Criminology Chapter 6

Question 1

What are the major theoretical perspectives of crime and deviance based on? 3 things

Answer 1

Biological, psychological and sociological explanations.

Question 2

What are 6 criminological theories that do not fall squarely within biology, psychology or sociology and go into detail with the 2 out of 6?

Answer 2

Critical criminology, rational choice theory, opportunity theory and feminist theory

• Contemporary social learning theory involves biology, psychology and sociology.
• Classical School theory is neither any of the three

Question 3

What does “theoretically speaking” or “it sounds good in theory” imply?

Answer 3

“theoretically speaking” or “it sounds good in theory” imply that theory does not necessarily work in practice.

Question 4

Why do we need theories?

Answer 4

To understand and explain crime and deviance through a disciplined, scientific approach

Question 5

What would friends or family say about what causes crime? 5 things

Answer 5

• Explanations that are based on truisms
• Explanations that are based on what they heard on the media
• Results of poor child-rearing
• Criminals that suffer from mental illness
• Soft-on-crime laws

Question 6

Why are some explanations for what causes crime not qualified enough to be “good theory? two reasons

Answer 6

• Explanations are overly simplistic

- Lack the critical elements required to be “good” theory

Question 7

Most individuals who experience ____ parental control and role modelling during their youth eventually turn out to be ___-_____ adults, whereas individuals from seemingly ideal family backgrounds sometimes go on to become adult ________.

Answer 7

Most individuals who experience poor parental control and role modelling during their youth eventually turn out to be law-abiding adults, whereas individuals from seemingly ideal family backgrounds sometimes go on to become adult criminals.

Question 8

Interpersonal violence involves four factors. What are they?

Answer 8

Interpersonal violence involves a blend of biological, psychological, sociological and personal factors

Question 9

What are 3 things that a good theory must have?

Answer 9

• A good theory must be logical with a valid structure. It follows the basic rules of critical thinking and logic.
• It helps us make sense of reality: A good theory should make statements or propositions about reality that can be tested so that the theory can be accepted or rejected on the basis of solid evidence
• Good theories should be parsimonious so that they are easier to test

Question 10

Define parsimonious

Answer 10

If two theories explain the same phenomenon equally effectively, scientists should prefer the one that offers the simplest and most straightforward explanation

Question 11

What are 3 theories that have been tested successfully?

Answer 11

Social disorganization theory, social control theory and social learning theory

Question 12

What are two things that challenged 3 theories to be re-examine?

Answer 12

Developments in genetic research and brain-imaging techniques have caused criminologists to re-examine rational choice theory, routine activity theory and lifestyle exposure theory

Question 13

What is an example of how development of DNA testing affected David Milgaard’s case?

Answer 13

Thanks to DNA testing, David Milgaard received exoneration (not guilty)

Question 14

What are 4 circumstances that affect theorists?

Answer 14

Social, political, economic and historical circumstances

Question 15

Define Positivist School and what did it reflect?

Answer 15

A school of thought that attributed criminal behavior to biological or psychological factors; often referred to as the “Italian School”. This school notion of criminality as an inherited propensity was a reflection of what was going on in the mid-to late 1800s as it was linked to Charles Darwin’s evolution theory, Gregor Mendel’s work on genetics and developments in the fields of physical anthropology, medicine and psychiatry.

Question 16

Define Chicago School. What did it contribute to? (6 things) and what it was shaped by? 3 things

Answer 16

Chicago School is the first school of sociology in the United States; contributed to social disorganization theory, cultural transmission theory, differential association theory, subcultural theory, the sociology of deviance and symbolic interactionism. It was shaped by: - rapid urbanization that took place around the globe in late 1800s and early 1900s

• emergence of the discipline of sociology in the 1890s
• social forces such as the Progressive movement

Question 17

Fun fact: theories emerges as a reflection of what was going on in the past and the time that they were being proposed

Answer 17

Theories even originated from hard sciences such as chemistry, physics and biology

Question 18

What happened to Galileo?

