lecture three - classical + sociological explanations of crime

Question 1

demonic era

Answer 1

pre-1600
criminal and abnormal behaviour was thought to be caused by demons, evil spirits, or an indeterminate “force or evil”

Question 2

trepanation

Answer 2

holes drilled into the skull to release demons from the inflicted soul

Question 3

magna carta

Answer 3

the great charter

the foundation of modern laws (the foundations of civil liberties for all citizens)

Question 4

the enlightenment

Answer 4

the age of reason

occurring in the late 1600 and early 1700, establishes ideas of legal authority and limits of state power and punishment

Question 5

hobbes on human behaviour

Answer 5

the first principle of human behaviour is egoism or self-interest, which is the root of all social conflict

you must surrender all your natural rights to the state to have protection

Question 6

locke on human behaviour

Answer 6

challenged conventional wisdom assuming people were born blank slates.’
- nurture, not nature, is the primary force that shapes human personality

must surrender some of your natural rights to the state to have protection

Question 7

rationalism

Answer 7

the idea that people are self-determining entities
- free will and rational thought were deemed the basic building blocks of human activity

Question 8

classical school of criminology

Answer 8

beccaria and bentham

argued that the law needs to be clear and well written- and that punishment is only justified if it prevents other crime (deterrence rather than punishment)

Question 9

criticisms of the classical school

Answer 9

it can only operate in a society where property is equally distributed, the question of criminal responsibility, no consideration for mitigating circumstances

Question 10

neoclassical school of criminology

Answer 10

considered the physical and social environment in which crime takes place
- the offender’s past record
- issues of mental illness

Question 11

positivist school of thought

Answer 11

emerged in the 19th century

human behaviour was determined by forced beyond the control of the individual

Question 12

early positivist thinking

Answer 12

social darwinism

belief in the theory of natural selection

Question 13

lombroso’s theory

Answer 13

founded on social darwinism

criminals were biologically atavists or throwbacks - those who had primitive features (physically) were predisposed to crime

critiques: state of atavism does not exist, and physical attributes may have been observed as a result of their incarceration

Question 14

rushton’s theory

Answer 14

proposed a theory accounting for racial differences in crime

that different races have different IQs (a direct function of difference in brain size)

criticisms: race as a social construct, crime rates vary within racial groups

Question 15

sheldon’s theory

Answer 15

developed a typology of three different body shapes with distinctive temperaments

• ectomorph: thin, fragile and introverted
• endomorph: slow and comfort-loving, soft and round
• mesomorph: hard, muscular body, aggressive personality (more prone to crime)

Question 16

sociobiological explanations

Answer 16

human behaviour can be explained according to evolutionary principles

certain individuals have a predisposition towards criminality

Question 17

psychological theories

Answer 17

modern psychological explanations about crime contend that criminals are made; interacting with the social environment is key

• psychoanalytic theory
• social learning theory
• psychopathy

Question 18

freud’s psychoanalytic theory

Answer 18

id: primal urges, unconscious biological drives
ego: reality principle, keeps id urges in check
superego: social conscience / moral code

Question 19

psychopath

Answer 19

a person who lacks guilt, remorse and is unable to hold lasting bonds with others

also known as anti-social personality disorder

Question 20

emile durkheim

Answer 20

considered the founder of sociology and his work on crime and deviance continues to impact criminological theories

Criticism: durkheim did not pay attention to how suicide stats were collected and interpreted

Question 21

social disorganization

Answer 21

shaw and mckay argued that crime and juvenile delinquency were not randomly distributed

they are caused by the types of neighbourhoods in which youth grew up

Question 22

anomie (normlessness)

Answer 22

the way societies are organized can bring strain on individuals that can lead to rule-breaking behaviour

Question 23

five modes of strain

Answer 23

conformity, innovation, retreatism, ritualism and rebellion

Question 24

social bond theory

Answer 24

most people are risk takers, but their bonds to society help them follow the rules/law

4 components: attachment, commitments, involvement and beliefs

Question 25

labelling theory criticisms

Answer 25

those who are labelled as deviant are more likely to take on a deviant identity

Question 26

left realism

Answer 26

crime is defined, for the most part, as what is contained in the criminal code main causes of working-class street crime are two-fold: - relative deprivation - the police's antagonistic and ineffective response to this situation

Question 27

feminist criminology

Answer 27

part of a social movement helping to change social attitudes and criminal justice system responses to issues like sexual assault and domestic violence

Question 28

liberation/emancipation hypothesis

Answer 28

as women's emancipation increases, so would their committing of crime

Question 29

power control theory

Answer 29

type types of households: patriarchal and egalitarian delinquency rates of girls from patriarchal families were considerably lower than those of boys