CRJS Exam #2 PDF

Unit #2 Key Terms & Concepts Adolescence-limited: Type of offender (the majority of young offenders) who does not have a childhood history of antisocial behaviour, but engages in this behaviour only in adolescence, only inconsistently, and only when it is rewarding and/or profitable to do so. Androg...

Unit #2 Key Terms & Concepts Adolescence-limited: Type of offender (the majority of young offenders) who does not have a childhood history of antisocial behaviour, but engages in this behaviour only in adolescence, only inconsistently, and only when it is rewarding and/or profitable to do so. Androgynous: Describes terms that are assumed to refer to both males and females (e.g., “gangs”). Anomie: A term coined by Emile Durkheim, referring to a state of “normlessness,” or one with no rules. Antisocial Personality: Psychological classification of people with traits of impulsivity, insensitivity to their own pain or the pain of others, and a lack of guilt or remorse. Behaviourism: A branch of psychology based on a set of behavioural principles first developed by B.F. Skinner. Care Ethic: An ethical or moral standard based on nurturing attitudes of caring for the welfare and well-being of others. Chivalry Hypothesis A belief that crime rates are lower for women and girls because people are less likely to view their behaviour as criminal. Classical School of Criminology: The school of thought that assumes people are rational, intelligent beings who exercise free will in choosing criminal behaviour. Cognitive Having to do with mental processes and how we develop knowledge about and understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Conditioned: In behaviourist theory, refers to behaviours that have been patterned to repeat or stop by a regime of rewards or punishments. Consensus Theory: In criminology, it refers to a group of theories based on a fundamental assumption that people are essentially law-abiding. Concept: A general abstract term that refers to a class or group of more specific terms (e.g., “crime” refers to any number of specific behaviour). Control Theory: Refers to a group of theories premised on an assumption that people will operate on the basis of self-interest unless constrained. Criminal Event An event involving the convergence of a motivated offender, a suitable target or targets, and the absence of controls. Criminalization: The process whereby a person or group comes to be officially and/or publicly known as a “criminal.” Critical Perspectives on Crime: Refers to the group of theories that begins with the assumption that structures of power and oppression are the source of crime (i.e., race, class, gender, and, to some extent, age structures in society). Decarceration: The practice of moving individuals from institutional settings into community facilities and programs. Deconstruction: A method of interpreting texts, movies, TV programs, and other cultural symbols and practices. Delinquent Subculture: A concept used in early criminology theory to explain youth crime. Developmental Theory: Focuses in the states of development and posits inadequate development or failure to progress to higher states in explaining criminal and delinquent behaviour. Empirical: An adjective describing knowledge that is based on observation, experience, or experiment rather than on theory or philosophy. Eugenics: A branch of science based on a belief in genetic differences between groups that result in superior and inferior strains of people. Fact: In everyday terms, a fact is usually something that is considered to be true. In a scientific sense, a fact is something that has been established through the research process. Human Ecology: A branch of behavioural science that examines the relationship between people and their physical environment. Interactional Theory: Posits that relationships between delinquent behaviour and other variables are not unidirectional, but rather are bidirectional. Life Course-persistent: Type of offender (about 5 percent of young offenders) who begins with childhood biting and hitting at around age 4, and whose behaviour escalates and continues to such adulthood offences as violent assault; spouse battery and abandonment, neglect, or abuse of children. Life Course Theory: The theory that children undergo a succession of role and status changes as they grow older. Oppression: The negative outcome experienced by people due to physical force by an oppressor or structural arrangements (e.g., laws and political policies) that remove or restrict their rights. Patriarchy: A set of structural relations that creates, reinforces, and perpetuates male dominance and control over women. Positivist: An 18th-century philosophical, theoretical, and methodological perspective positing that only that which is observable through the scientific method is knowable. Postmodernists: Those who reject or challenge all that has been considered to be modern. Power: The ability of a person or group to force others to do what they wish. Power-control Theory: Attempts to explain class and gender differences in delinquency by the structure of family relations, whether egalitarian or patriarchal. Research: A systematic process of information gathering, analysis, and