week 10 - sociological positivism Flashcards

1
Q

emile durkheim

A
  • rejected the early positivist view that crime was an inherited deficit and abnormal
  • argued that crime was normal and served as a social function (moral boundaries, social cohesion, etc)
  • anomie (normlessness)
  • ideas regarding anomie are the basis for strain and socil control perspectives within crim
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2
Q

chicago school

A
  • first school of sociology in the US. (1892) at the uni of chicago
  • also rejected the early positivist belief that crime was an inherited genetic deficit
  • argued that crime was the “nature of the neighbourhood” not “the nature of the individual”
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3
Q

social context of the chicago school

A
  • 1830 -> 1930
  • chicago experienced mass immigration from other countries and other parts of the united states
  • coincided with a growing problem surrounding delinquency and crime
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4
Q

(a) strain - merton

A
  • argued that there was a gap between
    1. the cultural goals of american society
    -> accumulation of wealth, status, the “american dream”
    2. access to legitimate means to achieve these cultural goals
    -> education and employment
  • this gap produces a sense of strain and people respond to strain through 5 possible modes of adaptation
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5
Q

(a) strain: modes of adaptation

A
  1. conformity - low risk for crime
  2. innovation - most likely to be a criminal
  3. ritualism - like to do their job, make ends meet
  4. retreatism - want to drop out of society altogether
  5. rebellion - overthrow the current structure
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6
Q

(b) general strain theory - agnew

A
  • argued that merton put too much emphasis on strain experienced by lower classes in society
  • agnew argued that all individuals experience strain and frustration in their day to day life
  • identified 3 sources that people could experience
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7
Q

(b) general strain theory - sources

A
  1. failure to achieve positively valued goals
  2. removal of a positively valued stimuli
  3. presentation of a negative stimuli
    - these strains can lead to frustration, anger, and in some cases, delinquency/crime
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8
Q

strain to crime

A
  1. one of the 3 sources of the strain
  2. anger and other negative emotions
  3. lack of legal coping mechanisms
  4. criminal behaviour
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9
Q

(c) culture of the gang - cohen

A
  • lower class males have the same aspirations as middle/upper class males, but they are unable to compete successfully for social status within schools because of their disadvantaged upbringing
  • respond to status frustration in 3 ways:
    i) failure to meet the “middle class measuring rod”
    ii) results in “status frustration” (strain)
    iii) leads to either delinquent, college, corner boy
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10
Q

(c) culture of the gang - response

A
  1. delinquent boy
    - drops out of school and form delinquent groups where they create a new set of normative values
    - redefine the meaning of social status in terms of those new values (achieve status by being “tough”)
  2. college boy
    - dedicates self to overcome the odds and compete in the middle-class school despite the unlikely chance for success
  3. corner boy
    - responds by accepting his place by accepting his places as a lower class individuals, makes the beest of life at the bottom of the social order
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11
Q

(d) differential opportunity - cloward & ohlin

A
  • built on merton’s idea that lower class individuals lacked access to legitimate opportunity structures (legitimate institutional means)
  • argued that people have differential access to ILLEGITIMATE opportunities as awell
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12
Q

(d) differential opportunity - opportunity structures

A

3 types of illegitimate opportunity structures
- criminal subculture
- conflict subculture
- retreatist subculture

  • add
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13
Q

(d) criminal subculture

A
  • form in lower class neighbourhoods that have an organized structure of adult criminal behaviour
  • adddddd
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14
Q

(d) conflict subculture

A
  • lower class neighbourhoods that have weak stability and little organization
  • few opportunities to learn criminal skills
  • add
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15
Q

(d) retreatist subculture

A
  • exist in both organized and disorganized lower class neighborhoods
  • focus on the consumption of illegal drugs
  • addd
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16
Q

sidenote - control

A
  • control perspectives assume that al people would naturally commit crimes if it wasnt for restraints for their innate selfish tendencies
  • control perspectives try to understand why all people don’t commit crime or deviant behaviour
  • the promary explanation is usually rooted in proper socialization in childhood
17
Q

