CCJS105 Exam 2

Mechanical Societies:
- Simple distribution of labor, people do the same jobs
- High levels of agreement about social norms
- Punishment is to reinforce conformity
Organic Socities:
- Highly specified divison of labor, people do different jobs
- Less agreement about social norms
- Punishment is to regulate interactions and provide restitution

all of the beliefs and sentiments of an average person in a place

Crime is normal and necessary in society to define its moral boundaries
The identification of rule-breakers creates a band among society's rule-following members

A state of normlessness caused when a society goes through an abrupt change and has a weak collective conscience

There is frustration (strain) when there is a disjoint between the goals of society and the legitimate means for achieving that goal
Can lead to criminogenic behavior

conformity: believe in goal of American dream, are willing and able to use legitimate means
innovation: criminogenic; believe in goal of American dream, are not bound to legitimate means
ritualism: resigned for achieving American dream, still engage in legitimate means as if it will get them there
retreatism: criminogenic; not going after American dream, retreat from society (homelessness, drug addiction, etc.)
rebellion: criminogenic; create new goals and new means to achieve them

Strengths:
- Accounts for both macro and micro factors
- Support for idea that inequality in a community is related to crime rate
Weaknesses:
- Does not explain the age-crime curve
- Hard to pin direct relationship between strain and crime without looking at other variables
- Does not explain crime committed by those not experiencing economic strain

When the economy is the dominant institution in society and other institutions are undervalued, crime will be higher than in societies where the economy is less dominant

There are other frustrations that individuals experience than failure to achieve American Dream, such as failure to achieve goals, presence of negative stimuli, and removal of positive stimuli
Response to strain is negative emotionality that leads to crime

Strains high in magnitude, that are unfair or unjust, are associated with low social control, or create pressue for criminal coping

Strengths:
- Brings in more than one type of strain
- Can account for middle- and upper-class offending more so than Merton's theory
Weaknesses:
- Lots of components to theory that make it difficult to test
- Less support for prediction that anger leads to criminal behavior

The Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago during late 19th century, early 20th century

Studies the interrelations of human beings and the environment they live in (human ecology)
Five zones of most cities; zone 2 is the most likely to have crime
- zone 1: central business district (business buildings, chamber of commerce, government buildings)
- zone 2: zone of transition (factories, deteriorated housing, abandoned buildings)
- zone 3: working class (moderately priced apartments)
- zone 4: residential zone (nicer, more expensive homes)
- zone 5: commuter zone (suburbs)

Some areas in a city will have more crime than others
Areas with higher crime rates will be physically dilapitated, have heteogenetic populations, be impoverish, and have high residential mobility

Strengths:
- Very well-supported by research, findings have held up over time
- The idea that certain neighborhoods have more crime than others is influential in policing practices
- Resulted in one of the largest programs in attempting to reduce delinquency rates
Weaknesses:
- Argued that Shaw and McKay didn't measure their primary construct (social disorganization)
- Does not explain why youths in predicted areas don't commit crime
- Ecological fallacy

Recreation, improving neighborhood environemnts, helping deliquents

Neighborhoods with social disorganization also tend to have unsupervised youth, sparse local friendships, a lack of organizational participation, and low levels of collective efficacy

Social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good

Human behvaior is not a result of inborn characteristics, but rather the way we relate our experiences to stimuli in the environment

People imitate one another in proportion to the degree of close contact they have with one another
The inferior usually imitates the superior
Newer imitations displace older ones

Criminal behavior is learned
Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication
The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs with intimate personal groups
When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes techniques of committing the crime, which vary in complication, and the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes
The specific directions of motives and drives are learned from definitions of legal codes as favorable or unfavorable
A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violtaion of the law over unfavorable ones
Differential association may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity
The process of learning criminal behavior involves all the mechanims involved in any other learning
While criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those needs and values, since noncriminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values

Strengths:
- Applicable to white-collar crime
- Attitudes in favor of violation of the law and association with delinquent peers are both positively associated with delinquency
- Established the basis for subcultural theories of crime
Weaknesses:
- Vague principles that are difficult to test
- Does not account for influences beyond intimate interpersonal interaction
- Does not consider rational choices and decisions made to avoid engaging in delinency

