We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Plymouth Colony and the Constancy of Crime Hypothesis Revisited.
- Authors
Hughes, Michael
- Abstract
This article focuses on Plymouth Colony and the constancy of crime hypothesis. After presenting analyses of court data from Plymouth Colony John N. Edwards and Ellsworth R. Fuhrman conclude that change--not constancy--characterized the volume of deviancy in Plymouth Colony. Erikson argues that the amount of deviance that a socially recognizes remains relatively constant. This occurs in part because there is a limit to the number of cases social control agencies can handle, but also because communities develop a definition of deviance so that it encompasses a range of behavior roughly equivalent to the available space in its control apparatus. Kai T. Erikson's evidence for this hypothesis comes from data on convictions and offenders in Essex County, Massachusetts between 1650 and 1680. This evidence is reviewed briefly in the next few paragraphs without specifications. Erikson presented additional data which showed why the conviction rate rose so dramatically in the middle of the study period. These analyses, taken together, support the constancy of deviance hypothesis because they show that with the influx of religious deviants, and an increase in the number of actual cases of deviance processed, there was a decline in the number of non-Quaker deviants processed.
- Subjects
CRIMINOLOGY; DEVIANT behavior; EDWARDS, John N.; FUHRMAN, Ellsworth R.; ERIKSON, Kai T.; SOCIAL control
- Publication
Qualitative Sociology, 1986, Vol 9, Issue 4, p383
- ISSN
0162-0436
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/BF00988466