Quiz Revision - W1 - W6 Flashcards
Crim and Sociology definition of crime
Crime is defined depending on the world view and is recognised as a social construct.
Legal/formal definition of crime
whatever is identified as the state to be a crime. It is written into the law and subject to state sanction
Crime as social harm
the idea that crime involves criminal and civil offences. Each action or inaction brings some types of harm and goes against the common welfare of society. Each should be penalised.
Crime as a conduct or norm violation
identifies deviance to be natural inherent to all societies and defines the boundaries of acceptable conduct.
Crime and human rights violation
defines crime as acts where the state is the offender and that a crime occurs whenever a human right has been violated regardless of legality.
Positivism
philosophical theory which asserts that knowledge can only be derived and validated by scientific verification
Social scientific methodology
the scientific method applied through a variety of tools, approaches and techniques for collecting and analysing data, as positivism is the theory behind this application.
Assumptions of functionalism (Durkheim)
○ All societies share basic or common parts that meet the needs of its members
○ All parts or ‘social structures’ are intertwined
○ Societies generally gravitate towards equilibrium or stability
Society is always evolving and adapting
Assumptions of Conflict theory
○ Society is a an outcome of social conflict and inequality
○ Society is in competition for limited resources
Marxism - Elites seek to maintain power and status creating an arena of conflict
Weber - Society is determined by the specific historical, ideational and material conditions
Assumptions of Symbolic Interactionism (Blumer)
○ Human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things
○ Meaning is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society
- Meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters
Official Data
Data that is collected and reported by official governmental agencies
Used to measure crime and crime control
Victimisation data
Collected from victim surveys and its an unofficial type of data
Used to address problems with official data -> particularly the dark figure of crime
Self-report data
Survey’s administered to sample populations that measure attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and demographic data
Anonymity so people are more truthful
Way to measure unreported criminal behaviour, substance abuse and DV -> ie crimes that are hard to measure directly
Dark figure of crime
the unreported crime that exists but is never known to authorities or researchers
Qualitative research
non-numerical or observational forms of data that looks at how people understand and interpret crime.
