SOC 307 FINAL EXAM

What's the difference between crime and deviance?

Crime: against the law

Deviance: considered atypical or immoral. Often a crime, but not always.

Example of Deviance that is a crime: murder

Example of deviance that is not a crime: wearing pajamas to in public

Example of a crime that is not deviant: speeding, jaywalking

What is the difference between Mala in se and Male prohibita?

Mala in se: "Evil in itself" actions that are considered wrong because they are morally wrong, such as murder, rape, and theft.

Mala prohibita: "prohibited evil" actions that are wrong because they violate the law, not because they are morally wrong. Ex: drug use

Classical school of thought

Individuals have free will and choose to commit crime based on rational, hedonistic decisions. They weigh the costs and benefits

Positive school of thought

Individuals do NOT have free will or rationality to make decisions to commit crime. Their behavior is determined by factors such as: genetics, IQ, education, employment, peers, parenting, economy, socioeconomic position

Conflict/critical school of thought

Those in power or authority use laws to enforce restraint on others. Goal is for those in power to keep those with limited power restrained.

Ex: bail in America. Many people cannot afford bail, Black and Latino men are more likely to be denied bail, bail amounts are higher for POC, people in pretrial detention are more likely to be found guilty, many of these people have no criminal history

What's the difference between micro and macro levels of analysis?

Micro is personal level of analysis, such as individual scores on an exam (small picture)

Macro is the aggregate of the group level. Such as comparing the average exam score in one class to another class (big picture)

What are the characteristics of good theories?

parsimony - simple

scope - how much variation in crime is explained by the theory?

logical consistency - does the theory make sense?

testability - can the theory be put to empirical, scientific testing?

empirical validity - is there empirical support for the theory?

policy implications - is there practical guidance for changing society based on the theory?

How is causality determined in research?

3 criteria:

1. Temporal ordering: X precedes Y
2. Correlation: X is associated with a change in Y (does not equal causation)
3. Non-spurious: no other factor that explains both X and Y

What are the strengths and limitations of the Uniform Crime Report (UCR)?

Strengths:
-Oldest (most data). Most widely used. Long, systematic way of measuring crime in the US
-two offenses are almost always reported: murder and motor vehicle theft
-great for examining crime prior to 1970
-useful for examining clearance rates of the most serious offenses (crimes that are solved)

Weaknesses:
-Crime counting: non-index crimes that occur but do not lead to an arrest are not counted
-UCR is estimated to capture only about 10% of non-index offenses
-Dark figures: crimes that are not reported to the police are lost entirely
-Hierarchy rule: when multiple crimes happen at once, only the most serious crime is counted
-Hotel rule: a property owned by one person is only counted as 1 burglary/robbery. Ex: if a person robs 8 people at a bar, it only counts as one robbery
-Doesn't account for police bias

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)?

Strengths:
-High completion rate (collected from households)
-Gets dark figures of crime

Weaknesses:
-Children and homeless people not accounted for
-Businesses not accounted for
-Doesn't collect on homicide (victims are dead lol can't take the survey)
-Victim accounts may not be reliable

What are the strengths and weaknesses of self-reported studies?

Strengths: allow longitudinal panel studies which allows researchers to examine changes in crime across the life course

Weaknesses:
-usually done by different researchers, so there isn't one database or anything
-people may lie, forget details

What are the trends in crime since the 1900s?

-Early 1900s: data started being collected
-Industrialization: more population density = more crime
-Prohibition/Great Depression: LOTS of crime
-World War II: substantial decrease in crime as young men went to war
-Baby Boom: increases in fertility rates increased the proportion of young people in subsequent years, thus increasing crime (1980 was the peak in offending)
-Today: crime rates about as low as they were 50 years ago

What are the characteristics of the pre-classical perspective of crime?

-Primitive cultures believed in "supernatural" causes of crime (thunderstorms, droughts, full moon)
-Religious takes on crime (the devil made me do it, exorcisms)
-Types of punishments for offenders: corporal, inhumane punishment, public spectacle

What were the shared beliefs during the Enlightenment period?

