Professional athletes, it seems, are
consistently finding themselves in the naughty corner. Rest assured, the media is
often the culprit cornering them in. Indeed, the month of February 2009 found
the media reporting misbehaviour by a professional athlete on at least twenty-two
of the twenty-eight days (Kim 2009).
Athletes often misbehave for the same
reasons that other young, non-celebrity people might misbehave; more often than
not, alcohol is involved. Despite being
consistently advised on their responsibilities both as role models in their
communities and as representative of their designated sport, however, professional
athletes both old and young continue to display anti-social behaviour.
“Athletes tend to be more extroverted,
assertive and self-confident than non-athletes,” says University of Wollongong
Psychology Lecturer Mitch Byrne
Domestic violence is the leading crime
committed by athletes in a number of reports, and the incidences of physical
attacks can begin early in an athlete’s career. Even at the collegial level, student-athletes
are paving the way for their future as a professional. According to the
Benedict-Crosset Study of sexual assaults, student-athletes were found to
commit one in three sexual assaults at thirty major Division I universities in
the United States (Valen 2009).
It is clear that athletes have been and will
continue to behave poorly, and that the media will usually pick up on their
transgressions. What is less clear, however, is why the punishments for these professional
athletes differ so greatly from the punishments of those in civil life who have
committed the same crime.
In the United States
In 2006, USA
Today investigated forty cases since 2001 in which professional athletes
were ordered by a court to complete various amounts of community service. The
crimes of these athletes ranged from assaulting fans, police, wives and
girlfriends; having sex with minors; driving while intoxicated; possessing illegal
drugs; carrying concealed weapons; firing pistols in public and vehicular
homicide. For a non-celebrity, the court-ordered community service that would
be expected of an offender might involve tasks such as digging ditches,
collecting roadside trash, cleaning public parks and other labour-intensive
work.
But for 50% of the cases examined, the professional
athletes hardly picked up a shovel nor touched a single piece of rubbish.
Instead, they fulfilled their community service duties by participating in
activities such as throwing a ceremonial first pitch at a Major League Baseball
game, coaching at a youth sports camp, collecting tickets, posing for
photographs and signing autographs for enthusiastic fans.
In 30% of the cases, the community service
punishment was “unable to be determined,” mostly due to the courts of probation
agencies closing or destroying the athlete’s criminal records.
In only 15% of the cases did the professional athletes
receive a punishment similar to the kinds of community service projects that
civilians would fulfill—such as picking up rubbish on the side of the road. Of
the forty cases, only two went to trial. Almost all of the athletes reached
plea bargains or were allowed participation in a pretrial diversion program, in
which no plea is required and all charges are dismissed once the community
service is completed and fines are paid in full.
According to Gordon Bazemore, a professor of
criminology at Florida
Atlantic University
The United States
But the United States
Another example can be
found in NBA player DeShawn Stevenson, who in 2001 was found guilty of the statutory
rape of a fourteen year old girl. Whether the case was tried as a felony or a
misdemeanour was up to the judge, and Superior Court Judge Dale Ikeda chose misdemeanour.
Stevenson pleaded “no contest,” and was sentenced to 100 hours of community
service, two years of probation and a fine of $1,100. He served no jail time, and went on to play
professional basketball for the Orlando Magic and the Washington Wizards in the
NBA.
Instead of serving his community
service hours on the side of the road picking up trash, Stevenson instead
served his hours as a “celebrity guest” and counsellor at six youth basketball
camps. Fifty of his hours were spent greeting players and “helping” at various
events such as the Lil’ Bow Wow celebrity game. Another ten were spent in New Jersey
So what is it about
professional athletes that makes us forgive and forget so easily? One reason is
obvious: they have money. Often boasting a salary of millions of dollars per
year, professional athletes can afford to spend tremendous amounts of money to
settle cases out of court, avoiding prosecution, serious jail time, and
negative media attention.
In July 1991, boxer Mike Tyson was arrested
for the rape of eighteen year-old Desiree Washington. Before his trial began in
1992, Washington
Mike Tyson, in fact, is a prime example of
athletes acting above the law. In 2007, police confiscated numerous bags of cocaine
from both his pocket and his car. A citizen may have received up to four years
in prison for this offense; in November of that same year, the former world
heavyweight champion was sentenced to just twenty four hours behind bars and a
probationary period of three years on the account of drug possession and
driving under the influence of alcohol. He was also required to pay a fine,
submit to drug tests and serve 360 hours of community service (Rhinger 2008). All
of this, however, is substantially more agreeable than serving hard time. And
hard time is exactly what a non-celebrity offender would have had to do.
When it comes to criminal
convictions, professional athletes are simply treated differently. A Georgetown
Works Cited
Byrne, Mitch, 2007.
Footy’s bad boys-is it really their fault? University of Wollongong
News
[Accessed 13 May
2010]
Duncan, Joyce,
2004. Sport in American Culture: from Ali
to X-Games. New York
Garganese, Chris,
2010. It’s Unfair that footballers are punished more severely for taking
cocaine than steroids. Goal.com,
[editorial]. 14 Jan. Available at:
[Accessed 19 May
2010].
Kim, Janine Young,
and Parlow, Matthew J., 2009. Off-court misbehaviour: sports leagues and
private punishment. Journal of Criminal
Law and Criminology, [internet]. Summer. Available at:
[Accessed 10 May
2010].
McCarthy, Mike,
2006. Athletes lightly punished after their day in court. USA Today, [internet]. 4 May. Available at:
[Accessed 10 May
2010].
Rhinger, Kurt,
2008. Tyson proves again that athletes and celebrities are above the law. University Chronicle, [internet]. 31
January. Available at:
[Accessed 11 May
2010].
Valen, Christopher,
2009. Athletes and crimes. Crimspace,
[internet]. 17 January. Available at:
[Accessed 12 May
2010].
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