Criminology Midterm

an act that violates the criminal law and is punishable by the state.

Violation of norms is called deviance, which occurs when people break the rules.

Societal reaction

• Poor parenting,
• low moral standards,
• and poverty

• politicians
• media

Sensational and oversimplified portrayals of crime by the media

media reports only extra-ordinary crime

pseudodanger plays an important role in society because it takes away the attention of people from bigger issues to smaller crimes.

humans have free will and their behavior is guided by pain-and-pleasure theory. Classical theorists also claimed that criminals can calculate the risks and rewards in any action; therefore, punishment should be suited to the offense, not to the characteristics of a criminal. punishment should be suited to the seriousness of the offense and not to the nature of the offender

the choice to commit crimes is made by an individual whose personality, character, and violent tendencies had been formed through many negative interactions with the environment, although they may be predisposed to crime by their biology. Therefore, providing a positive environment to criminals can help them in reformation. multiple factors. empiracle/scientific

juvenile delinquency could be understood only by considering the social context in which youths lived.

interaction with other persons in a process of communication. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within intimate personal groups.

their impact on formal and informal processes of social control.

In 1925, Burgess presented a descriptive model, which divided cities in a set of six concentric zones. According to this model, neighborhood organization is instrumental in preventing or permitting delinquent careers

In 1893, Emile Durkheim, introduced the concept of anomie to describe an emerging state of social deregulation, which explained how the moral values of people could erode, to they no longer knew what to expect from each other.

• societal factors such as unemployment, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, etc. cause strain and lead to crime. According to this theory, crime can only be explained by examining the structure of society, not the nature of the individual.
• mostly concerned with the difficulties people have in gaining money

• Albert Cohen,
• Richard Cloward,
• and Lloyd Ohlin

as a product of conflict between working and lower-class culture and middle-class values and expectations.

focuses on the relationship between societal reaction and criminal behavior. According to the theorists, criminal behavior is determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify the behavior.



state intervention is dangerously criminogenic and state punishment may have the unanticipated consequence of increasing, if not stabilizing, the criminality of individuals.

• born atavistic
• insane
• occassional- opportunity
• passion- irresistable force

Published each year by the FBI and lists the numbers of various crimes that have become known to the nation’s police departments.

Social Experiences

In the individual's soul, will or body

• Trial by Battle
• Trial by Ordeal
• Compurgation (another swore the person was innocent)

Father of Modern criminology; what sort of creatures are humans?; theology to biology (evolution); categories of criminals;

a set of inter related statements that attempt to explain a phenomenon

random causes > primary deviance > societal reactions > self identity OR material consequence > secondary deviance

• social, economic, political factors contribute:
• atavistic
• insane
• post mental/emotional
• social/family conditions
• habitual from social environment

violation of pity and probity

• contributed criminality to feeble-mindedness
• super ego (conscience) v. ego (anti-social acts > crime)

• certainty
• celerity
• severity

• The movement was troubled by the plight of the urban poor, and argued
• that the poor were pushed by the environment into lives of crime.

they concluded that neighborhood organization was instrumental in preventing or permitting delinquent careers.

• substituted for social disorganization the concept of differential social organization.
• crime is learned
• criminal v. conventional
• 9 propositions

weakening controls make a possible to anticipate a delinquent career

• when urban in the zone of transition families and institutions were strained, if not broken, by rapid and concentrated urban growth, movement mixed ethnic/ racial groups and poverty
• describes neighborhoods in which controls had weakened and criminal traditions rivaled conventional institutions

social groups are arranged differently - some in support of criminal activity and others against it. Sutherland proposed that lawlessness would be more prevalant in those areas where criminal organization had taken hold and where people's actions and values were shaped on a daily basis.

social cohesion among neighbors combines with their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good

• Merton believed it was the key ingredient to crime rather than neighborhood disorganization.
• DEFINED- goal of material success, pursued by all under conditions of open and individual competition

normless, deregulation

According to _____, delinquent gangs and the subcultural values they embrace are concentrated in urban slums.

argued that it is in an extreme form of capitalism, the market economy, in which the pursuit of personal economic gain becomes increasingly the dominant organizing principle of social life.

social change; expand economic opportunity; expand legitimate opportunities

• city grows in concentric rings
• 5 zones
• nature of neighborhoods not individuals regulate crimes

• low class culture
• delinquent subculture
• subculture of nonviolence

• Akers:
• definition
• imitation
• social reinforcement

• private- count on neighbors
• parochial- intervene to prevent delinquence
• public- leader struggle for funds

anomie and strain

• innovation
• ritualists
• retreatist
• rebelious

access to illegitimate means determines types of crimes

• legitimate
• illigitemate
• fail

• expanded types of strain:
• blocking desired goal
• remove positive stimuli
• present negative stimuli
• THEREFORE greater strain= greater adaption

• strain is unjust
• high in magnitude
• cause by and associate will low social control
• pressure/incentive created to engage in crime

• humans=egotistical
• shared values/norms
• regular activity - functional
• society is an organism

• emphasis on cultural goals
• lack legitimate opportunity
• opportunity for illigitimate activity
• illegal activity

• criminal
• conflict
• retreatist