Crime SOC
Terms
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- Why is crime a social problem?
- has real effects on peoples health, safety, sense of well being. Victimization can be traumatic, causing people to withdraw from notrmal social/community life. Reducing a communitys cohesion. Can damage families, workplaces, schools.
- who is more likely to be inolved in violent crime? men or women?
- men- as victims and offenders- many believe differential socialiation is the explanatino.
- What are the two sides of criminal causation and responsibility theories?
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one side- rational calculation that takes into account profatability/risk and crime.
- crime will icnrease as social inequality increases
other side- strict law enforcement and harsh prisons will solve problems. - Definition of law
- formal rules about what members can and cannot do
- definition of crime
- when law is broken
- anomie
- according to durkheim, a condition characterized by a breakdown of norms and personal disorganization, which may lead to crime.
- clientelism
- a special relationship in which someone of influence or wealth continues to protect a subordinate client; seen traditionally as a single wealthy family or individual hiring socially or econmically vulnerable wage labouroers
- crime
- any behavior that, in a given time and place, is prohibited by applicable statuory law. When a law is violated, a crime is said to have been committed.
- detterence
- a justice system base on detterence assumes that crimes are rational acts in which the offender weighed the perceieved benefits of committing the crime against the probability of being cauught and the severity of the punishment.
- differential socialization
- the processes whereby individuals learn to behave in accordance with prevailing standards of culture or gender. eg. boys and men learn to be less inhinited in using agressive and violent actions, and this may account for the diproportionate number of males involved in crimial activity.
- homicide
- the killing of a human being by another, directly or indirectly, by any means; includes muder. eg0- the unlawful killing of another human being with malicious intent, and manslaughter, the unlawful killing of another person wihtout sufficient intent to constitue murder.
- laws
- orderly and dependeble sequences of events, or rules of conduct that may proide for the punishment of violators. in other words, the formal rules about what a societys members can and cannot do
- self reporting
- the victim reports to authorities that a crime has occured. This is the most direct method of measuring crime rates. However it is not the most accurate, as changes in the crime rate rreflect changes in victimes willingness to report
- social bond theory
- the uncertain and unpredictable condition in which rules are not obeyed. It is generally unsafe, and the boundaries of acceptable behavior have broken down.
- social order
- the prevelance of generally harmonious relationshipsl use synonymously with social organization. This condition exists when rules are obeyeand social intisuttions are controlled and predictable
- strain theory- anomie theory
- merton holds that strainis produced when social structure prevents people from achieving culturally defined goals through legitimate means. He outlines various adaptive strategies: conformity, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion, and innovation. Innovation is most commonly associated with criminal activities, which include theft, robbery, tax fraud, embezzlement, and organized crime
- subculture theory
- investigates the norms that set a group apart from mainstream society. Specifically, this approach gives special insight into subculture of the criminal, looking in to the values and belief systems that may ne conductive to delinquent and criminal action.
- vice crimes
- devient behavior that may be defined as immoral- eg gambling, prostitution, drug trafficking. These crimes provide the greatest opportunity for organized crime.
- victimazation surveys
- samples of people are asked how many times within a given time period that they have been the victim of particular crimes.
- white collar crimes
- the crimes commited by white worekrs and management in the course of their occupations. They are always distinguished from conventional criminal offences such as robbery or murder.