Ch 4 AI quiz

• Émile Durkheim is the originator of sociology as an academic discipline.
• Durkheim's approach to suicide is relevant to strain theory.
• Suicide rates vary across time and places, similar to crime rates.
• Closeness or lack of closeness to others causes suicide.

Social Solidarity

• Small villages have similar ideas, togetherness, shared goals, and norms.
• Urbanization led to upheavals from small communities and increased mixing of different people and ideas.

The Chicago School/Social Disorganization Theory

• Chicago became a lab for sociologists, leading to ethnographies.
• Concentric ring model maps of Chicago found high crime in ring number 2, the transitional zone.
• Social disorganization, without established institutions that integrate people, leads to higher crime rates.
• A key critique is that they didn’t check if neighborhoods were actually "organized".
• Criminal organizations can contribute to social supports.
• The theory was criticized as racist for suggesting that the mixing of ethnicities creates crime due to differing beliefs.

Collective Efficacy

• Collective efficacy equals social organization.
• It gauges how well a community can unite to address challenges through community organization, moral supports, and trust.

Strain/Anomie Theory

• Robert Merton used Durkheim's concept of anomie to explain crime.
• Strain arises from the discrepancy between culturally defined goals and the institutionalized means to achieve them.
• An example cultural goal is to be a contributing member of society.
• Merton's theory is rooted in the American cultural context, similar to Canadian ideals, often referred to as the "American Dream".
• Anomie occurs when societal organization places strain on individuals, leading to rule-breaking behavior.
• The problem isn't a lack of norms but an inability to meet goals.
• The inability to achieve the "American Dream" causes strain.
• Hard work alone is often insufficient due to other contributing factors such as privilege.
• The dominant goal in many countries is wealth acquisition.
• Hard work and education are supposedly required to achieve material success, which may not always be the case.
• Strain or anomie results when legitimate means for achieving material success are not uniformly distributed.
• Criminals, in this theory, innovate clever paths to achieve goals.
• When cultural goals encourage desires difficult for certain groups to attain, those groups experience strain and are more likely to turn to deviance.
• The main mistake is focusing on money, instead of the goals and norms of your country.
• Long-term focus is on goals such as university, marriage, and children, rather than short-term survival.

Albert Cohen's Take on Strain

• Distinguish whose strain theory is being used.

Juvenile Delinquency

• Classic strain theory is difficult to apply to crimes committed by youth, such as underage drinking, vandalism, or underage driving.
• These actions don't align with cultural goals or the "American Dream."
• Cohen looks at gangs and youth in gangs as their own subculture.
• Youth seek to achieve success within the subculture, not the conventional culture.
• These goals are more realistic for people marginalized from the American Dream.
• Working-class youth struggle in the educational system and turn to delinquent subcultures to gain status.
• Addressing strain to reduce crime involves creating more equally available opportunities.
• One can give people more of an equal playing field.
• One should critically examine the values and goals deemed important.

Critiques of Strain Theory

• It doesn’t explain why rich and powerful people break rules or engage in crime.
• Women are statistically less likely to commit crimes, despite facing more strain than men.

Social Control Theory

• Conformity, not deviance, needs explanation.
• People refrain from deviance due to processes binding them to the social order.

Hirschi and Social Bond/Control Theory

• Individuals with weaker social bonds are more likely to turn to deviance.
• Beliefs about the law can influence.
• Social control theory views society as institutions controlling rule-breaking behavior.
• Broken or weak social bonds can lead to succumbing to egocentric impulses and engaging in crime.

Social Bonds

• Attachments: Emotional ties to and respect for the opinions of groups like family and close friends.
• Commitments: Investment or stake in conforming behavior like school or work.
• Involvement: Being busy with activities minimizes time to commit crimes.
• Beliefs: Loyalty to a value system, including morals, religion, and the legitimacy of the law.
• Education for young people, parents, and authority figures is required.
• Kids turning to crime often come from fragmented families causing stress.
• Fostering healthy, safe home environments is important.
• One should eliminate social divisions and create stronger communities with better social bonds.
• Addressing root inequalities to create better conditions for children is important.
• One can create community, eliminate social divisions, and educate.
• Policy approaches should target schools.

Critiques of Social Control Theory

• It doesn’t account for more serious youth crimes or adult crimes.
• Involvement and strong bonds to conventional society don’t guarantee protection from all forms of crime and deviance.
• It assumes that the four components relate to conforming behavior.
• Social disorganization theory examined community-level controls.
• Crime occurs in "disorganized" communities experiencing high levels of strain/anomie.

Differential Association Theory (Edwin Sutherland)

• People learn how to engage in crime.
• One learns the techniques such as "tricks of the trade" and the rules.
• Learning occurs through interaction with others who have already learned criminal ways.
• What is learned are criminal techniques, motives, attitudes, and rationalizations.
• This can be learned from peers who have more knowledge and experience.
• Edwin Sutherland created the concept of white-collar crime.
• He argued that crime was associated with lower classes.
• He uncovered the existence of white-collar crimes.
• People with common interests stick together, such as opportunities, status, and wealth.
• One acquires a criminal attitude by associating with those who commit crimes.
• Criminal behavior responds to the same cultural needs and values as non-criminal behavior, like wealth and status.
• Exposure to particular definitions (frequency and intensity) at the point of interaction is crucial for explaining criminal activity.
• Symbols indicating criminality include colors, tattoos, and clothing.
• Consequences of being labeled a criminal include a criminal record and social outcasting.
• A criminal record check is often used to ensure the offense doesn’t align with the next activity or to prevent working with children.
• Those with criminal records may face poverty.
• Those who cannot get a job because of their criminal record may turn back to a life of crime.
• This increases strain/anomie, or labeling theory where being labeled a criminal becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Making consequences of labeling less severe (labeling suspensions) is a policy tool being considered.