-Social contract: people invest in the laws of their society with the guarantee that they will be protected from rule violators
-Fairness in sentencing: during the times of these writings, people who stole a load of bread were sentenced to death. If society believes these conditions are not met, the belief in the social contract breaks down (society reacts)

Cesare Beccaria

-Known as the father of the classical school and the father of deterrence theory (punishing violators discourages others from committing similar offenses)
-Wrote On Crimes and Punishments
-Was a student of law, which helped him see what was rational and what was not in legal policy

Beccaria's Reforms and ideas

-Emphasized the concept of social contracts
-Legislatures should define crimes and punishments, not one person (judges shouldn't have the power to interpret laws)
-Must examine harm of all crimes to society (even unintentional crime)
-No secret accusations: one should be able to confront and cross examine witnesses
-torture shouldn't be used against defendants
-defendants should be tried by peers not judges
-justice system must be more public and better understood so people know the potential consequences of their actions
-Believed education was the surest way to prevent crime

What is utilitarianism?

The greatest happiness shared by the greatest numbers

What's the difference between mens rea and actus reus?

Actus reus: guilty act, crime
Mens rea: guilty mind (intent)

Beccaria believed all crime was bad, regardless of one's intent

What are Beccaria's three elements of punishment?

-Swiftness: solidifies the connection between the crime and the punishment
-Certainty: most important quality of punishment. Even if punishment is moderate, if it is certain it will have stronger effect of punishment that is worse, but not certain
-Perhaps the least likely characteristic of punishment enhanced today
-Severity: Possible punishment must outweigh the benefit of the crime, but not be excessive. Too much severity will lead to crime, not enough severity and people will actively engage in crime

What's the difference between general and specific deterrence?

-Specific: punishment focused on the individual alone and stopping them from further criminal behavior (ex: being arrested/incarcerated)
-General: punishment that focuses on stopping other offenders from criminal behavior (ex: knowledge of the death penalty)

What led to the rebirth of deterrence theory in the 1960s?

-Resurgence in the late 1960s: aggregate studied showed that increased risk/certainty of punishment was associated with less crime, ratio of crimes reported to the police vs. number of arrests in a certain jurisdiction

-studies of severity of punishment were different: prevalence of capital punishment were associated with MORE crime

What is the experiential effect?

Previous experience influences expectations of getting caught again

People who have been arrested for a crime tend to report a lower chance of being caught (because maybe they did it 100 times and were only caught once)

Someone who has never done it might think they will get caught immediately. Punishment deters people who have never done the crime

Vignette research and why it is important for understanding deterrence

-Scenario (vignette) research asks study participants to estimate likelihood of being caught in given hypothetical situations

-Big takeaway for these studies:
People are more influenced by perceptions of certainty than perceptions of severity.
Extralegal factors (like employment, family, community) affect one's decision to commit crime

Certainty deters people more than severity

What was emphasized in the modern application of Rational Choice Theory?

If costs outweigh the benefits, a crime will not take place.
Informal sanctions (social sanctions like shame, disappointment, social disapproval, loss of self-esteem) also affect whether people engage in crime, even more so than formal sanctions. Individual behavior is influenced by those around them

People gain pleasure/excitement from crime

What are the three elements of the Routine Activities Theory?

-Motivated Offenders: There will always be motivated individuals who will seize opportunities to commit crimes, other theories focus on why someone wants to offend
-Suitable targets: like vacant house in suburbs, unlocked car, woman walking alone, bars, carrying cash, vehicle full of purchased goods
-Lack of capable guardians:
police/security, owning a dog, protecting your goods at home, increased lighting, video cameras, home/car alarm systems

Place with all three elements in the same time/place are hot spots

What are some modern day policy implications stemming from the classical perspective?