reporting of findings. Role Theory: Attempts to explain behaviour by understanding the processes whereby individuals acquire and become committed to deviant roles. Semiotics: The study of signs and symbols. Social Bond: The social ties that hold people together; cause people to care about each other. Social Capital: Investments in institutional relationships such as family, work, and school. Social-Capital Theory: The theory that people possess varying degrees of useful and valuable social resources (e.g., supportive family and neighbours and an education for good grades in school). Social-Learning Theory: Attempts to explain crime and delinquency through notions of imitation and modeling. Social Order: Refers to assumptions about society as being free of disorder. Theory: An integrated set of propositions that offers explanations for some phenomenon. Study Questions: Describe positivism and provide a general description of empirical relationships, with particular attention paid to causal relationships and the post-modern critique. Positivism: Auguste Comte, the founding father of sociology, was among the first to argue that society could best be understood by applying the scientific method to its study. They assumed that human behaviour is determined by natural laws. What differentiates such positivist thinkers from other scientific thinkers is the assumption that behaviour is determined by some factor or factors beyond the control of the individual. Casual Relationships: Three conditions have to be met before causality can be established. First, it has to be established that there is a relationship between concepts both within and among the propositions that constitute a theory. Second, a time priority has to be established between these concepts; the cause has to come before the effect. A third criterion for determining causality concerns “spuriousness.” This refers to whether we can be certain that there is no other “causal” related factor. Postmodern critique: Postmodernists, those who reject or challenge all that has been considered to be modern take the position that even scientific knowledge, including academic theory, has no more claim to “truth” than taken-for-granted understandings. Identify the key differences between major disciplinary explanations of youth crime and delinquency, with emphasis on biological, conflict, psychological, and sociological explanations. Biological Positivism: a theory or approach that takes an individual's characteristics and behavior that make up their genetic disposition is what causes them to be criminals. Biological positivism in theory states that individuals are born criminals and some are not. - - Types of People: Delinquents were believed to be people who could change their ways if they received the right sort of guidance. Defectives were believed to have limited abilities and in some cases to be “feebleminded,” and thus were not held responsible for what they did. Dependants were seen as people (not unlike children) whose well-being depended on the assistance of others. “Types of people” views grew in popularity at the turn of the century and were bolstered by eugenics studies. People who were considered to be defective, inferior, or feebleminded were sterilized to prevent them from having children. The Born Criminal: Lombroso argued that criminals and non-criminals were at different stages of evolutionary development and physical features of convicted criminals constituted the “evidence” for the theory that some people were quite simply born criminals. Delinquents were believed to be people who could change their ways if they received the right sort of guidance. Defectives were believed to have limited abilities and in some cases to be “feebleminded,” and thus were not held responsible for what they did. Dependants were seen as people (not unlike children) whose well-being depended on the assistance of others. The categories were not just reserved for juveniles—adults could be delinquents also. Hence, at the time, it was necessary to differentiate “juvenile” delinquents from other delinquents. Conflict: Psychological Positivism: Psychological theories did not develop until the 20th century. These theories focus on the development of antisocial characteristics to explain criminal and delinquent behaviour and stress environmental impacts on the formation of antisocial characteristics. There are six groups of psychological theories on criminal and delinquent behaviour: psychoanalytic theories (Freud), behaviouristic explanations (B.F. Skinner), social learning theory (Albert Bandura), moral development theory (Jean Piaget), personality theory, and antisocial personality theory. Psychology, with its focus on the individual, has had more impact on how we work with young people once they have been convicted or apprehended by the police. Sociological Positivism: Sociology did not develop as a discipline until the latter part of the 1800s; their main concern was to discover what it is about the environment that affects an individual’s behaviour. In addition, sociologists were among the first to develop explanations of delinquency and not just criminal behaviour. Because of its focus on the environment, sociological theory has