Chapter 7: Social Process Theory
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SOCIAL PROCESS THEORY
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The view that criminality is the function of people's interactions with various organizations, institutions and processes in society
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SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
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Suggests that people learn the techniques and attitudes of crime from close relationships with criminal peers: Crime is a learned behavior
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SOCIAL CONTROL THEORY
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Maintains that everyone has the potential to become a criminal but most people are controlled by their bonds to society. Crime occurs when the forces that bind people to society are weakened or broken
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SOCIAL REACTION(LABELING) THEORY
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holds that people become criminals when significant members of society label them as such and they accept those labels as a personal identity
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SOCIALIZATION
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Process of human development and enculturation. Socialization is influenced by key social processes and institutions.
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PARENTAL EFFICACY
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The ability of parents to be supportive of their children and effectively control them in non-coercive ways
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DIFFERENTIAL ASSOCIATION THEORY
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The view that people commit crime when their social learning leads them to perceive more definitions favoring crime than favoring crime than favoring conventional behavior
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CULTURE CONFLICT
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Results of exposure to opposing norms, attitudes, and definitions of right and wrong, moral and immoral
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NEUTRALIZATION THEORY
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Methods of rationalizing deviant behavior, such as denying responsibility or blaming the victim
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DRIFT
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Movement in and out of delinquency, shifting between conventional and deviant values
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NEUTRALIZATION TECHNIQUES
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Methods of rationalizing deviant behavior, such as denying responsibility or blaming the victim
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SELF-CONTROL
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a strong moralsense that renders a person incapable of hurting others or violating social norms
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COMMITMENT TO CONFORMITY
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a strong personal investment in conventional institutions, individuals, and processes that prevents people from engagingin behaviors that might jeprodize their reputation and achievements.
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SOCIAL BONDS
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the ties that bind people to society, including relationships with friens, family, neighbors, teachers and employers. The elements of social bond include commitment, attachment, involvement and belief.
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MORAL ENTREPENEUR
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A person who creates moral rules that reflect the values of those in power rather than any objective, universal standards of right and wrong
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STIGMATIZE
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To apply negative labeling with enduring effects on a person's self-image and social interactions
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SUCCESFUL DEGRADATION CEREMONY
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A course of action or ritual in which someone's identity is publicly redefined and destroyed and he or she is thereafter viewed as socially unacceptable
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RETROSPECTIVE READING
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The reassessment of a person's past to fit a current generalized label.
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PRIMARY DEVIANCE
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A norm violation or crime that has little or no long-term influence on the violator
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SECONDARY DEVIANCE
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A norm violation of crime that comes to the attention of significant others or social control agents, who apply a negative label that has long-term consequences for the violator's self identity and social interactions
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DEVIANCE AMPLIFICATION
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Process whereby secondary deviance pushes offenders out of mainstream society and locks them into an escalating cycle of deviance, apprehension, labeling, and criminal self-identity
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RACIAL PROFILING
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the use of racial and ethnic charcateristics by police in their determining whether a personis likely to commit a crime or engage in deviant and/ antisocial activities
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REFLECTED APPRAISAL
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when parents are alienated from their children, theri negative labeling reduces their children self image and increases delinquency
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DIVERSION PROGRAM
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programs of rehabilitation that removes offenders from the normal hannels of the criminal justice process, thus enabeling them to avoid the stigma of criminal label
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RESTITUTION
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Permitting an offender to repay the victim to do useful work in the community rather than facing the stigma of a formal trial and a court-ordered sentence
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What 4 segments are the Head Start Program divided into?
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Education Health Parent involvement Social services
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Parts of social learning theories?
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Differential association theory Neutralization theory
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Example of primary deviance?
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Boy steal law textbooks, passes test, enters law school & becomes a successful lawyer. Crime of stealing isn't that serious anymore
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Example of secondary deviance?
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Security guard catches boy stealing law textbooks and all his dreams are thrown out the window
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Hirschi argues that the social bond a person maintains with society is divided into 4 main elements. What are these elements?
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Attachment Commitment Involvement Belief
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In Hirschi's book Causes of Delinquency, he links
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the onset of criminality to weakening of the ties that bind people to society
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Who is the founder of differential association theory?
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Edwin Sutherland
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Principles of differential association is explained in the following:
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1.Criminal behavior is learned 2.Criminl behavior is learned as a by-productof interacting with others. 3.Learning criminal beavior occurs within intimate personal groups 4.Learning criminla behavior involves assimilatingthe techniques of commiting crime, including motives,drives,rationalization and attitudes. 5.The specificdirection of motives and drives is learned from precipitationof various aspectsof the legalcode as favorable or unfavorable. 6.A person becomes a criminal when he or she percives morefavorable than unfavorableconsequencesto violating the laws. 7.Differential association may vary in frequency, duration, priority amd intensity
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What does sykes and matza suggest about neutralization techniques?
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people developa distict set of justifications for their law violating behaviors.Several observations form the basis of their theoretical model such as: criminals sometimes voice guilt over their illegal acts,offenders frequently respect and admire honest, law abiding people.
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The effect of family relationships on crime
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Kids growing up in a troubled families are crime-prone. Parental efficacy reduces crime. Divorce can strain crime.
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How does educational setting influence crimes.
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School failure is linked to delinquency. Dropping out may influencelater criminality. School violence and conflict are also problems
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Link between peers and delinquency
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Delinquent peers sustain individuals offendind patterns. Delinquent friends may help kids neutralize the fear of punishment. Both popular and loners can have problems.
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The association between beliefs and criminality:
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People with high moral standardscan resist crime. Church attendance is related to low crime rates.
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Link social process theory to crimeprevention efforts
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Social process theories have greatly influenced social policy. They have beenapploed in treatment orientation as well as community action policies. Some programs teach kids conventionalattitudesand behaviors. Others are designed to improve the social bond.
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Know the basic elements of social raection(labeling)theory?
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Labels such as criminal,ex-con,and junkie isolate people fromsociety and lock them into lives of crime. Labels create expectationsthat the labeled person will act in a certain way, and labeled people are always watched and suspected. Evetuallly these people begin to accept their labels as personal identities, which may lock them irretrievably into lives of crime and deviance. Edwin Lemert suggest that pople who accept labelsare involved in secondary deviace, whice primary deviance are able to maintainan undamaged identity.
