenched in personal moral values and inaccurate stereotypes. A brief to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. 41st Parliament, 2nd session.

Atchison, C., Benoit, C., Casey, L., Jansson, M., McCarthy, B., Phillips, R., … Shaver, F. M. (2014, June 20). Bill C-36 and the views of people involved in the Canadian sex industry.

• Briefly summarize the main facts about the missing and murdered Aboriginal women from the RCMP report. To what degree are the numbers of cases of missing and murdered women disproportionately high for Aboriginal women? The report notes “risk factors” that make Aboriginal women more likely to be subject to violent crime. What are they? With respect to these risk factors, do you think that the report engages in a “blaming the victim” or “defect” analysis of violent crime against Aboriginal women (recall the reading from Box in Unit 1), or does it provide the basis for an analysis of the risk factors’ social context? How would you respond to the Prime Minister’s statement (see the quote below) that the situation of the missing and murdered Aboriginal women should be treated as simply a police matter and not as a sociological phenomenon? Please provide your reasons.

Boutilier, A. (2014, August 21). Native teen’s slaying a ‘crime,’ not a ‘sociological phenomenon,’ Stephen Harper says. Toronto Star Newspapers.

• Briefly summarize Bill C-36 and the criticisms of the government’s approach in the two briefs to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (Shaver, 2014; Atchison et al., 2014). In what way do the two sides of issue represent two different types of governmental strategy for the control of prostitution (i.e. a law and order approach vs. a public health approach)? What evidence do the briefs present to support their approach? How would you decide this dispute?

Note

You can read about Bill C-36 from the Parliament of Canada website below.

Bill C-36: An Act to amend the Criminal Code in response to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Attorney General of Canada v. Bedford and to make consequential amendments to other Acts. (2014). Assented to Nov. 6, 2014, 41st Parliament, 2nd session. Retrieved from the Parliament of Canada website.

Bill C-36 can be summarized in this resource:

Mulley, M. (2014). Bill C-36: Protection of communities and exploited persons act.

 

Word Count: 1400-1500

No. of Pages: 7