Crime and Deviance Flashcards
What is the definition of Deviance?
Violation of cultural norms: - Any behaviour that violates normal behaviour - Deviate from the norm - Normal is a social construction - Only 3 things everyone agrees is wrong = murder, incest, theft
What is the definition of crime?
Violation of cultural norm which are enacted into law.
What is the difference between crime and deviance
- All crime is deviant behaviour, but not all deviant behaviour is crime
- Crime and deviance changes over time
How does crime and deviance differ by place and change over time?
It varies because societies determine what is right and wrong, it is a social construction.
- EX: speed limits, pot, drinking age, etc
What are crimes and the 4 differential seriousness?
- Consensus crimes:
- the public mostly agrees that the behavior is criminal: murder, rape, etc - Conflict crimes:
- these are acts which are illegal, but there are a number of people who think it should not be illegal: prostitution, drug laws, etc - Social deviation:
- not illegal acts, but behavior that society believes is serious and harmful: behaviour stemming from mental illness, addition, etc - Social diversions:
- behavior that is distasteful, harmless, but seen as cool to others. Examples: body piercing, tattoos, skateboarding
What are 3 sanctions used in maintaining conformity?
- Negative Sanctions
- Punishment for violating norms, through the police and or the courts - Positive sanctions
- Rewards for conforming to expected behaviour - Informal Sanctions
- Individuals discouraging certain behaviour through a face to face interaction
What factors effect crime?
- Gangs, mental health, age, gender, race, and socioeconomic factors such as unemployment
Why do racial and ethnic groups differ in terms of their crime rate?
It could result from Racial Profiling
- Some believe the police are more likely to over police people of colour
- The police say some of it might be die to bias
- In Toronto, there are no stats so racial profiling cannot be confirmed
What was learned in the Kingston Study
- Kingston police were told to record the race of everyone they stopped
- Kingston is a predominately white city
- The report showed that police were more likely to blacks than whites.
- 1.4 times more likely to stop an aboriginal than a white person
Who studied the Biological explanations to deviance? and what did they study? What was wrong with it?
Cesare Lombroso , a prison physician
- Characterized criminals as having distinctive physical characteristics: (low foreheads, prominent jaws and cheekbones, protruding ears, excessive hairiness, Resembled apelike ancestors.
- His research was flawed:
He didnt have a control group, he only studied prisoners.
What is the biological research today?
- Most crimes are committed by males
- Most crimes committed by younger rather than older individuals
- By age 18, 90% of males have participated in delinquent acts
- Criminal conviction records for Adoptive children, Biological children, Adoptive parents
What is the latest in Biological research?
Medrick found:
- children of convicted parents were more often convicted
- Children of convicted adoptive parents were less likely to be convicted
- Interaction of genes and environment: Highest conviction rate among convicted biological and adoptive parents
How do functionalists view deviance?
- As a key component of a function society.
What are 3 functionalist perspectives on deviance in society?
- Social disorganization theory
- Strain theory
- Cultural deviance theory
How did Durkheim study function of crime? (8 points)
Crime reinforce the need for laws:
- Criminal behaviour tests the boundaries of laws
- Laws are slow to change once created
- The majority may change their opinion on what is illegal before the law changes. ie. pot
- Criminality forces society to reevaluate the applicability of laws each time it deals with the criminal act
- In small societies (rural, pre-industrial) social organizations are based on closely shared norms and values
- The norms and values are like glue that bind people together
- Small towns or villages: everyone enforces rules
- In large societies (industrial, post industrial) close ties don’t exist, instead a multitude of social relationships exist.
- A lack of interaction results in moral ties become weaker, as they are not reinforced through personal contact.
- A mechanism to regulate these relationships needs to develop: the legal systems
What is Social Disorganization Theory?
- Some people use to believe that some cultures are defective and thus more likely to commit crime.
- The Chicago school showed this is not the case.
- Instead they showed it had to do with environmental factors
What are some changes in our environment causing social changes?
- Since we are interlinked to our (environment) surroundings, a change in our surroundings can affect our behaviour
- If a dump moves into the neighbourhood, this will affect behaviour:
Some people will move, Housing values will drop, Poor
will move in, Changes in people’s behaviour will result.
What is the Concentric-zone model
Cities evolve and bring with it changes in behaviour
- Burgess’s concentric zone model conceptualized cities as a succession of five concentric rings, each containing a distinct population and type of land use.
What are the 4 parts of the Concentric zone model (5 points)
- Central Business District (CBD): - major department stores, live theatres, hotels, banks, offices
- Constantly expanding
- Most expensive property - Zone of Transition: cheap housing for each new immigrant wave and the centre of illegal activities
- Owners do little to improve property in anticipation of being bought out by the expanding CBD
- Area deteriorates and some move out of the area
- Rents fall and attract the poor, and the immigrant - Zone of Working-Class Homes: settlements of second-generation immigrants and rural migrants
- Some move into this zone from the transitional zone - Zone of Better Residences: middle-class homes
- Commuter Zone: suburbs and satellite towns
What is Control Theory in relation to crime and deviance? And who studied it?
Hirschi’s assumes delinquent acts will result when one’s bond, or connection to society is weak or broken
- No motivational factors were necessary for one to become delinquent; the only requirement was the absence of control that allows the individual to be free to weigh the benefits of crime over the costs of those same delinquent acts.
- Weak social bonds may set an individual free to weigh the benefits of crime
- self-control, rather than societal control, as the root of criminality or conformity
- Self-control has its roots in parental upbringing
What is Symbolic Interactionism in relation to labeling to stigma?
- Labeling can lead to acquiring a stigma
- A powerful negative social label that radically changes a person’s self-concept - Once a label is acquired, a person’s past is reanalyzed, and the label is reinforced with previous behaviours which fit the label
- Pedophile
What is conflict theory in relation to crime and deviance? (3 points)
- Capitalists and the working class conflict for scare resources
- Capitalists maintain their superior position, because they use social institutions such as law, politics, and education to legitimize the class structure
- Crime is the expression of the individual’s struggle against the unjust social conditions and inequality produced by capitalism
What is Inequality and Crime?
- Some believe that crime results from income inequality
- Income inequality can be measured by the GINI
- The GINI coefficient ranges from 0 to 1.
0 indicates a society where are members earn the same income - 1.0 indicates a society where one member earns all the money earned in the society and everyone else earns zero income
- No society has a gini of 0 or 1.0
- All are in between 0 and
