Ch 12 Deviant Careers And Career Deviance

Question 1

Criminal career paradigm:

Answer 1

a view that there are some criminals who offend at high rates across their life courses.

Question 2

Desistance

Answer 2

the process of ending a deviant career or career in deviance. This can be abrupt (e.g., “quitting cold turkey”) or a gradual process (e.g., a self-help recovery process in which individuals alternate between periods of use and abstinence).

Question 3

Escalation

Answer 3

some deviant behaviors accelerate or intensify over time, such as persistent drug use that may increase in frequency or quantity.

Question 4

Human agency:

Answer 4

the capacity of people to make choices that have implications for themselves and others.

Question 5

Life course perspective:

Answer 5

eoretical perspective that considers the entire course of human life (through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age) as social constructions that reflect the broader structural conditions of society.

Question 6

Onset/initiation:

Answer 6

the beginning of a career in deviance; this career can be short- or long-lived.

Question 7

Protective factors:

Answer 7

factors that reduce the impact of risk factors and protect or prevent individuals from turning to crime or deviance. Protective factors are not simply the opposite of risk factors.

Question 8

Risk factors:

Answer 8

factors that place certain individuals at greater risk for engaging in deviant (often unhealthy) behaviors.

Question 9

Specialization

Answer 9

a primary interest and focus on one form of deviant behavior (e.g., marijuana use) to be contrasted with “generality of deviance” (e.g., drug use, theft, and violent behaviors).

Question 10

sociological imagination

Answer 10

is a paradigm, a model for looking at social reality (a way of seeing/viewing reality), in this case social problems like elite deviance. This model-paradigm can be used to develop a number of scientific theories.
C. Wright Mills and the Power Elite (1950s).
G. William Domhoff and the Ruling Class*

Question 11

The macro level of analysis

Answer 11

explains how the institutional structures and the cultural values of a given society contribute to elite deviance.

Question 12

The immediate environment

Answer 12

The structure and characteristics of the bureaucratic organizations in which people work, contribute to the planning and commission of acts of elite deviance.

Question 13

The individual leve

Answer 13

This explains how individual personality characteristics of elites and those in their employ figure in the planning and commission of acts of elite deviance.

Question 14

An achievement orientation

Answer 14

This includes pressure to “make something” of oneself, to set goals and achieve them. Achieving material success is one way personal worth is measured in America. Although this is a shaky basis for self-esteem, it’s nevertheless true that Americans view their personal worth through moneymaking.

Question 15

. Individualism

Answer 15

Individualism: This refers to the notion that Americans possess autonomy and basic individual rights. Americans make individualistic decisions on thousands of issues.

The result is that individualism and achievement combine to produce anomie because fellow Americans often become rivals and competitors for rewards and status. Intense personal competition increases pressure to succeed. (This means that the rules about the means by which success is obtained get disregarded when they threaten to interfere with personal goals -“Strain Theory”).

Question 16

Universalism

Answer 16

This includes the idea that the American Dream is open to all. Universalism means that the chances of success and failure are possibilities that are open to everyone. (Fear of failure is intense in America and may increase pressure to abandon conformity to rules governing proper conduct).

Question 17

The “fetishism” of money

Answer 17

: Money has attained an almost sacred quality in American life (we worship money). It is the way Americans keep score in the game of success, but when is enough really enough? What is stressed in the American Dream is ends over means (the “greed is good” ethic leads to narcissism, selfishness and a general lack of guilt).

Question 18

Denying responsibility

Answer 18

Denying responsibility: The rationalization here is that what went wrong was not the organization’s fault. Mechanical malfunctions in the workplace resulting in employee deaths are termed “accidents.” Consumers are blames for their ignorance in “misusing” products that cause harm

Question 19

Denying victimization/dehumanization

Answer 19

Denying victimization/dehumanization: This guilt- reducing mechanism functions to convince interested parties that no real person was, or is being, victimized (people are statistics/numbers, not real human beings).

Question 20

Appeal to higher loyalties:

Answer 20

Appeal to higher loyalties: Another rationalization technique, appeal to a higher authority, stems directly from the legitimacy of elite power. In the case of government, this usually relates to national interest/national security, executive privilege, fighting the communist menace, terrorism or other foreign threat (Oliver North –Iran Contra, terrorism, etc.).

Question 21

Condemning condemners:

Answer 21

Condemning condemners: This mechanism is used to handle critics of elite deviant behavior. Namely, attention is diverted away from the real issue and focused on another topic or even the critics themselves. For instance, corporations often attack proposals involving further government regulation as being opposed to free enterprise.