Criminal behavior is explained by the degree to which an individual identifies with a person, real or imaginary, that favors criminal behavior

Individuals become oriented to deliqnuency through differential associations with peers, but learn to commit crime via operant conditioning

Children imitate and repeat aggresive behavior after perceving it in adults

Differential association: differential contact with different institutions or groups or people without society
Definitions (attitudes): if not favorable to commiting crime, you will not commit crime
Differential reinforcement: redetermining idea of operant conditioning
Modeling or imitation: people are more likely to imitate behaviors that are rewarded and less likely to when punished

A piece of a dominant culture with its own norms, beliefs, and values
Form because they feel isolated from mainstream society and are looking for mutual support

When conduct norms (rules that guide our behavior) are in conflict, crime and delinquency arises

Middle-class values are pervasive throughout US society and no one is immune to them
Criminal subcultures are a response to blocked opportunities
People desire approval and status but cannot measure up to middle-class standards (status frustration), seek their needs in different ways by doing the opposite of the norm (reaction formation)

College boys: work hard and strive to achieve; see adversity as a challenge and try to overcome it
Corner boys: just trying to get by; engage in mischief or low-level delinquency
Delinquent boys: respond to lack of measuring up with reaction formation; type of boys more likely to continue to offend

Not only is there unequal access to legimitate means to achieving success, there in unequal access to illegitimate means to success

Criminal gangs: engage in crime for economic benefit (burglary, motor vehicle theft)
Conflict gangs: engage in violent crimes (assault, robbery, rape)
Retreatist gangs: engage in substance use as they cannot make it in either criminal or conflict gangs

Lower-class youth do not reject middle-class norms but instead have their own subculture that they fully embrace
Subculture is defined by trouble, toughness, smartness, excitement, luck, and autonomy

Not properly tested
Based on very simple concepts (school is important, neighborhoods are important)
Generally only explain male delinquency
Cannot explain delinquency outside of the lower class

Systems that serve to control behavior, such as laws, norms, customs, ethics, and etiquette
Defines what is deviant, what is right, and what is wrong

Formal social control: legal system, laws, law enforcement
Informal social control: neighborhoods, friend groups, classmates

Delinquency is a consequence of weak controls
A sound family environment coupled with supervision by the community will appropriately socialize youths

Those invested in social institutions are less likely to take risks and violate the rights of others than those who do not have stakes in conformity (things to lose)

Internal control: conscience, formed through socialization
Direct control: criminal justice system, laws, sanctions
Indirect control: relationships with parents and family

To prevent delinquency, it is ideal to balance control and freedom
No control is bad, but so is complete control

Individuals can be pushed (psychological) or pulled (social/environmental) toward antisocial behavior, to combat the push and pull factors, individudals must be sufficiently contained by building a person's sense of self or working with social/community organizations

Four important bonds: attachment (caring about others and what they think of you), commitment (caring about organizations), involvement (being busy), belief (value system of society)
if any of these bonds are weak, an individual is more likely to be delinquent

Strengths:
- Complements explanations of group-level crime and gang behavior
- Has been supported by research
- Simple to understand
Weaknesses:
- Unclear definitions
- Does not account for attachment to commit crime

Crime and delinquency are functions of low self-control, which comes from poor parenting practices
Mixed evidence for the theory; low-self control is linked to delinquency but the role of parenting practices is less clear

The social/community reaction to illegal behavior

Primary deviance: situational or occasional deviance; minor, infrequent offending committed before being labeled as an offender
Secondary deviance: more serious, frequent offending that is committed after a person is labeled and internalized

Primary Deviance → Social Penalties → Further Primary Deviance → Strong Penalties and Rejections → Further Deviation with Hostilities → Formal Action by the Community → Strengthening of Deviant Conduct → Ultimate Acceptance of Deviant Social Status

Certain groups have the power to impose groups and apply labels to desginate other individuals as deviants

Falsely accused: obedient behavior but perceived as deviant
Conformist: obedient behavior and not perceived as deviant
Pure deviant: rule-breaking behavior and perceived as deviant
Secret deviant: rule-breaking behavior but not perceived as deviant

