Midterm 2 Flashcards
-classical -demonic -pathological -functionalism
What was the demonic perspective?
-that possession and temptation were the primary causes of deviance and crime
What beliefs did creationists of Western Europe believe?
-the devil lived among them and they must be on guard to not fall prey to him
What paradigm of punishment was during Feudalism?
Demonic
Were deviants fully responsible for their behaviour?
- No, they were partly responsible
- because some people were actually possessed by demons or spirits
What word best describes the feudal age?
- chaotic
- because it had very high crime rates even thought the punishment was so harsh
Is the world more dangerous than in feudal times?
-no, the world has only progressed as safer since then
What did Enlightened reformers view demonic punishment as?
-systemic rage
Who were the enlightened reformers?
-Beccaria and Bentham
What did the enlightened reformers say about the nature of all human action?
-it was always the same, focused on self-interest
What did the enlightened reformers stress the importance of?
- happiness
- to be able to be happy was to follow your self-interest
Who displaced the aristocracies in Europe?
-classical thinkers
What is the mini-max theorem by classical theorists?
Human nature was:
- calculated, rational actors
- hedonistic and self-interested, they looked out for #1
- utilitarianism, minimize pain and maximize pleasure
- they believed units of pain and pleasure could be calculated by humans
- free will and social contract
What portion of the mini-max theorem created the justice system and why?
- utilitarianism
- they believed all they had to do was make the criminal system more painful than pleasurable
What was central to punishment in the classical system?
- deterrence
- they thought crimes, not criminals, should be the focus
- focus should be behaviour not people
What 3 elements must punishment contain to be effective according to classical theorists?
- swiftness
- certainty
- severity was calibrated so that pain was 1 unit greater than pleasure of punishment, should be rational
Do classical theorists reject or accept the death penalty and why?
- they reject it
- it provides no opportunity for rehabilitation
- pain is too severe
When did Bentham purpose that laws should be created?
- when deviant behaviour presented a demonstrable social harm
- if there was no victim there was no harm
What did classical theory think about morality?
- there should be no morality, punishment should be objective
- again, its about controlling the behaviour not the person
What happened when the enlightened reformers attempted to determine the common good?
-because it is a subjective process it explicitly disregards the rights of minority groups
What structure did classical theorist try to bring to the justice system by focusing on uniformity?
- legislative body would generate laws
- judicial body determined guiltiness
- to ensure no one had all the power
Under Napoleon and the French Penal Code of 1791 how did punishment work?
-there was one punishment for any breaking of the law regardless of the context or circumstances
What modifications have been applied to our current justice system?
- judges care about circumstances and context
- some people won’t be punished if they’re psychologically not well
How did classical thinking relate to prisons?
- classical thinking contributed to the rise of prisons
- prisons related to the utilitarian approach of classicists
What were prisons meant to do and what concept did this produce?
- people were meant to be rehabilitated, not to suffer
- this produced the concept of the panopticon
What is the panopticon?
- the cells are in a circle with the watch tower in the middle
- meant to foster rehabilitation
What is problematic about the classical perspective?
- people aren’t rational all the time
- many crimes are blatant use of privilege
- we can’t measure pleasure and pain
- do prisons even work?
What times periods has torture been a part of?
a feature of all human civilizations since antiquity
What centuries does the middle ages refer to?
-the 5th to 15th
Which centuries were characterized by feudalism?
-between the 9th and 15th
What was a crime against the Royal family akin to in the feudal era?
-a crime against God
What did Monarchies justify their power using?
-they justified their power based on the divine right of kings
What was deviant or criminal behaviour thought to be a result of (demonic)?
- the result of possession and temptation
- or temped into the 7 great sins
When guilty, what was the best way to carry out God’s plans?
- a confession
- kissing the Royal cloth
What was the purpose of executions?
-they were public spectacles designed to illicit fear and control while carrying out Gods will
Why was execution advantageous for Royals?
-because it illicits fear and thus control
What are the 7 great sins?
