Chapter 6: Crime and Criminal Justice
Terms
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- rules and expectations by which a society guides the behaviors of its members
- Norms
- more serious, moral issue norms
- Mores
- norms formerly created through a society's political system
- Law
- civil law and criminal law
- types of law
- defines legal rights and relationships involving individuals and businesses, involves harms leading to a financial settlement
- civil law
- defines people's responsibilities to uphold public order, involves arrest and punishment
- criminal law
- violation of the criminal laws enacted by federal, state, or local governments
- Crime
- misdemeanors and felonies
- types of crime
- less serious crimes punishable by less than one year in jail
- misdemeanors
- more serious cromes punishable by at least one year in prison
- felonies
- number of police recorded serious crimes each year
- 12 million
- the high numver of crimes and extensive media coverage has led to this becoming a social problem as well
- fear of crime
- ways to measure crime
- UCR, NIBRS, NCVS, and self-report questionnaires
- conducted annually by the FBI, participation is voluntary, little info. on individual crime, criminal, or victim
- Uniform Crime Report
- crime that involves violence or the threat of violence against others
- Part I - Crimes against persons
- crime the involves theft of property belonging to others
- Part I - Crimes against property
- contain most other "lesser" crimes, usually consist of a state count
- Part II offenses
- only the most serious crimes are counted
- hierarchy rule
- developed to address the limitations of the UCR, joint effor of the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics
- National Incident-Based Reporting System
- conducted annually and surveys people about their victimization of the previous year, shows that there could be 2 to 3 times as much crime than recorded
- National Crime Victimization Survey
- surveys given to known offenders asking about their criminal activity, shows that there's a lot that people don't get caught for doing
- Self-report Questionnaires
- the carnal knowledge of a femle forcibly and against her will
- rape
- costs $17 billion a year in losses
- property crime
- most common of UCR Part I crimes
- larceny-theft
- age of criminals
- mostly under 25
- gender of criminals
- men
- social class of criminals
- lower
- race of criminals
- more whites but higher risk for blacks
- violation of the law by young people
- juvenile delinquency
- criminal offense against a person, property, or society motivated by the offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity
- hate crime
- illegal act committed by peopole during the course of their employment or regular business activities, offender is not labeled a criminal
- white-collar crime
- costs of white-collar crime
- $100 billion
- illegal act committed by a corporation or others acting on its behalf
- corporate crime
- knowingly producing faulty or dangerous products
- gross negligence
- business operation that supplies illegal goods and services
- organized crime
- passed to help fight organized crime, allowing authorities to seize property and assets used or acquired in the commission of crime
- Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO)
- offenses that directly harm no one but the person who commits them, violate widespread norms
- victimless crime
- society's organized means to enforce the law through the use of police, courts, and prisons
- criminal justice system
- number of police officers in the US
- 665,000
- 6 factors that guide police
- How serious is crime, what does victim want, is suspect cooperative, does suspect have a record, bystanders watching, suspect's race
- involves officers being more visible in a community, getting to know the local neighborhood
- commuting policing
- policy by which police respond to any offense, regardless of the 6 factors noted earlier
- zero tolerance policing
- how many arrested suspects are released for lack of evidence
- 1/2
- negotiation in which the state reduces defendant's charge in exchange for a guilty plea, how 90% of cases end up
- plea bargaining
- 4 goals of punishment
- retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, societal protection
- moral vengeance by which society inflicts suffering on an offender comparable to that caused by the offense
- retribution
- using punishment to discourage further crime
- deterrence
- individual is discouraged from future crime
- specific deterrence
- everyone is taught a lesson by what happened to the individual
- general deterrence
- reforming the offender to prevent future offenses
- rehabilitation
- protecting the public by rendering an offender incapable fo further offenses through incarceration or by execution
- societal protection
- subsequent offesnes by people previously convicted of crimes
- criminal recidivism
- correctional programs located in society at large rather than behind prison walls
- community-based corrections
- a powerful negative social label that radically changes a person's self-concept and social identity
- stigma
- supervision within the community following conditions such as drug treatment, curfews, employment, etc.
- probation
- brief term in jail, followd by probation
- shock probation incarceration
- releasing inmates early to be supervised in the community, has been scaled back
- parole
- studied physical features of men in prison and concluded that they were physically different, but had no control group
- Cesare Lombroso
- looked at both criminals and non-criminals and found differences in body types, criminals were mesomorphs
- William Sheldon
- supported Sheldon's results but believed that it wasn't body type alone, mesomorphs are more socialized to be bullies
- Gluecks
- investigated abnormal personalities in terms of a boy's moral conscience, asked teachers to identify boys as deliquent and non-delinquent and interviewed the boy and mother
- Reckless and Dinitz
- argued that if crime exists everywhere it must be useful, functionalist
- Emile Durkheim
- 4 ways crime is useful
- affirms society's norms, clarify line btw right and wrong, brings people together, encourages social change
- developed strain theory, functionalist
- robert merton
- developed opportunity structure, becoming a criminal depends on presence of illegitimate opportunity
- Cloward and Ohlin
- developed control theory, asks why doesn't everyone engage in crime
- travis hirschi
- crime is discouraged with social ties, these are the four kinds, functionalist
- attachment to others, committed to conformity, involved in conventional activities, belief in rightness of cultural norms
- developed differential association theory, when deviant behaviors are encouraged, they are likely to occur, interactionism
- Edwin Sutherland
- developed labeling theory, crime results from how others respond to what people do, interactionism
- Howard Becker
- developed primary and secondary deviance, when actions are responded to negatively the person will take on the new status as a deviant, interactionism
- Edwin Lemert
- developed the power of stigma, interactionism
- Erving Goffman
- any chemical substance other than food or water that affects the mind or body
- drug
- drug uses
- therapeutic,recreational, escape, spiritual, or social conformity
- use of any illegal substance or the use of a legal substance in a way that violates accepted medical practice
- drug abuse
- physical or psychological craving for a drug, often involving withdrawal symptoms
- addiction
- state in which a person’s body has adjusted to regular use of a drug
- dependency
- elevate alertness, changing a person’s mood by increasing energy, Caffeine, Nicotine, Cocaine and Crack, Amphetamines, Ritalin
- Stimulants
- slow the operations of the central nervous system, Analgesics, Sedatives, Hypnotics, Alcohol, Antipsychotics
- depressants
- stopping the movement of drugs across the countries borders
- interdiction
- locking up drug dealers
- prosecution
- removing the current criminal penalties that punish the manufacturing, sale, and personal use of drugs
- decriminalization
- regulate drug use,drugs help society operates by easing social interaction or helping people deal with daily demands
- functionalism
- ⬢ Becoming a drug user is a learning process, just like becoming anything else, where progress depends on numerous personal, social, and environmental influences
- symbolic interaction
- drug regulation is just another avenue for the powerful to enforce and protect their interests
- social conflict
- behavior that causes damage to property or injury to people
- violence
- violence carried out by government representatives under the law
- Institutional violence
- violence directed against the government in violation of the law
- Anti-institutional violence
- doesn't cause violence but desensitizes us to it
- violent media