Criminology

Selective Attention

We selectively choose the data that we pay attention to. That's why we ignore a lot of criminological data like who doesn't predict crime, because it's not interesting

How do most members of the public get their information about crime?

Media and personal history, and this give us a distorted view of how much crime is actually occurring

What happens because crime is relatively rare?

We spend a lot of time thinking about the one time it did happen and everything about that day, but not the days that you aren't a victim. This is why personal history is flawed.

Why is the media also flawed?

Because media stations just care about making money so they want you to be interested and show you the most unusual events, they don't show you things that are happening on a day to day basis because you won't watch.

Understanding media in our society

They're a business, they want to sell their product and their product is attention.

Is crime going up?

No, as of right now we live in the safest period of history when it comes to the amount of homicides

Asymptotic

Almost sitting on the x axis of data for no crime

People's perception of crime rates

People think crime rates are going up, when in reality it's going down. 2/3rds of American's think crime is going up

Why does crime seem like a bigger deal than it actually is?

It's publicized more, for example, gun and police brutality, there isn't that much going on, in the 90's there was much more but it's publicized a lot, police have to count how many bullets have left their guns and right now it's the lowest

Clery Report

They're required to keep, maintain, and release data about the crimes that occur on campus. When in reality there isn't that many, think about the number of times crime didn't occur.

What suggest that we have an unusually high crime rate?

America's prison and jail population is the largest in the world, but this is a misleading data point

What crime is very underreported?

Sexual assault

Why is our fear flawed?

It doesn't map onto actual probabilities or likelihoods, for example people our age are most likely to die in automobile accidents but we get in cars at night because we feel safe

How much crime is there?

There is no way we can accurately measure this, the actual amount is massive because of all the little crimes. Only a fraction of crime gets reported.

Robbery

Present use of force

Burglary

No use of force

Why do criminologists have a hard time studying criminology?

They're studying something that people don't want to be studied, the only other people who run into this problem is people who study highly stimulated behavior. For criminals, there are legal offense so no one who does it is going to admit it (there's a s

Sexual Assault

Nonconsensual sexual contact. Consent is a legal statement. In order to give consent you have to be thinking properly, you can't give consent if you're intoxicated. If you're both drunk you both did sexual assault, the law doesn't map onto our cultural un

What happens to a vast majority of crimes?

They fall out of the system (system is something that we can monitor)

Clearance Rates

The proportion of investigations solved

Why does only a fraction of crime reported?

Because law enforcement doesn't have the resources to investigate everything, they prioritize so small crimes offenses aren't considered as serious

Prosecution

When a crime is investigated and they have all of the evidence

Do more people fall out after they're prosecuted?

Yes, they don't always get a conviction. Even people who are obviously guilty don't always get a conviction, and only a few of those committed actually end up in jail, again lack of resources

Crime funnel

Tunes us into the idea that cases kind of flow towards jail, but cases fall out through every section. The crime sig separates criminal offenses, in the end we end up with some people in jail. The vast majority of criminal offenses fall out in the system

Why is it hard to spot white collar crimes?

Regular people don't just see when fraud or embezzlement happens, you need a college degree to even see that it's going on so a lot of the time it goes unnoticed, but when a disabled minority homeless person does it it's easy to spot

Does social power matter?

Yes, the more powerful people at the top usually don't end up in jail, where the less powerful and rich people do end up in jail

NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)

A survey that asks people if they notices any of the following crimes then asks questions. It's conducted by people with an expertise and who sample a good representative. They use this estimate the number of crime and make a reasonable range

Problems of NCVS

It's a survey, and when you give a survey out people won't always give accurate answers. some of the data is going toe bad because people got bored.
people will intentionally mislead us, and some people don't want to admit breaking the law. People will mi

What can criminologists do in terms of over noticing and under noticing?

They can adjust for it because they know it's going on. It's still an estimation but it's better than nothing

Sampling Error

This makes the error bars wider, but not infinite, it's just going to be more difficult to get an accurate picture of what's going on

People of the bottom class and crime reported

People at the bottom who are being victimized don't really get reported because of their social situation. Like homeless people who often get victimized daily, and powerless victims case fall out of the system

Who is the NCVS ministered by?

DOJ Department of Justice

What's a second data source?

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

UCR

This data set basically counts the number of offenses reported to law enforcement. The FBI gets this information, it's a count of everything reported to law enforcement across the country

False Positive Crimes

Crimes that didn't actually occur

Is the quality of UCR good?

Yes, because the FBi can determine whether something was actually legal or illegal more than regular citizens.

How can police affect the numbers reported in the UCR?

They can over report the numbers in order to get more resources and they can under report to make it seem like they're doing a really good job.

Big problem with UCR?

We use it to talk about the amount of crime, but the UCR only consists of 8 criminal offenses

Part 1 Crimes (Index Crimes)

Homicide. Sexual Assault. Arson. Theft. Burglary. Robbery. GTA. Aggravated Assault. Every jurisdiction in the county will count these crimes. For everything else we have nothing, it's not counted

What's on of the most prosecuted crimes?

Drug offenses

How can we see if crime is changing?

When the UCR and the NCVS is compared from one year to the next, we can see if they either both increased or decreased

1980's War on Drugs

When the government decided that illegal drug use was the reason everyone was failing, they started to get rid of drugs and had a public awareness campaign to tell people the dangers of drugs.

What happened because of the war on drugs?

Drug use appears to go through the roof, but we don't know if the numbers actually went up or if there is just a public awareness so people are reporting it more to the police. The changes in social conditions misleads us

Is there more police officers around to help the problem?

Yes, billions of dollars become available to law enforcement and jurisdictions are allowed to hire a lot more police officers to stomp out the problem

What happened in 1972?

Abortion became a lot easier to get than before and previously kids who were unwanted were born and these kids were most likely to commit crimes.

Underreported crime

To know that a crime is under reported we'd have to know how often it has happened, and with sexual assault, which we think is under reported, we don't know.

Change in definition of rate

When the definition included anal penetration, so a man can be raped, the crime rate "went up" but in reality it just became legal so it was being reported more.