- sloth
- anger
- lust
- pride
- envy
- gluttony
- greed
What was punishment during Feudalism based on?
-the principle of Lex Talionis
What is the principle of Lex Talionis?
- do unto others as they would do to you
- an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
How many witches were executed during the renaissance?
-40,000-500,000
How did people die in Salem for being a witch?
-hung, crushed or died in prison
How did people die in Europe for being a witch?
-hung, burned, the water test or spectral evidence
What was the water test?
-drowning people and seeing if they sunk or not
What was spectral evidence?
-those who were victimized by witches could see ghosts
What did Malleus Maleficarum translate too?
-hammer of the witches
What was Malleus Maleficarum?
-a book written in the 1400s by Kramer and Springier
What was Malleus Maleficarum used for?
-to punish convicted witches
What did the Malleus Maleficarum say?
- it said witches were usually female and would cast spells on other women
- it said torture was an acceptable means of proving guilt
- that those who denied the existence of witches should be suspect
What led to hysteria and why?
- the Malleus
- in Boston, the context of economic contraction, racism and sexism combined with the Malleus led to hysteria
Were there limits on how cruel aristocrats could be?
- Yes
- because sometimes spectators would rebel at punishment
What do the witch trials show?
-flimsy evidence was used in courts to convict people
What was demonic punishment like?
- harsh and based on emotions
- the justice system was cruel and tyrannical
Who was Gina Lombroso?
-the daughter of Cesare Lombroso
Who was Cesare Lombroso?
- an Italian physician in the 1800s
- asked to perform an autopsy on an infamous killer, Vilella
What did Cesare’s work mark the beginning of?
-the origin of pathological and deviant thinking
Even though the classical and demonic approach appear antithetical, what one similarity do they possess?
-both are epistemologies or ways of knowing our social world (religion etc.)
Where did Cesare believe the tendency towards deviance originated from?
-the body
What did Cesare argue criminals were?
-atavists
What is atavism?
-reversion to a former state
What did Lombroso believe robbers shared in common?
-physical characteristics such as shifty and quick moving eyes
What did Cesare believe humans inherited?
-genes
How did genes relate to criminal man according to Cesare?
-someone who inherited genes that made them violent, deviant and psychopathic
What did Cesare believe about different parts of the brain and how did this connect to deviancy?
- different parts of the brain were responsible for human behaviour
- criminal man could be recognized through ‘his’ attributes especially the skull
What did Gina believe in regards to punishment?
- she shared the views of her father
- each individual was unique and required unique punishments
What was another name for the pathological approach?
-positive school
Who and what was Criminal man?
- natural born killer
- represented 1/3 of all criminals
- distinguishable characteristics
Why, even though Cesare’s work was discredited, was it influential?
- He brought science and multi causal analysis into the study of deviance
- He altered academics to the potential of biology to affect deviance
- He argued punishment should fit the criminal as opposed to the crime (rational punishment)
Cesare believed in the potential of biology in terms of deviance so strongly that he argued what?
-A normal man should not be punished for murder because he would likely not do it again
Today, what paradigms is our system a hybrid of?
- classical and pathological thought
- because we now incorporate mitigating circumstances into defence in court
How is the pathological similar to the demonic?
- they contain a focus on the body
- offer arbitrary punishment
- more control over the actor rather than the act
How do both pathological and demonic contain a focus on the body?
- demonic perspective openly endorsed torture and cruelty
- pathological suggests surgery, electrical shock or insulin induced comas
How do both pathological and demonic offer arbitrary punishment?
- demonic era based punishment on social status (who you knew)
- pathological offers treatment but they seem very cruel and more like torture
How would the demonic provide evidence or explanation?
- Tale of Sodom
- witches mark (birthmark)
- possession or temptation
How would the demonic conduct punishment?
- severe
- public spectacle
- arbitrary
- a person could be reborn or could confess
How would the classical provide evidence or explanation?
-rational choice
How would the classical conduct punishment?