-Broken windows theory: crack down on small crimes to prevent larger crimes
-stop and frisk: police officers have the power to stop, question, and search individuals if there is reasonable suspicion
-three strikes laws: assumes offenders will make the rational choice not to commit a 3rd felony, law sends third time felons to prison for life, regardless of the 3rd criminal felony committed

Define the early positivist school of thought

-Criminologists grew skeptical about the deterrence framework, it did not explain the distribution of crime
-attention turned to individuals: belief that certain individuals offended more than others and wanted to know why

Beliefs about "inferior" individuals
-Eugenics: the study of, and policies related to, the improvement of the human race via control over reproduction
-Craniometry: the belief that the size of the brain or skull represents the superiority or inferiority of certain individuals


Other scientific approaches
-Phrenology: the science of determining human dispositions based on distinctions (ie bumps) on the skull
-Physiognomy: the study of facial and other bodily aspects to indicate developmental problems, such as criminality

Cesare Lombroso

-The father of positive criminology
-Observed physical characteristics of Italian prisoners
-Drew conclusions that prisoners are "different" from law-abiding people
-Based his work on Darwin's theory of natural selection
first attempt at scientific theory in criminological thought
-Was a doctor/trained scientist

Criminaloids vs. Born criminals

Criminaloids: people woh committed minor offenses based on their environment

Born criminals: most serious and violent in society, referred to as "chronic offenders" today

What did Lombroso's stigmata entail?

physical and mental "anomalies" that criminals exhibited a higher percentage of. The list varied over time

Examples:
-Asymmetrical face
-Large ears
-Receding chin
-Twisted nose
-Long arms
-Skin wrinkles

Identifying children based on observed stigmata, and find individuals exhibiting stigmata early to prevent them from committing crime

Who is H.H. Goddard?

-Considered to be the authority on use/interpretation of IQ in the US
-Advocated for the use of eugenics/selective reproduction
-Was in charge of identifying feebleminded immigrants at Ellis Island
-Proud of increase in deportations based on feeblemindedness
-Low IQ (feeblemindedness) results in crime
-Believed that intelligence was genetic, and that IQ was static and did not change
-Advocated for the use of forcible sterilization of low IQ people to keep them from reproducing

What is meant by the term feeblemindedness?

Feeblemindedness = low IQ

Three levels of feeblemindedness:
-Morons: low intelligence
-Imbeciles: even lower intelligence
-Idiots: lowest intelligence grup

Biggest threat to humanity was not the idiots but the morons because they could "slip through the cracks and reproduce"

What are the 3 somatotypes in Sheldon's Body Type Theory?

-Endomorphic: fat, jolly, lazy, not prone to crime
-Mesomorphic: Muscular, aggressive temperaments, most prone to crime
-Ectomorphic: skinny, delicate, shy personalities, not prone to crime

What was the purpose of twins and adoption studies?

Twin studies:
-Concordance rate was of interest in twin studies, wanted to see if one twin is an offender, if the other one would be too.
-There is concordance if both twins were similar in their behavior
-If genetics played a role in explaining behavior, then we would expect identical (MZ)twins to have a higher concordance rate than fraternal (DZ) twins

Adoption studies:
-Idea was to see the influence of biological parents versus that of adoptive parents
-Nature vs. nurture: both biological and environmental factors contribute to offending


Purpose of both was to see whether crime was about free will or if there were other factors out of their control (biological factors, people "born" criminal)

Differentiate between monozygotic (MZ) and fraternal (DZ) twins

Monozygotic: identical, split from same egg, share 100% of same gene material

Fraternal: come from two eggs, can look different and be of different sex, genetically siblings

What is meant by the term "concordance rates?"

the rate of probability that if one twin is an offender, the other one would be too

What is the XYY Factor?

-Genetical abnormality where there is an extra "malelike" Y chromosome
-13 times more likely to have behavior disorders

What does substance use (eg cocaine) do to the brain's neurotransmitters?

Substances like meth and cocaine lead to increased dopamine production, which is linked to good feelings

Serotonin is important in information processing, low levels are linked to criminal offending

Which part of the brain appears to have the strongest association with offending (following injury?)

Temporal lobes: area of brain related to memory and emotion, appears to have the most consistent associations with criminal offending

Frontal lobes: where higher level problem solving takes place, moral reasoning that considers long-term consequences

slower brain waves associated with increased crime
ANS- involuntary motor activities (like heart rate): low ANS functioning = more likely to commit crime

What is the answer to question 21?

