crime and deviance

• agents of social control

  those who are employed to prevent people from acting deviantly or committing crime
• alienation


   when humans feel disconnected or estranged from some part of their nature or from society
• anomie

   social condition in which there is a disintegration or disappearance of the norms and values that were previously common to the society
• anti-social behaviour 


  behavior that violates the basic rights of others
• attitude survey


   a research study conducted to understand consumers' thoughts, feelings and behaviour regarding a specific target
• bias 


  a lack of objectivity or inclination to favor a person or idea, regardless of the facts
• case study

  where sociologists investigate in great detail a particular individual or group, as opposed to trying to gather a representative sample from the target population
• chivalry thesis 


   an idea that suggests the criminal justice system treats men and women differently
• community service

  unpaid work performed by a person or group of people for the benefit and betterment of their community without any form of compensation
• control theory (in relation to women and crime)

  girls and women are controlled by men, leaving them with fewer opportunities to commit crime
• corporate crime


  crimes committed by companies rather than individuals
• covert observation


  where the researcher is "undercover"; the participants are unaware that they are being observed
• crime

  the study of social deviance and violations of established norm
• crime rate

  data taken from official police statistics which reveal the number of crimes committed per every 1,000 individuals from the population.
• criminal justice system

  a broad and collective term for a wide range of institutions and systems that exist to prevent, detect and prosecute crime as well as to punish and/or rehabilitate offenders
• criminal subculture

  any subculture that supports behaviors considered criminal
• dark figure of crime

  the unknown mass of unreported and unrecorded offences, which in turn exposed the limitations of using official statistics to measure crime.
• delinquency


  criminal behavior committed by juveniles under the legal age of adulthood
• deviance

   a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codified law
• deviancy amplification


  refer to the way levels of deviance or crime can be increased by the societal reaction to deviance itself.
• deviant career


  completed when individuals join an organised deviant group
• economy

  a social system that produces, distributes, and consumes goods and services in a society
• established (state) church

  a church recognized by law as the official church of a state or nation and supported by civil authority
• ethnic diversity

  the existence of people from a variety of cultural and diverse backgrounds within a single area
• feminism

   a perspective (and a movement) that recognises and opposes patriarchy (the male dominance of society) and that argues for the rights of women
• feminists


  a way to grant gender equality to women