crime and deviance Flashcards
who is the key figure of positivist criminology? he was a ?his idea?
The Italian professor of legal psychiatry Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) was a key figure in positivist criminology who thought he had isolated specific physiological characteristics of “degeneracy” that could distinguish “born criminals” from normal individuals (Rimke 2011).
another person for positivist theory
analyze what
who?
researched invloved
which areas and asociated with?
In a much more sophisticated way, this was also the premise of Dr. James Fallon, a neuroscientist at the University of California. His research involved analyzing brain scans of serial killers. He found that areas of the frontal and temporal lobes associated with empathy, morality, and self-control are “shut off” in serial killers. In turn, this lack of brain activity has been linked with specific genetic markers suggesting that psychopathy or sociopathy was passed down genetically. Fallon’s premise was that psychopathy is genetically determined. An individual’s genes determine whether they are psychopathic or not (Fallon 2013).
however what other thiing contradicted the genetic point fallon study
experiment on ? precedure?
However, at the same time that he was conducting research on psychopaths, he was studying the brain scans of Alzheimer’s patients. In the Alzheimer’s study, he discovered a brain scan from a control subject that indicated the symptoms of psychopathy he had seen in the brain scans of serial killers. The scan was taken from a member of his own family. He broke the seal that protected the identity of the subject and discovered it was his own brain scan.
fallon concluded that not only genetic but ——– is also responsible for the ———— – ———–. and how did he conclude that?
Fallon was a successfully married man, who had raised children and held down a demanding career as a successful scientist and yet the brain scan indicated he was a psychopath. When he researched his own genetic history, he realized that his family tree contained seven alleged murderers including the famous Lizzie Borden, who allegedly killed her father and stepmother in 1892. He began to notice some of his own behaviour patterns as being manipulative, obnoxiously competitive, egocentric, and aggressive, just not in a criminal manner.He decided that he was a “pro-social psychopath”—an individual who lacks true empathy for others but keeps his or her behaviour within acceptable social norms—due to the loving and nurturing family he grew up in. He had to acknowledge that environment, and not just genes, played a significant role in the expression of genetic tendencies
deviance is ?
According to sociologist William Graham Sumner, deviance is a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codified law (1906).
folkways
Folkways are norms based on everyday cultural customs concerning practical matters like how to hold a fork, what type of clothes are appropriate for different situations, or how to greet someone politely.
mores
Mores are more serious moral injunctions or taboos that are broadly recognized in a society, like the incest taboo
laws
. Codified laws are norms that are specified in explicit codes and enforced by government bodies
crime
A crime is therefore an act of deviance that breaks not only a norm, but a law. Deviance can be as minor as picking one’s nose in public or as major as committing murder.
labelling theory by?
According to Lemert, by being stigmatized as ‘criminals,’ offenders were excluded from mainstream society and left with no alternative but to sink deeper in crime. Thus the trapping of offenders in the ghetto of labeled criminals was a source of induced reoffending (secondary deviance). edwin lemert