No act is intrinsically criminal
Criminal definitions are enforced in the interest of the powerful
The practice of dichotomizing individuals into criminal and noncriminal groups is contrary to common sense and research
Only a few people are caught in violating the law even though many individuals may be equally guilty
Criminal sanctions vary according to other characteristics of the offender
Criminal justice is founded on a stereotyped conception of the criminal as a parish
Confronted by public condemnation and the label of an evil man, it may be difficult for an offender to maintain a favorable image of themselves

There will be higher crime rates in societies that use stigmatizing shaming (act is labeled as wrong, individual is labeled as bad and stigmatized) than reintegrative shaming (act is labeled as wrong, individual is shamed but not stimigmatized)

"Invisible punishments" for committing a crime experienced in addition to a legal sanction such as prison, ex. being unable to vote, housing restrictions
People with a criminal record are less liekly to get a call back for a job interview

Does not explain the onset of primary deviance or the existence of those who do not internalize labels
Focuses on reactors, not actors
Hard to test due to ambigious propostions

Prostitutes don't have any wrinkles but are more likely to have moles, large jaws, and large cheekbones
Females who commit homicide have prominent cheekbones

Females are anatomically inferior to males; deviant women are attempting to be men

Women are socialized to conceal many things (ex. period), so they are able to deceive and hide their criminality easier

Generalizability problem: do traditional criminological theories apply to women?
Gender-ratio problem: what can explain that women have much lower rates of offending than men?

As females increasingly adopted male roles in the labor force, they would becoming similar to men in their offending and women's violent crime rates would increase

Women's increased participation in the workforce would provide them with opportunities to commit job-related crime

Female youths from egalitarian families (where parents have equal status) will be more delinquent than patriarchal families because they will be socialized to engage in risk-taking behaviors, just like their brothers

Moving towards an intersectional framework including more than just gender
Utilizing pathways theories that consider how the life experiences and backgrounds of women relate to their involvement in crime

Theories ignore race and class differences; only focus on the experiences of white middle-class women
Some theories and research view women as either offenders or victims
Some theories ignore women's agency or capacity for decision-making

The process of freeing social relationships from economic considerations
The theory beleives that freeing people from economic domination would reduce cutthroat competition and in turn reduce crime

Foot patrol does not reduce crime rates, but residents of foot patrolled neighborhoods feel more secure, believe that crime was reduce, and had a more favorable opinion of police

Disorder

Broken windows, untended property

Rules were defined and enforced in collaboration with the "regulars" on the street

Vandalism can occur anywhere once communal barriers are lowered by actions that seem to signal that "no one cares"

A perspective in psychology that focuses on how people interpret and define their social reality and the meanings they attach to it in the process of interacting with one another via language

A perspective on learning asserting that behavior is governed and shaped by its consequences

Positive reinforcement: something rewarding received
Negative reinforcement: something punishing avoided or taken away

Positive punishment: something punishing applied
Negative punishment: something rewarding lost

Street families show lack of consideration for people, have a superficial sense of family, are unable to cope with demands of parenthood, live disorganized lives, tend toward self-destructive behavior

Decent families accept mainstream values, value hard work and self-reliance, are willing to sacrifice for their children, are involved in the community, are strict parents

A set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, prescribing a proper component and a proper way to respond if challenged
Regulates violent crime in inner-city culture

A social shuffle occurs where children have a chance to go either way and must choose an orientation

Show that you are not someone to be "messed with"; win fights, manage position of respect, wear cool clothes and defend yourself, take posessions of others

A situation that presents itself to someone with low self-control by which they can immediately satisfy needs with minimal effort

Self-control and the social control exercised by others mutually affect one another constantly across the life course

Capitalism generates egoism and blunts alturuism because it relies on competition for scarce valuable resoruces
Individuals vary in their risk for crime because they vary in the innate social sentiments of altruism and egoism

Theory based on the postmodernist tradition that rjects the notion that the scietnific veiw is better than any other view and believes that any method of understanding can be objective

The work of a small cadre of professors who have done time in prison and beleive that they have a better perspective on crime
Tend to focus on prisons and the prison experience

An extension of radical criminology that concerns itself with the study of crimes and other harms against the environment
Studies environmental law and policy, the study of corporate crimes against the environment, and environmental justice

A system of mediation and conflict resolution orientated toward sjustice by repairing the harm caused by the crime using a face-to-face confrontation between victim and perpetrator