Crime & Deviance Flashcards
Crime vs Deviance
Crime: behaviour that requires social control and social intervention, codified in law
Deviance: action that violates social norms, which may be against the law or not
Crime & Control
Howard Becker 1928
- Moral Entrepreneur: an individual or group who influences the creation or enforcement of a society’s moral code
- Social Control: the regulation and enforcement of norms, both formal and informal
Sanctions: the means of enforcing rules through positive and negative means
**Formal Sanctions:** sanctions that officially recognized and enforced **Informal Sanctions:** sanctions that occur in face-to-face interactions
4 Types of Social Control
Donald Black
1. Penal Social Control
2. Compensatory Social Control
3. Therapeutic Social Control
4. Conciliatory Social Control
Social Control as Government & Discipline
Michael Foucault (1926-1984)
- Social Control & Governance:
- 19th century and introduction of modern institutions:
- prison, public school, army, asylum, hospital, and factory
- Disciplinary Social Control: detailed continuous training, control, and observation of individuals to improve their capabilities
Panopticon: Jeremy Bentham’s “seeing machine” that became the model for the ideal prison
**Surveillance:** various means used to make the lives and activities of individuals visible to authorities
Normalization: the process by which norms are used to differentiate, rank, and correct individual behaviour
**Normalizing Society:** a society that uses continual observation, discipline, and correction of its subject to exercise social control
Rational Choice Theory
Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham
4 Basic Beliefs of Rational Choice Theory
1. Crime is a Rational Action
2. Criminal sets less work for greater reward
3. a fear of punishment leads to control of individual choice
4. when criminality matches its punishment, society improves its ability to control criminal behaviours
Biological Perspectives
Biological Determinism: the hypothesis that biological factors factors completely determine a person’s behaviour
Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)
- born criminals
- skull measurement and likelihood of criminal behaviour
James Fallon
- environmental factors
Functionalist Theory
Strain Theory
- Robert Merton
Illegitimate Opportunity Theory
- Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin
Control Theory
- Hirschi
Conflict Theory
Crimes of Accommodation: crimes committed as ways in which individuals cope with conditions of oppression and inequality
Power Elite: a small group of wealthy and influential people at the top of society who hold the power and resources
Crime and Social Class
Street Crime: crime committed by average people or organizations, usually in public spaces
**White-Collar Crime:** crimes committed by high status or privileged members of society
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective on Crime * Deviance
Edwin Sutherland (1883 - 1950)
- differential association theory: a theory that states individuals learn deviant behaviours from those close to them, who provide models of and opportunities for deviance
Howard Becker (1928)
- Becker and Career of Marijuana
- Labelling Theory: the absorbing of a deviant behaviour to another person by members of society
Edwin Lemert
- Primary Deviance: a violation of norms that does not result in any long-term effects on the individual’s self-image or interactions with others
- Secondary Deviance: when the person’s self-perception changes after their action is labelled as deviant by the society
- Master Status: a label that describes the main characteristics of an individual
Feminist Theory
Perception of Female Criminal
-
Otto Pollack
- chivalry hypothesis
-
Doubly Deviant Female Criminal
- Breaking laws
- Breaking gender stereotypes
-
Elizabeth Womack and Salena Brickey
- Victim, Mad, Bad
Perception of Female Victims
- Doubly Deviant: women (or other categories of individuals) who break both laws and gender (or other) norms
- Secondary Victimization: after an initial victimization, secondary victimization is incurred through criminal justice processes
-
Twin Myths of Rape
- the notion that women lie about sexual assault out of malice toward men
- women say “no” to sexual relations when they really mean “yes”
Canadian Rule of Law
Rule of Law: the requirement that no one is above the law and the state power should not be applied arbitrarily
Crime, Risk, and Regulation in Canada
Moral Panic: the reaction of a group based on the false, distorted or exaggerated perception that some group or behaviour threatens the well-being of society
Women’s Fear of Crime
- Fear vs. Reality
- Fear-Gender Paradox: the phenomenon whereby women experience higher rates of fear of being victimized even though men are more likely to be victims of crime
Moral Regulation: the constitution of certain behaviour as immoral and thereby requiring public regulation
Theorizing Law
Classical Approach to Theorizing Law
- Consensus View
- Conflict View
- Interactionist View
Modern Approach to Theorizing Law
- Critical Legal Studies
- Protectionist Rhetoric
- Feminist Legal Studies
- Critical Race Theory