Answer 18

He was forced to recant his observation that the earth and the planets revolved around the sun by religious authorities

Question 19

Define psychopathy

Answer 19

A personality disorder characterized by a lack of empathy and an inability to feel for others

Question 20

What is conventional wisdom or knowledge?

Answer 20

Ideas that are accepted by society in any given period.

Question 21

Define Classical School of criminology and what was 3 of its recommendations. What are 3 things it was implemented in?

Answer 21

Classical School of criminology is a body of work that emerged in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries that argued people have the capacity to think rationally; contemporary deterrence theory is rooted in this school of thought. 3 recommendations are the need for due process, the use of imprisonment as a form of punishment and limitations on the severity of punishment. It was implemented in the US Constitution, the English Penitentiary Act and the French criminal code.

Question 22

What was the notion for the “medical model” that Cesare Lombroso endorsed and what did this notion cause? 2 things

Answer 22

“medical model” - notion that criminals were sick and in need of treatment. This notion increased the number of prison reforms and a new emphasis on rehabilitation

Question 23

What did social disorganization theory come from and what did it focused on? (3 things it focused on). What is one example of social disorganization theory being used?

Answer 23

Social disorganization theory, put forward by Chicago School theorists Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay in the early 1940s, resulted in the ongoing Chicago Area Project. This theory focuses on redesigning socially disorganized slums through the creation of community organizations, cleaning up neighborhoods and reviving community pride. An example of the application of this theory is the efforts by the City of Surrey to “renew” the Whalley-Newton area

Question 24

What are 3 theories that contributed to the development of a number of crime prevent programs? What are 3 examples of crime prevention programs and 8 examples of measures to stop crime?

Answer 24

3 theories that contributed to development of crime prevention programs : Routine activity theory, lifestyle exposure theory and rational choice theory.
3 examples of crime prevention programs: situational crime prevention, target hardening and community policing.
8 examples of measures to prevent crime: Improved street lighting, burglar alarms, CCTV cameras, automobile immobilizers, GPS tracking, secure parking lots with barriers, boutique-style community police stations and bike patrols by police.

Question 25

Define rational choice theory

Answer 25

A modern version of Classical School thinking originating in economics; it assumes that humans are rational and have free will, and that offenders make conscious choices to commit crime, based on a cost-benefit analysis

Question 26

How did social learning theory premised on differential association theory and who made this theory?

Answer 26

Ronald Aker’s social learning theory is built on criminal behavior is learned through social interaction and added that processes of reinforcement and punishment were critical, with Skinner’s operant conditioning and Bandura’s work on imitation and modelling behavior.

Question 27

Define differential association theory and who made this?

Answer 27

Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory is a theory that proclaims criminal behavior is learned through the process of social interaction, and that the process includes the learning of criminal skills, motivations, attitudes and rationalizations.

Question 28

What happens if the public and politicians believe that crime is caused by a poor social environment during 1940s, 1950s and 1960s? 3 things

Answer 28

Then we can expect a wellspring of sociological theories that explain crime in those terms, buttressed by public support and public policy and aimed at eradicating criminogenic social conditions.

Question 29

Define criminogenic

Answer 29

Crime-causing

Question 30

What happens if crime rates were rising during 1960s-80s? 2 things

Answer 30

We expect to see

• growing public support for conservative politicians such as Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK.
• Greater demand for rational choice theories, deterrence theories or theories that support the incapacitation of “life-course persistent offenders”

Question 31

Why do terms like “zero tolerance” and “truth in sentencing” capture the public imagination and become political buzzwords? 3 reasons

Answer 31

Because of the period of increasing crime rates, the growing public hostility toward crime and criminals and the corresponding increase in conservative, “tough on crime” politics

Question 32

What was the Classical School of Criminology, what did they do and who were the three most well-known members of the Classical School?