Some other problems with UCR and what's reported

Some areas don't have the resources to spend time and actually thoroughly count everybody so the data is flawed and some don't give accurate information

Way the UCR counts criminal events

A person can do multiple crimes but it will only count as one crime. It counts crime sprees, any criminal events that are like in time and place is counted as 1 criminal act. Ex) a person robs someone, steals a car, burns something down, then kills someon

Cleared Crimes

When at least one person is arrested, charged, and turned over to the court for prosecution. or by exceptional means, when some element beyond police control precludes the physical arrest of an officer (ex: offender leaves the country)

NIBRS (The National Incident Based Reporting System)

A program that collects data on each reported crime incident. Over 48 Crimes included

Cohort Research

Involves observing a group of people who share a like characteristics over time

Data Mining

Uses multiple advanced computational methods, including AI, to analyze large data sets usually involving one or more data sources. The goal is to identify significant and recognizable patterns, trends, and relationships that are not easily detected throug

Crime Mapping

Create graphic representations of the spatial geography of crime. Criminologists can analyze and correlate a wide array of data to create, data visas of crime patterns

Crime Patterns Regional Differences

Large urban areas have most crime rate. Regional cultural values influence crime rates, but can also be explained by economical differences

Firearms

They play a dominant role in criminal activity. 2/3rds of all murders and 40% of robberies use fire arms

Who commits more crime?

Poor people. They're really just at higher risk of getting caught

Four views on economy and crime rate

Bad economy means higher crime rates.
Good economy means higher crime rate (when teens are employed this means)
Bad economy means lower crime rate
Crime and economy are unrelated
In reality, association between economic factors and crime is complex and ca

Age and Crime

Younger people commit crimes more than older people. Aging out- when you're young you don't always see a future so you want instant gratification, you age out and this aging out process of crime may be a function the natural history of the human life cycl

Gender and Crime

Male crime rates are much higher than female. Boys are more aggressive and society puts a way that they should act towards males and females. Girls have better verbal abilities and reading, boys have better visual spatial performance and math

Masculinity Hypothesis

Lombroso's theory. a few "masculine" females were responsible for the handful of crimes women commot

Chivalry Hypothesis

holds that much female criminality is hidden because of the culture's general protective and benevolent attitude towards women.

Liberal Feminist Theory

focused attention on the social and economic role of women in society and its relationship to female crime rates. suggested that the traditionally lower crime rate for women could be explained by their "second class" economic and social position

Race and Crime

minority group members are involved in a disproportionate share of criminal activities. black people are reported to committing most crimes. suspects who are poor, minority, or male are more likely to get arrested than suspects who are white, affluent, or

Racial Threat Hypothesis

as the percentage of minorities in the population increases, so too does the amount of social control that police direct at minority group members. more minorities in one place - more police control to get them in trouble. minorities are treated more hars

Cultural Bias

another explanation of racial differences in the crime rate rests on the legacy of racial discrimination based on personality and behavior. for black people a theory is that because they were born into racism there was always a disadvantage

Structural Bias

view that racial differences in the crime rate are a function of disparity in the social and economic structure of society. inner city poor black men are more likely to get arrested and no one is going to hire a black man with a criminal record, and it's

Trait Theories

Parts of a criminal's brain that are supposed to work properly aren't working and that explains their criminal behavior. Different biological and psychological makeups make people go crazy.

Biochemical Theory (Trait)

Has a time frame of seconds to a few hours to day, it doesn't last very long

Neurological Theory (Trait)

They last longer. Helps us understand why very small kids do things they aren't supposed to like hitting people, an adult would be in trouble, but the babies can't help it because their brain isn't finished forming. When you're older your brain has formed

Guy who had epilepsy

Part of brain removed and impulse control was removed and he became a pedophile and he knew it but he didn't know why

Genetic Theory (Trait)

What explains the difference between criminals and non criminals is their genetic makeup. Crime is basically a genetic defect. Normal humans have a genetic structure that allows us to behave right. Decades and centuries, the crime gene is something that c

Lombroso

Mid 1800's. Now his theory is false. He was racist. Reading about Dariwn. The characteristics of a set of people were carried on by their parents, over time you see a species change. (EVOLUTIONARY THEORY). Said criminals have genetic defects. He thinks th

Lombroso on crime being a genetic throwback

they're carriers of old genetic traits, and they're carriers of old genetic traits and because you have these you should have other old characteristics physically. they should show characteristics that resemble apes. he would look at black people and he n

Garafelo

Lombroso's student. He said if you want to solve the crime problem you have to solve the genetic code. We can intervene in the gene pool and if we do that there's a big light. If it's genetic and we can eliminate this, we can eliminate crime.

Eugenics

playing around with the gene pool. the available set of genes for a species
Holocaust was a form of eugenics

Positive eugenics

you find individuals with desirable traits and you help them reproduce. when it comes to criminality, if they want someone to reproduce they will offer to pay them a big amount of money for every kid they have.
strong version: you force people to beer

Negative eugenics

you find individuals with characteristics with undesirable traits and try to put a strain on them reproducing. if you have a criminal record they're going to fine you a big amount of money every time you have a kid.

Modern take of these ideas

it is really weak. the way we think of this today is that the tendencies that genes can give you are repressed by social implications. when you hear them using genetic excuses for a crime its a genetic theory crime. even if you have a genetic predispositi

Psychological Theories

An individual trait, we're looking at the theories of the mind. They differ in terms of ideas about how the mind works

Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud. He's trying to figure out how the mind works. One of the first people to ask his.

Freud's Consciousness

Consciousness- they're thinking. the ideas that pop in your head is your conscious mind.
he says you don't know what you're thinking because theres a part of you're mind thats not accessible to you.
Subconscious (unconscious) - remarkable epiphany. impuls

Freud's Id, Ego, Superego

The ID is the part of our mind that is pleasure seeking. anything that gives us a blast of happiness is awesome, anything that brings pain is bad. impulses that make us happy (food, sex). doesn't care whether it's appropriate or not.
The EGO thinks about

Unconscious and conscious mind

You need to remove conscious mind and think about unconscious. when you're asleep your conscious mind breaks down, whatever is going on in your dreams is pure subconscious things. your dreams tells us something about what's going on in the part of the bra

Behaviorism (psychological theory)

Bf Skinner. Trying to turn psychology into a science, the way we do this is forget about the mind since we can't see or measure it. We can see human behavior. Humans are the same as animals. You can train animals by giving them rewards, if we like our rew

How does Skinner suggest we learn?