B

When a change in X causes a change in Y, this is referred to as spuriousness

False

Crime rates in the US have not changed at all since the early 1900s

False

____ Is when a punishment is designed to stop a particular offender

Specific Deterrence

If a theory explains a phenomenon in the simplest way possible, then this theory is ______.

Parsimonious

Mens Rea means:

guilty mind

When people's previous experiences highly influence their expectations regarding their chances of being caught, this is called ______.

experiential effect

The ___ perspective assumes that individuals have free will

classical school

Rational people will commit crime when the costs outweigh the benefits

False

Evidence has shown that states that use the death penalty have higher murder rates than states that do not use the death penalty

True

The purpose of general deterrence is to stop an individual from committing further crimes

False

What is the answer to question 21?

B

What level of analysis do social structural theories typically use?

Macro-level analysis

Broad, societal structures

Differentiate between social statics and social dynamics

Social statics: aspects of society that relate to stability and social order; they allow societies to continue and endure

Social dynamics: aspects of social life that alter how societies are structured and pattern the development of societal institutions

When society experiences changes, there is concern about how people will react

What is relative deprivation?

Greater inequality or gaps between wealth and poverty in the same place tend to excite temptations and passions (increases crime)

What is anomie?

a state of normlessness, societies that are anomic experience higher crime rates. Rapid change has negative effects on a society, and instability leads to suicide

What did Merton mean by the "American Dream?"

People who work hard and pay their dues will eventually achieve their goals

Strain Theory

Society puts too much emphasis on achieving material success/the American Dream, when lower class cannot achieve the AD it causes strain and frustration, and this strain leads to criminal activity

Merton's Adaptations to Strain

Conformists: people who buy into the conventional goals of society, and conventional means of society

Ritualists: do not pursue the goals of material success, perhaps because they recognize they do not have a realistic chance of attaining it

Innovators: Desire the conventional goals, but are not willing to engage in the conventional means. Most likely to be criminals

Retreatists: do not seek to achieve goals, and do not buy into the idea of conventional hard work

Rebels: buy into both societal goals and means, but not those currently in place. Trying to overthrow the current social structure

Robert Agnew's General Strain Theory

Focused not just on lower class status, but strain that all individuals may feel in everyday life. Also does not focus solely on frustration arising from the inability to achieve the American Dream

Believed that subjective (strains viewed as negative by those experiencing the strain) strains mattered more than objective (most view as negative) strains

Agnew's Three Categories of Strain

1. Failure to achieve positively valued goals. Goals can vary person to person

2. Presentation of negative stimuli. Could be abusive parents, demanding boss

3. Removal of positive stimuli. Loss of a job, car, loved one

Experiences of these strains will result in anger, and ultimately crime

Why is the School of Ecology also known as the Chicago School?

It originated at the University of Chicago, it was right outside the window of their sociology department

Chicago was the fastest growing city in US history, with no formal social agencies to handle the problems associated with urbanization. There was mass chaos in the city, many foreign born citizens (did not share language and cultural values), communities solved their own problems.

Chicago needed it most to solve its social problems

What made Chicago a "lab" for sociologists?

The chaos and problems associated with urbanization

This had never been studied before, and they were studying the effects and patterns of this urbanization

What did Robert E. Park propose about city growth?

-City growth follows a natural pattern of evolution. Natural areas within a city would take on their own identity

-some areas may invade or dominate other areas

-businesses invaded traditionally residential neighborhoods. When this happened, those who can afford to leave the city will do so

How did Burgess conceptualize urban sprawl?

Suggested that cities grow from the inside outward. Changes in the city affect urban sprawl, or residential mobility

Source of growth was in the city centers. Growth of the inner city puts pressure on adjacent zones, which begin to grow into the adjacent zones. Radial growth

Think about a drop of water falling into a bucket of water (rippling outward)

What are concentric zones?