Answer 32

The Classical School consisted of a group of European social philosophers who lived during the the 18th-century Enlightenment. They were social reformers who challenged the way criminals were dealt with, criticized the absence of due process and argued against the death penalty and the use of torture to extract confessions. The 3 most well-known members are Baron de Montesquieu, Cesare Beccaria, and Jeremy Bentham.

Question 33

What is demonology or spiritualism? What was the prescribed remedies for criminality and insanity? (3 stages)?

Answer 33

Demonology or spiritualism is a theological (religious) theory about criminals and mentally ill people being possessed by evil spirits or demons. The prescribed remedies for criminality and insanity were confession through interrogation and torture, repentance and then execution. These were conducted either by religious authorities or by the king.

Question 34

How was the 18th century marked by great social and political turmoil? 6 things

Answer 34

• England lost control of America
• French aristocracy lost their heads to the guillotine
• Newton discovered the laws of gravity
• Voltaire argued against superstition
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote about the “social contract”
• Adam Smith inquired into “the nature and causes of the wealth of nations”

Question 35

What are 4 things that Beccaria’s and Bentham’s work mentioned? and define them

Answer 35

• Hedonism (The view that pleasure is the primary good; the pursuit of pleasure and avoid pain)
• Utilitarianism (A philosophy that suggests reasoned decisions will produce the greatest good for the greatest number. For example, actions of government and individual should be measured on how much pleasure they bring and how many people benefit from those actions.)
• Free will (A will whose choices are not conditioned or determined by factors external to itself; also, the doctrine that free will exists)
• Human beings as rational, logical actors

Question 36

What did Beccaria argued? 6 things

Answer 36

• Argued against secret accusations and the use of torture
• Argued that accused individuals should have the right to know their accusers and the right to a fair trial
• Argued against death penalty
• Argued that punishment should be proportional to the crime
• Argued that people agreed to join society but they did not agree that society should be able to kill them if they misbehaved
• Argued against religious dogma and the authority of the Church

Question 37

What did Beccaria help formed through his argument against the Church and the death penalty? Hint: 4 things helped create 2 things

Answer 37

Beccaria’s recommendation regarding presumed innocence, trial by jury, restraints on judicial authority and limitations on the severity of punishment formed the basis for new criminal codes in the US and France.

Question 38

What were 4 things that Bentham argued?

Answer 38

• He argued that humans are rational, free-willed actors and that their behavior is governed by a hedonistic calculus.
• He argued that individuals would make a rational choice about whether or not to commit crime based on the pleasure derive from it and the amount of pain they might suffer if they were caught and punished.
• Excessive punishment was evil in itself
• He argued that punishment should be restricted only to the amount required to achieve deterrence, that the prescribed punishment should be made widely known to the public in advance and that certainty and swiftness of punishment were more important for deterrence than the severity of the punishment

Question 39

Define deterrence

Answer 39

A principle of sentencing or punishment intended to discourage citizens from offending or reoffending

Question 40

What are 5 examples of Classical School thinking in our modern criminal justice system?

Answer 40

• Codification of criminal offences
• Presumption of innocence
• The right to a fair trial
• The right to know the case against you
• The right to be tried by a jury of your peers

Question 41

The legal concept of mens rea is linked to Classical School notions of three things. What are they?

Answer 41

The legal concept of mens rea is linked to Classical School notions of free will, rational choice and individual culpability

Question 42

What were prisons used for before they became a system that reflected the Classical School thinking? 2 things

Answer 42

• Prisons were used to hold accused people while they were being interrogated and tortured.
• They were used to hold the person while waiting for execution

Question 43

What are contemporary prison based on?

Answer 43

On the notion of imprisonment as a form of punishment, with prescribed limitations on the duration and severity of the punishment

Question 44

What are the 3 theories that have emerged and are rooted in Classical School thinking? What are they about?

Answer 44

Contemporary deterrence theory, rational choice theory and situational crime prevention theory are about free-willed individuals making rational choices to engage in or refrain from crime, based on an economic calculation of the perceived pleasure if they get away with it and the perceived pain if they are caught and punished.

Question 45

What is Positivist School also referred as?

