Exam 1

Question 1

Criminological Imagination

Answer 1

Drawing connections between crime and the broader social structures and historical context

Question 2

General trends and differences between FBI crime statistics and BJS victim self-reporting

Answer 2

FBI
- Forgot big cities
- Missing info from police stations

BJS
- Self-reporting
- the 3 R’s (recognized, reporting, recording)

Question 3

“Dark figure of crime statistics” and factors that may influence this issue General trends in media coverage of crime

Answer 3

-Media skews people’s opinions on crime and makes then see only the bad things
- Their job is to report on crime, but they only report crimes that happen, not the statistics behind crime and how it may or may not be going down.
-Overwhelming focus on violent crime
-Overall positive police image
-Focus on individual cases and not general trends
-Racial bias

Question 3

General trends in national crime rates and variation of perceptions of crime by demographics (see Byron, 2024)

Answer 3

-More educated People think that we are spending too much on crime
-People who are less educated think that we are spending too little on crime
-Covid changed a lot about the perceptions of crime

Question 4

Define Legal Crime

Answer 4

Behavior prohibited by criminal code

Question 4

Define Moral Crime

Answer 4

Behavior that offends a “collective consciousness” and faces punishments

Question 5

Define Social Crime

Answer 5

Behavior that violates social norms

Question 6

Define Constructivist Crime

Answer 6

If the act isn’t labeled as a crime, then it wouldn’t be a crime

Question 7

What was Reiner’s idea of crime as an “essentially contested concept”

Answer 7

• He thinks that crime can be defined in so many ways but people talk about it like there is one universal definition
  -Crime can be something that is against the criminal code but it is also seen as something that is against the moral code and social norms

Question 8

Realist Views of Crime

Answer 8

o Crime is defined as something that creates real harm, especially for the most vulnerable, and needs to be understood and addressed
—> Left wing focuses on crimes committed by the powerful
—> Right-wing focuses on street crime and wants more policing

Question 9

Constructivist Views of Crime

Answer 9

o Crime as a product of perception and political process
o Crime is the product of criminal policy
o What is considered a crime is there to enhance the rich getting richer

Question 10

Classical Approach to Crime (Beccaria)

Answer 10

o Based on free will and accountability
o Equal punishment, the punishment must fit the crime
o Social contract must keep the public in order
o Only the legislature can make laws, not the magistrate
o The laws should be written and known by everyone
o Having these laws will deter people from committing crimes
o Punishments need to be based on the severity of the crime
- Focus on the crime
- You are responsible for the crime you commit

Question 11

Rational Choice

Answer 11

o Focus on the individual that’s committing the crime
o Individuals are able to make informed decisions
o This means individuals can be punished for crimes

Question 12

Crime Prevention Through Rational Choice

Answer 12

o Posting the punishments will deter people from committing crimes
o Punishments will deter the crime

Question 13

Early Positivist Approach to Crime (Lombroso)

Answer 13

• Someone was born a criminal based on the biological predisposition to commit a crime
• Collection of observable facts that can be used to uncover, explain, and predict patterns of crime
• Focus on the individual
• You are not responsible for the crime you committed
• Focus on rehabilitation

Question 14

Differentiation (positivism)

Answer 14

The measure to measure the differences between individuals and their behavior

Question 15

Pathology (positivism)

Answer 15

The process of assigning abnormality to those differences

Question 16

Determinism (positivism)

Answer 16

A concern to understand how factors beyond the control of human beings, affect their behavior

Question 17

Sociological Positivism

Answer 17

Who is and isn’t likely to be a criminal in the social understanding instead of biological

Question 18

Classical Critiques

Answer 18

• Not thinking about why someone would commit a crime
• Not thinking about the need for crime
• Not thinking about structural differences

Question 19

Posititvst Critiques

Answer 19

Lacks broader social context
–> Racism, bias, resources

Question 20

Differential Association (learning theory)

Answer 20

o Crime rates vary by neighborhood
o Criminal behavior is learned
o Criminal behavior is learned through interactions with other persons through communication
o Crime is learned mainly through intimate personal groups
o The stricter the definitions of delinquent are the more likely someone is to commit a crime

Question 21

Differential Reinforcement (learning theory)

Answer 21

o Learned by apparent conditioning
 Training a specific action
(the paintball scene)
o Learned in both social and non-social conditions
o Reinforcement from a group, from people who like deviant behavior

Question 22

Neutralization (learning theory)

