Criminology: Theoretical Approaches, Social Control, and Critical Perspectives

Comprehensive practice flashcards covering theoretical perspectives in youth criminology, including General Strain Theory, Social Disorganization, Social Bond and Control Theories, Developmental Life-Course Theories, and Critical Criminology.

Critical Criminology

Scholarship on crime and justice that seeks to examine and alter inequalities, marginalization, social exclusion, and uncaring practices that underpin young people's encounters with the law and state agencies, starting from the premise that Canadian society is organized through intersecting hierarchies.

Risk (Ulrich Beck)

The calculated probability of an event, action, or circumstance occurring, which is calculated and managed across categories such as class, gender, age, and race.

Risk Society

An emerging societal form marking a break with modernity characterized by the production of risks and tools for their management, where social problems such as crime are treated as risks to be managed rather than problems to be solved.

Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) Model

A foundational correctional model based on the premise that youth justice interventions should screen out low-to-moderate risk offenders to concentrate intensive interventions on high-risk offenders in order to reduce recidivism.

Static Risk Factors

Unchangeable characteristics of a youth evaluated in risk assessments, including previous criminal record, previous abuse, loss of people, race, ethnicity, social class, physical ability, and religion.

Dynamic Risk Factors

Changeable characteristics of a youth that can be targeted for intervention, such as substance use, intersocial peer associations, social disengagement, family conflict, pro- or anti-social attitudes, and mental illness.

Protective Factors

Characteristics that mitigate the likelihood of offending and foster prosocial outcomes, including supportive/stable caregivers, supervision and support, strong family and school bonds, prosocial peers, and extracurricular activities.

Youth Assessment and Screening Instrument (YASI)

An assessment and screening tool employed in community and custodial youth justice settings for at-risk youth aged $12-18$ that evaluates risk, needs, and protective factors to link assessment results directly to individualized case planning.

Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY)

A risk assessment instrument designed for youth aged $12-18$ that emphasizes dynamic risk factors to measure future risk for violence and aggression and guide intervention and discharge planning.

Discipline (Michel Foucault)

A subtle, dispersed form of power operating at detailed levels of everyday life through surveillance, observation, examination, and routine regulation to increase the predictability and usefulness of behavior and produce a self-controlling 'docile body'.

Panopticon

A circular prison design metaphor where inmates can never be certain if they are being observed from a central tower, compelling constant psychological self-regulation and functioning as an instrument of disciplinary power.

Ontario Training Schools

A system of $18$ provincial institutions funded from $1931$ to $1983$ intended to reform youth behavior, where children as young as $8$ years old faced solitary confinement ('the digger'), systemic physical and sexual abuse, and lifelong trauma.

Retributive Justice Critique (Jacques Derrida)

The critical view that the youth justice system and the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) act as instruments of vengeance that deliver pain as payment under the guise of reform, which is fundamentally at odds with the true logic and spirit of justice.

General Strain Theory (Robert Agnew)

An anomie theory arguing that negative situations (strains) produce negative affective states—particularly anger—which lower inhibitions, reduce fear of punishment, and create an incentive to use delinquency as a coping mechanism.

Three Types of Strains (Agnew)

The major sources of strain in General Strain Theory: failure to achieve positively valued goals, actual or anticipated removal of positive stimuli, and actual or anticipated presentation of negative stimuli.

Lower-Class Reaction Theory (Albert Cohen)

A subcultural perspective arguing that lower-class boys experience status frustration when evaluated against middle-class standards in school, leading them to form delinquent subcultures with malicious, non-utilitarian values.

Social Disorganization Theory (Shaw and McKay)

A sociological perspective drawing on urban ecology to show that high rates of delinquency correlate with neighborhood physical and social environments—such as poverty and weakened institutions—rather than individual resident traits.

Zone of Transition (Zone II)

The concentric urban zone adjacent to industrial and factory areas characterized by high poverty, inadequate housing, transient populations, and weakened institutions, which consistently exhibits the highest rates of social disorganization and youth crime.

Chicago Area Project (CAP)

A community-level intervention based on social disorganization theory aimed at reducing youth crime by fostering community autonomy, reinstating traditional values, and strengthening neighborhood social cohesion.

Social Bond Theory (Travis Hirschi)

A control theory proposing that delinquency occurs when an individual's bond to society and social institutions is weak or broken, comprised of four elements: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.

Attachment (Hirschi)

The psychological and emotional connection an individual maintains toward conventional people and institutions (such as parents, peers, and teachers) and the degree to which they care about their feelings and opinions.

Interactional Theory (Terrence Thornberry)

A developmental theory combining social control and social learning perspectives, proposing that bonds to family, school, and peers change across life stages and engage in reciprocal relationships with antisocial behavior.

General Theory of Crime (Gottfredson and Hirschi)

A control perspective asserting that the primary cause of delinquent and criminal conduct is low self-control, which stems from ineffective parental socialization and monitoring during early childhood.

Low Self-Control Traits

A cluster of behavioral characteristics that typically persist over the life course: impulsivity, short-sightedness, risk-taking, preference for physical activities over cognitive tasks, insensitivity to others, and low frustration tolerance.

Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control (Sampson and Laub)

A developmental theory positing that although informal and formal controls influence criminality early in life, turning points and the accumulation of social capital across the life course can lead individuals to desist from crime.

Life-Course Turning Points

Key developmental life events—most prominently marriage and a stable career—that redirect an individual's developmental pathway toward desistance from criminal behavior.

Social Capital

Positive relations with individuals and institutions (such as a supportive marriage or career) that provide social support for conventional conduct and inhibit deviant or criminal behavior.

Life-Course Persistent (LCP) Offenders

A small group comprising less than $5-10\%$ of the offending population whose antisocial behavior begins in childhood due to neuropsychological deficits and environmental adversity, worsening and persisting throughout adulthood.

Adolescent-Limited (AL) Offenders

Youth who begin offending during adolescence as a temporary expression of adult status and autonomy, but desist upon entering adulthood as conventional employment and relationship roles become established.

Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential (ICAP) Theory

David Farrington's developmental theory explaining delinquency through an individual's propensity to commit antisocial acts (antisocial potential), distinguishing between enduring long-term potential and situational short-term potential.

Toxic Stress

An umbrella term denoting prolonged biological and psychological strain resulting from severe developmental adversity, including living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, poverty, and abusive environments.