Shaping people's behavior between positive and negative reinforcement. We've been conditioned to think something is good or bad.

How can we explain a criminal's behavior?

They never got negative reinforcement, they just got positive reinforcement. It's just their reinforcement pattern.
Allows crime - no negative reinforcement.
Produce crime - positive reinforcement
Things you see that are reinforced first have a stronger e

Why do others become non criminals?

Reinforcement history.

Culpability

A person being responsible for their crimes. In Skinner's theory a person is not responsible for their behavior, they were shaped, reinforcement history isn't something in your control.

What is the justice system in this theory?

A negative reinforcer, only if a person gets caught.

What did Bandura add?

Said Skinner was missing something critical. Humans are capable of cognitions, they have the ability of empathy which no other animal has. If we can imagine ourselves as another person, their reinforcer can affect people that emphasize with them. You rece

Modeling

Incorporating someone else's reinforcement into your own. You're learning a lot more.

Bandura's BooBoo Doll Expeirment

2 groups of people put into a lab, one watched a friendly film and other watched a slasher. They were put into a room with booboo dolls, the people who watched the violent film hit the booboo dolls more. as long as bad behavior is punished and kids see th

Cognitive Theory

Piaget. You can't simply teach. Ex) you can't teach a toddler math no matter how much you present it to them. They're incapable of learning. Humans go through developmental stages.

Piaget's 6 Stages of Development Abilities

0-2 Sensorimotor Stage: we start to learn we can control our bodies. learning what's going on around you through senses. only capable of learning things that are sensory or motor.
2-8 preoperations: you realize there's a world outside of you. object perma

Kohlberg's Developmental Stages

Level 1- Pre Conventional. Obedience and punishment oriented. Self interest oriented. (What's in it for me?)
Level 2- Conventional. Interpersonal accord and conformity. The good girl/bad boy attitude. Authority and social order maintaining orientation. La

Foundation of Trait Theory

Comte (founder of sociology) says societies pass through stages that can be grouped on the basis o how people try to understand the world in which they live.

Positivism

True knowledge is gained through direct observation, not through belief. Statements that can't be backed up with direct observation are invalid. Scientific method must be used if research findings are to be considered valid. Social processes are a product

Biosocial Thoery

Reflect the assumed link between physical and mental traits, the social environment, and behavior

Sociobiolgoy

Stresses that biological and genetic conditions affect how social behaviors are learned and perceived.

Reciprocal Altruism

When you go to the aid of others people are motivated by the belief that their actions will be recripocated and their gene survival capacity will be enhanced.

Arousal Theory

For a variety of genetic and enviornmental reasons, some people's brains function differently in response to environmental stimuli. people who have low arousal levels will become more involved in crimes because it's thrill seeking. antisocial kids may bec

Contagion Effect

Genetic predisposition and early experiences make some people, including twins, susceptible to deviant behavior, which is transmitted by the presence of antisocial siblings in the household.

Attachment Theory

Bowlby. He believed the ability to form attachments has important lasting psychological implications that follow people across their life span. People with detachment problems are linked with antisocial behavior.

Alexithymia

A deficit in emotional cognition that prevent them from aware of their feelings or being able to talk about their thoughts and emotions, robotic and emotionally dead

Social Learning Theory

Branch of behavior theory most relevant to criminology. People are not born with the ability to act violent, but they learn to be aggressive through life experiences. People's perception of their relative deprivation have different effects on their aggres

Behavior Modeling

View violence as something learned through this process. Family interaction, environmental experience, mass media.

4 factors that contribute to violent behavior

An event that heightens arousal
Aggressive skills (learned from watching)
Expected outcomes (belief they will be rewarded)
Consistency of behavior with values (belief that aggression is justified)

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

psycholgoical test. has subscales designed to measure many different personality traits, including psychopathic deviation, schizophrenia, and hypomania.

Nature Theory

Argues that intelligence is largely determined genetically, that ancestry determines IQ, and that low intelligence is demonstrated by low IQ is linked to criminal behavior.

Nurture Theory

intelligence must be viewed as partly biological but primarily sociological. low IQ scores that are recorded from criminals these scores may reflect criminal cultural background not their mental ability.

End of Trait Theories

...

Choice Theories

We make choices based on the idea that will make us happy. People commit crimes because they believe that it will make them happier. We do this by evaluating things. Helps us make a decision.

Rational Choice

This is a theory about how people make choices. This is important because this is the theory that makes the entire justice system make sense. Our system is set up with the idea that the rational choice is the right one. The culpability lies with the offic

Pro (x) , Con (y)

If x > y, do it.
If y > x, don't do it.

Why does this theory make sense?

This idea fits with what we think, what we want to think of criminals. This is the theory that makes them crminals, we want to hold them criminally and morally responsible.

Why this theory doesn't work

This theory requires us to quantify. ex) calculating the pros and cons. If this is not a conscious decision, it is not a decision. IF this is not a conscious, it happened to you. We form habits; it's not new knowledge. ex) sitting in the same chair in an

Why are numbers influx

They're always changing. The things we value are always changing. Social circumstances changes the value of objects, changes the numbers, but the interpersonal differences are profound.

Ex of Social Circumstances

Receiving jail time to us means taking away our freedom, but to a homeless person it means housing, food, protection, medical assistance if needed.
If jail and death can switch from cons to pros then anything can switch.

Why are we responsible for our crimes?

because we make choices

Util(s)

unit of measurement to measure utility. where do those numbers come from? where do we get that a phone is valuable at all? SOCIETY

What is your beliefs about what's valuable com from?

Your socialization. This is beyond your control. You can't decide how much you value things.

What does choice theory state?

That if the plusses outweigh the minusses, you do it regardless.

Can you change how much you value something?

You can't change how much you value something and it's not under cognitive control, you can however value other things more to outweigh it. Changing your value would mean you have to change your socialization.

Possibility to reduce crime?

Change the threat. Maybe make the punishment much worse. You have have to incarcerate more people, just change the threat to, it's the threat people are outweighing before they do the crime. ex) if a speeding ticket was 5,000 and 3 days in jail, you would

Why is this theory efficient to law makers?

Its a very cheap way to adjust crime . you can proactively prevent crime from happening.

Deterrence

you prevent a crime from happening before it occurs. key idea. instead of thinking how to respond to criminal acts, you think about how to prevent them in the first place. based on the idea of anticipating those consequences. fundamentally it's related to

What 4 things are required for learning?