Answer 45

Italian School

Question 46

What is Positivist School and who are the 3 19th-century Italian theorists? Who invented the term positivism? Define it.

Answer 46

The three 19th-century Italian theorists are Cesare Lobroso, Raffaele Garofalo and Enrico Ferri. The Positivist School tries to apply “scientific” method to the study of crime and deviance and rejects the Classical School by claiming that behavior was predetermined by genes or individual’s evolutionary circumstances. Henri de Saint-Simon invented the term positivism which is the application of the scientific method to the study of society, including the study of crime and criminals.

Question 47

What are two things the Positivist School was influenced by?

Answer 47

• Darwin’s theory of evolution

- Mendel’s study of genetics

Question 48

What are 3 fields of study that contributed to Positivist School Thinking and how do they contribute?

Answer 48

• Physiognomy proposed that facial features could reveal an individual’s inner characteristics, such as cowardice, deceitfulness or propensity to engage in violence and crime
• Phrenology, sometimes referred to as craniometry, held that abnormalities or anomalies in the shape of the skull were indicative of a person’s morality and intelligence.
• Psychiatry, with its increasing interest in moral insanity, was a precursor to the Positivist School view of habitual criminals as insane, genetically unfit or intellectually inferior.

Question 49

What is Cesara Lombroso? What did he work as, and what did he argue?

Answer 49

Cesara Lombroso is referred to as the father of modern criminology because he was the first to attempt to systematically apply scientific method to study criminality. He worked as an army doctor, a psychiatrist, and a university professor in medical jurisprudence, psychiatry and anthropology. He argued that criminals were atavistic and that they were like cavemen or apes

Question 50

Define atavistic

Answer 50

A term associated with Cesare Lombroso and the Positivist School of thought; the notion that criminals are less evolved than “normal” humans

Question 51

Who was Enrico Ferri and what did he do and argue for? 6 things

Answer 51

• Ferri was a student of Cesare Lombroso at the University of Turin in Italy.
• Ferri was active in politics and was a Marxist, a member of the Socialist Party and a member of the early Positivist School. He helped redraft the Italian criminal code.
• Ferri employed anthropology, psychology, and biology into the area of sociological criminology
• Ferri talked about “born criminal”
• He argued against the Classical School notions of free will and rational choice
• He argued that criminal behavior was determined by a combination of biological, political, economic and social factors.

Question 52

Who was Garofalo and what did he argued for? 4 things

Answer 52

• Garofalo was a prosecutor, a magistrate, and a member of the Italian Senate.
• He believed that societies had a right to defend themselves against offenders who committed such crimes, through execution, transportation to another distant country, or incapacitation through imprisonment .
• He argued against Classical School notion of free will, claiming that criminal thinking was inherited or “organic” and not the result of environmental factors or logical thinking
• He argued that judges were in better position to weigh evidence and avoid undue influence than members of the general public

Question 53

Did Positivist School accepted Classical School notion of free will and rational choice?

Answer 53

No. Positivist School rejected Classical School notion of free will and rational choice and instead argued that the behavior of individuals was primarily predetermined by their inherited genetic makeup and the same goes for criminals. According to the “medical model”, criminality was a “disease” the could be studied and “treated” by medical doctors and scientific experts

Question 54

Define determinism

Answer 54

The doctrine that one’s will is not the sole cause of choices but that those choices are conditioned or determined by factors external to one’s will

Question 55

Fun fact: in our contemporary era, evolutionary biologists are more likely to accept the existence of an interplay between genes and the environment with both factors contributing to criminality in different ways.

Answer 55

wow

Question 56

What has sociologists have gradually come to accept?

Answer 56

That certain characteristics such as intelligence, physical abilities, and perhaps even problematic personalities are at least partially heritable

Question 57

What were Positivist School criticized for? 3 things

Answer 57

• They were criticized for their simplistic assumptions about “born criminal”, the existence of identifiable criminal body types, and their unfounded belief that “innate” anomalies such as immorality, deceitfulness or low intelligence could be ascertained by examining a person’s skull or facial features.
• Criticized for discounting the relationship between crime and social factors like poverty, lack of education and lack of employment opportunities
• Criticized for their support for science of eugenics - the misguided notion that the bad genes that led to diseases like feeble-mindedness, homosexuality and criminality could and should be eliminated or sterilized.