City split into zones

Zone I: Business district. Large business buildings, skyscrapers, banks, courthouses

Zone II: Zone in transition. The residential are in which businesses were invading, categorized by poverty and higher crime

Zone III: Working class zone. Relatively modest homes and apartments

Zone IV: residential zone, suburban zone

Zone V: Commuter Zone

The outer 3 zones were of less importance to the study of crime. Most expensive homes exist on the outer ring

What did Shaw and McKay propose about neighborhoods and crime?

Certain neighborhoods have more crime than others

These neighborhoods have 3 common problems:
-physical disrepair
-poverty
-heterogeneity (high cultural mix)

These problems will lead to neighborhood disorganization, and ultimately crime (or a subculture of violence)

What is meant by a subculture of violence?

A small group, or subculture, exists within the broader culture norms. Differs in their way of dealing with negative life circumstances.

Violence is a culturally learned way of dealing with life. Convict code

Code of the Streets (Anderson)

The "code" is a set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, including violence. Respect is at the heart of the code

Believed there were two types of families:

-Decent families: accept mainstream values and attempt to install them in children, "working poor," generally involved in a church community, tend to be strict with children, respect authority, polite, cooperative

-Street Families: lack consideration for others, superficial sense of family/community, disorganized, aggressive with children (physical punishment), children generally "come up hard"

What is meant by tabula rasa?

blank slate

People are born as a blank slate, and are completely malleable and able to be influenced by others. Criminal behavior is learned through cultural norms through a process of socialization

What is differential association theory?

Edwin Sutherland

criminal behavior is learned in the same matter as other behavior, if people were exposed to more pro-crime behavior, then they would commit crime. Learning occurs in social interaction, not through reading or the media.

Any person could be a criminal

How does differential reinforcement affect behavior?

People are rational & born with a blank slate, but are socialized and taught to behave through various forms of conditioning

Classical conditioning: people learn through associations between stimuli and responses (Pavlov's dogs)

Operant conditioning: Behavior is influenced by reinforcements and punishments

What is Bandura best known for?

Modeling theory: people learn much of their behavior simply from observing others (doesn't have to involve rewards or punishment)

Imitation and mimicking

Bobo doll

Sykes and Matzo's Neutralization Theory

Agree that social learning influences behavior, most criminals hold conventional beliefs and values, youth "drift" into criminal activity

people justify and rationalize their criminal offending - neutralization

Techniques of Neutralization

Denial of responsibility: "it was them, not me!"

Denial of injury: "They're rich, so they can afford to let me take from them"

Denial of victim: "they started it"

Condemnation of the condemners: "police speed all the time, why can't I?"

Appeal to higher loyalties: believe actions are justified based on the beliefs of their group (extremist groups)

Control theories

Assume people would naturally commit crimes if is was not for some restraining factor, what are the factors or reasons why individuals DO NOT engage in criminal activity?

What is Freud best known for, and how does it relate to control theory?

Early control theories (and psychology)

-Id: all individuals are born with a tendency toward selfishness (Anger)

-Superego: these selfish tendencies must be countered by socialized controls (we're controlled by society)

-Ego: what regulates the battles between the Id and the Superego

Your Ego is how you respond and how you behave, your Superego controls you and prevents the Id from committing crime

What is meant by the term "drift"?

People commit crime when social controls are weakened. Believed there is a level of determinism in human behavior and free will.

People will drift in and out of delinquency dependent on social controls present (ex: parents leaving kids home alone)

People experiment and rationalize criminal behavior

Hirshi's Social Bond Theory

Most influential control theory in Criminology

Most humans are controlled through social bonds

Made up of 4 elements:

Attachment: affectionate bonds between individuals and society

Commitment: the investment one has in conventional society

Involvement: time spent in conventional activities

Belief: morals concerning following the laws

Hagan's Power-Control Theory

Control exerted over children varies between patriarchal and egalitarian families

Patriarchal: more control exerted over daughters, and encouragement of risk-taking for sons

Egalitarian: equal control over sons and daughters (equal crime)

Gottfredson and Hirschi's General Theory of Crime

-Low self control
-Control is obtained through childrearing
-Develops by age 10
-Levels of self-control are invariant after childhood
-Low self control increases crime, and decreases one's transitions into other prosocial bonds

