Violent Offenders Test 1 (Chapter 1-4)

How can impoverished neighborhoods be improved to reduce the likelihood of failure, misbehavior, and criminal activity?

Improve the conditions and standards of living in deteriorated neighborhoods. Better conditions remove some of the convenient rationalizations offenders use to justify failure, misbehavior, and crime.

What circumstances allow criminals to get close to their potential victims?

Heavy traffic and the anonymity of impoverished city life give offenders convenient ways to approach victims. Open drug markets also create frequent opportunities because of constant cash transactions and large numbers of people coming and going.

Why is there distrust among residents when it comes to calling the police, and how does this affect the risks taken by street hustlers?

Residents may view police as ineffective, unfair, or unlikely to change anything. When victims and witnesses rarely call police, offenders feel more anonymous and perceive a lower risk of being caught, which can encourage greater risk-taking.

What happens when violence and crime are considered normal in a neighborhood?

Crime begins to be viewed as “ordinary business.” Violence can become morally neutral or accepted as part of the rules of street life, making offenders feel less guilt about harming others.

Who is most at risk in impoverished neighborhoods, and who are common targets for robbery?

Strangers who display signs of success are considered especially vulnerable. Drug dealers are the most common targets identified for robbers because they often possess cash, drugs, or other valuable assets.

What is a common way criminals mentally rationalize their behavior as appropriate?

They tell themselves that “everyone else is doing it.” They may also believe crime is simply appropriate or normal behavior in their neighborhood.

How do street criminals operate?

Offenders who take advantage of opportunities created by street life and drug markets. They use local knowledge, familiarity with people and routines, anonymity, criminal networks, and available targets to make offending easier.

What is routine activity theory?

Explains crime through the convergence of three things: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of capable guardianship.

What crime is most associated with violent career criminals?

Carjacking. Carjacking is almost always associated with violent career criminals who spend much of their time in impoverished neighborhoods and drug markets.

How do economic dislocation and social marginalization affect violent crime rates?

Associated with higher violent crime rates because disadvantaged communities may have less access to good jobs, good schools, stable families, and other institutions that encourage prosocial behavior.

Why do cultural and structural factors affect crime rates differently across communities?

Structural and cultural factors interact with each other. Structural disadvantage can create conditions in which cultural tolerance for violence develops, while violence and illegal activity can then further damage the community’s social structure.

What is an essential feature of culture in a community, and how can it affect violence?

Culture is created through interactions between people. Skills, habits, social scripts, and values influence how people respond to situations. In some communities, violence becomes more common because it is viewed as the socially preferable response in certain interactions.

What are the two dimensions of culture in local communities?

The normative dimension and the interactional dimension.

The normative dimension

Involves shared values and behavioral expectations.

The interactional dimension

Involves how people actively use and modify those norms and values in everyday life.

What is collective efficacy, and how is it associated with crime rates?

Involves a community’s ability and willingness to work together to solve problems and maintain social control. It is a strong correlate of differences in crime rates across communities, with stronger collective action generally associated with lower crime.

How can a strong social fabric and relationships between community members affect serious violent crime?

Dense social ties are generally associated with lower crime because they help communities establish behavioral expectations, teach those expectations to young people, and reward acceptable behavior while discouraging unacceptable behavior. However, strong ties alone are not enough if residents cannot organize and act collectively.

When people explain criminal behavior, where do they usually focus, and why is age important?

Usually focus on the individual offender and what characteristics caused the person to commit crime. Age is important because violent offending usually peaks during the late teens and early twenties and declines rapidly after the mid-twenties. Therefore, communities with more adolescents and young adults may have higher violent crime rates.

What are the limitations of using only structural features to explain crime in communities?

Structural factors alone cannot completely explain crime. Their effects depend on social networks, institutions, collective action, and culture. For example, dense social ties may reduce crime on average, but their effects are not identical in every type of neighborhood.

How do violent offenders and victims share similar demographic and social characteristics?

Many of the same characteristics. Both groups are disproportionately young, unemployed, unmarried minority males. Lifestyle, routine activities, offending, social environment, and individual characteristics can influence whether someone becomes a victim or offender.

What strongly influences the probability of becoming a victim of violent crime?

Violent offending itself. One of the most reliable predictors of violent victimization is involvement in violent offending. This relationship is called the victim-offender overlap.

What can be done to reduce retributive violence in highly disadvantaged environments?

Should prevent disputes from escalating into cycles of retaliation. Communities can also use well-known and respected local citizens as intermediaries between people involved in disputes.

How can policy reduce the risk of violent offending and victimization?

Address the underlying conditions that contribute to both offending and victimization, prevent conflicts from becoming retaliatory violence, improve police legitimacy, and restore public confidence in law enforcement rather than relying heavily on aggressive arrest and interdiction practices

What can individuals do to reduce their risk of violent victimization?

Avoid risky behavior and aggressive offending, use careful foresight, avoid acting impulsively, and reduce involvement in risky lifestyles and situations. People who frequently engage in aggressive behavior have a greater probability of later becoming victims themselves.

What is the street code, and how does it affect neighborhoods?

An honor culture emphasizing respect, reputation, toughness, and retaliation. People may respond violently to disrespect to protect their status.

How does low self-control affect violent offending and victimization?

Increases the likelihood of offending and is also associated with greater property and violent victimization. Because offenders and victims share many characteristics, low self-control helps explain part of the victim-offender overlap.

What is scientific heterogeneity?

Characteristics such as genetic makeup, executive functioning, intelligence, and personality factors are distributed at different levels throughout the population. These relatively stable individual differences can help explain differences in offending and victimization.

What is criminality, and how does it apply to everyone?

The raw potential to engage in crime and violence that exists within every person. It exists on a continuum from very low to very high. Most people have low criminality, while a small number have very high criminality. It is also a global characteristic, meaning it affects more than criminal behavior alone.

What are executive functions?

neuropsychological functions related to behavioral and personality characteristics such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Deficits in these areas can result in children being restless, fidgety, destructive, and sometimes violent.

Disorganized killers

Characterized by unexpected, explosive outbursts of impulsive and destructive behavior and are associated with mood disorders and avoidant traits.

Organized killers

Described as compulsive sexual sadists associated with antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders.

What risks are associated with psychopathy?

Associated with characteristics that can facilitate serious violence, including callousness, low empathy, little guilt or anxiety over wrongdoing, and a limited emotional range. The slides also note evidence of significant genetic risk for psychopathy appearing as early as childhood.

What are the two offender types in Terrie Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy theory?

Normative/adolescence-limited offenders and Pathological/life-course-persistent offenders

Normative/adolescence-limited offenders

engage in relatively low levels of generally benign offending during adolescence.

Pathological/life-course-persistent offenders

show antisocial behavior that is chronic, frequent, serious, and violent across development.

What common traits are associated with serious violent offenders?

May display callousness, low empathetic concern, little guilt or anxiety about wrongdoing, and a limited emotional range. They also tend to be versatile rather than specializing in only one type of crime.