(a) social bond (hirschi)

A
  • sought to explain why people conformed
  • argued that people can ve socialized to be tightly bonded to conventional activities (family, school)
  • the stronger a person is bonded to conventional society, the less likely they will engage in crime (and vice versa)
    4 types: attachment, commitment, involvement, belief
18
Q

(a) social bond 1: attachment

A
  • how connected we are to parents, teachers, peers, significant others
  • we dont engage in crime because we dont want to damage/lose these close relationships
19
Q

(a) social bond 2: commitment

A
  • investment in conventional activities (education, employment, sports, religion)
  • “stake in conformity” -> what do we have to lose?
20
Q

(a) social bond 3: involvement

A
  • the more time we spend involved in conventional activities, the less opportunity we have for crime
  • “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”
21
Q

(a) social bond 4: belief

A
  • in the law and conventional norms and values
  • the more you “buy into” the law and conventional society, the more likely you are to follow it
22
Q

(b) general theory of crime - gottfredson & hirschi

A
  • low self control could explain “all crime, all the time”
  • self-control develops/fails to develop by 8-10 yrs old
  • after that point, self-control was a stable individual-;eve; characteristics this means that it does not change over time
  • the development of self-control depended on parental socialization:
    i) parents supervising their children
    ii) parents noticing bad behaviour, AND
    iii) parents properly responding to poor behaviour
23
Q

please explain the four elements of the social bond and its relevance to explaining crime

A
  1. attachment - the connections
  2. commitment - what you have to lose
  3. involvement - the more busy you are in other activities, the less time youll have to commit crime
  4. belief -

——- add more from picture

24
Q

social disorganization (chicago)

25
Q

(a) concentric zones (parks and burgess)

A

chicago grew in rings or zones, each with a distinct land use and population
zone 1: central business district
zone 2: zone in transition - most socially disorganized
zone 3: workingmen’s homes
zone 4: residential zone
zone 5: commuters zone
less crime as zones increase

26
Q

(b) social disorganization (shaw and mckay)

A
  • juvenile delinquency rates were highest in the zone in transition and fell as you moved outwards
  • ZIT was characterized by:
    i) poverty
    ii) ethnic heterogeneity
    iii) high population turnover
  • argued that these characteristics led to social disorganization which then leads to crime and delinquency
27
Q

(b) social disorganization -> crime

A
  • social disorganization was characterized as a breakdown in informal social controls
  • for example, social control exercised over children and teens by:
    > family members, adult neighbours, school teachers, religious leaders
28
Q

learning theories (chicago)

29
Q

sidenote - learning

A
  • assume that people learn why and how to commit crime through socialization
  • blank slates -> people are born with no tendency toward or away from committing crime
30
Q

(a) differential association - sutherland

A
  • argued that we learn criminal behaviour just like we learn any other behaviour (tying our shoes, riding a bike)
  • wrote about 9 key propositions, most important of which:
    i) criminal behaviour is learned
    ii) in a process of interaction with other persons through communication
    iii) learning includes techniques, motives and rationalizations
    iv) a person becomes a delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violation of law
31
Q

(a) differential association limitations

32
Q

(b) social learning theory (akers)

A
  • built in the idea that criminal behaviour was learned by specifying exact mechanisms involved in the learning process
33
Q

(c) techniques of neutralization (sykes and matza)

A
  • expanded on sutherlands idea that criminal behaviour is learned, we learn the rationalizations or justifications for engaging in crime
  • people who commit crime know that it is wrong and feel guilty, using 5 techniques of neutralization to justify their behaviour
    1. denial of responsibility - i didnt do it
    2. denial of injury - nobody was hurt
    3. denial of victim - they had it coming
    4. condemnation of the condemners - police and politicians commit crime, too
    5. appeal to higher loyalities - i did it to protect my gang