Parents must teach their children self-control by age 10

What is labeling theory and how can this lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Identity is highly influenced by the way society categorizes individuals as offenders

Labels make offenders perform the role they have been assigned --> self fulfilling prophecy

Increasing the frequency or seriousness of the illegal activity because of their label

Labels block access to social bonds
Limit stigmatization of offending is needed

Primary vs. Secondary Deviance

Primary deviance: occasional deviant behavior, generally situational in nature, often excused, rationalized, and considered socially acceptable (ex: heavy drinking in college), people are not often caught, but when they are caught they are labeled

Secondary deviance: receives severe social reaction to repeated primary deviance, secondary deviant has adjusted and incorporated the new identity that is grounded in the deviant lifestyle
Internalization of the label leads to more deviance

primary deviance --> caught and labeled --> secondary deviance

How does the work by Karl Marx relate to conflict criminology?

Conflict criminology emphasizes the effects of a capitalistic society on crime. The upper class maintains dominance over the lower class, and uses the law to prevent the lower class from having access to financial resources

Based on Marxist theory: bourgeoise (ruling class) own the mode of production and exploit the proletariat working class

ex: People in power create a system of labeling to label lower class people who have had contact with the CJS

From Quinney's perspective, why does capitalism cause crime among the upper class?

White-collar crime and crimes by the upper class are crimes of domination to keep the lower class down

White-collar crime is often seen as "clever," but still hurts society financially

Laws are put in place by the upper class who have power, certain crimes are punished differently to enforce that social order

How does Conflict Theory suggest that crime might result from societal conflict?

People are naturally social and inevitably form groups out of shared needs, values, and interests. Because various groups compete with each other for power and to promote their values and interests, each group competes for control of political processes, including the power to create and enforce laws that can suppress the other groups.

Types of crime that may occur due to societal conflict:
-Arising from political protest
-Resulting from labor disputes
-Arising from racial and ethnic clashes

What are the D's referred to in the policy implications of critical criminology?

Diversion: trying to get cases out of the formal justice system as soon as possible

Decriminalization: refers to reducing the criminality of certain illegal activities

Deinstitutionalization: keep relatively minor, often first-time offenders from experiencing the ordeals of incarceration

While damage to any part of the brain increases the risk of an individual's future criminality, injuries to certain parts of the brain result in more serious effects.

True

Social control theories are the same as social learning theories.

False

Early ecological theoretical models proposed that the entire lower class has its own cultural value system.

True

Merton believes that most frustration and strain comes from trying to achieve societal goals without sufficient access to the legitimate means to do so.

True

Radial growth in cities is a type of development that begins on the outside and ripples inward.

False

How many adaptations did Merton develop as part of his strain theory?

5

According to low-self control theory, self-control must be established by the age of ______.

10

In Agnew's general strain theory, the primary mediating factor in the strain/crime relationship is the feeling of ____

Anger

____ Bonds caused a person to commit crimes according to Hirschi.

Weak

Durkheim's term for normlessness is ____

anomie

How does feminist criminology differ from previously discussed criminological perspectives?

Feminist criminology is a set of theories and strategies for social change that take gender as their central focus in attempting to understand social institutions, processes, and relationships

Women suffer oppression and discrimination in a society run for men, by men, who have passed laws and created customs to perpetuate their privileged position

Brings gender into the central focus of every question of criminological thought: do men and women respond differently to strain? how to experiences with system contact vary for men and women?

Define Chivalry, Paternalism, and Patriarchy

Chivalry: pertains to behaviors and attitudes toward certain individuals that treat them as though they are on a pedestal

Paternalism: women need to be protected for their own good - implies independence for men and dependence for women

Patriarchy: refers to the subordinate role of women and male dominance

How did the early feminist criminologists believe shared social power between men and women would relate to female crime?

Shared equal social power might result in equal amounts of crime. However, we find that more education will lead to less crime for everyone

What is the Gender Ratio Problem?

What explains the universal fact that women are far less likely than men to commit crime?