Crime and Delinquency BYUI- exam 4

Nuclear Family

A family unit composed of parents and their children. This smaller family structure is subject to great stress due to the intense, close contact between parents and children

Broken Home

Home in which one or both parents are absent due to divorce or separation. Children in such an environment may be prone to antisocial behavior

Blended Family

Nuclear families that are the product of divorce and remarriage, blending one parent from each of two families and their combined children into one family unitIn

Intrafamily violence

An environment of discord and conflict within the family. Children who grow up in dysfunctional homes often exhibit delinquent behaviors, having learned at a young age that aggression pays off.

Parental Efficacy

Families in which parents are able to integrate their children into the household unit while at the same time helping them assert their individuality and regulate their own behavior

Resource Dilution

A condition that occurs when parents have such large families that their resources, such as time and money, are spread too thin, causing lack of familial support and control.

Battered Child Syndrome

Nonaccidental physical injury of children by their parents or guardians.

Neglect

Passive neglect by a parent or guardian, depriving children of food, shelter, health care, or love.

Child Abuse

Any physical, emotional, or sexual trauma to a child, including neglecting to give proper care and attention, for which no reasonable explanation can be found

Abandonment

Parents physically leave their children with the intention of completely severing the parent-child relationship.

Familicide

Mass murders in which a spouse and one or more children are slain.

Guardian ad litem

A lawyer appointed by the court to look after the interests of those who do not have the capacity to assert their own rights.

Advisement hearing

A preliminary protective or temporary custody hearing in which the court will review the facts and determine whether removal of the child is justified and notify parents of the charges against them

Pretrial conference

The attorney for the social services agency presents an overview of the case, and a plea bargain or negotiated settlement can be agreed to in a consent decree.

Disposition hearing

The social service agency presents its case plan and recommendations for care of the child and treatment of the parents, including incarceration and counseling or other treatment.

balancing-of-the-interests approach

Efforts of the courts to balance the parents' natural right to raise a child with the child's right to grow into adulthood free from physical abuse or emotional harm

Review hearings

Periodic meetings to determine whether the conditions of the case plan for an abused child are being met by the parents or guardians of the child.

Heresay

Out-of-court statements made by one person and recounted in court by another. Such statements are generally not allowed as evidence except in child abuse cases wherein a child's statements to social workers, teachers, or police may be admissible.

cycle of violence

The process by which abused kids become abusers themselves.

cliques

Small groups of friends who share intimate knowledge and confidences.

crowds

Loosely organized groups who share interests and activities.

Peer Influence: Social Control Theory

delinquents are as detached from their peers as they are from other elements of society...If delinquency is committed in groups, it is because "birds of a feather flock together."

Peer Influence: Labeling theory

deviant kids are forced to choose deviant peers. After being negatively labeled, adolescents have no choice but to flock to antisocial friends who encourage and amplify further antisocial activities

Peer influence: Social Learning theory

associating with antisocial friends results in formerly law-abiding youth running afoul of the law. Kids who fall in with a bad crowd learn bad habits, attitudes, and behavior from their more experienced friends

Peer influence: Routine activities theory

kids who engage in unstructured socializing with like-minded peers, without parental controls, will have greater opportunities to get involved in delinquent behaviors than those who receive adult monitoring and control

Peer Influence: Rational choice theory

kids choose to get involved with delinquent peers because they have high status in the youth culture... provides long-term gains in the form of social capital and popularity

Gang

Group of youths who collectively engage in delinquent behaviors

Interstitial Area

An area of the city that forms when there is a crack in the social fabric and in which deviant groups, cliques, and gangs form.

Klikas

Subgroups or cliques of same-aged youths in Latino gangs that remain together and have separate names and a unique identity in the gang.

Graffiti

Inscriptions or drawings made on a wall or structure and used by delinquents for gang messages and turf definition

Social Gang

Involved in few delinquent activities and little drug use other than alcohol and marijuana. Members are more interested in social activities.

Party Gang

Concentrates on drug use and sales but forgoes most delinquent behavior. Drug sales are designed to finance members' personal drug use.

Serious Delinquent Gang

Engages in serious delinquent behavior while avoiding drug dealing and usage. Drugs are used only on social occasions.

Organized Gang

Heavily involved in criminality. Drug use and sales are related to other criminal acts. Gang violence is used to establish control over drug sale territories. This gang is on the verge of becoming a formal criminal organization.

Near-Groups

Clusters of youth who outwardly seem unified, but actually have limited cohesion, impermanence, minimal consensus of norms, shifting membership, disturbed leadership, and limited definitions of membership expectations.

Barrio

A Spanish word meaning "district."

Mara Salvatrucha MS-13

A violent, international gang begun in southern California by immigrants from El Salvador. Engages in such crimes as burglaries, narcotic sales, weapons smuggling, murder, rape, and witness intimidation.

Skinhead

Member of a white supremacist gang, identified by a shaved skull and Nazi or Ku Klux Klan markings.

Selection Hypothesis

Kids with a history of crime and violence join gangs and maintain their persistent delinquency once they become members.

Facilitation hypothesis

Gang membership facilitates deviant behavior because it provides the structure and group support for antisocial activities.

Enhancement Hypothesis

Selection and facilitation work interactively, increasing the likelihood of enhanced criminality.

Prestige crimes

Stealing or assaulting someone to gain prestige in the neighborhood; often part of gang initiation rites

Gangs: The anthropological perspective

gangs appeal to adolescents' longing for the tribal process that sustained their ancestors

Evidence: Use of totems, signs, secret languages, and symbols.

Gangs: The Social Disorganization/ Sociocultural View

assumes that gangs are a natural response to lower-class life and a status-generating medium for boys whose aspirations cannot be realized by legitimate means.

Evidence: Concentration of gangs in inner-city areas

Gangs: The Anomie/Alienation View

Gang membership has appeal to adolescents who are alienated from their families as well as the mainstream of society.

Evidence: Upswing in gang activities corresponds with economic conditions.

Gangs: The Trait View/psychological

Gang membership has appeal to adolescents who are alienated from their families as well as the mainstream of society.

Evidence: Antisocial, destructive behavior patterns. Increase in violence.

Gangs: Life Course View

Adolescent membership in gangs has important, long-lasting effects over the life course, not only on continuation of criminal behaviors, but also on the opportunities for adult success in major conventional social roles

Evidence: Presence of party gangs, gang members protect one another.

Gangs: The Rational Choice View

Some youths may make a rational choice to join a gang. Members of the underclass

turn to gangs as a way of obtaining desired goods and services, either directly through theft and extortion or indirectly through drug dealing and weapons sales. In this case, joining a gang can be viewed as an "employment decision."

Personal Safety or Fun and Support

Evidence: Gang kids filter in and out of gangs over the life course.

Youth Service Programs

traditional police personnel, usually from the youth unit, are given responsibility for gang control

Gang Details

one or more police officers, usually from youth or detective units, are assigned exclusively to gang-control work

Gang Units

established solely to deal with gang problems, to which one or more officers are assigned exclusively to gang-control work

Detached street workers

Social workers who went out into the community and established close relationships with juvenile gangs with the goal of modifying gang behavior to conform to conventional behaviors and helping gang members get jobs and educational opportunities.