Answer 22

Cognitive techniques that don’t just come from nowhere, they are still learned, but they aren’t quite learning norms or values:
o Denial of responsibility
Blaming something else for
why you committed the crime
o Denial of injury
Saying that it didn’t actually
hurt anyone
o The denial of the victim
The person they committed
the crime against deserved it
o The condemnations of the condemners
Someone forced them to do
it
o The appeal to higher loyalties
Putting smaller groups
demands before that of
society

Question 23

Social Control Theory

Answer 23

Various social institutions and processes that guarantee social order

Question 24

Self-Control Theory

Answer 24

When someone lacks self-control, they are more likely to commit a crime
 Lack of parental help
 Lack of ability to know what
counts as deviant behavior
 Lack of punishments regarding
their deviant behavior

Question 25

Characteristics of Self-Control Theory

Answer 25

 Lack of empathy
 Self-centered
 Need for immediate gratification
 Need for excitement
 Lack of stable relationships

Question 26

Social Control and Crime

Answer 26

 Crime is more likely when social bonds between individuals and society weaken
 Assumptions that certain individuals have deviant tendencies are only realized when social controls are relaxed (attachment to parents, beliefs)
 Delinquency
—–> The absence of what causes
conformity

Question 27

Learning Theory vs. Control Theory

Answer 27

Learning Theory:
o Crime is actively learned
o Likelihood to conform based on the people you spend time with and that are around you
o Anyone could be a criminal; it doesn’t matter where they start out

Control Theory:
o Crime as an absence of social factors
o Lack of social control leads to deviant behavior
o Certain individuals have a tendency to commit crimes

Question 28

Control Theory Critiques

Answer 28

o Self-control
 Doesn’t consider medical
problems
 It makes it seem like everyone
with low self-control would
commit a crime but that isn’t the
case
 Family isn’t always the deciding
factor on why someone would
commit a crime
 Doesn’t take into account
organized crime
o Social control
 Doesn’t consider medical
issues
 Doesn’t consider organized
crime
 Doesn’t take into account
outside factors other than
people around the criminal

Question 29

Learning Theory Critiques

Answer 29

o Leaves out socio-economic issues
o Doesn’t talk about how crime starts,
only how it continues
o Doesn’t cover all types of crime
o Difficult to falsify

Question 30

Differential Social Organization

Answer 30

o Conflicting systems of values
o Areas with a lack of opportunity

Question 31

Social disorganization

Answer 31

o In lower-income communities, the competing social norms are making it so the neighborhood can’t function
o Less social resources make breaking laws more enticing
o Fewer social norms
o Less opportunity
o This is talking about the area that you live in, so if someone moves from a high-income area to a low-income area, the likelihood for them to commit a crime would be higher when moving to the low-income area

Question 32

Policy implications and potential critiques of social disorganization theory

Answer 32

• Lack of sentiment for local institutions and public spaces
• Families may rely on crime because of a lack of economic opportunity
• People might be committing crimes for reasons other than where they live
• Forgetting about mental illness

Question 33

Zones of Transition (Shaw and McKay)

Answer 33

 Neighborhoods that have a higher rate of crime for reasons such as, people are moving in and out more often, differentiating social norms lower-income residents, and diversity of cultural backgrounds
 Crime is higher in zones of transition

Question 34

Collective Efficacy (Sampson)

Answer 34

 A group of shared beliefs and their ability to work together to achieve a goal
 Sampson thinks the more of this you have, the better your neighborhood will run
 If someone on the street sees someone’s house burning down, will that person come out and help their neighbor?
 Combination of social networks and bonds with informal social control is needed for collective efficacy to be shown in a neighborhood
 Depends on whether people trust each other or not

Question 35

Empirical findings (Sampson)

Answer 35

 Higher rates of collective efficacy trend to lower rates of crime in a given area
 Higher rates of immigrants in a neighborhood call for a less crime-ridden area

Question 36

Social Disorganization and Control Theories

Answer 36

o This isn’t about the individual, it is about a group of people
o It’s not really something you are learning, but something you are forced into based on norms or lack thereof an area
o This theory blames parents but differential social organization doesn’t think that has anything to do with it

Question 37

Social Disorganization and Learning Theories

Answer 37

o It doesn’t matter who you spend time with, it matters the neighborhood you grow up in
o It isn’t about the people specifically, but about the values of the neighborhood that matter the most
o Thinking the shaping of people’s opinions matters, but that doesn’t really work with this theory