Criminology: Community Violence Intervention, Anomie, and Strain Theories

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering community-based gun violence interventions in Chicago (such as Chicago CRED and CORNERS) and criminological theories of anomie and strain established by Émile Durkheim and Robert Merton.

Chicago CRED

An anti-violence initiative whose name stands for "Creating Real Economic Destiny," founded on the principle that community gun violence stems from an underlying economic problem rather than purely a crime problem.

Five Pillars of CRED

The comprehensive framework used by Chicago CRED consisting of street outreach recruitment, clinical trauma healing with life coaches, educational tutoring, and job readiness through an employment and training center.

CORNERS

The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science at Northwestern University, directed by Professor Andrew Papachristos.

Network Science (in Violence Intervention)

An analytical approach providing social maps of shooting networks to identify the small networks of several hundred individuals responsible for $60\%$ to $80\%$ of violence, allowing outreach workers to track contacts and intervene proactively.

Street Outreach Workers

Frontline community workers who leverage hyper-local block knowledge to follow social threads, broker peace agreements, and recruit individuals at risk of gun violence into legal opportunities.

Violence Interrupters

Credible messengers with personal experience in neighborhood gang life who monitor street tension and actively mediate disputes on scene before they escalate into lethal violence.

Working Poor

Individuals who maintain regular employment, sometimes working up to $60\text{ hours}$ a week, yet remain impoverished due to low wages and economic disadvantage.

Anomie (Durkheim)

A societal condition characterized as a sense of normlessness that occurs during periods of rapid social and technological change, leading to weakened social control, a loss of shared values, and spikes in suicide and crime.

Macro-Level Theory

A theoretical perspective, such as anomie theory, that focuses on large-scale societal structures, cultural conditions, and overall societal crime rates.

Micro-Level Theory

A theoretical perspective, such as strain theory, that focuses on how individual persons experience stress, frustration, and behavioral adaptations in their daily lives.

Socially Approved Goals

The culturally defined objectives, aspirations, and standards of success that society broadly agrees individuals should strive to achieve.

Socially Approved Means

The legitimate, institutionalized pathways prescribed by society for reaching cultural goals, specifically formal education and legal, hard work.

The American Dream (in Strain Theory)

The primary culturally approved goal in the United States, specifically defined as material wealth and financial success, popularized heavily by post-World War II advertising.

Blocked Opportunities

The condition found in stratified societies where individuals, despite desiring to reach societal goals, face unequal or absent access to the approved means like quality education and legal jobs.

Disjuncture between Goals and Means

Robert Merton's structural explanation for anomie and high crime rates, arising when a society heavily emphasizes material success goals without providing equal access to legitimate avenues for achieving them.

Modes of Adaptation

Robert Merton's typology describing the five ways individuals adjust to the strain caused by blocked opportunities: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion.

Conformity

The most common mode of adaptation, wherein individuals accept both the culturally approved goal of material success and the legitimate means of education and work.

Innovation

The mode of adaptation most closely linked to economic crime, where individuals embrace societal goals of wealth but lack legitimate means, prompting them to create alternative or illegal pathways to reach them.

Ritualism

A mode of adaptation in which an individual possesses access to and strictly abides by legitimate means like work and education, but rejects or abandons the ambition of achieving material wealth and success.

Retreatism

A mode of adaptation where an individual drops out of society by rejecting both the culturally defined goals of wealth and the legitimate means to achieve them.

Rebellion

A mode of adaptation in which individuals reject existing societal goals and institutionalized means, actively seeking to overhaul society by replacing them with entirely new goals and values.