week 10 - sociological positivism

Question 1

emile durkheim

Answer 1

• rejected the early positivist view that crime was an inherited deficit and abnormal
• argued that crime was normal and served as a social function (moral boundaries, social cohesion, etc)
• anomie (normlessness)
• ideas regarding anomie are the basis for strain and socil control perspectives within crim

Question 2

chicago school

Answer 2

• first school of sociology in the US. (1892) at the uni of chicago
• also rejected the early positivist belief that crime was an inherited genetic deficit
• argued that crime was the “nature of the neighbourhood” not “the nature of the individual”

Question 3

social context of the chicago school

Answer 3

• 1830 -> 1930
• chicago experienced mass immigration from other countries and other parts of the united states
• coincided with a growing problem surrounding delinquency and crime

Question 4

(a) strain - merton

Answer 4

• argued that there was a gap between
  1. the cultural goals of american society
  -> accumulation of wealth, status, the “american dream”
  2. access to legitimate means to achieve these cultural goals
  -> education and employment
• this gap produces a sense of strain and people respond to strain through 5 possible modes of adaptation

Question 5

(a) strain: modes of adaptation

Answer 5

1. conformity - low risk for crime
2. innovation - most likely to be a criminal
3. ritualism - like to do their job, make ends meet
4. retreatism - want to drop out of society altogether
5. rebellion - overthrow the current structure

Question 6

(b) general strain theory - agnew

Answer 6

• argued that merton put too much emphasis on strain experienced by lower classes in society
• agnew argued that all individuals experience strain and frustration in their day to day life
• identified 3 sources that people could experience

Question 7

(b) general strain theory - sources

Answer 7

1. failure to achieve positively valued goals
2. removal of a positively valued stimuli
3. presentation of a negative stimuli
   - these strains can lead to frustration, anger, and in some cases, delinquency/crime

Question 8

strain to crime

Answer 8

1. one of the 3 sources of the strain
2. anger and other negative emotions
3. lack of legal coping mechanisms
4. criminal behaviour

Question 9

(c) culture of the gang - cohen

Answer 9

• lower class males have the same aspirations as middle/upper class males, but they are unable to compete successfully for social status within schools because of their disadvantaged upbringing
• respond to status frustration in 3 ways:
  i) failure to meet the “middle class measuring rod”
  ii) results in “status frustration” (strain)
  iii) leads to either delinquent, college, corner boy

Question 10

(c) culture of the gang - response

Answer 10

1. delinquent boy
   - drops out of school and form delinquent groups where they create a new set of normative values
   - redefine the meaning of social status in terms of those new values (achieve status by being “tough”)
2. college boy
   - dedicates self to overcome the odds and compete in the middle-class school despite the unlikely chance for success
3. corner boy
   - responds by accepting his place by accepting his places as a lower class individuals, makes the beest of life at the bottom of the social order

Question 11

(d) differential opportunity - cloward & ohlin

Answer 11

• built on merton’s idea that lower class individuals lacked access to legitimate opportunity structures (legitimate institutional means)
• argued that people have differential access to ILLEGITIMATE opportunities as awell

Question 12

(d) differential opportunity - opportunity structures

Answer 12

3 types of illegitimate opportunity structures
- criminal subculture
- conflict subculture
- retreatist subculture

• add

Question 13

(d) criminal subculture

Answer 13

• form in lower class neighbourhoods that have an organized structure of adult criminal behaviour
• adddddd

Question 14

(d) conflict subculture

Answer 14

• lower class neighbourhoods that have weak stability and little organization
• few opportunities to learn criminal skills
• add

Question 15

(d) retreatist subculture

Answer 15

• exist in both organized and disorganized lower class neighborhoods
• focus on the consumption of illegal drugs
• addd

Question 16

sidenote - control

Answer 16

• control perspectives assume that al people would naturally commit crimes if it wasnt for restraints for their innate selfish tendencies
• control perspectives try to understand why all people don’t commit crime or deviant behaviour
• the promary explanation is usually rooted in proper socialization in childhood