1.The reinforcer must be swift (when you engage in behavior you very quickly get reinforcement from it. link won't be forged if you're reinforced later)
2.The punishment must be certain. (the likelihood that people will actually receive punishment. IF i g

Why can't deterrence work in our system?

All of those 4 things aren't met, the only real one met is severity.

Most severe punishment

capital punishment (death penalty)

Does death penalty deter?

it depends. specific deterrence, you will learn yes, when you're dead. as a general deterrent, no. if you think about before an execution you think about base line homicide level and after it should go down. a lot of the times we don't even know it's goin

Research done in Texas about executions

Right after an execution there's a huge drop, then a huge spike, followed by a drop, followed by a rise. thats the data pattern.
Lang, Teske, and Zheng

Specific Deterrence (Skinner)

When you do something you receive a punishment and learn not to do it, only you learn how to do it

General Deterrence (Bandura)

The general public learns it's wrong from knowing other people got in trouble, anybody does it and everybody learns

Choice Theory and Contextual Factors

Inflection point: where something changes
Burglary was looked at and data remained the same for a while and then there were inflection points

Where was the inflection points in burglary?

When women started going to work because no one was home, and then when woman return to the household when the war ends burglaries went down.
The routines in society changed and this affects the behavior of criminals.
Criminals, potential burglars, wait u

Routine Activities Theory

Broad based patterns of people's behavior, but it fundamentally a choice theory about crime. Suggests that people think committing the crime is worth the consequences and crimes take function and calculating. They believe all criminal behavior no matter h

Development of Rational Choice

Hobbes Social Contract: people naturally pursue their own self interests but are rational enough to realize that selfishness will produce social chaos, so they agree to give up their own selfish interests as long as everybody else does the same.

4 main objectives of punishment

1. to prevent all criminal offenses
2. when it can't crime a crime, to convince the offender to commit a less serious crime
3. to ensure that a criminal uses no more force than is necessary
4. to prevent crime as cheaply as possible

Marginal Deterrence

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

New version of rational choice theory

human behavior is both willful and determined

Contemporary Rational Choice

Law violating behavior occurs when an offender decides to risk breaking the law after considering both person factors and situational factors

Offense Specific

offenders will react selectively to the characteristics of an individual criminal act

Offender Specific

the criminals are not robots who engage in unthinking unplanned random acts of antisocial behavior.

Difference between crime and criminality

Crime is an event, criminality is a personal trait.

Structuring Crime

choice of crime may be dictated by market condition, and can be structured by situational factors (robbing elderly at end of month because that's when social security checks come in)
Criminals may also be well aware of target's vulernability.

Permeable Neighborhoods

Most burglars commit crimes here. Those with a greater than usual number of access streets from traffic arteries into the neighborhood.

What are the goals of violent crimes?

Control.
Retribution.
Deterrence.
Reputation.

Edgework

the exhilirating, momentary integration of danger, risk, and skill. the term they use to describe the adrenaline rush that comes from successful executing illegal activities in dangerous situations.

How can we prevent crime?

Reducing the opportunities people have to commit particular crimes. Criminal acts will be avoided if potential targets are guarded securely, the means to commit crime are controlled, and potential offenders are carefully monitored.

Defensible Space

Signifies that crime can be prevented or displaced through the use of residential architectural designs that reduce criminal opportunity, such as well lit housing projects that maximize surveillance.

Targetting Specific Crimes

Increase the effort needed to commit crime. Increase the risk of commit crime. Crime discouragers: guardian, who monitor targets, (security guards) handlers, who monitor potential offenders, (police) and managers who monitor places (homeowners)

Diffusion of Benefits

Efforts to prevent one crime help prevent another; crime control efforts in one locale reduce crime in another.

Displacement

A program that seems successful because it helps lower crime rates at specific locations or neighborhoods may simply be redirecting offenders to alternative target.

General Deterrence

this theory holds that crime rates are influenced and controlled by the threat and/or application of criminal punishment. if people fear being punished they won't break the law. the certainty of punishment seems to have a greater impact than its severity

Does putting a lot of police in one place deter crime?

No, but focusing efforts on a particular problem area has a deterrent effect.

Informal Sanctions

May be most effective in highly unified areas where everyone knows one another and the crime can't be hidden from public view

Specific Deterrence

Theory hold that after experiencing criminal sanctions that are swift, sure, and powerful, known criminals will never dare repeat their criminal acts.

Does the probability of rearrest change following incarceration?

no

Does Incarceration control crime?

there is some evidence that they are related but a lot of criminologists are skeptical

just desert

the concept of criminal choice has also prompted the creation of justice policies. suggests that retribution justifies punishment because people deserve what they get for past deeds. you can't base punishment off future deterrence of incapitation because

2 Elements to Describe the Offender's Degree of Blameworthiness

The nature and seriousness of the harm caused or throated by the crime and the offender's degree of fault in committing the crime

Routine Activities Theory

Lawerence Cohen and Marcus Felson. The volume and distribution of predator crime (violent crimes against a person and crimes in which an offender attempts to seal an object directly) are closest related to the interaction of 3 variables that reflect the r

3 Things needed for a crime to occur

The availability of suitable targets (such as homes containing easily salable goods)
The absence of capable guardians (such as police, homeowners)
The presence of motivated offenders (such as larger number of unemployed teens)

Hot Spot

where a bunch of people who are likely to commit crime are all in one spot

Relationship between unemployment rate and juvenile homicide

As adult unemployment rate increases, juvenile homicide arrest rates decrease. This could be because the adults can actually watch their kids so they don't get in trouble.

Target Hardening

Some people who are looking to commit crimes, ex) people looking for a burglary to commit. Recognizing displacement. Knowing crimes are going to happen. Basically takes advantage of displacement, the crime is going to occur, what you do to move it away fr

Social Class Being an Issues of Reported Crimes

People in working class don't really trust cops so they won't report crimes, and so the cops won't even come if they know it's happening.

Do safety precautions prevent crime?

no it's really just displacing crimes to happen somewhere else or at a different time.

What are some problems with Cohen and Felson's Idea?

