Chapter 7

Question 1

Formal sanctions

Answer 1

Acts of approval and disapproval applied in a public ritual, usually under the direct or indirect control of authorities

Question 2

Informal sanctions

Answer 2

Acts of approval or disapproval applied spontaneously by group members

Question 3

Labeling theory

Answer 3

An approach to deviance that emphasizes the reaction to deviance and how agents of social control define some people and acts as deviant but not others

Question 4

Property crime

Answer 4

Predatory crimes, such as theft, during which the criminal does not directly confront the victim

Question 5

Funnel effect

Answer 5

The process by which a large number of crimes results in only a small number of offenders being sent to prison

Question 6

Social control

Answer 6

Ways of directing or influencing members to conform to the group’s values and norms

Question 7

Victimless crime

Answer 7

Crimes, such as drug use and gambling, that are not predatory but nevertheless violate the moral code

Question 8

Broken-windows theory

Answer 8

The idea that if small instances of public disorder are ignored, more serious forms of deviance will follow

Question 9

Rehabilitation

Answer 9

The resocialization of criminals to conform to society’s values and norms and instruction in usable work habits and skills

Question 10

Secondary deviance

Answer 10

Deviant or criminal behaviour that people develop as a result of having been labeled as deviant

Question 11

Recidivism

Answer 11

Crimes committed even after punishment has occurred

Question 12

Anomie

Answer 12

A state of normlessness in which values and norms have little effect and the culture no longer provides adequate guidelines for behaviour

Question 13

Felony

Answer 13

A serious offence punishable by a year or more in prison

Question 14

Innovators

Answer 14

In anomie theory, people who take illegal routes to socially approved goals

Question 15

White-collar crime

Answer 15

Acts by individuals who, while occupying positions of social responsibility or high prestige, break the law in the course of their work

Question 16

Differential association theory

Answer 16

The explanation of deviance emphasizing that people become deviant because they learn and adopt the behaviour and the ideas of friends and other close contacts

Question 17

Strain theory

Answer 17

The explanation of crime and deviance that emphasizes that although most members of society share the same goals, some people have less access to legitimate routes to those goals

Question 18

Deterrence

Answer 18

The reduction in crime resulting from people’s fear of punishment for that crime

Question 19

Status offence

Answer 19

An offence that is punishable if committed by a juvenile but not by an adult

Question 20

Positive sanctions

Answer 20

Rewards given for good behaviour

Question 21

Mesomorph

Answer 21

A ruggedly muscular body type associated with being assertive and action-orientated

Question 22

Atavistic beings

Answer 22

According to Lombroso, evolutionary throwbacks whose behaviour is more apelike than human

Question 23

Techniques of neutralization

Answer 23

Thought processes that justify illegal or deviant behaviour

Question 24

Diversion

Answer 24

Sending offenders, especially juveniles, to agencies outside of the justice system

Question 25

Violent crime

Answer 25

Crimes committed directly against a person in the perpetrator’s presence, using force or threat of force

Question 26

Sigmund Freud

Answer 26

Argued that crime is produced by the unconscious impulses of the individual

Question 27

James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein

Answer 27

Argued that crime is the product of a rational choice by an individual as a result of weighing the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action

Question 28

Travis Hirschi

Answer 28

Developed control theory, in which it is hypothesized that the strength of social bonds keeps most of us from becoming criminals

Question 29

Cesare Lombroso

Answer 29

Suggested that criminals are evolutionary throwbacks who can be identified by primitive physical features, particularly with regard to the head

Question 30

Émile Durkheim

Answer 30

Argued that deviant behaviour is an integral part of all healthy societies; developed the concept of anomie

Question 31

Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay

Answer 31

Used cultural transmission theory to explain why neighbourhood crime persisted over decades even when the population of the neighbourhood changed

Question 32

Edwin H. Sutherland

Answer 32

Developed the theory of differential association, emphasizing that people commit crime because they have learned “definitions” of behaviour and law that are favourable to lawbreaking; coined the term white-collar crime