Crime And Deviance Key Words Flashcards
Atrophy
Breaking apart slowly
British crime survey
A victim survey conducted annually by a team of researchers at the home office.
Measures the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking people about crimes they have experienced in the past year
Capitalist society
An economic system where the production of goods is organised for profit and sold to a free market
Agent of social control
Individual or group that is responsible for ensuring members of society conform to socially accepted behaviour
Chivalry thesis
The criminal justice system may be more lenient to woman
Collective conscience
A term used by Durkheim to describe the core shared values of society
Corporate crime
Crimes committed on behalf of and for the benefit of the organisation
Collective deviance
Deviant behaviour of a group
Crime
Behaviour that breaks the law
Can also be deviant
Delinquency
The criminal behaviour of people
Dark figure of crime
A large amount of criminal activity never appears on crime statistics
Deviance
An action that goes against the norms and values of society
Can also be a crime
Anomie
A state of normlessness, where norms no longer direct behaviour
Deviant career
The various stages that a person goes through on their way to being seen as and seeing themselves as, deviant
Dominant ideology
The mainstream set of beliefs that are held by society on which people set as the standard
Deviance amplification
Deviance is increased by societal reaction
Formal methods of social control
Institutions set up to enforce social control, especially those that set up and enforce the law
Police, army
Folk devil
A person or group seen as trouble makers by the media
Hegemony
The norms and values of the ruling class which dominate thinking in society
Individual deviance
The deviant behaviour of an individual
Informal methods of social control
Institutions and groups that are but directly concerned with enforcing social control but play an important part in controlling the behaviour of others
School, family
Immediate gratification
Wanting rewards immediately
Green crime
Crime against the environment
Master status
People are looked at by others solely on the basis of one type of act (good or bad) they have committed
All other aspects of that person are ignored
Illegitimate opportunity structure
A structure which provides illegal opportunities for monetary gain
Moral crusade
The process of creating or enforcing a rule
Institutional racism
Racism that is built in to the normal practises of an organisation
Marginalised
Those who are pushed to the edge, or margins, of society in cultural, economic or status terms
Moral panic
Outrage stirred up by the media about a particular group or issue
Multi agency intervention
A number of agencies cooperating to focus on the solution to a social problem
Occupational crime
Crimes committed by employees at the expense of the business
Moral entrepreneur
Person or group which tries to create or enforce a rule
Open/public deviance
Deviance committed in public which is not concealed from wider society
Police recorded crime
Crimes recorded by the police from which official statistics on crime are drawn
Non-utilitarian crime
Crime that is not committed to gain money, eg vandalism, graffiti
Night time economy
A leisure industry has developed at nights in certain parts of the inner cities, providing the location of many offenders
Repeat victimisation
People are victims of the same crime more than once
Relative deprivation
The way so called deprivation is seen or perceived by those experiencing it. This is usually done by comparing their situation to others
Recorded crime
Crime that is recorded by the police
Not all reported crime is recorded
Prosecution
Conduct of legal proceedings against a defendant of criminal behaviour
Peer group pressure
A group of a persons own age who are important to them and often influence then to behave in a particular way
Self report study
A survey in which respondents report on the offences they have committed over a period of time
Reported crime
Crime that is reported to the police
Not all crime is reported
Situational deviance
Behaviour which may be seen as deviant in one situation but not in another
Social control
Methods of controlling people’s behaviour, encouraging them to conform to societies norms and values and discourage deviant and criminal behaviour
Scapegoat
Groups in society (usually relatively powerless) who are blamed by the powerful for the problems of society, thus drawing attention away fir the real cause of crime
State crime
Crimes committed by or on behalf of the state
Secret/private deviance
Deviance conducted in private which is often conceded from wider society
Social cohesion
The extent to which a society is held together by shared culture and norms
Primary deviance
The act if deviance itself
Secondary deviance
The response to an act of deviance and what it causes
- Inuits
Status frustration
Dissatisfaction and frustration with the status and respect given by others
Stigmatised
Labelled in a negative way
Subculture
Distinctive norms and values shared by a group in society that differ from the values of mainstream society
Societal deviance
Behaviour which is seen as deviant by most members if society
Subterranean values
Values which are only expressed in particular situations
Social integration
The extent to which people feel they belong to a society or social group
Symbolic interactionism
A theory derived from social psychology which argues that people exist in a social world based on symbols that people interpret and respond to
Target hardening
Reducing the physical opportunities for crime by gardening the targets of crime, eg more secure buildings
Techniques of neutralisation
Techniques which neutralise the blame for actions which are defined as wrong or unacceptable by society’s norms and values
Transnational crime
Crimes that cross national borders
Transnational organised crime
Transnational crime that involves an organised group
Victim study/survey
A study of the victims of crime, usually asking people to report the crimes that have been committed against them, or any other member of the household I’m the previous year
Tipping
An area goes from generally law abiding to accepting antisocial behaviour
White collar crime
Crimes committed by someone while at work, often against the company, eg stealing
Self-fulfilling prophecy
When someone is labelled as deviant or criminal they the become deviant or criminal
Altruistic suicide
Suicide that occurs when an individual is so strongly integrated into society they take their own life out of a sense of duty
Fatalistic suicide
Suicide that occurs when individuals are so strongly regulated that they can see no way out of their situation other than suicide
Egoistic suicide
Suicide that occurs when there is little integration in society, when the ties that bind individuals into social groups are very weak
Anomie suicide
Suicide that results from a lack of regulation of people’s desires and expectations
Institutional racism
Racism that is built into the normal practices of an organisation
Macpherson inquiry
Sir William Macpherson led an inquiry into the events surrounding the murder of Stephen Lawrence by white racists, and the subsequent
police investigation that followed
Cyber crime
Illegal acts using the internet
Genocide
Mass killing