had a considerable influence on social policy, delinquency-prevention projects, and the manner in which young offenders are processed through the justice system. Understand important perspectives and theories of youth crime and delinquency prior to 1960 Behaviourism: is one of the most widely used explanations of crime and delinquency. It suggests that people break the law because they can do so and not be punished and this idea is reminiscent of the classical school notion that punishment must fit the crime if crime is to be stopped. Behaviourists have attempted to explain how people learn to behave in particular ways and argue that a person’s environment shapes or conditions her or his behaviour. Social disorganization describes a condition in which: Controls that would prevent delinquency are absent; Parents and neighbours may actually approve of certain delinquent behaviours; Opportunities for delinquency are numerous; and There is little opportunity for or encouragement toward employment Anomie: Closely related to social disorganization is anomie, a concept that was first formulated by Durkheim. Anomie refers to a state of “normlessness” in which rules and regulations are no longer sufficient to control social behaviour. Strain theory (Robert Merton): Assumes that children are basically good and engage in delinquent activity only when faced with undue pressure or stress. Thus, conformity is the normal state of affairs; what needs explaining is why people would deviate or why children would be delinquent. Differential Opportunity: Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin saw delinquency as a lower-class urban behaviour and developed the differential opportunity theory to explain delinquent behaviour. They recognized that some youth have access to “illegitimate” opportunity structures. If young people are denied access to legitimate opportunity structures or are unable to achieve success in legitimate ways, they will try to gain access to illegitimate opportunity structures. The Delinquent Subculture: Albert Cohen’s study of lower-class youth was chiefly concerned with gang delinquency. Cohen argued that delinquent behaviour is a “reaction formation” to the frustration of being a lower-class youth in a middle-class world. In this regard, delinquent behaviour is a group activity that offers a solution for lower-class youth. The delinquent subculture (gang) is a group solution to the frustration of being unable to achieve middle-class goals. Differential Association: According to Edwin Sutherland, delinquent behaviour is learned behaviour, or behaviour that is learned by interacting with others who are delinquent. What is learned are the techniques, motivations, attitudes, and definitions that permit people to break the law. Sutherland presented his theory of differential association through a series of principles; two are of particular significance: (1) a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favourable to violation of law over definitions unfavourable to violation of law; (2) criminal and non-criminal behaviours are expressions of the same general needs and values. Drift and Delinquency: Matza argued that delinquents are not much different from non-delinquents in terms of their values; hence, they are not firmly committed to delinquent behaviour. Matza argued that delinquent behaviour is situational rather than learned; in other words, it is particular situations and circumstances that lead to delinquent behaviour. Techniques of Neutralization: Sykes and Matza suggest that there are five defence mechanisms, or “techniques of neutralization,” that young people use to rationalize, justify, or excuse the negative aspects of their delinquent behaviour. Denial of responsibility occurs when young people refuse to accept any responsibility for their behaviour and blame others instead. Denial of injury occurs when a youth insists that no one was hurt in any way (e.g., “The store owner is too rich to notice a loss on. Denial of the victim occurs when a young person argues that the victimization was deserved in some way. Condemnation of the condemners refers to the argument that those in authority are hypocrites. Appeal to higher loyalties occurs when a young person argues that his or her motivations were essentially honourable. Class Culture: Walter Miller focused on cultural factors as he tried to identify characteristics of lower-class life that gave rise to delinquent behaviour. The problems experienced by lower-class youth begin with the family structure—primarily a female-headed household. This arrangement forces boys to join all-male peer groups, or “one-sex peer units.” It is within these peer groups that boys learn the characteristics, or “focal concerns,” of lower-class culture that generate delinquent behaviour. The Social Bond: Young people with attachments to parents, schools, and other agents of socialization are less likely than those without such attachments to become delinquent. Hirschi argued that attachment to peers is a deterrent to delinquent behaviour; delinquents, he believed, tend to be socially isolated. Identify and explain criminological theories of youth crime and delinquency after 1960, including: labelling theory; liberal and