CJ305: Theories of Crime and Behavior — Exam 1 Vocabulary

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering basic legal definitions, criminology fundamentals, research designs, classical and rational choice theories, routine activity theory, deterrence, and social process theories.

Crime

A behavior or legally prohibited omission that violates criminal law and is subject to state-imposed punishment.

Criminal Behavior

Behavior prohibited by criminal law and subject to criminal penalties.

Deviant Behavior

Behavior that violates social norms, whether or not it violates the law.

Formal Social Control

Organized enforcement of rules by institutions such as police, courts, and corrections.

Informal Social Control

Everyday social pressure that encourages conformity, such as approval, criticism, and family expectations.

Consensus View of Law

The view that laws broadly reflect shared social values and protect society from behavior most people consider wrong.

Conflict View of Law

The view that laws reflect unequal power and may protect powerful groups while controlling less powerful groups.

Interactionist View of Law

The view that society defines crime through social interaction, interpretation, and the labeling of behaviors as criminal.

Moral Entrepreneurs

People or groups who campaign to define or regulate behavior as immoral, deviant, or criminal.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

The standard burden of proof required in criminal cases.

Preponderance of the Evidence

The standard burden of proof that generally applies to civil cases, meaning the claim is more likely true than not.

Mala in Se

Acts considered inherently wrong, such as murder or robbery.

Mala Prohibitum

Acts prohibited mainly because a law or regulation forbids them, such as driving without a required license.

Felony

A serious criminal offense generally carrying potential imprisonment exceeding one year.

Misdemeanor

A minor criminal offense generally carrying a maximum potential imprisonment of one year or less.

Actus Reus

The prohibited act or legally relevant omission that forms part of an offense.

Mens Rea

The required mental state or culpability associated with an offense.

Concurrence

The requirement that the criminal act and the culpable mental state must coincide in the legally relevant way.

General Intent

The intent to perform the prohibited act, without necessarily intending a further specific result.

Transferred Intent

When the intent to harm one target is legally applied to the harm caused to another target, subject to the applicable law.

Constructive Intent

A context-dependent legal concept involving intent attributed by law (use your instructor's definition rather than assuming it means negligence or recklessness).

Criminology

The scientific study of crime, criminal behavior, and society's responses to crime.

Theoretical Imagination

The ability to connect individual behavior with wider social settings, institutions, history, and explanatory ideas.

Criminal Justice

The study of operational systems such as policing, courts, and corrections.

Theory

A logically connected set of ideas or propositions that explains relationships between concepts and helps account for a phenomenon.

Independent Variable

The proposed explanatory or predictor variable in a research study.

Dependent Variable

The outcome variable that the researcher seeks to explain.

Association

A statistical relationship in which two variables vary together; association alone does not prove causation.

Temporal Order

A condition for establishing causation requiring that the proposed cause must occur before the effect.

Nonspuriousness

A condition for establishing causation requiring that the relationship between two variables cannot be adequately explained by another variable.

Spurious Relationship

An apparent relationship between two variables that is explained by a third variable.

Unit of Analysis

The entity being analyzed, such as individuals, households, schools, neighborhoods, or cities.

Population

The entire group of units that the researcher wants to understand.

Sample

The subset of the population actually studied.

Aggregate Data

Data summarized across groups or places, such as neighborhood crime rates.

Ecological Fallacy

Incorrectly assuming that a group-level relationship also applies to individuals within those groups.

Cross-Sectional Survey Research

A research design that collects information from a sample at one point in time.

Longitudinal Cohort Research

A research design that follows a defined group over time and measures members at multiple points.

Attrition

The loss of participants from a study over time.

Experimental Research

A design that manipulates an independent variable and compares outcomes to test its effect.

Control Group

The group used for comparison in an experiment that does not receive the experimental intervention or receives the standard condition.

Random Assignment

Allocating participants to experimental conditions by chance to help balance preexisting differences.

Quantitative Research

Research using numerical measurements and statistical analysis to describe patterns or test hypotheses.

Qualitative Research

Research exploring meaning, experience, and context through interviews, observations, and text analysis.

Participant Observation

A qualitative method where the researcher joins or participates in the group or setting being studied.

Non-Participant Observation

A qualitative method where the researcher observes a setting without joining its activities.

Observer Effect

A phenomenon where people change their behavior because they know they are being observed.

Cesare Beccaria

A Classical School criminologist who argued that punishment should be proportionate, predictable, and prompt enough to deter crime, avoiding excessive cruelty while limiting arbitrary state power.

Utilitarianism

The doctrine that people tend to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, asserting that laws and punishments should discourage harmful behavior while promoting social welfare.

Rational Choice Theory

A criminological perspective proposing that people make decisions about crime by weighing perceived risks, rewards, and alternatives, though choices may be constrained by circumstances.

Bounded Rationality

Decision-making under limits of time, information, attention, and cognitive ability rather than perfect calculation.

Routine Activity Theory

A theory developed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson proposing that crime becomes more likely when a motivated offender, suitable target, and absence of capable guardians converge in time and space.

Criminal Opportunity

A situation in which circumstances make an offense possible or relatively easy.

Motivated Offender

A person willing and able to commit an offense.

Suitable Target

A person or object attractive and accessible to an offender because of factors such as value, visibility, access, or ease of removal.

Capable Guardian

A person or thing that discourages crime, such as a bystander, security camera, or lock.

General Deterrence

Preventing crime among the general public by making people aware of punishment imposed on others.

Specific Deterrence

Preventing a previously punished person from offending again.

Certainty of Punishment

The perceived likelihood that an offense will be detected and punished.

