Chapter 4 Crime – Flashcards

Rational choice theory has its roots int eh classical school of criminology developed by the eighteenth-century Italian social thinker Cesare beccaria. James Q. Wilson observed that people who are likely to commit crime are unafraid of breaking the law because they value the excitement and thrills of crime, have a low stake in conformity, are are willing to take greater chances than the average person.

Law-Volating behavior is the product of careful thought and planning. people who commit crime believe that the rewards of crime outweigh the risks. If they think they are likely to get arrested and punished, people will not risk criminal activities. Before choosing to commit a crime, reasoning criminals carefully select targets, and their behavior is systematic and selective. Rational choice theorist view crime as both offense and offender- specific.

Criminal consider their needs and capabilites before commiting crimes. One important decision that is amde before someone enters a life crime is the need for money. Personal experience may be an important element in structuring criminality. Before commiting crimes, criminals report, they actually learn techniques to help them avoid dection while making profits.

Criminals carefully choose wehre they will commit their crime. Evidence of rational choice may be found in teh way criminal slocate their targets. Rational choice involves both shapping criminality and structuring crimine. if a target appears dangerous, they will choose another

There is evidence that theft-realted crimes are the product of careful risk assessment, in-cluding environmental, social and structural factors. Target selection seems highly rational. Even drug use is controlled by rational decision making. Users reoport that they begin taking drugs when they believe the benefits of substance abuse outwiegh its costs. Evidence confirms that even violent criminals select suitable targets by picking people who are vunerable and lack adequate defnses. In some instances, targets are chosen in order to send a message rather than to generate a captail.

in his book seductions of crime, Jack katz argues that there are immediate benefits to criminality. According to Katz, choosing crime can help satisfy personal needs. Kats finds that crimes can help soothe the strain produced by emotional upheavel. People are most likely to to be "seduced" if they fear neither the risk of apprehension nor its social consequences.

Situational crime prevention involves developing tactics to reduce or eliminate a specific crime problem. These include tactics to increase the effort required to commit crime, such as putting unbreakable glass on store fronts, locking gates, and fencing yards. It can also involve increasing the risks of crime through better secuirty efforts reducing the rewards of crime is designed to lessen the value of crime to the potential criminal. Crime may be reduced or prevented if can communicate to people the wrongfulness of their behavior and how it is harmful to sicety. Crime may be reduce by making it difficult for people to exucse their criminal behavior by saying things like " i didnt know that was illegal" or "i had no choice"

The developer of rational classical criminoly. "on crimes and punishment" which he called for fair and certain punishment to deter crime. He believed people are egotistical and self-centered, and therefore they must be motivated by the fear of punishment, which would make them want to obew the law. (A) People choose all behavior, including criminal behavior (B) Their choices are designed to bring them pleasure and reduce pain (c) Criminal choices can be controlled by fear of punishment (D) Th emore severe, certain, and swift the punishment, the greater is ability to control criminal behavior Believed that punshiment must be proportiaonl to the seriousness of the crime: If a criminal knows they are going to get the same punishment they are going to do the extereme thing..

If petty offense were subject to the same punishment as more serious crimes, offenders would choose the more serious crime because the resulting punshiment would be about the same.

Socialprocess theories view criminality as a function people interaction wih various organizations, institutions, and processes in society. Poeple in all walks of life have the potential to become criminals if they maintain destructive social relationships, improper socialization is a key component of crime.

Social learning theory stresses that people learn how to commit crimes and suggests that people learn criminal behaviors much a they learn conventional behavior social control theory analysis the failure of society to control criminal tendencies. Social reaction (labeling) theory maintains the negative labels produce criminal careers.

Kids growing up in troubled families are crime prone. Parental efficacy reduces crime. Divorce can strain families. School failure is linked to delinquency. Dropping out may influence later criminality. School violence and conflict are also problems.

delinquent peers sustain individual offending patterns. Delinquent friends may help kids neutralize the fear of punishment. The greater the exposure to delinquent peers, the greater the likelihood of criminal behavior.

People with high moral standards can resist crime. Church attendance is related to low crime rates. hte more people attend religoious services, the less likely they will engage in antisoical behaviors

Diffferential association thoery was formulated by edwin sutherland. It holds that criminality i sa result of a persons perceiving an ecess of definiations in favor of crime. Gresham sykes and david matza created the theory of neutralization. Which stresses that youths learn mental techniques that enable them to overcome soietal values and drift into delinquency.

Control theory maintains that all people have the potential to become criminals, but their bonds to conventional society prevent them from violating the law. This viw suggest that a person's self-concept aids his or her commitment to conventional action. Travis hirschis's social control theory describe the social bond as containg elements of attachement, commitment, involvement, and belief. Weakened bonds allowe youths to behave antisocially

Social reaction or labeling theory holds that criminality is promoted by beomcing negatively labeled by significant tohers. Such labels as "criminal" "excon" and "junkie" isolate people from society and lock them into lives of crime

Labels create expectations that the labeled person will act in a certain way, laveled peopel are always watched and susspened. Eventually these people begin to accept their labels as personal identities , locking them further into lives of crime and eviance. Edwin lemert suggest that epople who accept labels are involved in secondary deviance while primary deviants are able to maintain an undamaged identity.

Social process theorieshave greatly influnced social policy. They have been applied in treatment orientations as well ascommunity action policies. Some program teach kids conventionl attitudes and behaviors . Others are designed to imporve the social bond they have wiht paretns and teachers.

crime can be controlled by increasing the real or percieved threat of of criminal punishment. According to detterance theory not only does the actual chance of punihsment influence criminality, so too does the perception of punishment influence crimnality. a central theme of detterence theory is that people who percieve they will be punished for crimes will avoid doing those crimes. according to general detterence theory, if the certanity of arrest, conviction, an dsanctioning increases, crime rates should decline. the threat of severe punishment should also bring the crime rate down. the faster punishment is applied and the more closely it is linked to the crime the more iekly it will serve as a detterant. The factors of severity, certanity, adn speed of punishment may alson influnce one another.

