Lec 5/6 Flashcards
Micro-anomic society
A society in which individuals place more value on self interest rather than collective interest
Self-enhancing values
Status, privilege, dominance, and personal success
More likely to commit crimes
Self-transcending values
Tolerance, protection, empathy and altruism are less likely to commit deviant or criminal acts
Anomie and Crime among the Upper class
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
Shrinkflation
Lowering the quantity of the product but maintaining the price
Skimpflation
Replacing parts of a product with something of less value to cut costs
Sol Kobrin opportunities-Stable slum
Lower class communities, legitimate and illegitimate oppurtunities
Sol Kobrin opportunities-Transitory slum
Decaying house projects, minimal availability of either type of opportunities because of fear of crime and lack of community life.
Sol Kobrin opportunities-Suburbia
Legitimate, but few illegitimate
Richard Cloward- Illegitimate opportunity structures
Access to opportunities varies
Legitimate opportunity provides a legal way of succeeding
Illegitimate opportunity structure depends on the community and the individual
3 Subcultures of the opportunity structures
Criminal-Opportunities for crimes of financial gain
Conflict-Opportunities for gang violence
Retreatist-Opportunities for failures, resulting in substance abuse
Albert Cohen-Middle class measuring rod
Schools and other institutions judge youth according to a middle class measuring rod that the lower class are ill prepared to meet
Failure to meet middle class standards leads to
Reversal of middle-class standards for the lower class people (eg. becoming a gang member and “toughness”)
Elijah Anderson-The code of the street
Well paying manufacturing jobs that provided a mobility route for the lower-class workers have disappeared through globalization
Response of poor young males to loss of mobility routes
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
What leads to the weak being victimized on the street
Not following the code of the street
Sociological perspective
Sociological theories consider the broader relationship between crime, social relations and social structure.
General assumptions of strain theory
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
Durkheim: Crime and Anomie
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
Anomie and normlessness
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
What happens when social cohesion breaks down and social isolations is great
Society loses its traditional social control mechanisms and eventually has high amounts of crime
Robert Merton-The Gap between aspirations and means (1938)
Crime results from the gap between culturally prescribed aspirations and the socially structured means of realizing them
Merton-Gap between aspirations and means part 2
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)
Merton-Gap between aspirations and means part 3
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
