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Ch 6 Deviance - Key Terms

capitalist class: the wealthy who own the means of production and buy the labor of the working c1ass(p.l48)

control theory: the idea that two control systems-inner controls and outer controls-work against our tendencies to deviate (p.139)

crime: the violation of norms written into law (p.134)

criminal justice system: the system of police, courts, and prisons set up to deal with people who are accused of having committed a crime (p.l47)

cultural goals: the legitimate objectives held out to the members of a society (p.l43)

deviance: the violation of rules or norms (p.l34)

differential association: Edwin Sutherland's term to indicate that associating with some groups results in learning an "excess of definitions" of deviance, and, by extension, in a greater likelihood that one will become deviant (p.l38)

genetic predisposition: inborn tendencies, in this context, to commit deviant acts (p.l37)

hate crime: crimes to which more severe penalties are attached because they are motivated by hatred (dislike, animosity) of someone's 'race-ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin (p.l54)

illegitimate opportunity structure: opportunities for crimes that are woven into the texture of life (p.l45)

institutionalized means: approved ways of reaching cultural goals (p.l43)

labeling theory: the view, developed by symbolic interactionists, that the labels people are given affect their own and others' perceptions of them, thus channeling their behavior either into deviance or into conformity (p.l40)

marginal working class: the most desperate members of the working class, who have few skills, little job security, and are often unemployed (p.l48)

medicalization of deviance: to make some deviance a medical matter, a symptom of some underlying illness that needs to be treated by physicians (p.l54)

negative sanction: an expression of disapproval for breaking a norm, ranging from a mild, informal reaction such as a frown to a formal prison sentence or an execution (p.l36)

personality disorders: the view that a personality disturbance of some sort causes an individual to violate social norms (p.13 7)

positive sanction: a reward given for following norms, ranging from a smile to a prize (p.136)

recidivism rate: the proportion of people who are rearrested (p.151)

social control: a group's formal and informal means of enforcing its norms (p.136)

social order: a group's usual and customary social arrangements, on which its members depend and on which they base their lives (p.136)

stigma: 'blemishes" that discredit a person's claim to a "normal" identity (p.135)

strain theory: Robert Merton's term for the strain engendered when a society socializes large numbers of people to desire a cultural goal (such as success) but withholds from many the approved means of reaching that goal; one adaptation to the strain is crime, the choice of an innovative means (one outside the approved system) to attain the cultural goal (p.143)

street crime: crimes such as mugging, rape, and burglary (p.144)

techniques of neutralization: ways of thinking or rationalizing that help people deflect society's norms (p.140)

white-collar crime: Edwin Sutherland's term for crimes committed by people of respectable and high social status in the course of their occupations, for example, bribery of public official, securities violations, embezzlement, false advertising, and price fixing (p.145)

working class: people who sell their labor to the capitalist class (p.148)