Chapter 1: Crime, Criminals, & Criminology Flashcards
What is criminology?
The body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon.
Criminology includes the processes of….. (3 things)
- making laws
- Breaking laws
- reacting to the breaking of laws.
What is a Priority Prolific offender?
A career criminal.
What is the goal/ objective of Criminology?
To develop a body of general and verified principles and knowledge regarding law, crime, and treatment.
Define Criminologist
academics who study crime and the criminal justice system.
Why should we study crime? (4 things)
- Learning about crime tells us about society.
- To understand it before we can reduce it.
- Crime (in)directly affects all people.
- Everyone pays the cost of crime/crime control.
The 6 disciplines of Criminology
- the definition of crime and criminals.
- The origins and role of the law.
- The social distribution of crime
- The causation of crime.
- Patterns of criminal behaviour
- societal reactions.
What percent of any population is criminal at any given time.
1 %
Criminal acts are defined by ____ in terms of categories.
Laws
1% of the population is criminal at any given time, this theory looks at the other 99% that does not.
Social Control Theory.
offenders who receive sentences less than 2 years are dealt with by which government
Provincial Government
A sentence of 2 years or more is served in a federal institution run by whom
The Correctional Service of Canada.
What are Norms?
established rules of behaviour or standards of conduct.
What are folkways?
Informal rules
This exists when order can no longer be maintained through informal laws
The Law.
TRUE OR FALSE: The concept of “crime” has been developed relatively recently
TRUE
What is the legal definition of Crime?
a crime is an act or omission that violates the criminal law and is punishable with a jail term, and/or some other sanction.
Some criminologists have argued for a sociological definition of crime. what would this do?
Encompass a broader range of harmful behaviour than the strict legal definition provided.
To understand crime, we must know things such as….
- characteristics of people who commit crimes.
- trends in the occurrence over time.
- differences among cities, provinces, and countries.
He argued that focusing only on violations of criminal law presented a misleading picture of crime.
Edwin Sutherland
What are white collar crimes?
Crimes committed by people in the course of their legitimate business activities.
These two people advocated for a definition of crime based on human rights rather than on legal status.
Herman and Julia Schwendinger
Human Rights
The minimum conditions required for a person to live a dignified life.
He proposed that deviance and crime be considered a continuum ranging from the least serious to the most serious acts.
John Hagan
Seriousness can be assessed on 3 dimensions:
- The degree of consensus that an act is wrong
- The severity of society’s response to the act.
- The assessment of the degree of harm of the act.
Hagan identifies 4 major categories of crime and deviance, based on seriousness, what are they?
Consensus Crimes
Conflict Crimes
Social Deviations
Social Diversions
Consensus Theory
Laws represent a consensus within a society about what acts should be prohibited by the criminal law
conflict theorist _____ the idea that laws reflect a consensus in society. (ACCEPT OR REJECT)
REJECT
Class conflict theory
Laws are passed by members of the ruling class in order to maintain their privileged position by keeping the “common people” under control
Group Conflict Theory
A theory that attempts to explain certain types of criminal behaviour as resulting from a conflict between the interests of divergent groups.
New branches of Criminology?
- Green criminology
- Terrorism studies
- Surveillance studies.
This branch of criminology is meant to contribute to the debate about the causes and consequences of environmental destruction.
Green Criminology.
What is “speciesism”?
The discrimination against non human animals.
What is Terrorism?
The illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective by targeting innocent people.
The social definition of Terrorism
The deliberate use or the threat to use violence against civilians in order to attain political, ideological and religious goals.
Surveillance Studies
Any systematic focus on personal information in order to influence, manage or control those whose information is collected.
TRUE OR FALSE: Once information has been collected, individuals have control over how it is used.
FALSE; individuals no longer have control over how the information is used after it is collected.
Facebook users are not clients but ________
products
