Chapter 14- Lecture Flashcards
What is criminology?
The body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within its school the process of making laws, breaking laws, and reacting towards the breaking of laws.
What is crime?
Designates certain behaviours and actions that require social control and social intervention, codified in law.
What is deviance?
Actions that violate social norms, and that may or may not be against the law.
Most crimes are understood as___however all___acts are not___.
- deviant
- deviant
- criminal
What are some examples of deviant acts that have changed over time?
- divorce
- male hair buns
- female tattoos
- stay at home dads
What is the definition of social deviance?
Any acts that involve the violation of social norms
What does Howard Becker believe about social deviance?
Not the act itself, rather people’s reaction to the act that makes it deviant.
Who defines deviance?
Politicians/government, scientists, religious institutions, media
-media and society attempt to tell us who/what is deviant.
What can be understood as both informal and formal social controls?
deviance
What are moral entrepreneurs? What are two examples of moral entrepreneurs?
- Raise opposition to a particular social phenomena. Raise a movement against/for something
- Rosa Parks and Louis Riel
What is Rational Choice Theory?
Behaviour not the result of supernatural forces, but rather purposeful
What did Beccaria and Bentham believe about rational choice theory?
- If crime results in some form of pleasure for the criminal, then paid met be used to prevent crime
- Sentences must be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime
What are the four basic believes for Rational Choice Theory (classical criminology)?
1) People have free will to choose criminal or lawful solutions, and thus crime is a rational choice
2) Criminal solutions are seen as more attractive than lawful ones if they require less work for a greater payoff
3) The fear of punishment can control people’s choices
4) A society is better able to control criminal behaviour when criminality is met with: measured severity, certainty of punishment, swiftness of justice
What is the biological perspective to crime and criminology (positivism)?
- Application of the scientific method to the social world
- Focused on the individual, assuming that once we identify features that distinguish criminals from non-criminals, then possible to determine how to eliminate criminal behaviour
What is biological determinism?
The hypothesis that biological factors completely determine a person’s behaviour (criminality is based on physical traits).
What is Cesare Lombroso’s “The Criminal Man”?
Distinguished by an asymmetrical fact, large ears, particular eye defects, etc.
What is the overall theme of the biological perspective?
People are born criminal
What do sociological approaches to crime seek to do?
Shift the focus of criminology toward a consideration of the environments in which people are located.
What is the functionalism approach to crime rooted in?
Emile Durkheim’s notion of anomie
How is the notion of anomie applied to crime?
Rules governing behaviour break down resulting in people no longer knowing what to expect from one another. Formlessness leads to deviant behaviour.
What is the conflict theory approach to crime?
Crime is the product of class struggle.
What does the conflict theory approach to crime focus on?
- The role government plays in creating criminogenic environment. An environment that, as a result of laws that privilege certain groups, produces crime of criminality.
- Also focuses on the role that bias plays in the criminal justice system
Which sociological approach believes that criminal law is a tool to protect the interest of the affluent and the powerful?
Conflict Theory
What does conflict theory challenge with crime?
Challenge the commonly held belief that law is neutral & reflects the interests of society as a whole.