Labeling Theory (Social Constructivist Approach)

• Some groups or individuals have more power to force the deviant label on the less powerful.
• Deviance is not a quality of an act but a label.
• The accused is sometimes treated like a dangerous animal, influencing jury and judge verdicts.
• How people are portrayed in courtrooms can impact perceptions of guilt or innocence.
• The perp walk is when authorities make a person recreate their "crime" for the media.
• The perp walk makes people think that suspects are guilty before they've been proven guilty.
• Suspects are presumed innocent but treated as if already convicted, meant to please journalists and change social standing.
• Police parade them in front of cameras to humiliate and show they are criminals before conviction.
• Not common in Canada but is common in the US.
• People can be labeled as criminals before conviction.
• The Netflix documentary "American Nightmare" shows that after a couple reported a home invasion and kidnapping, the police accused them of making it up.
• The police found similarities between their story and the movie "Gone Girl."
• The police then apprehended someone responsible, but the couple found the "liar" label hard to shake.
• Notions are created, and when reinforced by powerful interests, they can be hard to shake.
• Response to criminality can lead to more crime.
• Someone commits a minor crime, like smoking weed or shoplifting.
• When they are caught and labeled as a criminal, their life course, opportunities, and identities change.
• People internalize the criminal label and act accordingly, potentially hindering self-correction.

Limitations of Labeling Theory

• Some people commit crimes for a long time in secret without being labeled.
• Primary deviance is the initial act of deviance.
• Secondary deviance is when the label is internalized following societal reaction.
• Mitigating this involves not labeling people too much and providing opportunities to escape the label.

Critical Criminology (Relates to Conflict Theory)

• Think about who is really being served by laws, and criminal justice.
• Some types of crimes are favored, such as white-collar crime.
• People in upper socioeconomic classes aren't punished as much as the poor.
• Theories, with the presumption of male offenders, should apply to females and women.
• Feminist criminology has helped change social attitudes and criminal justice system responses to issues like sexual assault and domestic violence.
• Prior to the late 1960s and early 1970s, criminologists tended to ignore explaining women’s criminality.
• Ideas of female criminality were restricted to the sexual realm or to biological differences.
• Carol Smart (1976) in the UK; Freda Adler (1975), Rita Simon (1975) in the US originated the feminist criminological perspective.
• Since the 1970s, mainstream approaches to explaining crime came under increasing scrutiny and critique based on gender.
• Theories of crime should cut across gender, and ideas about criminals shouldn’t just apply to men.
• Patriarchy has codified women as property of fathers or husbands.
• Changes in the 80s were due to feminist critiques.
• The critiques need to be reemphasized, as it's hard to say how much has changed socially and legally.
• Liberation/emancipation hypothesis links the differences to unequal levels of power.
• Men committed more crimes due to their higher social status.
• It was believed equalizing power between men and women would create more equality in crime rates.
• Data has not supported this theory that women started committing more crimes with increased social status.
• Women committing crimes don't benefit from increased workforce participation or gender balance in the family.
• It is still more focused on marginalized women committing crimes.
• The hypothesis doesn't link criminality onto social status and women don't commit more crime as status changes.

Explaining Gender Variation Through Patriarchy

• Power control theory doesn't ignore gender and includes patriarchy.
• Girls face higher levels of control and internalize this, leading to lasting consequences.
• Households treating girls and boys equally would result in less variation between crimes committed by the genders.
• Parents tend to be more protective towards girls.
• This theory is still relevant and in development.
• More controls = less crime, which means women are more likely to have social bonds and ties they don’t want to threaten.
• Rape and SA were previously treated as a personal matter, and assault charges weren't pressed.
• Rape laws in Canada were renamed and redefined to sexual assault statutes.
• Marital rape was redefined as a crime.
• A lot of evidence was needed to prove rape/SA charges.
• Police responding to "domestic disturbances" often didn't lay charges on the perpetrator and instead charged them as drunk or disorderly.

"Ideal Victim" of Sexual Assault

• Race: Being white is more believable.
• Gender: Being a woman is more believable.
• A coherent person able to express what happened.
• Children allegations.
• Status: Someone who has a high status.
• Seeming morally blameless.
• Physical evidence.
• There is a stereotype of the kind of person who might best benefit from the criminal justice system.
• The more different you are from the ideal, the more difficult it will be to receive help from the police and criminal justice system.
• Women in jail face sexual violence and are unlikely to get help.

Violence in the Home and Family

• Victims aren't willing to come forward.
• Coercive control is criminalized, including abusive behavior without physical abuse.
• Surveillance (location, passwords) can be a big part of this.
• Criminals vs criminalized people.

Pathways Research

• Try to analyze women end up in jail, disrupting the distinction between victims and offenders.
• Most women received abuse and were victims before becoming offenders. Most had been physically or sexually abused before their offenses.
• Victim-offender overlap.
• Criminals' life stories often start with abuse.
• Victimization precedes criminal behavior.
• Feminist theorists have tried to gender crime more broadly, for both men and women.
• Reinforcing manliness includes committing a crime.