Sociology 1 – Chapter 7: Deviant Behavior and Social Control – Flashcards
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Anomie
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The feeling of some individuals that their culture no longer provides adequate guidelines for behavior; a condition of "normlessness" in which values and norms have little impact.
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Conflict Approach
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The view that the elite use their power to enact and enforce laws that support their own economic interests and go against the interests of the lower classes.
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Consensus Approach
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An approach to law that assumes laws are merely a formal version of the norms and values of the people.
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Crime
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Behavior that violates a society's legal code.
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Criminal Justice System
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Personnel and procedures for arrest, trial, and punishment to deal with violations of the law.
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Deviant Behavior
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Behavior that fails to conform to the rules or norms of the group in which it occurs.
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Diversion
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Steering youthful offenders away from the juvenile justice system to nonofficial social agencies.
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External Means of Social Control
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The ways in which others respond to a person's behavior that channel his or her behavior along culturally approved lines.
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Felonies
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Offenses punishable by a year or more in a state prison.
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Formal Negative Sanctions
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Actions that express institutionalized disapproval of a person's behavior, such as expulsion, dismissal, or imprisonment. They are usually applied within the context of a society's formal organizations, including schools, corporations, and the legal system.
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Formal Positive Sanctions
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Actions that express social approval of a person's behavior, such as public gatherings, rituals, or ceremonies.
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Formal Sanctions
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Sanctions that are applied in a public ritual, usually under the direct or indirect leadership of social authorities. Examples: the award of a prize or the announcement of an expulsion.
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Funnel Effect
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The situation in our criminal justice system whereby many crimes are committed, but few criminals seem to be punished.
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Informal Negative Sanctions
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Spontaneous displays of disapproval of a person's behavior. Impolite treatment is directed toward the violator of a group norm.
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Informal Positive Sanctions
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Spontaneous actions such as smiles, pats on the back, handshakes, congratulations, and hugs, which individuals express their approval of another' person's behavior.
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Informal Sanctions
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Responses by others to an individual's behavior that arise spontaneously with little or no formal leadership.
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Innovators
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Individuals who accept the culturally validated goal of success but find deviant ways of reaching it.
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Internal Means of Social Control
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A group's moral code becomes internalized and becomes part of each individual's personal code of conduct that operates even in the absence of reactions by others.
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Juvenile Crime
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The violation of criminal laws by individuals under the age of 18.
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Labeling Theory
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A theory of deviance that assumes the social process by which an individual comes to be labeled as deviant contributes to causing more of the deviant behavior.
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Laws
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Formal rules by a society's political authority.
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Legal Code
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The formal body of rules adopted by a society's political authority.
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Moral Code
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The symbolic system, made up of a culture's norms and values, in terms of which behavior takes on the quality of being good or bad, right or wrong.
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Negative Sanctions
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Responses by others that discourage the individual from continuing or repeating the behavior.
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Organized Crime
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Structured associations of individuals or groups who come together for the purpose of obtaining gain mostly from illegal activities.
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Primary Deviance
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A term used in labeling theory to refer to the original behavior that leads to the individual being labeled a deviant.
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Property Crime
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An unlawful act that is committed with the intent of gaining property but does not involve the use or threat of force against and individual.
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Rebels
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Individuals who reject both the goals of what to them is an unfair social order and the institutionalized means of achieving them. They propose alternative societal goals and institutions.
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Recidivism
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Repeated criminal behavior after punishment.
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Retreatists
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Individuals, such as drug addicts, alcoholics, drifters, and panhandlers, who have pulled back from society altogether and who do not pursue culturally legitimate goals.
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Ritualists
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Individuals who deemphasize or reject the importance of success once they realize they will never achieve it and instead concentrate on following ad enforcing rules more precisely than ever intended.
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Sanctions
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Rewards and penalties used to regulate an individual's behavior. All external means of control us these.
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Secondary Deviance
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A term used in labeling theory to refer to the deviant that emerges as a result of having been labeled as deviant.
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Status Offenses
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behavior that is criminal only because the person involved is a minor.
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Techniques of Neutralization
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A process that makes it possible to justify illegal or deviant behavior.
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Theory of Differential Association
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A theory of juvenile delinquency based on the position that criminal behavior is learned in the context of intimate groups. People become criminals as a result of association with others who engage in criminals activities.
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Victimless Crimes
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Acts that violate the laws meant to enforce the moral code.
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Violent Crime
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Crime that involves the use of force or the threat of force against the individual.
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White Collar Crime
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Crime committed by individuals who, while occupying positions of social responsibility or high or high prestige, break the law in the course of their work for illegal, personal, or organizational gain.