When strange things happen, the theory isn't set up to handle it. It has a tough time explaining unusual events. It's difficult to test this, it's hard to falsify it, the word routine is hard to operationalize. It's more routine events. Routine Activities

The problem with violent crimes and target hardening

there usually is a desire for a specific victim, target hardening isn't going to do a great deal of good. you might just displace it in time, not the entire crime itself.

Sobering Thought about Routine Activities Theory

All of this is that there are some crimes that are just going to happen regardless, even with violent crimes.

Neutralization

Skyes and Matza. Tries to explain behavior in terms or morality, what is right and wrong.

What shocked Skyes and Matza?

how often the people who knew the criminals said they were just normal people. They had an epiphany moment where they realized criminals are just regular people. Culturally we think of criminals as obvious and they're obviously bad and easy to spot but th

People's Behavior on a range

Possibilities that go from horrible to heroic, and in the middle would be benign (neither good nor bad). We can put people's behavior on this continuum. Where people fall on it depends on context. ex) it would be awful is someone shot someone, but it woul

Criminal's Moral Holiday

When they do something we wouldn't do. Criminals do have a conscious, or else they wouldn't be behaving the same way you and i do.

Skyes and Matza's uh huh moment

when they realized criminals have learned to handle their conscious for this one moral holiday. if you could get your conscious as handling this event, you're good to go, criminals like to think of themselves as good people. they learn to neutralize their

Mind of offender on spectrum

we could take this behavior, think differently about the context, and pull it along the spectrum so in the mind of the offender they never go down to the bad end. they maybe doing something they think heroic even if we think it's bad. they change their in

Neutralization

the way it works on the conscious, you take something horrible, add something to it that pulls it along so thats whats left is benign or possibly beneficial.

5 neutrlaization techniques

denial of responsibility
denial of injury
denial of victim
condemnation of condemners
appear to higher loyalties

denial of responsibility

the offender recognizes and admits to the behavior, they're not going to deny that they did it, but they say it's not their fault. excuse = justification, justification shows you don't think anything is wrong. ex) you did something wrong while drunk and t

denial of injury

basically says there was no harm done. in order for something to be bad there needs to be harm, so if there was no harm there is no foul

denial of victim

admits the behavior, admits intent, admits entry, but says the victim deserves it. looks at the person receiving harm and they say that everyone understands that some people deserve this, they were harmed but in their mind they aren't victims. their behav

condemnation of conemners

the idea of "who are you to judge me, like you're an angel" i admit the behavior, i admit i meant to harm someone, they didn't deserve to be harmed, but you can't judge me. ex) when you're pulled over for speeding and you get mad and think why aren't you

appear to higher loyalties

there is something more important morally to me than the law. my life is more important than your life, that's a legal defense, all of these things are not only things you and i do everyday, these are legal defense in court. the justice system and to the

When do we usually engage in neutralization?

after we did it, in which an explanation turns into an excuse. this isn't an explanation for the behavior. second critique is that its hard to test this theory. this requires us to ask people what they were thinking. it turns out they weren't thinking abo

Process Theories

A set of theories which talk about the production of a criminal.
It's still individuals that matter, but individuals as cultural objects spit out by social institutions and processes. We have to look at the processes. What kinds of socialization processes

Self Control Theory (Hirsch and Godfredson)

The basic idea is that the difference between criminals and non criminals is their ability to control their impulses (think Freud)
Also explains other social binaries.
If you're trying to explain an individual's criminal behavior, it is out of their hands

Impulse Control

Walter Mischel conducted the Stanford Marshmallow Effect

Stanford Marshmallow Effect

Designed to see what they would do when they thought they weren't being watched. Kids would be wrestling with themselves. Some of the kids made it through the 15 minutes. Tests impulse control. Sorted into groups: high/low self control. Waited a decade an

Results of study?

High sellf control did better than kids who had low self control. Casual, with the exception of outliers.

Controlling Your Impulses

Your ability to control your impulses is something that can be taught. The socialization processes, they argue, is the most important thing to control their impulses.
Being able to attend college: choose between going out or studying.

How can we teach impulse control

Through socialization. the bad thing is that there is only a small window to teach this (think Piaget). this can only be taught between 8-10 and then it becomes a permanent trait.

What does this have to do with crime?

Instant gratification. "I want something." "i'll take it" vs. "i'll work for it

What's wrong with this?

We put the cause of criminal behavior with the person failing to understand the different possibilities. We can think of situations where a high self control person engaging in a criminal behavior. We can think of situations where low self control avoids

What's wrong with this theory?

The explanation say this theory can't be falsified. They may be engaging in that behavior, frankly, because they have no other choice. It's impossible to falsify. As a science, we want to be able to test our theories. How do we falsify that? Whether we ha

Differential Association (Sutherland and Cressey) Prinicples

1. Criminal behavior is learned (can be classified as any other learned behavior)
2. Learning is a by product of interaction (relationship with influential individuals control the way people interpret everyday events)
3. criminal techniques are learned (l

According to this theory when do people become criminals?

When they're in contact with people, groups, or events that produce and excess of definitions favorable towards criminality and isolated from counteracting forces.

According to this theory when do people learn criminal behavior and attitudes?

While in their adolescence from close friends, trusted relatives/friends. Learned in a process similar to any other human behavior.

What does this theory fail to explain?

People who are exposed but not criminals

What did Sutherland and Cressey study?

Gangs and wanted to understand why those in gangs commit criminal behavior.

What orients a gang?

Group of people who engage in illegal, criminal behavior.

Why do people join gangs knowing the criminal behavior associated with it?

People become re socialized, learn the rules of what's appropriate and not, what they can and can't do. It's an excess of definitions favorable towards crime. This is why causes them to commit criminal behavior.

How does differential association work?

a person is a product. when you have an individual groups feed on that individual. they're going to try to devour and take that person.

How does it compare to tug of war?

Some groups have mal intent. some have positive intent. the individual is being pulled in two different directions and eventually pulled to a side, they get to take over and control their socialization.
Pre existing social ties but go towards which group

Gangs

At 1st glance it seems bad. then the gang neutralizes the criminal behavior. the gang begins resocializing the person, redefining their understanding of what's good and bad. gang violence is usually social control. the gang knows that is coming; they know

Four things that predict criminality according to this theory

1, Frequency: how frequent is the interaction
2, Intensity: the intensity/strength of the relationship
3, Duration: the length of time you had a social tie; parents play a strong role in social ties, along with frequency and intensity of relationship
4, P

Is the behavior acceptable according to this theory?

