Chapter 14- Textbook Flashcards
1
Q
What is criminology?
A
The study of crime causation, crime prevention, and the punishment and rehabilitation of offenders.
2
Q
What is “the body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within its scope the process of making laws, breaking laws, and reacting towards the breaking of laws”?
A
Criminology
3
Q
What is crime?
A
Behaviours or actions that require social control and social intervention, codified in law.
- Includes acts of negligence
- Require formal response
4
Q
What is deviance?
A
Actions of behaviours that violate social norms, and that may or may not be against the law.
5
Q
What are social norms?
A
Shared and accepted standards and social expectations.
6
Q
Most, but not all, crimes are understood as deviant, but are all deviant acts considered criminal?
A
No
7
Q
What happens to some deviant acts and some criminal acts over time?
A
over time, some deviant acts come to be deemed criminal and some criminalized acts become legalized.
8
Q
How do perceptions deviance change?
A
Acts that were once considered deviant can become an accepted element of society, while acts that were once considered “normal” can actually shift tone understood as “deviant” over time.
9
Q
Is the distinction between what is considered deviant (or ought to be) and what is considered criminal (or ought to be) clear?
A
No
10
Q
What do sociologists use the term deviance to refer to?
A
Any acts that involve the violation of accepted social norms. The act itself is not inherently deviant but rather people’s reactions to the specific act make it deviant. What is socially acceptable in one culture may actually be seen as deviant in another.
11
Q
Who gets to define deviance?
A
In Canada, some of the most powerful groups involved in this process of defining what is deviant are politicians and governments, scientists, religious leaders, and the media. Each of these individuals may act as a moral entrepreneur.
12
Q
What is a moral entrepreneur?
A
A person who influences or changes the creation or enforcement of a society’s moral codes.
13
Q
What is the difference between informal and formal social controls?
A
- Informal social controls occur through our social interactions and includes the ways we attempt to both communicate and enforce standards of appropriate behaviour.
- when informal social controls are not effective, the state can exert formal social controls through mechanisms such as the criminal justice system, social workers, and psychiatrists.
14
Q
What is “hard” deviance?
A
Crime, as an instance of deviance that has been made formal via criminal law.
15
Q
What is Rational Choice Theory?
A
Before a person commits an offence, he or she engages in a rational evaluation of the pros and cons, costs and benefits of the situation. The person first evaluates the risk of apprehension, the evaluates the seriousness of the potential punishment, and finally judges the value to herself or himself of the criminal activity.A person’s decision to commit a crime is thus based on the aggregate outcome of this rational weighing of gains and risks.
16
Q
What do Beccaria and Bentham argue?
A
That if crime produces some form of pleasure for a criminal, then pain is necessary to prevent a crime. They argued that sentences must be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime.
17
Q
What are the four basic beliefs of classical criminology?
A
- Crime is a rational choice as people enjoy free will–they are able to choose to engage in criminal acts or in lawful acts.
- Criminal solutions requiring less work yet yielding greater payoffs are understood as being more attractive than lawful solutions.
- A fear of punishment can control a person’s choices.
- when criminality is met with measured severity, certainly of punishment, and swiftness of justice, a society enhances its ability to control crime and criminal behaviour.
18
Q
What is biological determinism?
A
The hypothesis that biological factors completely determine a person’s behaviour
19
Q
What did positivists assume about crime and criminality?
A
That once we were able to identify specific physical features distinguishing criminals from noncriminals, it would be be possible to figure out how to prevent and control criminal behaviour.
20
Q
What did Cesare Lombroso attempt to do?
A
Attempted to apply the scientific method to his investigation of criminals He argued that some individuals were born criminals–that they were lower on the revolutionary ladder as a result of a particular anatomy.
21
Q
What is Lombroso’s “criminal man”?
A
The criminal man could be distinguished by his anatomy: an asymmetrical face, large ears, particular eye defects, and so forth.
22
Q
What do biological theories fail to consider?
A
The wider influence of environment
23
Q
What is the sociological approach to crime?
A
Sociologists have been working to shift the focus of criminology toward a consideration of the social environments in which people are located. Explanations of crime at th level of the individual fail to explain persistent crime patters. Sociologists emphasize the evologiscal distribution of crime–access to and use of environmental refuses and services. Emphasize the fact of social change and the interactive nature of crime itself.
24
Q
How does functionalism approach crime?