Question 58

What did followed the logic of Social Darwinism and what was Social Darwinism about?

Answer 58

Positivist School followed the logic of Social Darwinism. It was about those who were on the bottom-most rungs of society - the poor, “feeble-minded”, or physically deformed- were evolutionary throwbacks while the wealthy, politically powerful and educated were considered the best from the process of “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest”

Question 59

What are two examples of how the Positivist School persisted for many years?

Answer 59

Early and mid-20th-century Positivist School example includes Earnest Hooton’s “hierarchy of degeneration” and William Sheldon’s somatotyping

Question 60

Define somatotyping

Answer 60

A research technique that links behavioral characteristics to body types such as mesomorphy

Question 61

What did Hooton do and what is the Hooton’s “hierarchy of degeneration”?

Answer 61

• Hooton examined 17 000 inmates in a variety of correctional institutions and concluded that prisoners had distinctive and inferior characteristics - lower intelligence, mixed eye colors and sloping foreheads.
• Hooton’s hierarchy of degeneration describes a descending order from sane civilians to sane criminals and from insane civilians to insane criminals with decreasing intelligence, increasing insanity and more physical “deformities” the further down the scale.

Question 62

What is Sheldon’s somatotyping theory in 1949?

Answer 62

Premised on 19th-century biological and psychiatric thinking, described three distinct (unusual) body types:

• the ectomorph, who was skinny, frail and prone to nervous disorders and anxiety
• endomorph, who was rotund (overweight), sociable, and loved to eat
• mesomorph, who had a muscular, triangular torso and was competitive, aggressive and prone to violence

Question 63

What did Hooton and Sheldon have in common? 2 things

Answer 63

They were both members of Positivist School and both endorsed eugenics as a means to eliminate crime and criminals

Question 64

Define eugenics

Answer 64

The misguided notion that the bad genes that led to diseases like feeble-mindedness, homosexuality, and criminality could and should be eliminated

Question 65

How did Positivist School thinking had a significant impact on criminal justice policy? 2 things

Answer 65

• If an individual became criminals due to circumstances beyond their control (poor genes, feeble-mindedness), then logically they could not be held accountable for their behavior.
• Crime was seen as a disease which resulted in greater emphasis on treatment and rehabilitation and the use of indeterminate sentences to ensure that criminals had been cured

Question 66

What is the medical model?

Answer 66

The notion that there should be “no treatment without diagnosis and no penal sanction without expert advice”

Question 67

What are two examples today that apply the medical model?

Answer 67

• In Canadian court system, lawyers argue that their clients deserve special consideration because their inability to understand the nature of their actions due to mental illness.
• In Canadian correctional system, where transfer to a reduced security institution or release on parole routinely involves psychiatric and psychological reports.

Question 68

What were the similarities between the psychiatrists’ and psychologists’ approaches on theories of criminal behavior? two things

Answer 68

• Both approaches viewed criminality through a medical lens (as a disease)
• Both approaches applied the scientific method (observation, experimentation, measurement, classification and explanatory theories) to the study of criminality

Question 69

Who was Sigmund Freud and what did he do?

Answer 69

Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and a forerunner of modern-day psychiatry, typifies the 19th-century “positivist”. He was a medical doctor specializing in neurology, was also interested in psychology, biology, and anthropology.

Question 70

What was Freud’s theory called and what was it about?

Answer 70

Freud’s “psychodynamic” theory postulated that human psychology was shaped by biological processes (instincts), family dynamics and early childhood experiences

Question 71

What did Freud’s thinking presaged in psychological explanations of crime and deviance? 3 things

Answer 71

• Psychopathology
• Social learning
• The relationship between frustration and aggression

Question 72

What did the 1950 book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency reveal and what was it about?

