1. Crime, Deviance, and Problem Gambling: A Look at Some of the Sociological Yesterdays, Todays, and Tomorrows Bo Jason Bernhard, Ph.D. (cand.) University of Nevada, Las Vegas March 9, 2002

2. Sociological and Criminological Perspectives Who “fits”? Who doesn’t? Who is “normal”? Who is “deviant”? Who is “good”? Who is “bad”? Criminal justice systems determine this… … so does the institution of religion … and so does psychiatry

3. Crime and Gambling Problems: A Sociological History The Sociological Questions: Who defines a problem? How do we identify a problem? Which/whose criteria shall we use? Medical Labels vs. Religious Labels Tales from history: Crime, gambling problems, and finding the “bad guys”

4. A History of Voices, A History of Vices Problem gambling is a relatively young field of study First included in the DSM in 1980 Thanks to people like Dr. Custer, Dr. Lesieur, Dr. Rosenthal, and other experts, the diagnosis evolved. Hence, one way to think about the “trajectory of problem gambling” is as a “history of voices” interpreting the lives of those who gamble too much. Long before medical/psych experts provided us with the proper interpretive parameters for these lives, moral/religious “experts” were entrusted with this task.

5. Methodology Rachel Volberg on methods (1996) Historic Analysis Pre-1910 texts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Special Collections. Almost all from USA and England Qualitative exploration

6. How do/did we identify them? Virtually all of our current “identifying criteria” were alluded to in historic literature dating back hundreds of years. Moral/religious thinkers attacked gambling in general, but in doing so, they cited specific “case studies” that described individual lives. To identify those who gambled too much, the moral/religious thinkers of yesterday used the same “diagnostic criteria” that today’s medical/psychological thinkers use.

7. By Any Other Names: Some Favorite DSM Identifiers Disrupted Family or Spouse Relationship Work Problems Lying Preoccupation Tolerance: Increasing Time, Increasing Money Chasing Loss of Control Action Gamblers and Escape Gamblers Of course, we relied on different “names” for these problems...

8. Crime as an Identifying Criterion Used as the very first criterion in the very first DSM (1980) Still employed in the current, DSM-IV version As it turns out, we have long used criminal behavior in order to identify those who gamble too much.

9. Historic Examples: Crime and Criminal Behavior Tales of criminal activity to support a gambling habit were quite common. “It consumes time, and produces sin, immorality, and crime” -- Spriggs-Smith (1890:12)

10. Concluding Speculations A Sociological History: A Long and Documented Tale A Sociology of Medicalization of Mental Illness: A Profound Parallelism Emerges A Sociology of Religion and Morality: Institutional Contributions to Our Current Understandings and Public Discourses

11. The “So What?” Question This history has profound implications for research work -- and even clinical work. A “bio-psycho-social” model extended? Taking a “sociological step back” in order to understand the “problems” of the problem gambler Our lives are shaped by forces far larger than us: Adding a sociological imagination to the tool chest “If pathological gambling is a medical problem, then why is it that I am treated as a moral one?”

12. Tomorrows: Crime and Causes The Internet: New Gamblers, New Crimes? Hypothesis: As Gambling Moves into the Mainstream, So Too Will Its Associated Pathology Move into the Mainstream Fewer pre-existing pathologies? Pre-existing criminal activity? The Las Vegasization of America?

13. Talk to me! Bo Bernhard University of Nevada, Las Vegas bobernhard@aol.com