The theory of specific deterrence holds that crominal sanctions hsould be so powerful that known criminal will never repeat their criminal acts. Research on speciic detteraend does not provide any clear-cut evidence that punishing criminals is an effective menas of stopping them from cmmmiting future crimes. Punishment may bring defiance rather than detterence. People who are harshly treateed may want to show that they cannot be broken by the system. The stigma ofharsh treatmentleables people and helps lock offenders into a criminal career instead of convining them to avoide one

The more criminals are sent to prision. The more the crime rate should go down. Placing offenders behind bars during their prime crime years should reduce their lifetime opportunity to commit crime the shorter the span of oppurnitity, the fewer offenses they can commit during their lives: hence, crime is reduced. However, there is little evidence that incapacitating criminals will deter them from future criminality nd reason to belive they may be more inclined to commit even more crimes upon release.

The strategy is aimed at convinc would be criminal sto avoid specfic targets, it relies on teh docrine that crime can be avoided it motivated offenders are denied acces to suitable targets Operationalizations of this stragtegy are home secuirty systems or guards, whihc broadcast the message that

These strategies are aimed at making potential criminal fear the consqeunces of crime. The threat of punishment is menat ot convince rational criminal sthat crime does not pay. Opertionalizations of these stragites are that criminals do not fear punishment and the certanity of arrest and punishment is low.

This strategy refers to punishing known criminals so severely that they will never betempted to repeat their offenses. If crime is ratins, then painful punihsment should reude its future allure harsh prison and stiff fines a probelm with this strategy is that punihsment may increase reoffending rates rather than deter crime

these strategies attempt to reduce crime rates by denying motivated offenders the opportunity to commit crime. If, despite the threat of law and punishment, some people still find crime attractive, then the only way to control their behavior is to incarcerate them for extended periods. Operationalizatoins of these strategies ar elong prision sentences, placing more people behind bars. A problems with these strategies is that people are kept in prison beyond the years they may commit crime. MInor, nondangerous pffemders are also locked up, and this is a very costly strategy.

The major premise of the theory is that crime, especially violence, is a fucntion of diet, vitamin intake, hormonal imbalance or food allergies. Strengths of the this theory is that it exxplains irrationall violence: it shows how the enviroment interacts with personal traits to incluence behavior

The major premise of the theory is that criminals and delinguees offten suffere brain imparment

Unconcscious biological drives requires instant gratification

Helps the personality refine the demands of the ID: helps person adapt to conventions

The moral aspect of the personality

The view that criminal shave physical or mental traits tha tmake them different began with the italian physcian and crominoglist Cesare Lombroso. In the early 1970s, spurred by the publication of sociobiology: the new synthesis, by edmund o.willson, biological explanations of crime once again emerged. Trait therists today recognize that crime-producing interactions involve both personal traits and enviromental factors. if only a few offeenders become presistent repeaters, what sets them apart from the rest of criminal population may be some crimeproducing trait.

Bichemical conditions inflence antisocial behavior. Biocriminiolist maintain that an impromper diet can cause chemical and mineral imbalance and lead to cognitive and learning deficits and problems, and htese factors in turn are associated with antio social behaviors. Abnormal levels of male sex homrones ( androgens) can produce aggressive behavior. Exposure to lead has been linked ot emotional and behavioral disorders.

inherited or acquired neurologistial and physical abnormalites control behavior thorughtou the life span. neurolgical impairment may also lead to the development of personality traits linkd to antisocial behaviors. according to arousal theory, a need for high levels of eveironmental stimulation may lead to agggressive, violent behavior patterns.

Another biosocial theme is that the human traists associated wiht criminality have a genetic basis. 1. Antisocial behaviro is inherited 2.The genetic makeup of parents is passed on to children 3.Genetic abnormality is linked to a variety of antiosal behaviors

Human traits tha tproduce violence and aggression hav ebeen advanced by the long process of human evolution. According to eveolutionary theroy, behaviro patterns are inherited, impulsive behavior becomes intergenerational, passed down from parents to children

The id is primate part of peoples mental makeup, the ego is shaped by learning and experiance, and the supergo reflects the morals and values of parents and signifcant others. Criminal are ID-driven people who from weak or damaged EGOs. Crime is a manifestaivaiton of eelings of opperession and the inability to develop the proper psychology defenses and rationales to keep these feelings under control.

People are not born witht eh abiulity to act violently, rather, they learn to be aggressive thorugh their life experiences these ecxperiences include personally observing others acting aggressivily to achieve some goal or obsreving people being rewarded for violent acts.

Crime-orone people may have cognitive deficits and use information incorrectly when they make decisons they view crime asn appororiate emans to satisfy their immedate persona needs, which take precedence over mor edistanct social needs sucha s obedience to the law.

Soicopathic, psychopather or antisaol people cannot empathize with others, are short sited and hedonisits. these traits make them prone to probelms ranging psychpathology to drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and violence factors related to personality problems include improper socialiatziaton. Having psychopathetic paretn, experianct parental rejection and lack of love during childhood and reciving inconsisit discpline.

Proponent of nature theoryargue that intelligence is largely determined genetically that ancestyr determines IQ and that low intelleigance is linked to criminal behavior. Propeonents of nurture theory argue that intelligcane is not inherited and low IQ parents do not nessciarly produce low ID children.