Theory that warns parents to keep track of who their kids hang out with. Second, not only know the behavior, but to learn the behavior (behavior is learned). You don't know how to do it, ex: stealing a car but you don't know how to steal keys so you can't

Criminals have different associates

Associates with unfavorable views will not interact with that person. That is, however, we need to re socialize the individual. Social surroundings matter

Problems?

Original sin: for every crime, somebody has to be the first to do it, the innovator. These criminal acts tends to happen in private, in isolation, and therefor help us understand those situations.
Causal error problem: it turns out that you can flip it, w

Social Process Theory

Conceptualization criminals as products. Processes that make criminals criminals. You either become a criminal or you don't based on process.

Social Control Theory

Hirsch (self control theory - implies control, and social control theory_
Explanation for crime he came up with. He takes the whole field of criminology and puts it on his head. Our natural state is to be a horrible person (that's what kids are like). We

What's a criminal according to this theory?

Somebody who hasn't been properly socialized.

What makes people not commit crime?

people should be committing crime all the time, that's our animal nature. we successfully transform humans and it shows the power of socialization, this is the puzzling part, figuring out why people obey the law. The agents are malfunctioning or they were

Socialization Agents

Family, church, schools, religion. all these institutions set up to transform the criminal kids into adults.

2 things that need to be happening for socialization agents to work

1. they're functioning properly
2. when people have enough exposure to them

What happens if there is a proper attachment to these agents?

you will have a conventional socialization

Emile Durkheim

Has an idea about the nature of society, fundamental insight is that society is something greater than individuals. We usually think of society as a whole bunch of people.

What does Emile Durkheim recognize?

Emergent properties: exists in a higher order set that doesn't exist in a lower order set (groups have characteristics that individuals don't). If you think of society as a collection of individuals you're missing the emergent properties. Status, power, e

Social Bond

property that only exists in 2 people. you can't have it in a single person, a relationship is not something you can have with yourself

What is Hirsch's idea?

that social bonds (interpersonal ties) is what sociology is. Hirsch builds off Durkheim's idea. He says that groups are entities of themselves. it makes sense to study groups as a whole.

What did Durkheim say?

because these social objects and these groups are things, we can have attachment to those things, not just to those people, but to the group itself. You can have attachments that don't depend on a single person. ex) we have an attachment to UCSB even thou

Hirsch on socialization.

when you have a strong relationship with people you usually listen to them or take their advice because you respect them, he says it's the same thing with socialization, if you respect your social institute like school, you will listen to how they're shap

weak vs. strong bonds

if your attachment or bond to these social institutions is strong, these institutions can mold you into a good person.
if your bond to conventional social institutions are weak, it will have no influence on you, just like a stranger wouldn't have an influ

Hirsch's 4 types of social bonds

1. Attachment) overall connection to the social group.
2. Commitment) beliefs that the goals and activities of the group are worth wild. this is the stuff that i should be doing. a stake in conformity. if you don't do certain things you're going to receiv

Formal Social Control

the use of an institutions coercive power to get you to behave. ex) family institution: if you're texting at dinner they'll take your phone away. they can push and shove you until they win, they lose control when you get older because they can't force you

Informal Social Control

if you have a bond with that social group you can about that social group and their opinion of you. the fact that we care what other people think allows this to work. we can get people to comply, not through coercing them physically, we can also get them

Age/Crime curve

theres a rise in crime when you're young, then there's a peak age in which people are most likely to commit crimes, and then it goes downhill. This hold true across societies and time frames, not just individual people.

When do crimes peak?

property crime peaks at age 16
violent crime peaks at age 18

onset

rise in likelihood of criminal behavior. during early teen years you get onset of criminality.

desistance

after 16-18, you get this, coming down.
after about 24 is basically flattens out.

Why does is flatten out?

When people are about 24, you've invested so much time in relationships and education, and you don't want to lose everything you work for, so doing criminal activities isn't really an option. you start to realize your reputation matters and the threat of

How does this explain teenage parenting being problematic?

because they're still at the peak criminality, they really don't care about the rules or relationships

Mans Reya Curve

You start with 0 on the graph - mans rye - depending on the jurisdiction or punishment can start at 10. where mans reya starts depends on the jurisdiction. infants have a culpability of 0 because they have no idea what they're doing. but when you're 20 yo

Mans reya

A belief. Our belief is that whether someone can be held culpable in entirely cultural and social. Different people have different ideas about what you an hold someone responsible

two components to crime?

actis reys and mans reya

Differential Reinforcement Theory

People learn to evaluate their own behavior through their interactions with significant others and groups in their lives. Principle influence on behavior comes from those groups that control individual's major sources of reinforcement and punishment and e

Social Reaction Theory (Labeling Theory)

People given negative labels by authority figures accept those labels as personality identity, setting up self fulfilling prophecy.

3 theories under social learning theory

Differential Association
Differential Reinforcement
Neutralization

2 Social Disorganization Theories

Shaw and McKay's Concentric Zones Theory
and
Social Ecology Theory

Shaw and McKay's Concentric Zone Theory

Crime is a product of transitional neighborhoods that manifest social disorganization and value conflict.

Social Ecology Theory

The conflicts and problems of urban social life and communities, including fear, unemployment, deteriorations, and siege mentality, influence crime rates

Structural Theories

Thinking about patterns themselves. Individuals are in supporting roles because these theories focus on social structures. Instead of focusing on behavior we are focusing on the pattern of events.

Subcultural Theory

Similar to differential theory. Crime is caused by a shared set of shared norms. Result os social expectations. Instead of having no values, criminals have a different set of values.

Example of Subcultural Theory

students walk into class and sit down without being instructed because it's a norm. it's normal to drink at parties even if you're underage. norms, values, and neutralization theory play big roles.

Values in this theory:

fun and socialization. considered more important and even justified to the students because it's a norm of college life.

Example of football player shooting man above head in bar

His reaction was that he shot above his head because the guy was seducing his girlfriend and in this past he was in a gang where shooting above the head was a warning to stop, he believed his action was justifiable. he said if the man would've continued h

What is this type of action good at explaining?

organized crime, such as mafias and gangs but not very good at individually motivated lower level crimes for personal gang

Subculture of Sexual Assault. Boswell and Spade

they were interested in the clusters of sexual assaults in frats. certain houses had really high sexual assault arrest and allegations while there were other uses with little to none.

