Criminological Theory Flashcards

Flashcards on Criminological Theory

Theory

An assumption (or a set of assumptions) that attempts to explain why or how things are related to each other.

Criminological Theory

The explanation of criminal behavior as well as the behavior of police, attorneys, prosecutors, judges, correctional personnel, victims, and other actors in the criminal justice system.

Classical Theory

Based on the assumption that people exercise free will and are thus completely responsible for their actions.

Utility

The principle that a policy should provide “the greatest happiness shared by the greatest number

Social Contract

An imaginary agreement to sacrifice the minimum amount of liberty necessary to prevent anarchy and chaos.

Special or Specific Deterrence

The prevention of individuals from committing crime again by punishing them.

General Deterrence

The prevention of people in general or society at large from engaging in crime by punishing specific individuals and making examples of them.

Neoclassical Theory

Conceded that certain factors, such as insanity, might inhibit the exercise of free will.

Positivist School of Criminology

The theory of the positivist school of criminology grew out of positive philosophy and the logic and methodology of experimental science

Biological Theories of Crime Causation

Based on the belief that criminals are physiologically different from noncriminals.

Criminal Anthropology

Associated with the work of Cesare Lombroso who published his theory of a physical criminal type in 1876.

Body-Type Theory

Human beings can be divided into three basic body types, or somatotypes: Endomorphic (soft, fat), Mesomorphic (athletically built), Ectomorphic (tall, skinny).

Limbic System

A structure surrounding the brain stem that is believed to moderate expressions of violence, such as, anger, rage, fear, and sexual response.

Psychopaths

Persons characterized by no sense of guilt, no subjective conscience, and no sense of right and wrong.

Humanistic Psychological Theory

Human beings are motivated by five basic levels of needs and that people choose crime because they cannot satisfy their needs legally.

Anomie

The dissociation of the individual from the collective conscience, or the general sense of morality of the times.

Social Disorganization

The usual controls over delinquents are largely absent.

Differential Association

Persons who become criminal do so because of contacts with criminal definitions and isolation from anticriminal definitions.

Learning Theory

A theory that explains criminal behavior and its prevention with the concepts of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction, punishment, and modeling or imitation.

Positive Reinforcement

The presentation of a stimulus that increases or maintains a response.

Negative Reinforcement

The removal or reduction of a stimulus whose removal or reduction increases or maintains a response.

Extinction

A process in which behavior that previously was positively reinforced is no longer reinforced.

Punishment

The presentation of an aversive stimulus to reduce a response.

Social Control Theories

A view in which people are expected to commit crime and delinquency unless they are prevented from doing so.

Labeling Theory

A theory that emphasizes the criminalization process as the cause of some crime.

Criminalization Process

The way people and actions are defined as criminal.

Decriminalization

The elimination of behaviors from the scope of criminal law.

Diversion

Removing offenders from the criminal justice process.

Conflict Theory

Assumes that society is based primarily on conflict between competing interest groups.

Power Differentials

The ability of some groups to dominate other groups in a society.

Relative Powerlessness

The inability to dominate other groups in society.

Radical Theories

Argue that capitalism requires people to compete against each other in the pursuit of material wealth.

Peacemaking Criminology

A mixture of anarchism, humanism, socialism, and Native American and Eastern philosophies.

Feminist Theory

Looks at crime from a feminine perspective and focuses on women’s experiences and seeks to abolish men’s control over women’s labor and sexuality (patriarchy).

Postmodernism

Originated in the late 1960s as a rejection of the Enlightenment belief in scientific rationality as the route to knowledge and progress.