Chapter 14- Lecture

Question 1

What is criminology?

Answer 1

The body of knowledge regarding crime as a social phenomenon. It includes within its school the process of making laws, breaking laws, and reacting towards the breaking of laws.

Question 2

What is crime?

Answer 2

Designates certain behaviours and actions that require social control and social intervention, codified in law.

Question 3

What is deviance?

Answer 3

Actions that violate social norms, and that may or may not be against the law.

Question 4

Most crimes are understood as___however all___acts are not___.

Answer 4

• deviant
• deviant
• criminal

Question 5

What are some examples of deviant acts that have changed over time?

Answer 5

• divorce
• male hair buns
• female tattoos
• stay at home dads

Question 6

What is the definition of social deviance?

Answer 6

Any acts that involve the violation of social norms

Question 7

What does Howard Becker believe about social deviance?

Answer 7

Not the act itself, rather people’s reaction to the act that makes it deviant.

Question 8

Who defines deviance?

Answer 8

Politicians/government, scientists, religious institutions, media
-media and society attempt to tell us who/what is deviant.

Question 9

What can be understood as both informal and formal social controls?

Answer 9

deviance

Question 10

What are moral entrepreneurs? What are two examples of moral entrepreneurs?

Answer 10

• Raise opposition to a particular social phenomena. Raise a movement against/for something
• Rosa Parks and Louis Riel

Question 11

What is Rational Choice Theory?

Answer 11

Behaviour not the result of supernatural forces, but rather purposeful

Question 12

What did Beccaria and Bentham believe about rational choice theory?

Answer 12

• If crime results in some form of pleasure for the criminal, then paid met be used to prevent crime
• Sentences must be proportionate to the seriousness of the crime

Question 13

What are the four basic believes for Rational Choice Theory (classical criminology)?

Answer 13

1) People have free will to choose criminal or lawful solutions, and thus crime is a rational choice
2) Criminal solutions are seen as more attractive than lawful ones if they require less work for a greater payoff
3) The fear of punishment can control people’s choices
4) A society is better able to control criminal behaviour when criminality is met with: measured severity, certainty of punishment, swiftness of justice

Question 14

What is the biological perspective to crime and criminology (positivism)?

Answer 14

• Application of the scientific method to the social world
• Focused on the individual, assuming that once we identify features that distinguish criminals from non-criminals, then possible to determine how to eliminate criminal behaviour

Question 15

What is biological determinism?

Answer 15

The hypothesis that biological factors completely determine a person’s behaviour (criminality is based on physical traits).

Question 16

What is Cesare Lombroso’s “The Criminal Man”?

Answer 16

Distinguished by an asymmetrical fact, large ears, particular eye defects, etc.

Question 17

What is the overall theme of the biological perspective?

Answer 17

People are born criminal

Question 18

What do sociological approaches to crime seek to do?

Answer 18

Shift the focus of criminology toward a consideration of the environments in which people are located.

Question 19

What is the functionalism approach to crime rooted in?

Answer 19

Emile Durkheim’s notion of anomie

Question 20

How is the notion of anomie applied to crime?

Answer 20

Rules governing behaviour break down resulting in people no longer knowing what to expect from one another. Formlessness leads to deviant behaviour.

Question 21

What is the conflict theory approach to crime?

Answer 21

Crime is the product of class struggle.

Question 22

What does the conflict theory approach to crime focus on?

Answer 22

• The role government plays in creating criminogenic environment. An environment that, as a result of laws that privilege certain groups, produces crime of criminality.
• Also focuses on the role that bias plays in the criminal justice system

Question 23

Which sociological approach believes that criminal law is a tool to protect the interest of the affluent and the powerful?

Answer 23

Conflict Theory

Question 24

What does conflict theory challenge with crime?

Answer 24

Challenge the commonly held belief that law is neutral & reflects the interests of society as a whole.

Question 25

How does symbolic interactionism approach crime?

Answer 25

Criminal behaviour learned through interactions with others.

Question 26

What are the two different symbolic interactionism theories for crime?

Answer 26

Differential Association Theory | Labelling Theory

Question 27

What is Sutherland's Differential Association Theory?

Answer 27

People learn criminal behaviour through social interaction.

Question 28

What is Becker's Labelling Theory?

Answer 28

- Based on actions of others to an individual's act; response leads to the labelling of a person as deviant - No act inherently deviant until g groups with socially powerful statuses labels it as such - Profiling

Question 29

What is an example of labelling theory?