Severity of Punishment

How harsh the punishment is perceived to be.

Celerity of Punishment

How quickly punishment follows the commission of the offense.

Incapacitation

A crime control strategy that restricts a person's ability to offend in the community.

Social Process Theories

The perspective that criminal behavior is learned through social interactions, relationships, and experiences.

Social Structural Theories

Theories emphasizing broader societal arrangements such as inequality and neighborhood conditions.

Labeling Theory

A social-process theory arguing that society's reactions and labels can influence a person's identity and future behavior, potentially contributing to further deviance or crime.

Four Elements of Crime

A human act or omission, violation of criminal law, required culpability or guilty mental state, and punishment or sanction by the state (check lecture notes for the instructor's exact four elements).

Criminal Law vs. Tort Law

Criminal law concerns offenses prosecuted by the state and can result in punishment; tort law concerns civil wrongs, generally brought by injured parties, and often seeks compensation.

General Intent vs. Specific Intent

General intent generally involves intending the prohibited act, whereas specific intent requires an additional intended objective or result beyond the act itself.

Deviance Without Crime

Deviance violates social norms, but not every norm violation violates criminal law, as only certain behaviors are legally prohibited and penalized by the state.

Consensus, Conflict, and Interactionist Views of Law

• Consensus View: Laws reflect shared social values.
• Conflict View: Laws reflect competing interests and power differences.
• Interactionist View: Social interactions and claims-making help determine which behaviors are labeled criminal.

Mala in Se vs. Mala Prohibitum

Mala in se refers to acts considered inherently wrong (such as murder or robbery), whereas mala prohibitum refers to acts prohibited mainly by statute or regulation.

Felonies vs. Misdemeanors

Felonies generally carry a possible sentence exceeding one year; misdemeanors generally carry a maximum sentence of one year or less (exact classifications depend on jurisdiction).

Major Goals of Criminology

To describe patterns of crime, explain why it occurs, predict when or where it may occur, and develop ways to prevent or reduce it.

Describing Crime

Identifying and measuring patterns of unlawful conduct, including its frequency, location, timing, and the characteristics of offenders and victims.

Explaining Crime

Identifying the underlying causes, processes, or conditions that produce criminal behavior.

Predicting Crime

Using known patterns or risk factors to estimate the likelihood of criminal behavior occurring under particular conditions.

Preventing Crime

Using empirical evidence and theoretical insights to reduce opportunities for unlawful conduct or address contributing factors.

Importance of Criminological Theory

Organizing observations, proposing explanations for crime, generating testable predictions, and guiding the development and evaluation of prevention strategies.

Theory vs. Fact

A fact is an empirical observation or established finding, whereas a theory accounts for how or why those observations occur.

Description vs. Explanation

Description documents what is occurring, whereas explanation attempts to identify why it is occurring.

Criminological Paradigm

A broad framework of assumptions and ideas that shapes how researchers understand crime and what they consider valid evidence.

Why Criminology Is Described as an Immature Discipline

It lacks a single universally accepted paradigm or unifying theory to explain all crime, leading to continuous debates over causes, methods, and interpretations.

Scope of Individual Criminological Theories

No single theory explains all criminal behavior; different theories account for distinct offenses, individuals, situations, or social conditions.

Why No Single Cause of Crime Exists

Crime is complex and varies across people, situational contexts, communities, and historical periods, involving multiple interacting factors.

Criminology vs. Criminal Justice

The former primarily studies crime, its causes, and social reactions, whereas the latter focuses directly on operational institutions and processes such as police, courts, and corrections.

Relationship Between Criminology and Criminal Justice

Criminological research informs criminal justice policies, while the practices of justice institutions provide data and subjects for criminological study.

Scope of Criminological Study

Beyond studying offenders, it examines victims, crime patterns, social conditions, laws, criminal justice institutions, and societal responses to crime.

Purpose of Studying Victimization

To identify populations at risk, understand how victimization occurs and affects individuals, and inform prevention strategies.

Purpose of Studying Society's Response to Crime

To analyze how laws, policing, punishment, rehabilitation, and public attitudes shape how crime is defined, detected, penalized, and prevented.

Scientific Theory Testing

Deriving specific predictions from a theory and comparing them against systematically collected empirical evidence.

Empirical Claim

An assertion that can be evaluated using systematic observations or concrete data rather than relying solely on opinion, tradition, or speculation.

Testability

The standard that a theory makes concrete claims that can be examined against observational evidence to be supported or challenged.

Falsifiability

The scientific principle that a hypothesis or claim must be capable of being contradicted or disproven by empirical evidence.

Provisional Nature of Scientific Evidence

Empirical evidence can support a theory without proving it absolute, leaving it open to revision or rejection if new data emerge.

Importance of Competing Explanations

A single observed pattern can have multiple explanations; evaluating alternative hypotheses clarifies which one is best supported by evidence.

Causal Explanation of Crime

An explanation proposing that a factor or process directly contributes to producing criminal behavior, rather than merely co-occurring with it.

Individual-Level Explanation of Crime

An approach focusing on the characteristics or experiences of individuals, such as decision-making, learning, self-control, or personal relationships.

Social-Level Explanation of Crime

An approach focusing on broader social conditions, such as inequality, neighborhood structure, cultural expectations, or institutional arrangements.

Situational Explanation of Crime

An approach focusing on immediate environmental circumstances that make an offense more or less likely, such as opportunity, target accessibility, or the presence of guardians.

Integration of Explanatory Levels

Broader social structures shape individual traits and life experiences, while immediate situational conditions determine whether an unlawful act takes place.