Answer 72

1950 book Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency is a example of psychobiology or biopsychology. 500 delinquents and 500 non-delinquent boys were observed and found that delinquents were more mesomorphic and had more number of psychological or temperamental problems. This was used to imply delinquents displayed characteristics normally associated with psychopathy and this linked to Sheldon’s work on somatotyping and criminals as atavistic (by Cesare Lombroso).

Question 73

Criminal psychology is grounded in what studies and what is it about?

Answer 73

Criminal psychology is grounded in cohort studies that measure the development of large birth cohorts over a period of many years.

Question 74

What is an example of cohort studies?

Answer 74

“Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development” was spearheaded by psychologist David Farrington.

Question 75

What did Farrington article “Criminological Psychology in the Twenty-First Century” proposed?

Answer 75

“Criminological Psychology in the Twenty-First Century” called for a discipline that embraces an array of explanations, including biological factors (low intelligence and cognitive disabilities), sociological factors (poverty, family conflict, delinquent peers) and psychological factors (individual differences in impulsivity, attentiveness and learning). He even adds rational choice theory and routine activity theory to the mix.

Question 76

What is an example of a work in the area of psychobiology and what is it about?

Answer 76

An example is Terrie Moffitt’s study on life-course-persistent (LCP) offenders and adolescent-limited (AL) offenders. It is about how the two type of offenders are different and have different theoretical explanation. LCP offending is explained by heritable factors such as cognitive deficits and by prenatal and neonatal trauma (maternal alcohol or drug abuse during pregnancy, deprivation of affection following birth). AL offending is explained in terms of social learning - the type of peer pressure, peer approval or peer rejection routinely experienced by teens

Question 77

How does psychology and sociology similarities and differences

Answer 77

Similarities
- While positivists endorese the application of the scientific method to the study of society, social scientists also study
Difference:
- While sociology searches for the causes of criminal behavior in social structure, social institutions and social interaction, psychology searches for causes of criminal behavior in the characteristics of individual offenders

Question 78

What are two examples of social psychology (a blend of sociology and psychology)?

Answer 78

Aker’s social learning theory and Agnew’s general strain theory

Question 79

What did Emile Durkheim argued? 4 things

Answer 79

• He argued that because all societies have crime and that crime had not be eliminated, he concluded that a certain amount of crime must be normal
• He argued against the Positivist School portrayal of criminality as a disease invading an organism
• He argued against Positivist School notion that human being should be quarantined, sterilized and even eradicated to prevent them from spreading the disease of criminality
• He argued that a limited amount of crime actually served a social function by reinforcing social values and demonstrating what might happen to those who refused to play by society’s rules

Question 80

Who argued against Sheldon’s work of somatotyping and argued against prison psychiatrist Glueck? What was Glueck’s work and Sheldon’s work about?

Answer 80

Edwin Sutherland argued against Sheldon’s work of somatotyping and argued against prison psychiatrist Glueck. He argued that criminal behavior was learnt through interaction with the social environment and observed that crime existed in the supposedly “normal” middle and upper classes, as well as among members of the lower classes. Sheldon’s work was about eugenics and claimed that violent criminals could be identified through their mesomorphic body type. Glueck’s work involved that most criminals were psychopaths and should be committed to psychiatric institutions for life.

Question 81

Fun fact: The divide and schism between sociology and biology was widened further by Edwin Sutherland’s withering attack on the 1950 work of Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck.

Answer 81

wow

Question 82

What happened during 1970s? 3 things

Answer 82

• People to lose faith in the criminal justice system as well as the social theories that formed the basis for the penal-welfare system
• Crime rates were starting to rise
• Biological and psychology explanations as well as Positivism started to contribute to criminology again.

Question 83

What happened in 1976 with Samuel Yochelson and Stanton Samenow?

Answer 83

Yochelson and Samenow published the Criminal Personality in which they argued that criminals were born with abnormal thought patterns that affected their ability to make normal decisions.

