Criminal justice exam 2

Choice structuring

the constellation of opportunities, costs, and benefits attaching to particular kinds of crime.

Classical School

believes that people have free will and choose whether to commit crimes. It argues that people make decisions based on weighing the pleasure of committing a crime against the pain of being punished. Punishments should be fair, predictable, and strong enough to discourage people from committing crimes

CPTED (crime prevention through environmental design)

uses urban planning, architecture, and environmental management—such as natural surveillance and access control—to alter physical spaces and deter criminal behavior.

Natural strategies: Space is designed in such a way that people are channeled to go where they will do no harm or receive no harm
Organized strategies: Security guards are hired for the express purpose of making crime difficult

Mechanical strategies: Alarms, cameras, and other hardware are employed to control access and provide surveillance

Cultural criminology

views crime and social control as cultural constructs shaped by media, symbols, and shared social meanings. It examines how systemic power and popular culture influence which behaviors are criminalized, romanticized, or stigmatized. Ultimately, it argues that understanding crime requires analyzing subcultural styles, emotions, and aesthetic representations rather than relying solely on traditional statistics.

Defensible space

a model for residential environments which inhibit crime by creating the physical expression of a social fabric that defends itself.

Displacement effect

refers to the relocation or adaptation of criminal behavior when targeted prevention measures make a specific crime harder to commit. Rather than deterring crime entirely, interventions often cause offenders to shift their timing, location, tactics, targets, or choice of offense. Understanding this phenomenon helps criminologists design more comprehensive security strategies that prevent crime rather than merely redirecting it.

Emotions

subjective feelings situated in the brain’s limbic system of varying strength prompted by nervous system arousal in response to some perceived event.

Positivist School

The belief that criminal behavior is influenced by factors beyond a person's free will, such as biological, psychological, or social factors.

Rational choice theory

Offenders choose crimes that offer immediate gratification, that require little effort to complete, and that expose them to scant risk of detection and arrest

Routine activities theory

Crime occurs in the context of the everyday lives that offenders and their victims lead

Needs: Motivated offender, Suitable target, and Lack of a capable guardian

Situational crime prevention

By studying how offenders make decisions, steps may be taken to reduce such opportunities for these offenses to occur

Target hardening

strengthening the physical or situational security of a location, object, or person to make committing a crime significantly more difficult, risky, or time-consuming. Examples include installing deadbolt locks, security cameras, reinforced windows, and access-control systems to deter potential offenders.

American Dream

a commitment to the goal of material success, to be pursued by everyone in society under conditions of open, individual competition

Anomie

a term meaning “lacking in norms.

Chicago School of Ecology

asserts that crime stems from neighborhood instability, poverty, and weak social structures rather than individual traits. By mapping urban environments, it proved that high-crime areas persist regardless of which demographic groups live there. Consequently, it established that fixing communities through social and physical reform is key to reducing crime.

Cloward & Ohlin’s Opportunity structure theory

crime occurs when youth lack access to legal success and instead gain access to illegal opportunities within their environment. Depending on their neighborhood's social structure, youth join criminal, conflict, or retreatist subcultures focused on theft, violence, or drug use. Ultimately, it emphasizes that reducing delinquency requires expanding legitimate opportunities while dismantling illicit networks.

Collective efficacy

is social cohesion, mutual trust, and the shared expectation of community members to take action and intervene on behalf of the common good.

Ecological fallacy

states that people cannot make inferences about individuals and groups based on information derived from the larger population of which they are a part.

Agnew’s general strain theory

asserts that crime is a coping mechanism for negative emotions like anger and frustration caused by social strain. It identifies three main sources of strain: the failure to achieve positively valued goals, the removal of positive stimuli, and the presentation of noxious or negative stimuli. Ultimately, individuals commit crimes when they lack healthy, legal coping mechanisms to manage the pressure created by these strains.

Institutional anomie theory

argues that the five main pillars or institutions that make up society are the economy, family, religion, education, and the political system.

Merton’s strain theory

All members of American society are socialized to want to attain monetary success, but some are denied access to legitimate means of attaining it. These people may then resort to crime to achieve what they have been taught to want.

Middle-class measuring rods

mainstream standards—like discipline and academic achievement—used to evaluate youth in public institutions. Lower-class youth who fail to meet them experience status frustration, often turning to delinquent subcultures for peer respect.

Miller’s focal concerns (six)

Trouble is something to stay out of most of the time, but life is trouble, and trouble confers status if it is the right kind (being able to handle oneself).