radical traditions of conflict theory; critical perspectives; and integrative, interactional, life-course, and developmental criminology. LABELLING THEORY: Play and Delinquency: For Tannenbaum, the best adult response to delinquent behaviour is to do nothing. Conflict that develops between a child’s play group and the community is what turns play into delinquent or criminal behaviour. More specifically, adults in the community become annoyed or angered by what children are doing and respond by trying to control or stop the activity. If children begin to resent adult interference and start to act in a defiant manner, adults will define them as bad. Being labelled will isolate these children from the community and from other children; in their isolated state, they will come to accept themselves as different and be encouraged to engage in more delinquent behaviour. Types of Deviance: Lemert argued that there are two types of deviance: primary and secondary. Primary deviance is the initial act; things that would likely be considered deviant if they were known about by others. Secondary deviance refers to the behaviours that a person develops as a result of societal responses to their primary deviance. Once discovered, a person may find it very difficult to behave or be seen as anything other than deviant precisely because their deviance is known to others. The person may begin to develop a self-concept as a deviant and act accordingly. The transition from primary to secondary deviance involves an interactive process between the person and societal reactions to both the person and their behaviour. Societal Response: According to Becker, acts are not deviant until they are so defined and deviance is not inherent in an act, but rather is created by responses to the act. The process whereby people become delinquent begins with attaching a label to a person in response to his or her behaviour. Once attached, the label (deviance) is a “master status,” meaning that no matter what their other qualities are, a person who has been labelled will be seen and responded to as a deviant. Edwin Schur (1973) called an aspect of the labelling process “retrospective interpretation”- once a person’s deviance is discovered, people reinterpret all of their past actions in light of the new information. CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY AND CONFLICT THEORY Conflict theory emphasizes law and begins with the assumption that conflict is the natural state of affairs in society and that order is possible only because one group has the power to impose its view, interests, values, or culture on another. According to conflict theory, power is an important component in society, and one that must be considered in any attempt to explain criminal or delinquent behaviour. This perspective leads to a focus on laws, law-making, the administration of law, and the impact of law on various groups of people, most often the marginalized. Some conflict theories have been influenced by Max Weber (liberal conflict theory), while others draw on the ideas of Karl Marx (radical conflict theory). Liberal Conflict Theory: The rules governing a cultural group, also known as “conduct norms” in heterogeneous societies that have more than one culture, will have more group conflict than homogeneous, or single-culture, societies. The dominant cultural group in a heterogeneous community will be the group with the most power and resources. When the normative behaviour of one group violates the normative behaviour of a group that has the power and resources to codify its conduct norms into law, the result is criminalization of the weaker group. Sometimes, groups of people become criminalized through media coverage of crime issues and all individuals from these groups are perceived to be “criminal suspects.” One theory within the liberal conflict tradition argued that value conflicts that are perceived as threatening to those in authority will lead to less powerful groups being identified as criminal or delinquent. Hence, juvenile “gangs” who openly appear in conflict with police will have their behaviour defined as criminal or delinquent. Radical Conflict Theory: Marx and Engels work forms the theoretical basis of radical conflict theory. According to radical conflict theory, capitalism is the root cause of crime. Capitalist society is composed of two major classes: the bourgeoisie, who control the means of production, and the proletariat, who sell their labour to the bourgeoisie. In capitalist society, conflict is inherent between the two major classes, and the criminal justice system is but one means used by the bourgeoisie to control the proletariat. Young people are at greater risk of being involved in criminal activities because the age structure of capitalist society forces them into economic dependency. Particularly at risk are working-class youth who are excluded from all but the most degrading and low-paying jobs. As a result of their economic dependency, young people are particularly likely to commit property crime. Delinquency is a product of capitalist society created by a drive for the profit on which capitalism depends. Profits are increased through technology or the introduction of machinery. Because