Question 84

What in happened in 1977 with Sarnoff Mednick and Karl Christiansen?

Answer 84

Mednick and Christiansen disseminated the results of a series of studies on disturbances in the autonomic nervous system and low cortical arousal in high-risk offenders, suggesting that serious criminal offending was linked to biological processes

Question 85

What happened in 1985 with James Wilson and Richard Herrnstein?

Answer 85

Wilson and Herrnstein published Crime and Human Nature, in which they asserted that constitutional factors (such as mesomorphy) were indeed related to criminality.

Question 86

What happened in 1994 with Herrnstein and Charles Murray?

Answer 86

Murray and Herrnstein argued in The Bell Curve that a relationship existed between criminality and low intelligence

Question 87

What happened during 1990s with Antony Walsh and Lee Ellis?

Answer 87

Walsh and Ellis made a concerted effort to mend fences with sociology and allowed biology to contribute further to criminology by emerging knowledge about DNA, neurotransmitters, the human genome, and the use of MRIs for brain imaging. Biology’s stature in criminology has also been enhanced by its abandonment of eugenics, the search for a specific crime gene, and the search for an identifiable criminal body type.

Question 88

The _____ tradition in criminology is typically associated with the thinking of Marx, whereas the _____ tradition is typically associated with Durkheim.

Answer 88

The conflict tradition in criminology is typically associated with the thinking of Marx, whereas the consensus tradition is typically associated with Durkheim.

Question 89

Define conflict theory and what is it? what are 4 examples of conflict theory?

Answer 89

Conflict theories are theories, originating primarily with Marx, that focus on the unequal distribution of power in society- for example, due to class,race or gender. Conflicts between classes or groups are driven to a large extent by this unequal power and unequal access to resources. Those who have wealth and power get to decide the law and legal authorities decide who the law will target. 4 examples of conflict theory include cultural criminology, critical constructionism, labelling theory, and critical criminology.

Question 90

Define consensus theory and what is it? What are 3 examples of consensus theory?

Answer 90

Consensus theories, in opposition to conflict theories, consensus theories, which originate with Durkheim, hold that society functions through social bonds and collective beliefs, and is characterized by widespread acceptance of values, norms and laws. It argues that society and its laws are rooted in shared values and beliefs of its members and that those who do not share those values and beliefs of society or behave in a socially unacceptable manner are regarded as deviant or criminal. 3 examples of consensus theory are anomie-strain theory, social control theory and rational choice theory. Psychological and biological theories could also be regarded as consensus theories as they assume that “normal” behavior exists.

Question 91

Define epigenetics

Answer 91

Study of how stimuli in the immediate environment can alter the functioning of genes without changing the basic structure of DNA

Question 92

What theory has been traditionally used for explaining white-collar and corporate crime?

Answer 92

Social strain theory has been traditionally used for explaining white-collar and corporate crime

Question 93

Define integrated theories and what are they used for? 2 things

Answer 93

Ideas that comes from several disciplines and is used to make a theory is called a integrated theory. These integrated theories are used to attempt to explain both crime rates and pattern of individuals criminality by incorporating ideas from biology, psychology, sociology, ecology and economics

Question 94

What does the Cambridge study investigate in terms of family background variables? 9 things

Answer 94

The Cambridge study investigate family background variables such as:

• economic deprivation
• family size
• parental conflict
• family disruption
• poor child-rearing
• the influence of educational attainment
• occupational status
• low income
• Psychological or biological traits such as intelligence and impulsivity

Question 95

What does the Dunedin study explore? 9 things

Answer 95

The Dunedin study explores an array of variables including:

• Impulsivity
• Neuroticism
• Introversion or extraversion
• Schizophrenia
• Anti-social personality disorder
• Social relationships
• Education
• Income
• Employment

Question 96

What are two examples of cohort studies and what do they serve as?

Answer 96

Two examples are Cambridge study and Dunedin study. Cohort studies serve as testing grounds for existing criminological theories