• Toughness is very important to the status of low-income males—being strong, brave, macho, sexually aggressive, and unsentimental and “not taking any stuff.”

• Smartness refers to “street smarts”—the ability to survive on the streets using one’s wits

• Excitement is the search for fun, often defined in terms of fighting, sexual adventurism, gambling, and getting drunk or stoned.

• Fate is a belief that the locus of control is external to oneself.

• Autonomy means personal freedom—being outside the control of authority figures such as teachers, employers, and the police and thus being able to “do my own thing.

Modes of adaptation

Conformity

• Ritualism

• Innovation

• Retreatism

Rebellion

Social capital

to the web of social networks that connect people and breed norms of reciprocity, trustworthiness, and sense of belonging.

Social disorganization

the inability of neighborhood residents to recognize common values and goals leading to the breakdown of the power of informal community norms regulating conduct.

Social structure theories

Human ecology/social disorganization, Anomie (Durkheim), Anomie/strain (Merton), Institutional anomie, General strain, Subcultural theories

Status frustration

emotional strain experienced by lower-class youth when they fail to meet middle-class standards, driving them to reject mainstream values and seek respect through delinquent subcultures.

Subcultures

emerge when a significant number of people feel alienated or are segregated from the larger culture and forge a lifestyle different from the mainstream culture and often at odds with it

Transition zone

a run-down urban area near a city's core characterized by poverty, physical decay, and high population turnover, which leads to weak social cohesion and consistently high crime rates.

Cognitive dissonance

A form of psychological discomfort resulting from a contradiction between a person’s attitudes and their behavior.

Control theories

assume criminal behavior requires no special motivation; it arises naturally and must be taught to curb

Definitions

Term used by Edwin Sutherland to refer to the meanings our experiences have for us and our attitudes, values, and habitual ways of viewing the world.

Differential association theory

developed by Edwin Sutherland, posits that criminal behavior is learned through intimate social interactions and communication with others. Individuals commit crimes when they learn definitions favorable to law-breaking that outweigh definitions favorable to abiding by the law.

Differential reinforcement

The violative behavior is differentially reinforced over behavior in conformity to the norm.

Discrimination

A term applied to stimuli that provide clues signaling whether a particular behavior is likely to be followed by reward or punishment.

Labeling theory

posits that deviance is not inherent to an act, but is instead created when society labels an individual as a "criminal" or "deviant." This official label often becomes a primary identity (master status), leading to social stigma, reduced legitimate opportunities, and a self-fulfilling prophecy that drives further crime.

Operant psychology

A perspective on learning asserting that behavior is governed and shaped by its consequences (reward or punishment).

Opportunity

In self-control theory, a situation that presents itself to those with low self-control by which they can immediately satisfy their needs with minimal effort.

Primary deviance

In labeling theory, the initial nonconforming act that comes to the attention of the authorities resulting in the application of a criminal label.

Punishment

A process intended to lead to the weakening or eliminating of the behavior preceding it.

Reinforcement

A process that leads to the repetition and strengthening of behavior.

Secondary deviance

Deviance that results from society’s reaction to offenders’ primary deviance.

Self-control

The extent to which people are vulnerable to the temptations of the moment.

Self-control theory

Theory developed by Gottfredson and Hirschi that maintains all crime is attributable to an individual’s lack of self-control.

Social process theories

Differential association theory (Sutherland)

• Social learning theory (Akers)

• Social bonding theory (Hirschi)

• Low self-control theory (Gottfredson &Hirschi)

• Labeling theory (Lemert)

• Neutralization theory (Sykes & Matza)

Social bond theory

A theory focusing on a person’s bonds to others. The four elements are attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. The absence of these bonds in criminals does not cause crime; it permits it.

Social control

Mechanisms designed to minimize nonconformity and deviance

Social learning theory

expanding on differential association, posits that criminal behavior is acquired, maintained, or modified through observation, imitation, and differential reinforcement in social relationships. Individuals are more likely to commit crimes when illicit behavior is modeled by peers, reinforced with rewards, and paired with values that justify law-breaking. (Akers)

Symbolic interactionism

A perspective in sociology that focuses on how people interpret and define their social reality and the meanings they attach to it in the process of interacting with one another via language (symbols).

Techniques of neutralization

Techniques by which offenders justify their behavior as “acceptable” on a number of grounds.

– Denial of responsibility.

– Denial of injury.

– Denial of victim.

– Condemnation of the condemners.

– Appeal to higher loyalties.