A
Functionalist argue that a balancing of tensions produces society. When a particular group or individual threatens this balance, efforts are made to ensure that everything returns to a stat elf homeostasis.
25
What are the roots to the functionalist approach to criminality?
- Emile Durkheim's notion of anomie
- State of normlessness in which norms are confused, unclear, or absent
- Such normlessness leads to deviant behaviour.
26
What is Robert Merton's strain theory?
The assertion that people experience strain when culturally defined goals cannot be met through socially approved means. Those of low socioeconomic status may feel strain since legitimate avenues are less open to them than they may be to more affluent persons. This perspective is not suggesting that people are simply incapable of controlling individual desires, but rather that unattainable goals and desires are being produced at the level of society.
27
What do strain theorists argue?
That most people within the same society share similar goals and values, and that when legitimate avenues to achieving those goals are not readily accessible, some will resort to deviant methods to achieve them. Alternatively, some people will reject socially accepted goals altogether and will instead substitute them with more deviant or criminal goals.
28
What does strain theory provide an explanation for?
The continued existence of high-crime areas as well as the prevalence of criminal behaviour among th lower class.
29
What are the five social goals and means to achieving those goals that merlons' typology of social adaptions includes?
1) Conformity happens when individual both accept social goals and have the means to achieve those goals
2) Innovation takes place when an individual accepts society's goals but she or he is incapable of achieving those goals through socially approved means. Innovation is most strongly linked with criminal behaviour
3) Ritualism as an adaption happens when social goals are reduced in importance.
4) Retreatists reject societal goals and the legitimate means of achieving such goals. Found on the margins of society as their lack of success leads to social withdrawal.
5) Rebellion involves the creation of an alternative set of goals and means, thus supplanting conventional ones. Happens when people call for and engage in radical change and alternative lifestyles.
30
What is Cloward and Ohlin's illegitimate opportunity theory?
The assertion that individuals commit crime as a result of deviant learning environments. Individuals must be located in deviant "learning environment" that provide them with the opportunities to both learn and develop the expertise needed to engage in criminal behaviour
31
How does conflict theory approach criminality?
- Conflict theorists view crime as the product of class struggle
- Focus on the role the government plays in producing criminogenic environments
- Focus on the relationship between social power an criminal law
- challenge the commonly held belief that law is neutral and reflects the interests of society as whole
32
What are crimogenic environments?
An environment that, as a result of laws that privilege certain groups, produces crime or criminality.
33
What bias are conflict theorists interested in?
The bias in the criminal justice system. They argue that crimes committed by the wealthy are punished far more leniently than those committed by the lower classes.
34
What did marx argue structure social relations--including the legal system?
Economic relations (forces of production and one's positive relative to the means of production).
35
What is the legal system designed to protect within a capitalist economic society acc. to Conflict theory?
the interests of the ruling class.
36
What is the protection of the ruling class and exploitation of the working class obscured from view by acc. to conflict theory?
Ideological constructs such as "fairness" and "equity" for all under the law. Positing criminal acts as the result of individuals' poor choices rather than as an outcome of an economic system serves to protect and sustain the capitalist class.
37
How does symbolic interactionism approach criminality ad deviance?
-They argue that criminal behaviour is learned in the same way as an other type of behaviour: through social interactions with others.
38
What are the two symbol interactionist approaches to crime?
1. Differential association theory
| 2. Labelling theory
39
What is differential association theory?
Criminal behaviour occurs when our association with definitions favourable to crime outweighs our definitions favourable to law-abiding behaviour. (Sutherland)
40
What are the main principles of differential association theory?
We learn how to behave in criminal ways in the same manner that we learn how to engage in any behaviour and that this learning takes place within social interactions with close associations. We come into contact with people who believe in varying definitions of crime--both for and against. And these differential associations affect our decision to engage in criminal acts or not. When our interactions are dominated or influenced moresby people with favourable dispositions to crime, criminal behaviour will then occur.
41
What does differential association position criminal activity as and is thus criticized for among other things?
Grounded in rationality and thus ignores crimes that we might categorize as crimes of passion or ones that happen in the heat of the moment. Criticized for using vague terms...impossible to test the ration of definitions. Also a failure to explain why more men than women become criminals.
42
What is Becker's labelling theory?
The assertion that once labelled as deviant, people come to accept the label as part of their identity.
-Interested in the consequences for people once they have been singled out and fined as deviant.
43
What can labelling act as?
As self-fulfilling prophecy
44
What do critics of labelling theory argue?