young people are the least skilled or experienced workers, they are more likely than older workers to be displaced by new technology or machinery. Once out of the labour force, young people become increasingly dependent on school and family; they become prototypic marginals. Those young people who are not supported by their families or who are unable to adapt to school life are at particular risk of becoming involved in delinquent behaviour. SOCIAL CONTROL AND SOCIAL LEARNING Self-Derogation Theory: Howard Kaplan’s self-derogation theory focuses on self-esteem and combines elements of social-learning theory, control theory, strain theory, and labelling theory. Kaplan argued that we are all motivated to maximize our self-esteem and that our motivation to conform will be minimized by family, school, and peer interactions that devalue our sense of self. If these interactions are self-defacing, then the social control usually exercised in these groups will be ineffective. To the extent that a young person becomes aware of delinquent activities and feels that this behaviour will be self-enhancing, they will be attracted to delinquent groups. Involvement in delinquency will continue as long as the deviant group continues to meet the individual’s need for positive self-evaluation. Integrated Theory: Delbert Elliott theory integrates strain theory, social bonding, and social-learning theory and argues that anomie, combined with social disorganization and inadequate socialization, sets the stage for weak bonds with social institutions. These weak institutional bonds lead to stronger bonds and greater associations with delinquent peer groups within which the learning of delinquent behaviour is enhanced. Interactional Theory: Argues that social class, race, and community and neighbourhood characteristics affect social bonds and social learning variables. While weakened bonds are the key to delinquent behaviour, the bonds themselves are not enough to produce or prevent delinquency. Rather, delinquency has to be learned and reinforced. Interactional theory (1) does not assume that variation in the strength of the bond just happens; this variation is systematically related to structural variables such as social class position and residential area; (2) argues that causal influences vary at different developmental stages and at different stages of criminal careers; (3) does not assume that causal influences are overwhelmingly unidirectional and that delinquency is merely an outcome variable. Many effects are bidirectional, and delinquency may contribute to the weakening of social bonds as well as being a consequence of weakened social bonds. Theory of Differential Oppression: This theory views some aspects of social control as oppressive. It defines oppression as the unjust use or misuse of authority, which “often results from attempts by one group to impose its conception of order on another group.” People who are subject to oppressive measures of control are made into “objects” or are viewed as “things.” As a result, they come to view themselves as objects rather than subjects; they become passive and accepting rather than active subjects who exercise autonomy and control over their own lives. Lifecourse Theory: Lifecourse theory posits that children undergo a succession of role and status changes as they grow older. Applied to crime, the theory takes a contextual approach. It looks at criminal behaviour in the context of the course of life, which is characterized by transitions (short-term changes) and pathways, or trajectories (long-term trends or patterns). Lifecourse theory connects family, friends, and school to youth crime by integrating aspects of social-capital theory. Social-Capital Theory: Social capital refers to investments in institutional relationships, such as family, work, and school. It argues that weak social bonds mean a lack of social capital and that explaining crime involves identifying the characteristics of social relations that facilitate or impede the development or accumulation of social capital. Developmental Criminology: This perspective borrows the concepts of pathways to delinquency from lifecourse theory and basically seeks to explain offender careers and how they develop in relation to age. One of the first such models, a typology, came from the work of Moffitt, based on the observation that antisocial behaviour changes across the lifecourse as age and circumstances alter opportunities for such behaviour. Lifecourse Persistent & Adolescent-Limited: Moffitt identified two main groups of offenders in childhood and adolescence: lifecourse-persistent and adolescence-limited. As the term implies, the lifecourse-persistent offender, representing only about 5 percent of young offenders, begins with childhood biting and hitting at around age 4, and his or her behaviour escalates and continues to such adulthood offences as violent assault; spouse battery; and abandonment, neglect, or abuse of children. The adolescence-limited offender, constituting the majority of young offenders, does not have a childhood history of antisocial behaviour; they engage in this behaviour only in adolescence, only inconsistently, and only when it is rewarding and/or profitable to do so.