Co-offending
committing crimes in groups or accomplices
Choice Theory
Holds that youths will engage in delinquent and criminal behavior after weighing the consequences and benefits of their actions; delinquent behavior is a rational choice made by a motivated offender who perceives that the chances of gain outweigh any poss
Trait Theory
Holds that youths engage in delinquent or criminal behavior due to aberrant physical or psychological traits that govern behavioral choices; delinquent actions are impulsive or instinctual rather than rational choices.
Free Will
View that people are in charge of their own destinies and are free to make personal behavior choices unencumbered by environmental factors.
Classical Criminology
Holds that decisions to violate the law are weighed against possible punishments, and to deter crime, the pain of punishment must outweigh the benefit of illegal gain; led to graduated punishments based on seriousness of the crime (let the punishment fit
Routine Activities Theory
View that crime is "normal" function of the routine activities of modern living; offenses can be expected if there is a motivated offender and a suitable target that is not protected by capable guardians.
Predatory Crime
Violent crimes against people, and crimes in which an offender attempts to steal an object directly from its holder.
General Deterrence
Crime control policies that depend on the fear of criminal penalties, such as long prison sentences for violent crimes; the aim is to convince law violators that the pain outweighs the benefit of criminal activity.
Specific Deterrence
Sending convicted offenders to secure incarceration facilities to that punishment is severe enough to convince offenders not to repeat their criminal activity.
Situational Crime Prevention
Crime prevention method that relies on reducing the opportunity to commit criminal acts by
(a) Making them more difficult to perform.
(b) Reducing their reward.
(c) Increasing their risks.
Target-hardening Technique
Crime prevention technique that makes it more difficult for a would-be delinquent to carry out the illegal act, for example, by installing a security device in a home.
Criminal Atavism
The idea that delinquents manifest physical anomalies that make them biologically and physiologically similar to our primitive ancestors, savage throwbacks to an earlier stage of human evolution.
Equipotentiality
View that all people are equal at birth and are thereafter influenced by their environment.
Biosocial Theory
The view that both thought and behavior have biological and social bases.
Neurological
Pertaining to the brain and nervous system structure.
Minimal Brain Dysfunction
Damage to the brain itself that causes antisocial behavior injurious to the individual's lifestyle and social adjustment.
Learning Disability
Neurological dysfunction that prevents an individual from learning to his or her potential.
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
A disorder in which a child shows a developmentally inappropriate lack of attention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.
Conduct Disorder
A disorder of childhood and adolescence that involves chronic behavior problems, such as defiant, impulsive, or antisocial behavior and substance abuse.
Arousal Theorists
Delinquency experts who believe that aggression is a function of the level of an individual's need for stimulation or arousal from the environment. Those who require more stimulation may act in an aggressive manner to meet their needs.
Contagion Effect
Delinquency spreads when kids copy the behavior of peers and siblings.
Evolutionary Theory
Explaining the existence of aggression and violent behavior as positive adaptive behaviors in human evolution; these traits allowed their bearers to reproduce disproportionately, which has had an effect on the human gene pool.
Psychodynamic Theory
Branch of psychology that holds that the human personality is controlled by unconscious mental processes developed early in childhood.
Identity Crisis
Psychological state, identified by Erikson, in which youth face inner turmoil and uncertainty about life roles.
Latent Delinquents
Youths whose troubled family life leads them to seek immediate gratification without consideration of right and wrong or the feelings of others.
Attachment Theory
A form of psychodynamic tradition that holds that the ability to form attachments-emotional bonds to another person- has important lasting psychological implications that follow adolescents across the life span.
Mood Disorder
A condition in which the prevailing emotional mood is distorted or inappropriate to the circumstances.
Alexithymia
A deficit in emotional cognition that prevents people form being aware of their feelings or being able to understand or talk about their thoughts and emotions; sufferers seem robotic and emotionally dead.
Disruptive Behavior Disorder (DBD)
A consistent pattern of behaviors that continually breaks normal social rules and is extremely oppositional and defiant of authority.
Behaviorism
Branch of psychology concerned with the study of observable behavior rather than unconscious processes; focuses on particular stimuli and responses to them.
Social Learning Theory
The view that behavior is modeled through observation, either directly through intimate contact with others or indirectly through media; interactions that are rewarded are copied, whereas those that are punished are avoided.
Cognitive Theory
The branch of psychology that studies the perception of reality and the mental processes required to understand the world that we live in.
Extravert
A person who behaves impulsively and doesn't have the ability to examine motives and behavior.
Neuroticism
A personality trait marked by unfounded anxiety, tension, and emotional instability.
Antisocial Personality (Psychopathic, Sociopathic)
A person lacking in warmth and affection, exhibiting inappropriate behavior responses, and unable to learn from experience.
Nature Theory
Holds that low intelligence is genetically determined and inherited.
Nurture Theory
Holds that intelligence is partly biological but mostly sociological; negative environmental factors encourage delinquent behavior and depress intelligence scores for many youths.
Whose writings formed the core of what is referred to today as classical criminology?
Cesare Beccaria
1. Control
2. Retribution
3. Deterrence
4. Reputation
Psychologist Richard Felson argues that violence can be used to achieve a number of goals, including (4):
Marcus Felson and Lawrence Cohen
Who developed routine activities theory?