Question 17

(a) social bond (hirschi)

Answer 17

• sought to explain why people conformed
• argued that people can ve socialized to be tightly bonded to conventional activities (family, school)
• the stronger a person is bonded to conventional society, the less likely they will engage in crime (and vice versa)
  4 types: attachment, commitment, involvement, belief

Question 18

(a) social bond 1: attachment

Answer 18

• how connected we are to parents, teachers, peers, significant others
• we dont engage in crime because we dont want to damage/lose these close relationships

Question 19

(a) social bond 2: commitment

Answer 19

• investment in conventional activities (education, employment, sports, religion)
• “stake in conformity” -> what do we have to lose?

Question 20

(a) social bond 3: involvement

Answer 20

• the more time we spend involved in conventional activities, the less opportunity we have for crime
• “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”

Question 21

(a) social bond 4: belief

Answer 21

• in the law and conventional norms and values
• the more you “buy into” the law and conventional society, the more likely you are to follow it

Question 22

(b) general theory of crime - gottfredson & hirschi

Answer 22

• low self control could explain “all crime, all the time”
• self-control develops/fails to develop by 8-10 yrs old
• after that point, self-control was a stable individual-;eve; characteristics this means that it does not change over time
• the development of self-control depended on parental socialization:
  i) parents supervising their children
  ii) parents noticing bad behaviour, AND
  iii) parents properly responding to poor behaviour

Question 23

please explain the four elements of the social bond and its relevance to explaining crime

Answer 23

1. attachment - the connections
2. commitment - what you have to lose
3. involvement - the more busy you are in other activities, the less time youll have to commit crime
4. belief -

——- add more from picture

Question 24

social disorganization (chicago)

Question 25

(a) concentric zones (parks and burgess)

Answer 25

chicago grew in rings or zones, each with a distinct land use and population zone 1: central business district zone 2: zone in transition - most socially disorganized zone 3: workingmen’s homes zone 4: residential zone zone 5: commuters zone less crime as zones increase

Question 26

(b) social disorganization (shaw and mckay)

Answer 26

- juvenile delinquency rates were highest in the zone in transition and fell as you moved outwards - ZIT was characterized by: i) poverty ii) ethnic heterogeneity iii) high population turnover - argued that these characteristics led to social disorganization which then leads to crime and delinquency

Question 27

(b) social disorganization -> crime

Answer 27

- social disorganization was characterized as a breakdown in informal social controls - for example, social control exercised over children and teens by: > family members, adult neighbours, school teachers, religious leaders

Question 28

learning theories (chicago)

Question 29

sidenote - learning

Answer 29

- assume that people learn why and how to commit crime through socialization - blank slates -> people are born with no tendency toward or away from committing crime

Question 30

(a) differential association - sutherland

Answer 30

- argued that we learn criminal behaviour just like we learn any other behaviour (tying our shoes, riding a bike) - wrote about 9 key propositions, most important of which: i) criminal behaviour is learned ii) in a process of interaction with other persons through communication iii) learning includes techniques, motives and rationalizations iv) a person becomes a delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violation of law

Question 31

(a) differential association limitations

Question 32

(b) social learning theory (akers)

Answer 32

- built in the idea that criminal behaviour was learned by specifying exact mechanisms involved in the learning process

Question 33

(c) techniques of neutralization (sykes and matza)

Answer 33

- expanded on sutherlands idea that criminal behaviour is learned, we learn the rationalizations or justifications for engaging in crime - people who commit crime know that it is wrong and feel guilty, using 5 techniques of neutralization to justify their behaviour 1. denial of responsibility - i didnt do it 2. denial of injury - nobody was hurt 3. denial of victim - they had it coming 4. condemnation of the condemners - police and politicians commit crime, too 5. appeal to higher loyalities - i did it to protect my gang