That it is unable to articulate why some people are labelled and carry that stigma through life while others remain "secret deviants" (deviant but not labelled as such). Labelling theory also fails to explain variances in crime rates across time and place.
45
What did second wave feminists argue about criminality?
- Identified widespread social norms (including the criminal law) as problematic for women.
- Men's violence over women needed to be understood as a social issue
- Campaigned to "decriminalize abortion, reform rape law, police wife-battering, and censor violent, degrading, and dehumanizing pornography"
46
What did third wave feminists argue about criminality?
They sought to understand how women of colour, being differentially positioned from white women, might then have different requirements offends within a legal system than those that were currently being addressed.
47
What did Otto Pollak argue about the perceptions of female criminals?
Argued that women criminals were actually wrote criminals than men because their violations were harder to determine due to being primarily located in the domestic sphere, hidden from public view.
48
What is Pollak's chivalry hypothesis?
The argument that women and girls accused of criminal activity are treated more leniently by law enforcement officials as a result of he latter's traditional, chivalrous attitude toward women. This is what accounted for women's lower crime rate.
49
What does feminist research by Comack and Brickey contend? (labels, what do they position women's violence as, what do they argue about the categories used)?
People often label women who commit violent acts as one of three distinct by interconnected constructs--"victim," "mad," and "bad"--but label these women without fully capturing their complex lives. Women's violence is positioned as individual pathology. They argue that such rigid categories are inadequate to explain the complexity of women's identities. They argue that researchers need to understand women's violence within its social context--as such violence may be a consequence of living on the streets or engaging in sex work, for example.
50
What do sociologist who study the law attempt to positions into a more general social context?
laws, regulations, particular legal decisions, and the administration criminal justice
51
What have Canada's legal institutions been shaped by?
A number of principles adopted from Britain
52
What is the rule of law?
The requirement that no person is above the law and state power should not be applied arbitrarily. The rule of law is meant to ensure that laws are shaped, managed, and implemented on the basis of acceptable procedures that promote fairness and equality.
53
What are the three approaches to all that sociologist have historically used?
1) Consensus view
2) Conflict view
3) Interactionist view
54
What is the census view?
Argue that the law is a neutral framework for sustaining social stability. Formal mechanisms are viewed as necessary in order to preserve cooperation leading to the maintenance of order and stability. Th defining of crime is actually a function or outcome of norms an morality and is both uniformly and fairly applied to all persons.
55
What is the conflict perspective?
Perceives society as a diverse collection of groups that are continuously in conflict. The law is understood as a tool that protects the "haves" from the "have-nots". The law protects the property interests of the powerful an also serves to suppress the potential political threats to those in power.
56
What is the interactionist view?
Crime and the law reflect the beliefs of people who force their definitions of right and wrong on the members of society. Moral crusaders attempt to influence the shaping of the legal process in ways that match their norms and values. Only when acts viewed and marked as deviant are sanctioned do they become significant and potentially life-changing events.
57
What does the critical legal studies movement focus on?
The ambiguities and contradictions embedded in the law
58
What do scholars working from a critical legal sties perspective contend?
That legal reasoning does not operate independently of the personal biases of police officers, lawyer, and judges. They reject the notion that law can ever be value-free and stand outside political, economic, and social considerations.
59
Where does critical legal studies find its roots?
In a marxist tradition
60
What is the most significant contribution of critical legal studies?
Its focus on the pervasive and insidious influence of politics on the legal system. Critical legal schools ague that law does not stand outside of the system of power in society; rather, law is implicated in power.
61
What does feminist legal theory hold about the law?
Holds that the law is a key instrument in women's subordination They look at how the law is a key instrument in maintaining women's inferior status. They are committed to reworking how th law approaches gender. Some would like to see a much more fundamental reconsideration and reorganization of legal values and principles to rid the criminal justice system of its deep embedded sexism.
62
What does critical race theory focuss on with the law?
Focuses on issues of oppression and discrimination and questions the absence of diversity in the legal profession. Critical race theorists explore the links between race and law, particularly the ways in which race and law are mutually constitutions (that is, because racism is embedded in society, the development of laws will reflect such racism). Interested in racial profiling.
63
While___approaches embrace the view that laws are used in society for the purpose of maintaining social cohesion, and___approaches focus the use of the law to uphold the power of the elite___, ___, and___all claim that the law heavily privileges the wealthy and powerful.
