Topic 1: Crime, Deviance, Social Order & Social Control Flashcards
Social Control
The methods used to persuade or force individuals to conform to the dominant social norms and values of a society or group. May be formal or informal.
Deviance
Behaviour which fails to follow the norms and expectations of a society or social group and often faces negative reactions /disapproval
Societal Deviance
Acts which are seen by most members of a society as deviant.
Crime
The term used to describe behaviour which is against the law – law breaking
Situational Deviance
Acts which are only defined as deviant in certain contexts or situations.
Social Solidarity
The integration of people into society through shared values, a common culture and social ties that bind them together.
Value Consensus
Widespread agreement about the main values of society.
Anomie
A sense of normlessness – confusion and uncertainty over society’s norms.
Utilitarian Crime
Crime that is carried out for financial gain.
Non-utilitarian Crime
Crime that is not carried out for financial gain.
Relative Deprivation
The idea that people feel that they are lacking something (materially or in other ways) compared with others in society with which they identify.
Subculture
A group of people in society who share norms, values, beliefs and attitudes that are in some ways different from the mainstream culture of that society.
Value Inversion
Reversing society’s values, so that those things that are considered important by society are rejected and vice versa.
Status Frustration
The anger and resentment felt by those who have a low status in society.
Criminogenic
The idea that crime in a capitalist society is inevitable; the exploitation necessary to capitalism causes crime.
Alienation
The idea that people feel isolated and disconnected from the things that they produce at work. A lack of power and control.
Selective Law Enforcement
The idea that the law is not equally or fairly applied to all, instead some in society are treated more leniently, others more harshly.
Moral Entrepeneur
A person, group or organisation with the power to create or enforce rules and impose their definitions of deviance on others.
Primary Deviance
Deviance that has not been publically labelled as deviant.
Secondary Deviance
Deviance that follows once a person has been publicly labelled as deviant.
Master Status
A status which displaces all other aspects of a person’s identity, and a person is judged on that one defining characteristic only.
Deviant Career
This occurs when people have been labelled as deviant find conventional opportunities blocked, so have to commit further deviant acts.
Typifications
The common sense theories or stereotypes of what a typical deliquent is like.
The Dark Figure of Crime
The difference between the official statistics and the real rate of crime.
Deviancy Amplification
The process whereby attempts to control deviance actually produces an increase in deviance, leading to greater attempts at control and even more deviance. Links to moral panic.
Moral Panic
A wave of public concern about an exaggerated or imaginary threat to society, stirred up by sensationalised media reports.
Disintegrative Shaming
Where not only the crime, but also the criminal is labelled as bad and the offender is excluded from society.
Reintegrative Shaming
The deviant act is labelled as bad, but not the individual that committed it e.g. ‘he has done a bad thing’ rather than ‘he is a bad person.’
Social Cohesion
The idea that people are bound together by shared values
Underclass (Murray)
A dysfunctional class of unemployed, welfare-dependent, inadequately socialised people.
Welfare Dependency
Individuals relying on welfare state benefits for a long period of time rather than seeking employment
Target Hardening
Measures that focus on making it harder to commit crimes in the first place.
Zero Tollerance Approach
An approach which deals with all criminal, deviant or anti-social behaviour immediately.
Individualism
Prioritising the concerns and interest of oneself rather than the group or community to which you belong.
Marginalisation
The process whereby some people are pushed to the edges of society by poverty, lack of education, disability, discrimination etc and face social exclusion