How did they approach this?

they used ethnography, which puts them in the environments of the experiment, and after gaining permission, hung out at a certain house called"high risk" house with frequent sexual assaults and "low risk" houses with absolutely no allegations. While obser

Different ideolodgies on the perceived statuses of women in HR and LR houses

HR- women were toys to the members
LR- women were friends, partners, and sisters

Difference in alcohol

HR- alcohol was the point of the parties. they were used to get drunk and lose control. often the first thing pointed out to guests were the location of the alcohol. the party never happened without alcohol.
LR- alcohol wasn't the point. many parties were

Difference in music

HR- music was deafening. Boswell and Spade found that loud music covered any noise for anyone in distress or in a situation where they were being sexually assaulted. second, they found that the loud music gave no way to hold a conversation and everything

Sex Ratio Diffence

HR- houses screened, only letting females in and promoting the idea that there were more women for bothers only so that there would be no competition. this was deliberalty created to increase the likelihood of a frat member hooking up with a women
LR- the

Long Term Relationship Difference

HR- relationships were discouraged. often the idea of you're too young have some fun was invoked and members in relationships were teased
LR- relationships were encouraged. the prevailing idea was find someone you can share your life with in LR houses, si

What was the social control mechanism in both houses to promote subculture?

teasing

Ritual Differences

HR- walk of shame. members gathered in the morning and jeered women who stayed the night and by engaging in this event brother collectively strengthen their bonds by degraded the girls and making them feel bad
LR- this ritual didn't exist

In this theory who is to blame?

You did what you were supposed to do in the subculture. individual culpability lessens and the group's culpability increases. does the current justice system of punishing individuals for their actions fix the origin of the problem that resides in the grou

Anomie Theories

Linked to Durkheim. aka formlessness. The idea of emergent properties is important. ex) power of hierarchy

Durkheim Academic Career

devoted to groups because sociology is "socio". he believed that the behaviors and decisions of the individual was to be left for the field of psych.

Dot example

a single dot may not mean much but a collection of dots forming an "a" has a purpose. the "a" can't be seen individual dots but only as a group. a dot that doesn't help form the a is off to the side and has no purpose in the group and is detached.

Durkheim's belief

a human not associated to a group is not a social being. their life has no purpose. everything that you value comes from society and without being a part of society you have no preference and no values.

Suicide Study

stated that being disconnected from society means a social death and that physical death will soon follow. the symptoms of not being apart of society such as no motivation, having no incentive to choose, or being pathetic are all symptoms of depression an

Durkheim's Mechanical Solidarity

everyone was farmers and knew the craftsmen that made their products and engaged in businesses with people they knew and were close to. this made a strong attachment to society and reduces your chances of detachment from society.
Social ties, the glue tha

Durkheim's Organic Solidarity

When world is closer to the modern world where you must deal with strangers in order to function in society. You have no idea who makes the things you buy and use and because your attachment to the group is weaker, depression is more common and apathy is

Durkheim's Idea

Anomie - society is something that's alive.

What happens to your life when you lose your connection to this entity?

You life is meaningless. suicide is an option. depression is a symptom of social disease

Feeling of anomie

very powerful. you have no idea and no preferences about anything. you're completely socially adrift

Durkheim's thought about crime

it's functional and inevtiable

Crime being functional

reinforcing social bonds. it does something useful. the size of our prison system employs about a million people. this gives a lot of jobs and without this a lot of people's livelihoods wouldn't exists. crime exists and ends up paying paid employment. Pos

What did the atrocities of 9/11 have?

unintended side affect of enhancing social bonds, functional. producing stronger social relationships, stronger bonds to the groups, stronger feelings of sacrifice, all of this came from a criminal event

Horrific crimes

result in stronger social bonds. you're tapping into our collective outrage on the criminal act.

What's more powerful, organic or mechanical?

Mechanical.

What did 9/11 produce

mechanical solidarity, unanimous opinion that it was horrible. it eventually decayed because we fundamentally aren't the same but we bonded together.

Crime and social bonds

crime doesn't destroy social bonds it enhances them. crime brings people together because it offends our moral sensibilities. if we have a common set of response to the behavior then the crime will enhance our relationships

Durkheim on crime being inevitable

It'll happen whether you want it to or not. The law is constantly changing. The status of behaviors whether or not they're legal is constantly in flux.

Drawn Bubble

inside was legal, the bubble's line is the law, and then the outside is illegal.

mental picture of ameba

the boundary line is influx, it's wiggling. for ex) 40 years ago smoking was so popular that would be done everywhere, but now thats not ok

Durkheim's Insight

because the law is constantly in flux, we don't know that if something that is illegal is still acceptable, until someone tries it, and when someone tries it we look at people's responses, thats what tells us whether or not it's appropriate.

Problem of trying to rid crime

how are you supposed to do this if the legal system is constantly moving?

second unintended positive side effect of crime

the second way in which crime is functional is that we can figure out where the line between appropriate and inappropriate by people's reactions, our moral sense isn't something thats reflected in the law

Social Disorganization Theory (Anomie Theory)

in physical places, where people have weak social bonds with one another, you will see higher crime rates. We're not talking about people anymore, we're talking about places, geography. Lower crime rates are where people have strong social ties. Ecologica

What two things contribute to and repress crime?

physical and social environment

Broken Windows Hypothesis

in areas with physical problems, specifically "broken windows", somewhere with graffiti, run down, gross, ghetto, you can picture what the physical areas look like. by looking at the physical surroudnings, they they serve as indicators of social surrondin

how does informal social control play into this?

if people don't take care of their property and don't care about the opinions from the people around them, there is no shame. the opinions of other people and their distain when people do something inappropriate. if someone's house is run down, according

What does it show about the neighbors of people with an unmowed lawn

they don't care, if you had a strong relationship the neighbors would help you out.

