Unit 6: Crime and Deviance

Question 1

Agencies of social control

Answer 1

organisations, institutions and groups that guide or coerce people into conforming to norms

Question 2

community sentencing

Answer 2

punishments that involve non custodial sentences, such as carrynig out work for the community

Question 3

anomie

Answer 3

when the social bonds and shared value system between a society and individuals are broken, so people do not respect these social values and feel they are outside of society

Question 4

conformity

Answer 4

matching attitudes and behaviour ot those of the group

Question 5

crime

Answer 5

acts that break formal written laws

Question 6

corporate crime

Answer 6

crime committed by corporations or organisations, usually in pursuit of profit for the corporation rather than the benefit of individuals

Question 7

crime rates

Answer 7

statistical measures of crime

Question 8

crime prevention

Answer 8

attempts by governments to reduce crime, enforce laws and maintain criminal justice

Question 9

cybercrime

Answer 9

criem involving use of new technologies such as computers

Question 10

deterrent

Answer 10

when a punishment is intended to stop the offencer or others from committing the offence so as to avoid the punishment

Question 10

dark figure

Answer 10

the unknown number of crimes not included in the official statistics

Question 11

deviant career

Answer 11

in labelling theory this term described the choices that indivduals make which lead them to behave in ways labelled as deviant and they go on to follow a deviant path or career

Question 11

deviance

Answer 11

behaviour that breaks (or violates) the norms and values of a group

Question 12

deviancy amplification

Answer 12

when responses to deviance create further deviance

Question 13

dominant values

Answer 13

beliefs that form a basis for action and are held by most people or by those with the power to force their values on others

Question 14

Formal Social Control

Answer 14

ways in which a government or its agencies, such as the police and the law courts, get people to conform to bias

Question 14

Inadequate socialisation

Answer 14

socialisation that fails to fully instill social norms and values and so make individuals more likely to become deviant

Question 15

Exile/Ostracism

Answer 15

exile - punishment involving the offender having to leave their home and community
ostracism - punishment involving being excluded from the community

Question 16

informal social control

Answer 16

ways in which people get others to conform to norms, for example by ridiculing them or with looks of disapproval

Question 17

internet crime

Answer 17

criem involving use of the internet

Question 18

law enforcement agencies

Answer 18

government agencies with power to make peopel conform to the laws in their areas, such as police forces or, in the USA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Question 18

judicial system

Answer 18

the system of courts that apply and interret laws

Question 19

labelling

Answer 19

the way in which acts and people are defined as deviant by the social reaction to their behaviour

Question 20

juvenile delinquency

Answer 20

deviant acts by young people that would be treated as crimes if they were older

Question 21

masculinity

Answer 21

the attitudes and behaviour associated with being a man in a particular culture

Question 22

material deprivation

Answer 22

being short of the material goods needed in a society

Question 22

master status

Answer 22

a status that overrides all others and becomes the way that individuals see themselves and are seen by others

Question 23

moral panic

Answer 23

exaggerated social reaction to deviance, creating a demand for action against it

Question 24

official crime statistics

Answer 24

official figures of the number of crimes and offenders

Question 25

peer group

Answer 25

a group that individuals identify with because they share characteristics such as age or status

Question 26

penal system

Answer 26

the formal organisation of punishments for crime in a society

Question 27

prison

Answer 27

a place for physically confining offenders, depriving them fo their freedom

Question 28

policing

Answer 28

the ways in which the police carry out their work such as investigating crimes and arresting offenders

Question 29

rehabilitation

Answer 29

when the punishement involves work or education to hel offenders realise they were wrong to commit the crime and to hel them resume a law abiding life

Question 30

relative deprivation

Answer 30

the feeling of having less than others with whom a comparison can legitimately be made

Question 31

sanctions

Answer 31

penalties imposed for not conforming to norms and values

Question 31

rewards

Answer 31

positive benefits recieved for an act (also called positive sanctions)

Question 32

self report studies

Answer 32

research that asks people what crimes or deviant acts they have committed - used by sociologists who believe official police statistics are a social construct

Question 33

socialisation

Answer 33

the process by which indivduals learn the norms and values of a social group

Question 34

sociological explanation

Answer 34

attempts to account for phenomena such as crime that rely on sociological (as opposed to for example, psychological or biological) insights

Question 35

stereotyping

Answer 35

representations of groups in popular culture or views held by individuals that assume that all members of a group have the same characteristics

Question 36

status frustration

Answer 36

when people are unable to achieve the socially approved goals because of their position in society

Question 37

stigma

Answer 37

a label that changes the labelled person's positive self - image in to a megative one

Question 38

sub culture

Answer 38

a group of people in a culture who have sufficiently different norms and values to be seen as a seperate group

Question 39

surveillance

Answer 39

monitoring individuals and groups by governments or others, collecting information with the intention of preventing crime

Question 40

targetting

Answer 40

when the police focus on a particular group of people, believing them to be more likelyl to be involved in criminal behaviour than others

Question 41

urban crime

Answer 41

criem in cities or associated with the lifestyle people have in cities

Question 42

victim surveys

Answer 42

research that asks people what crimes they have been victims of

Question 43

white collar crime

Answer 43

non-violent crime committed by middle class people for financial gain, such as fraud, embezzlement, bribery and identity theft

Question 44

youth culture/youth subculture

Answer 44

culture - the ways of life of young peopel between childhood and adulthood sub culture - a distinct group within the general youth culture, such as goths