Lec 5/6

Question 1

Micro-anomic society

Answer 1

A society in which individuals place more value on self interest rather than collective interest

Question 2

Self-enhancing values

Answer 2

Status, privilege, dominance, and personal success

More likely to commit crimes

Question 3

Self-transcending values

Answer 3

Tolerance, protection, empathy and altruism are less likely to commit deviant or criminal acts

Question 4

Anomie and Crime among the Upper class

Answer 4

Pressure is on to make money with less emphasis on doing it through legitimate means
This ideology leads to corporate crime that is not condemned as much

Question 5

Shrinkflation

Answer 5

Lowering the quantity of the product but maintaining the price

Question 6

Skimpflation

Answer 6

Replacing parts of a product with something of less value to cut costs

Question 7

Sol Kobrin opportunities-Stable slum

Answer 7

Lower class communities, legitimate and illegitimate oppurtunities

Question 8

Sol Kobrin opportunities-Transitory slum

Answer 8

Decaying house projects, minimal availability of either type of opportunities because of fear of crime and lack of community life.

Question 9

Sol Kobrin opportunities-Suburbia

Answer 9

Legitimate, but few illegitimate

Question 10

Richard Cloward- Illegitimate opportunity structures

Answer 10

Access to opportunities varies

Legitimate opportunity provides a legal way of succeeding
Illegitimate opportunity structure depends on the community and the individual

Question 11

3 Subcultures of the opportunity structures

Answer 11

Criminal-Opportunities for crimes of financial gain
Conflict-Opportunities for gang violence
Retreatist-Opportunities for failures, resulting in substance abuse

Question 12

Albert Cohen-Middle class measuring rod

Answer 12

Schools and other institutions judge youth according to a middle class measuring rod that the lower class are ill prepared to meet

Question 13

Failure to meet middle class standards leads to

Answer 13

Reversal of middle-class standards for the lower class people (eg. becoming a gang member and “toughness”)

Question 14

Elijah Anderson-The code of the street

Answer 14

Well paying manufacturing jobs that provided a mobility route for the lower-class workers have disappeared through globalization

Question 15

Response of poor young males to loss of mobility routes

Answer 15

They turn to the underground economy for survival and develop a code of the street which involves toughness and a demand for respect by manifesting nerve

Question 16

What leads to the weak being victimized on the street

Answer 16

Not following the code of the street

Question 17

Sociological perspective

Answer 17

Sociological theories consider the broader relationship between crime, social relations and social structure.

Question 18

General assumptions of strain theory

Answer 18

Social institutions make society run smoothly

Crime happens when something unusual happens that affects these institutions

This results in strains, stresses, and frustrations that affect behavior

Question 19

Durkheim: Crime and Anomie

Answer 19

Social solidarity (shared goals that lead to shared norms) are essential for society

Without norms, society will function poorly

The word anomie was used to explain crime in more advanced and differentiated urban societies

Question 20

Anomie and normlessness

Answer 20

In times of rapid social change, social solidarity can break down

Heterogeneity and increased division of labor weaken social norms, loosen social controls, and encourage individualism

Question 21

What happens when social cohesion breaks down and social isolations is great

Answer 21

Society loses its traditional social control mechanisms and eventually has high amounts of crime

Question 22

Robert Merton-The Gap between aspirations and means (1938)

Answer 22

Crime results from the gap between culturally prescribed aspirations and the socially structured means of realizing them

Question 23

Merton-Gap between aspirations and means part 2

Answer 23

Culturally prescribed aspirations are defined by culture and transmitted to the members of society

In America, material wealth and accumulation of money and status are seen as universal goals

The legitimate means of achieving these aspirations, are socially structures (eg. Jobs)

Question 24

Merton-Gap between aspirations and means part 3

Answer 24

Across the legitimate means is socially structured and difficult for poor and minority children

The strain resulting from the gap between goals and the means to achieve them may result in some innovation, usually deviance

When society encourages people to want things but makes it difficult for certain groups to get them, members of these groups are more likely to turn to deviance