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Chapter One Outline
Criminal Justice: Criminology Theories Helping to Define Crime
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Crime Theory | "A theory of crime attempts to explain why or how a certain thing (or things) is related to criminal behavior. |
| Theory | "A theory is an assumption (or set of assumptions) that attempts to explain why or how things are related to each other." |
| Criminological Theory | "The explanation of criminal behavior, as well as the behavior of police, attorneys, prosecutors, judges, correctional personnel, victims, and other actors in the criminal justice process." |
| Theories Focused on Causation | Classical Theory, Neoclassical Theory, Positivist Theory, and Critical Theory. |
| Classical Criminological Theory | In classical theory, human behavior, including criminal behavior, is motivated by a hedonistic rationality in which actors weigh the potential pleasure of an action against the possible pain associated with it. |
| Cesare Beccaria | Was one of the most influential criminologist during the Age of Reason or the period of Enlightenment. He wrote an Essay on the death Penalty and proposed that labeling murder a crime and committing one in public even with authority was absurd. |
| C.B. The Principle of Utility | His influential knowledge became well known in the establishment of human society. He believed that laws and punishment should be proportional to the crime. He also spoke of punishments of utility “the greatest happiness shared by the greatest number.” |
| C.B Social Contract | An imaginary agreement to sacrifice the minimum amount of liberty necessary to prevent anarchy and chaos. A balanced punishment for punishable crimes. |
| Special or Specific Deterrence | "The prevention of individuals from committing crime again by punishing them." |
| General Deterrence | " The prevention of people in general or society at large from engaging in crime by punishing specific individuals and making examples of them." |
| C.B. Four Ways to Prevent Crime | (1)Educate the public (2) Reward virtue (3) Remove corrupted administration (4) Form clear unbiased laws |
| Neoclassical Theory | A modification of classical theory in which it was conceded that certain factors, such as insanity, might inhibit the exercise of free will. |
| Two Practical Affects Due to Classical Theory Modification | "First, they provided a reason for nonlegal experts such as medical doctors to testify in court as to the degree of diminished responsibility of an offender. Second, offenders began to be sentenced to punishments that were considered rehabilitative." |
| Rational Choice Theory | Modern Version of the Classical Theory and Neoclassical Theory combined. A renewed effort to deter crimes by sentencing more offenders to prison for longer periods of time and, in many jurisdictions, by imposing capital punishment for heinous crimes. |
| Positivism School Key Assumptions | (1)Human behavior is determined and not a matter of free will. Consequently, positivists focus on cause-and-effect relationships (2)Criminals are fundamentally different from noncriminals. Positivists search for such differences by scientific methods. |
| Positivist Approaches to Explaining Crime | Among the founders of positivism was Auguste Comte, who also has been credited with founding sociology. Positive philosophy was an explicit rejection of the critical and “negative” philosophy of the Enlightenment thinkers. |
| Positivist Theory Problems | (1)Overprediction(2) Ignores the criminalization process (3) Consensual worldview (4) Belief in determinism (5) Belief in the ability of social scientists (criminologists) to be objective or value-neutral, in their work |
| Biological Theories | "Biological theories of crime causation (biological positivism) based on the belief that criminals are physiologically different from noncriminals. " |
| Biological Inferiority | "According to biological theories, a criminal’s innate physiological makeup produces certain physical or genetic characteristics that distinguish criminals from noncriminals." |
| Criminal Anthropology | "The study of “criminal” human beings." |
| Lombroso’s Theory Consisted of The Following Propositions: | (1)Criminals by birth, a distinct type.(2)Physical characteristics, or stigmata,(3) Perhaps exists in a person with three to five stigmata,(4)Only indicate an individual who is predisposed to, crime(5) can't desist from crime unless very favorable lives. |
| Lombroso’s Theory | "Certain physical characteristics are indicative of biological inferiority." "...Physical characteristics associated with criminality." |
| Atavist | "A person who reverts to a savage type." |
| Modern Biocriminology | "Ongoing research revealing numerous biological factors associated either directly or indirectly with criminal or delinquent behavior." Including Chemicals, Foods, Exposure, and abnormalities. |
| Limbic System Disorders | "A structure surrounding the brain stem that, in part, controls the life functions of heartbeat, breathing, and sleep. It also is believed to moderate expressions of violence; such emotions as anger, rage, and fear; and sexual response." |
| Chemical Dysfunctions | "Criminal behaviors, believed to be influenced by low levels of brain neurotransmitters (substances brain cells use to communicate). |
| Endocrine Abnormalities | "Criminal behaviors, associated with endocrine, or hormone, abnormalities, especially those involving testosterone (a male sex hormone) and progesterone and estrogen (female sex hormones)." |