What does this have to do with crime?

when people are committing crime they go to where theres low social bonds because no one's looking out for each other
Simply by mowing your lawn it can make a criminal not go there because they know there's informal social control going on

Homeowner's association

basically when sets of homeowners get together and put up rules about what you can do to your house, likes rules about your roof tiles can be, people walk around with clipboards and write citations

Why do this?

every transgression that shows a weakness in community gets nipped ***********. a community will make you do things you don't want to do, thats apart of being apart of a group. Has a lot of data that supports it

Bill Braton and Times Square

Famous police chief, they sent more police in and arrested people who were doing illegal things there. this displaced crime. cleaned up petty crime. arrested people for jaywalking, you enforce little stuff to prevent big stuff

Why did he remove homeless people from times square

a homeless person in an area is the strongest indicator people don't care about each other. if you have a homeless person in the area and you allow them to be homeless it shows you don't care

Perfect condition for crime:

when people don't care about whats happening to their neighbors.

What deters crime

keeping your property and your neighborhood in good repair shows that people care about each other.

Ecological Theories

keeping your area nice actually reduces crime

Situationally crime prevention

basically target hardening. thinking more broadly. think about architecture of neighborhoods. one of the most important things that has happened is the invention of the backyard.

How did loss of front porch contribute to crime?

it weakened the social bonds. you isolate yourself in the backyard. prevents interaction with your neighbors.

What happens when you're watching each other in your neighborhood

you know what belongs and what doesn't. you can spot people that don't regularly go here and you can all the cops.

Does this control crime?

Yes

Chicago School

An approach to sociology thats very interdisciplinary

Structural Theories/Anomie Theories Studied at Chicago School

they get their name because it was a lot of researchers at University of Chicago. They had a distinct set of ideas about social phenomenon. They started to think about the city as a social object (whats a city, how do cities work?)

What did they ask?

Why crime tends to occur in certain parts of the city and why types of crime are distributed in different parts of city

Basic idea of Chicago School

we can break cities down into parts, the downtown part of the city in Chicago (the loop), this loop is an intense part of the city with a lot of human activity, criminal activity, etc. when you're not in this part you're "out of the loop

Central business district (CBD)

terms for cities in the central area, where a lot of business and economic businesses is done. financial center

What are the social patterns of the loop

theres a lot of wealth there, theres a pulse (a lot of people go in in the morning and work, sit there all day, then go home).
Immigration into the CBD comes in spurts, a lot of people you find there don't live downtown.
Connections between people - the p

Next Zone after downtown? Ghetto

Concentration of people of a certain type. Newly people arrive and they try to get out.
Immigrant types that cluster, and their goal is to get out

Zone of Transition (ZOT)

transitional zone. new immigrants come and they're trying to figure out how america works. not nice, run down, highest crime rates.
They're going to be committing criminal offenses based on the fact they don't understand what they're supposed to be doing.

Second component that comes from Durkheim

When people immigrate, they go to big cities like La, ny, because they know of it

Working Class Zone (after ZOT)

consists of people who have been in the country for a generation, maybe 2.
if you look at the structure of the city its basically a city of immigration patterns.
people who live here like it but they still want to get out at some point.
your goal is to im

Residential Zone

People who have been here for a very long time.
They understand how American system works, this is middle class.
Home ownership is pretty high,"this is where i live this is my property"
Forming long term social ties with the people around you because they

What does community rest on

if you plan to stay in a city or not, thats why poorer areas like ZOT have poor social ties.

Commuter Zone - Last Zone

People who have been in the country for a very long time.
Demographics for these people are the same as residential zone, except for money, these people are very wealthy.
People live here, but don't work here.
Reverse pulse of CBD, people are drained from

Centric Zone Theory

The people who are most comfortable and have been in American the longest should be most comfortable in America, which are blacks and white, and black people do not, this is shown in Chicago. It's a social group that should be in commuter zone, but they'r

This theory and other cities

works well for Chicago, this criticism is for cities like LA, that doesn't have the same CBD as other CBD's. LA has a downtown but no one really works there or lives there. There are clusters of downtown, like LA or LB. There's no core, LA city boundaries

Ethnic Clusters in LA

when people arrive in LA they go to their ethnicities and they like it

White Flight

White people are the leading edge of progression, they've been in the country the longest.

Gentrification

People go back into spots where they didn't reside before, it's another form of transformation. While people have a lot of social mobility.

Concentric Zone Theory Wrong

Because it doesn't explain cities that don't have a concentric zone. Fundamentally this is an anomie theory, when you think of Chicago, weak social ties and you want to leave, high social ties you care about your city, lower crime rates.

Strain Theory

Merton and Agow. The idea that we're thinking in terms of cultural forms.
If we want to understand criminal behavior, we have to think of opportunities.
Merton's trying to understand who ends up committing crimes, not everyone commits the same kind of cri

What did Merton say?

I wonder if this has to do with people's surroundings

Socially Accepted Means

Do you have available the means. whether or not you have averrable to you, is out of your control. this is going to help us understand who ends up committing what types of crimes.

What does a good theory tell?

Who commits crimes and who doesn't

What does Merton say about crime?

he says people who don't commit crime are the people who still want stuff, but has a legal way to get it, conformists (people who want stuff everyone wants and it's available to them)

what happens when you have someone who is socialized properly but you're missing socially accepted means?

someone who wants stuff everyone else wants, like a car, but you don't have a high paying job to get that car, if they really want it they'll steal the car.

Innovators

they use socially unacceptable means to get what they want, a lot of criminal behavior can be viewed as people solving a problem.

Rebel

A person who rejects entire system. Interested in changing the system itself.
The way this is always written, is plus minus plus minus

Why do people obey the rules of society in different theories?

Choice Theorist: Fear of punishment.
Structural Theorist: Obedience is a function of having access to legit opportunities.
Learning Theorist: Obedience acquired through contact with authorities.
Social Control: Because behavior and passions controlled by

Enterprise Crimes

These of illegal tactics to gain profit in the marketplace. Can involve both the violation of the law in the course of an otherwise left occupation and the same and distribution of illegal commodities. Two groups: white and green collar crimes.

White Collar Crimes

Involves illegal activities of people and institutions whose acknowledged purpose is illegal profit through legit business transactions (may engage in the illegal dumping of hazardous waste)

Corportate Crime

Includes antitrust violations, price fixing, and false advertising, white collar criminals who become involved in criminal conspiracies designed to improve the market share or profability of their corporations.

White Collar Swindle

Involves the criminal activity of people who use a business proposition to fraudulently trick others out of their money. involves a person using his or her ongoing institutional or business position to commit fraud and fleece a victim