Midterm 2: social structure theories Flashcards
Ethnographic methods
Observe and describe everyday life
-Immersing yourself in a space and integrating yourself in those social conditions
Natural areas
Neighborhoods that develop as a result of social forces operating within urban areas
-Inspired after the work of the Chicago school
Sociological criminology
-Issues with theories that focus on individual level explanations such as choice and trait theories
-Causes of crime might be understood through intersections between individuals and families, their peers, in work and school
Inequality
-Racialized minority groups are overrepresented within poverty classes
-Intersectional problems
Culture of poverty
The lifestyle present in impoverished neighborhoods that passes from one generation to the next
Underclass
A world cut off from society, where members lack the education and skills needed to survive and therefore are unable to participate in society
Unemployment
-Unemployed people are more likely to commit crimes due to less pressure to conform
-Crime and unemployment could be event specific (property crime)
-Unemployment and crime are interrelated
Social embeddedness
Early behavior patterns become stable lifelong habits and tendencies
Social structure theory
-Considers economic inequality and disadvantage at the primary cause of crime
-3 Independent theories
1) Social disorganization theory
2) Strain theory
3) culture deviance theory
1) Social disorganization theory
-Crime rates result from the ecological conditions/characteristics of neighborhoods
-Highly transient, mixed use neighborhoods, changing neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods
Transitional neighborhoods
An area that undergoes a shift in population and structure, usually moving from middle class residential to lower class mixed use
Cultural transmission
Passing down of conduct norms from one generation to the next (stable and predictable over time)
Social ecology school
-Social ecologists
-Value conflict
-Community deterioration
-Community fear
-Siege mentality
-Social ecologists
-Researchers with an approach that considers community level indicators of social disorganization, such as disorder, poverty, alienation and fear of crime
-Value conflict
-Clashing values between teenage law-violating groups with middle class norms
-Teens will not respect law and middle class values
Community deterioration
-Less emphasis on value conflict -deteriorating neighborhoods have been seen to have the highest crime rates
-MOST SIGNIFICANT
community fear
fear makes transitional neighborhoods no support
Siege mentality
-Mistrust of social institutions
-Police, government, schools
-Can cause violent protests, division, societal reactions
-EG) BLM
Collective efficacy
-Seen in cohesive communities that maintain high levels of social control
1) Informal social control
2) Institutional social control
3) Public social control
1) Informal social control
-Primary level of operation
-Involves peers, families and relatives
-Providing reinforcement
-Highly involved neighbors
2) Institutional social control
Social institutions need trust in order to work effectively
3) Public social control
-Receiving external resources and funding to maintain low levels of crime and victimization
-high police presence from community organizing
-Displacement
-Cohesive neighbors (lobbying)
-Funding
-Over-reliance on police
2) Strain theory
-Having goals without the opportunity to achieve them causes strain/making of new goals
-Anomie: Normlessness
Conformity VS Innovation
-Conformity is embracing social norms and having means to achieve those goals while innovation is embracing the norms but not having means to achieve the goals (entrepreneurs, drug dealers)