Answer 29

- Profiling | - Ex. Black and Spanish and Muslim people (aura of negativity).

Question 30

What is the feminist theory approach to crime?

Answer 30

Concerned with issues of power, distractions of resources, and seek to explain the gendered nature of crime.

Question 31

How have female criminals been viewed, historically?

Answer 31

As 'sick' or 'pathological'

Question 32

How are women who commit violence constructed?

Answer 32

As 'victime' or 'mad' or 'bad' or all three.

Question 33

What does feminist theory believe is the underlying condition behind certain crimes?

Answer 33

Patriarchy

Question 34

What hypothesis does feminist theory challenge with crime?

Answer 34

Chivalry hypothesis

Question 35

What is the sociology of law?

Answer 35

- Subdiscipline of sociology - Attempts to place law, regulations, specific legal cases, and the administration of criminal justice into a social context

Question 36

Where were principles of Canadian Law adopted from?

Answer 36

Britain

Question 37

What is the Rule of Law?

Answer 37

- No person is above the law, and there should be no arbitrary exercise of state power - Creation, administration, and application of the law based on acceptable procedures that promote fairness and equality

Question 38

Historically, what are the 3 approaches to the law?

Answer 38

1. Consensus 2. Conflict 3. Interactionist

Question 39

What is the consensus view to the law?

Answer 39

- Law is neutral framework for maintaining social cohesion - Definition of crime is a function of norms, morality - Applied fairly and uniformly

Question 40

What is the conflict view of the law?

Answer 40

- Law as a tool to protect the haves from the have-nots | - Protects the property of those in power, suppresses potential political threats to the elites

Question 41

What sth interactionist view of the law?

Answer 41

- Crime and law reflect opinions of people who impose their definitions of right an wrong on the rest of society - How we define what we are willing to accept in society

Question 42

What do critical legal studies focus on?

Answer 42

Contradictions and inconsistencies of the law

Question 43

What do critical legal studies reject?

Answer 43

Notion that law can ever be value-free

Question 44

Why do critical legal studies believe laws exist?

Answer 44

Laws exist as a legitimized way to support the interests of specific classes and groups of people

Question 45

What does critical race theory focus on with law and crime?

Answer 45

Focuses on issues of oppression and discrimination

Question 46

Which theory believes that racism is an embedded feature of modern society?

Answer 46

Critical Race Theory

Question 47

What is critical race theory interested in?

Answer 47

Topics such as racial profiling

Question 48

What actively constructs our sins elf who is "at risk"?

Answer 48

the media

Question 49

What does the media create? What is this?

Answer 49

Create moral panics: the reaction of a group based on the false of exaggerated perception that some groups of behaviour threatens the well-being of society

Question 50

Since 1991, has the crime rate significantly increased or decreased?

Answer 50

Decreased

Question 51

Which province has the highest crime rate?

Answer 51

Saskatchewan

Question 52

What year was the crime rate at its lowest level in more the 25 years?

Answer 52

2011

Question 53

What is Canada's Crime Severity Index (CSI)?

Answer 53

Measures the seriousness of crimes reported to the police.

Question 54

Where were the highest CSI values? Where were the lowest CSI values?

Answer 54

Highest: NWT and Nunavut Lowest: Ontario, New Brunswick, PEI

Question 55

What is notable about the homicide rate?

Answer 55

Remains fairly stable; slight increase in 2011

Question 56

What is the fear-gender paradox?

Answer 56

Men are more likely than women to be victims of crime; women have higher fear of crime

Question 57

What are consequences of women's fear of crime?

Answer 57

Policies such as the Safe Streets Act

Question 58

What does women's fear of crime reinforce?

Answer 58

Women's dependency on men

Question 59

What does women's fear of crime shift responsibility from?

Answer 59

Focusing on risk shift responsibility from the state protecting its citizens to individual being responsible for avoiding risk and risky situations.

Question 60

What can fear of becoming a victim of crime lead to?

Answer 60

Avoidance of outings and interactions which can negatively affect life satisfaction

Question 61

What is/are public order or victimless crimes?

Answer 61

Acts considered to be crimes based on moral principles (prostitution, gambling, pornography, substance abuse).

Question 62

What is Moral Regulation used to describe?

Answer 62

How some behaviours become constituted as immoral and are thereby regulated.

Question 63

What are some examples of moral regulation?

Answer 63

welfare recipients, sex and sexual relationships

Question 64

What is moral regulation perpetuated through?

Answer 64

discourse

Question 65

What affects of perception of crime victims?

Answer 65

moral regulation