1. Suitable Targets
EX: Unlocked Homes, Expensive Cars
2. Lack of Capable Guardians
EX: Police Officers, Parents, Homeowners
3. Motivated Offenders
EX: Unemployed, Teenage Boys
Ex: Unemployed teenage boys according to routine activities theory, the volume and distribution of predatory crime are influenced by the interaction of the three variables reflective of the routine activities found in everyday American life. They are:
Biosocial or Trait Theory focus less on....
the effects of punishment and more on the treatment of abnormal mental and physical conditions as a crime-reduction method.
If delinquency is a rational choice, then delinquency prevention is simply a matter of 3 strategies:
1.) Severe punishment for committing delinquent acts.
2.) Punishment is severe enough to prevent future delinquent acts.
3.) Make crime so difficult to commit that potential gains are not worth the risk.
Situational Crime Prevention Programs (6)
(1) Increasing the efforts needed to commit delinquent acts.
(2) Increasing the risks of delinquent activity
(3) Reducing the rewards attached to delinquent acts.
(4) Increasing the shame of committing delinquent acts.
(5) Reducing provocations that produ
Id
...
Ego identity
a full sense of self
Superego
...
Role Diffusion
Occurs when people: 1) experience personal uncertainty, 2) spread themselves too thin, 3) submit to promises to get a sense of identity that they can't obtain
At Risk Youth
Problems in the home, school, and neighborhood that have placed a significant number of children
Juvenile Delinquency
Criminal behavior committed by minors with the importance of damage faced by victims and problems faced by perpetrators
chronic delinquent offenders
Youths involved in multiple serious criminal acts
Aging-out Process
Most youthful law violators who do not become adult criminals
Juvenile Justice System
Involves law enforcement court, and correctional agencies designed to treat youthful offenders
Primogeniture
Required that the oldest surviving male child inherit family lands and titles
The Dower System
Woman's family bestow money, land, or other wealth on a potential husband or his family in exchange for his marriage to her
Poor Laws
Government action to care for needy children
Apprenticeship Movement
Children were placed in care of adults who trained them; convictions was growing that criminal law enforcement should be applied differently to children.
Chancery Court
establishing PARENS PATRIAE which referred to role of king as father of his country
Factory Act
Limited the hours children were permitted to work and the age at which they could begin to work
Stubborn Child Laws
Required children to obey their parents
Child Savers
Created community programs to serve needy children, and lobbied for a separate legal status for children, which ultimately led to the development of a formal juvenile justice system
Best interest of the child
Children should not be punished for their misdeeds but instead should be given care and custody necessary to remedy and control wayward behavior
Waiver
Transferring legal jurisdiction over most serious and experienced juvenile offenders to adult court for criminal prosecution
Status Offenses
Acts that would not be considered illegal if perpetrated by an adult
OJJDP
A federal government agency created to identify the needs of youths and fund policy initiatives in the juvenile justice system
House of Refuge
A care facility developed by the child savers to protect potential criminal youths by taking them of the street and providing a family-like environment.
Children's Aid Society
Child saving organization that took children form the streets of large cities and placed them with farm families on the prairie.
Orphan Trains
The name for trains in which urban youths were sent west by the Children's Aid Society for adoption with local farm couples.
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
First established in 1874, these organizations protected children subjected to cruelty and neglect at home or at school.
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration
Unit in the US Department of Justice established by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to administer grants and provide guidance for crime prevention policy and programs.
Juvenile Justice Process
Under the paternal (parens patriae) philosophy, juvenile justice procedures are informal and nonadversarial, invoked for the juvenile offender rather than against him or her; a petition instead of a compliant is filed; courts make findings of involvement
Detention Hearing
A hearing by a judicial officer of a juvenile court to determine whether a juvenile is to be detained or released while juvenile proceedings are pending in the case.
Ad judiciary Hearing
The fact-finding process wherein the juvenile court determines whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain the allegations in a petition.
Bifurcated Process
The procedure of separating adjudicatory and dispositionary hearings so different levels of evidence can be heard at each.
Disposition
For juvenile offenders, the equivalent of sentencing for adult offenders; however juvenile dispositions should be more rehabilitative than retributive.
Petition
Document filed in juvenile court alleging that a juvenile is a delinquent, a status offender, or a dependent and asking that the court assume jurisdiction over the juvenile.
Teen Courts
Courts that make us e of peer juries to decide non-serious delinquency cases.
Drug Courts
Courts whose focus is to provide treatment for youths accused of drug-related acts
Several events led to reforms and nourished eventual development of juvenile justice system (3)
1. Urbanization
2. Development of Institutions
3. The Child-Saving Movement
The Child Saving Movement
The growing interest in Parens Patriae.
- Seeing children as different from adults.
- Separating child time in life from adult time in life ? adolescence.
Reform Schools
Child savers influenced state and local governments to create special institutions called
In 1816, during the Child Saving Movement, prominent New Yorkers formed the .....
Society for the Prevention of Pauperism
Who helped develop the Children's Aid Society in 1853?
Charles Loring Brace
What established the nation's first independent juvenile court?
Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899
Key Provisions of the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899:
- A separate court was established for delinquent and neglected children.
- Special procedures were developed to govern the adjudication of juvenile matters.
- Children were to be separated form adults in courts and in institutional programs
- Probation p
What did the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899 lead to?
The Best Interest of the Child Standard