| Psychological Theories | "Learning or behavioral theories. ""It must describe a behavior. It must make predictions about future behaviors. " |
| Intelligence and Crime | "The idea that crime is the product primarily of people of low intelligence... " |
| Psychoanalytic Theories | Freuds Theory argued that crime, like other disorders, was a symptom of more deep-seated problems and that if the deep-seated problems could be resolved, the symptom of crime would go away. |
| Psychopaths, Sociopaths, or Antisocial Personalities | "Persons characterized by no sense of guilt, no subjective conscience, and no sense of right and wrong. They have difficulty in forming relationships with other people; they cannot empathize with other people." |
| Humanistic Psychological Theory | "...believes that human beings are motivated by a hierarchy of basic needs."And that believe good people but do bad things because of the society. |
| Biological Theory Update | "The position held by most criminologists today is that criminal behavior is the product of a complex interaction between biology and environmental or social conditions. " |
| A.M. Human Beings Are Motivated by a Hierarchy of Basic Needs | (1)Physiological (food, water, and procreational sex)(2)Safety (3)Belongingness and love (4)Esteem(5)Self-actualization |
| Two General Types of Oppression, | "Objective and Subjective" |
| Subtypes of Objective | (1) social oppression (e.g., oppression resulting from racial discrimination) and (2) the oppression that occurs in two-person interactions (e.g., a parent’s unfair restriction of the activities of a child). |
| Subtypes of Subjective | (1) oppression from within (guilt) and (2) projected or misunderstood oppression (a person’s feeling of being oppressed when, in fact, he or she is not). |
| Sociological Theories | "Sociological theories of crime causation assume that a criminal’s behavior is determined by his or her social environment, which includes families, friends, neighborhoods, and so on. " |
| Collective Conscience | " The general sense of morality of the times." |
| Anomie Theory | "The dissociation of the individual from the collective conscience." |
| Adapting to the Problem of Anomie in One of Several Different Ways | 1.Criminal behavior is learned. 2.The learning of criminal behavior occurs as people interact and communicate with each other. 3.The learning of criminal behavior occurs primarily within familiar personal groups. 3.4 |
| Ilegitimate Opportunity Structure | Things that groups or members depend on having like Opportunities, Money, Drug |
| Imitation or Modeling | "A means by which a person can learn new responses by observing others without performing any overt act or receiving direct reinforcement or reward." |
| Differential Association | "Sutherland’s theory that persons who become criminal do so because of contacts with criminal definitions and isolation from anti-criminal definitions." |
| Learning Theory | "A theory that explains criminal behavior and its prevention with the concepts of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction, punishment, and modeling, or imitation." |
| Positive Reinforcement/Negative Reinforcement | "The presentation of a stimulus that increases or maintains a response."MON "The removal or reduction of a stimulus whose removal or reduction increases or maintains a response." DRU |
| Extinction | "A process in which behavior that previously was positively reinforced is no longer reinforced." |
| Punishment | "The presentation of an aversive stimulus to reduce a response." |
| Social Control Theory | "A view in which people are expected to commit crime and delinquency unless they are prevented from doing so." |
| Bond to Society | (1)Attachment to others(2)Commitment to conventional lines of action(3)Involvement in conventional activities(4)Belief in the moral order and law. |
| Critical Approaches to Explaining Crime | "Critical theories assume that human beings are both determined and determining." "...critical theories assume that human beings are the creators of the institutions and structures that ultimately dominate and constrain them." |
| Labeling Theory | "A theory that emphasizes the criminalization process as the cause of some crime."..."holds that criminal behavior is reinforced when society stigmatizes those who engage in unacceptable behavior." |
| Criminalization Process | "The way people and actions are defined as criminal." |
| Conflict Theory | "A theory that assumes that society is based primarily on conflict between competing interest groups and that criminal law and the criminal justice system are used to control subordinate groups. Crime is caused by relative powerlessness." |
| Power Differentials | "The ability of some groups to dominate other groups in a society." |
| Relative Powerlessness | "In conflict theory, the inability to dominate other groups in society." |
| Radical Theories | "Radical criminologists argue that capitalism is an economic system that requires people to compete against each other in the individualistic pursuit of material wealth. " |
| Class Struggle | "For radical criminologists, the competition among wealthy people and among poor people and between rich people and poor people, which causes crime." |
| Other Critical Theories | British or Left Realism,Peacemaking Criminology,Feminist Theory,Postmodernism |
Created by:
HerikaRivera886