-fit the crime
How would pathological provide evidence or explanation?
- biological
- evident in lower evolved creatures
How would the pathological conduct punishment?
- surgery
- drugs
- counselling
What were the problems with Lombroso’s paradigm (pathology)?
- Empirical research was flawed
- Measurements were sloppy
- Statistical techniques were not refined (in 1800s)
- Many characteristics were actually socially developed (tattooing body)
Who generated the theory of functionalism?
Durkheim
What was functionalisms significance?
-the first truly sociological account of crime and deviance and social control
What are the functions of crime as told by structural functionalists?
- it sets boundaries
- enhances group solidarity
- maintains innovative functions (society tolerates deviants which inspires innovation)
- reduces tensions
What inspired Durkheim?
- biology and organismic metaphor
- organs constitute institutions in society and each one guides normative behaviour in society
What did Durkheim call crime and punishment?
- crime was behaviour that’s deemed offensive or outrageous
- punishment was vengeance illicitly by society
What did Durkheim always believe about punishment?
-no matter how controlled it seems, punishment is always about vengeance in any given society at any given time
Who believed crime was functional for society?
Structural functionalists in the USA
What are the problems of functionalism?
- false teleology
- tautology
- no true theory of crime and deviance
- non disprovable
- functional for whom?
What is false teleology?
- you look at the positive effect of something and say that’s why it exists
- the effect is the cause
What are examples of false teleology?
- kids in schools look happy
- happiness is why school exists
- happiness is what causes schools
What is tautology?
- circular reasoning
- because it exists it must be functional, if it were not functional it would not exist
- believing cause and effect are the same thing (x causes y and y causes x)
What is an example of tautology?
-I need education to get a job and I need a job to pay for education
What does the epistemology of science demand?
That we generate causal statements about how social life works
What does functionalism not explain?
- How norms arise, why they arise and how widely they are accepted
- how modes of punishment become accepted by society
What are the norms of society?
An instrument of power
What does it mean when they say functionalism is non-disprovable?
-this means it cannot be refuted scientifically, it is always correct
What does functional maintain that even…?
Even dysfunctional characteristics are somehow functional (war, famine, sexual assault etc)
Functional for whom?
-for society at large
What did Kai Erikson do?
- in his book Wayward Puritans in 1964 he used court records to reconstruct the role of deviance among Puritans in Boston
- this group of people instigated the witch trails and used flimsy evidence to convict witches
What did Erikson find for each punishment?
- moral boundaries were clarified
- each time the community moves to censure deviance it sharpens the authority of the violated norm, the norm is more clearly identified as important to society
What did Erikson find about definitions of deviance?
- they were clarified by the values of society
- norms changed with what is punished
- men who fear witches soon find themselves surrounded by them
What did Erikson most importantly note?
- the number of deviants remained relatively constant over a 30 year period
- does the fear of deviance create deviance, or does deviance create fear?
- perhaps it’s the fear of it that brings it into being
In 1937, what does Davis ask?
- why is it that a practice so thoroughly disapproved of flourishes so universally?
- he’s referencing prostitution
- why is it considered the worlds oldest profession?
What did Davis argue about prostitution?
- it would never be eliminated because of the social functions it served
- he argued it existed for physiological and sociological reasons
How is prostitution functional physiologically?
-females do not have periods of anoestrus (complete unresponsiveness to sexual stimuli) which is different from other mammals because it is conditioned
How does prostitution function sociologically?
- social dominance
- the degree of dominance determines how bodily appetites will be satisfied
What three ways did Davis argue prostitution must be recognized?
- causes
- the rate of prostitution
- individual causes for seeking prostitution
Did Davis believe prostitution was simply economic?
-no he argued it was not simply economically motivated
What are the functions of prostitution (long list) from Davis?
- Male need for sexual adventure and experimentation, men have a much higher need for sex that may not be met by their wives
- Less attractive men may not find sex so readily
- Ultimately, helps keep the family intact