- consensus
- conflict
- critical legal studies
- feminist legal theory
- critical race theory
64
What do feminist legal theory, critical legal studies, and critical race theory all understand?
Such theoretical approaches understand that the law is not class-, gender-, or race-neutral. All attempt to expose how laws, regulations, specific legal cases, and the administration of criminal justice are embedded in a complex web of social relations.
65
What is moral panic?
The reaction of a group based on the false, distorted, or exaggerated perception that some group or behaviour threatens the well-being of society.
66
Who actively constructs our sense of who is "at risk" of victimization as well as of who is at risk of becoming a criminal?
The media
67
The national crime rate dropped by___% in 2006 and by another___% by 2008.
- 3
| - 5
68
Since___the crime has significantly decreased, putting the___crime rate at its lowest in more than 25 years.
- 1991
| - 2011
69
Which territories and provinces in Canada have the highest Crime Severity Index (CSI) value?
Northwest Territories and Nunavut; Saskatchewan and Manitoba
70
Which provinces inCanada have the lowest CSI values?
Ontario, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island
71
Who are women more likely to be victimized by than strangers?
The intimate men in their lives
72
What is the fear-gender paradox?
The phenomenon whereby women experience higher rates of fear of being victimized even though men are more likely be victims of crime.
73
What has been the result of women's fear of crime?
Several policies have been enacted in the name of addressing women's safety such as the Safe Streets Actin 2000.
74
What do feminists argue about representations women as being in need of protection (3 things)?
- They are used to increase both women's fear of public spaces and their dependency on "protective" men. -Responsibility shifts from the state protecting the citizenry to individual being responsible for avoiding risk and risky situations.
- The threat of becoming a civdim shift responsibility o individual and encourages women especially to engage in "safe-keeping" acts that include monitoring how they dress and avoiding certain public spaces
75
What are public order crimes (victimless crimes)?
Crimes such as prostitution, gambling, and pornography that are believed to run contrary to moral principles. The harm is incurred by the perpetrators themselves. These its are considered to be crimes on the basis of societal moral principles.
76
What is moral regulation?
The constitution of certain behaviours as immoral and thereby requiring public regulation.
77
What is the social purity movement?
This movement included carious actors who were interested in raising "the moral tone" of Canada. Sexual morality (sexual purity) was the movement's primary aim and those in the movement created pamphlets and books on the topic of the need for equal morality, including abstinence. The social purity movement focused on "training the poor in habits of thrift, punctuality, and hygiene."
78
What represents one of the most poignant examples of moral regulatory practices?
The welfare recipient
79
What does Margaret Little's demonstration of how social assistance policies are premised on and promote traditional (and conservative) notions of masculinity, femininity, and morality tell us about the state and "welfare cheats"?
The state, primarily concerned with "welfare cheats," aimed attacks at the poor, at women, and at racialized minorities.
80
What did the scrutiny of women lives with welfare construct?
That all sexual relationships as one that ought to be breadwinning relationships--if a women is on social assistance, any many inner life must financially her and her children.
81
What leads women to "self-condor" their activities?
Moral investigation of single mothers on welfare has intensified in the last decade. Such constant fear of scrutiny with the potential to lead to losing one's assistance leads to this.
82
What are two pervasive areas of moral regulation inner society in which sexual morality and crime ar linked.
Prostitution and homosexuality
83
What did Canada's anti-homosexual national security campaign in the 1950s and 1960s argue
That homosexuals were constructed as having "immoral," "risky," and "deviant" sexualities. during this period, thousands of homosexuals and suspected homosexuals lost their jobs in the public service and military as a result of they sexuality or suspects sexuality. As a result, social policing of sexuality focused not he regulation of sexualities through the Criminal Code.
84
How do moral regulation pervade our perceptions of crime victims?
For female victims of crime, entrenched notions of proper or respectable femininity contribute to our understanding of who is a "worthy" victim, deserving our sympathy.
85
What doe portraying some women s unfortunate victims deserving of much sympathy and other women as somehow culpable in they own victimization, next to depictions of women offenders as "pathological," reinforce?
Dominant hegemonic values.
86
What do we need to recognize women in the criminal system as?
Human beings who material conditions are determined by interlocking legacies of colonialism and a racialized and sexualized economy of representations that privileges some women over others.
87
What does Kinsman argue about the construction homosexuality as both a moral and a political problem been made possible by?
The construction of homosexuals as "different," "other," and "abnormal." Kinsman asserts that a key strategy of disciplinary power is normalization.
