Criminal Justice 400: Test 2

Front 1

What is "Macro"?

Back 1

o The social structure is more than that just parts
o When you look at body, and you see a whole, when you look under a microscope, you wont be able to recognize yourself.
o Doesn’t influence individual behavior, not a simple relationship

Front 2

Concentrated Disadvantaged (Macro Level)

Back 2

o Resource deprivation
o Racial inequality
o Everything is hard, these types of situations breeds crime

Front 3

Social Disorganization

Back 3

o Collective efficacy
• Have you shit together, that you can devote energy to come together with members of community to do, you know you community members
o Divorced males
• Also helping explain how individuals struggle. Or female lead households

Front 4

Demographics (ways to categorize a large population)

Back 4

o Population structure (density, age structure)
• Population density has been linked to homicide rates, greater density, more homicides.
• Age structure, late teens early twenties most active
o Also gender
• Important in homicides because males commit the most murder

Front 5

Cultural factors

Back 5

o Southern culture of violence.
o Norms and values
• What we agree on, what we know what we should do.
• Our criminal law is an expression of our norms and values
 Not a full overlap
 Underage drinking
 Marijuana consumption
• Help foster group mentality

Front 6

How can we explain variations in homicide rates around the world?

Back 6

o Socio cultural factors have the strongest influence on homicide rates
• Machismo and political violence promote homicide
• Communitarian values and paternalistic governments limit homicide

Front 7

Poverty, inequality, ethnic composition, youth population about age 15, and divorce are

Back 7

positively linked to homicide rates

Front 8

Development, modernization, and education are

Back 8

negatively linked to homicide.

Front 9

Violence as culture

Back 9

• People internalize values and beliefs through learning
• Values and beliefs foster group identity
• Importance of cultural variation and power of conformity
o In-group/ out-group
o Culture conflict

Front 10

Wolfgang and Feracutti (1967) Main argument:

Back 10

groups with the highest homicide rates hold values and beliefs that promote the use of violence

Front 11

High Homicide prevalence areas are different in terms of:

Back 11

o Importance of human life, expected reactions to stimuli, perception of stimuli, general personality structure.

Front 12

Nisbett and Cohen (1996) main argument:

Back 12

o Main argument: The American South has higher levels of violence than the north because of a culture based on honor.
o Dispute related homicides more so than norm, young men, mostly white men
o Historical cultural
• Scot Irish, herding culture
o Higher chance of responding with anger
• Favored values are:
o Autonomy, reputation, military skills, gun ownership.

Front 13

Life circumstances in the ghetto:
(Code of the Streets)

Back 13

o Lack of living-wage jobs
o Stigma of race
o Drugs
• All of this leads to alienation and hopelessness
• Leading to oppositional culture
• The code of the streets

Front 14

Origins of the code

Back 14

• Adaptation to a profound lack of faith in the criminal justice system
• This leads to contempt and rejection
• Mainstream society has done nothing for them, thus the code if a way to insure it can do nothing to them.
• This creates a vicious cycle, a self-fulfilling prophecy between middle-class and the poor inner-city

Front 15

Street vs Decent

Back 15

• Majority of families are “decent” families
• Nonetheless, everybody has to know “street” values when growing up in such a neighborhood
o “Street” values are defensive

Front 16

Code of the Streets

Back 16

set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, including violence”

Front 17

Respect (code of the Streets)

Back 17

• Being treated “right”
• Respect is hard earned yet easily lost
• Respect is conveyed through behavior but also appearance
• Allows those who “go for bad”, those who are looking for occasions to express aggressive tendencies, to rule the streets
• Socialization into the code starts early on
• Respect is “campaigned for”

Front 18

Keeping up appearances

Back 18

The Code involves the presentation of self
---Display of a certain predisposition to violence
------Based on facial expressions, gait, verbal expressions, as well as clothing, grooming, etc.
----Because respect is campaigned for, it is never acquired, always defended and conquered
----Respect means manhood
----This is done by showing “nerve”
----All of this is wroth dying for

Front 19

Girls and respect

Back 19

Different issues
----Competition centers on physical beauty and gossip
----They can ask the men to fight for them but they increasingly tend to fight for themselves
----They however do not use guns

Front 20

How do we become who we are?

Back 20

• As a species
o We evolved
• As individuals
o We are born from parents
o Then raised by parents
o In a given group

Front 21

Biosocial approaches

Back 21

• Nature via nurture instead of nature vs. nurture
• Behavior, traits, characteristics of living beings are the result of interaction between biological and environmental factors
• Understanding how we have this combination nature via nurture
o Evolutionary psychology
o Behavior genetics
o Neuroscience

Front 22

The ultimate goal of life in an evolutionary perspective is reproductive success, which can be achieve one of two ways:

(Evolutionary psychology and criminal behavior)

Back 22

Parenting effort and Mating effort

Front 23

Parenting effort:

Back 23

the proportion of reproductive effort invested in rearing offspring

o Humans invest more in parenting effort than any other species, but there is considerable variation within the species

Front 24

Mating effort:

Back 24

the proportion of reproductive effort invested in acquiring sexual partners

o An excessive focus on mating effort is associated with a higher risk of antisocial activity.
• The purpose of life is life itself.

Front 25

Cheating: a way of acquiring resources illegitimately

Back 25

o Cheating can be rational if the benefits outweigh the costs, but this only tends to be the case in circumstances of limited interaction and communication
o In other circumstances, it is to people’s benefit to be cooperative
o Crime is a cheating behavior, and potential beneficial
o But cheating behavior can also be bad

Front 26

The Swedish twin study

Back 26

• Heredity and environmental predisposition factors together explain 40% of criminal behavior

• Only genetic factors explain 12% of criminal behavior

• Bad family environment only explained 6.7% of criminal behavior

• None of the factors present lead to 2.9% criminal behavior

Front 27

Most violence is adolescence limited and not linked to previous violence

Back 27

o Adolescents go through rapid physical, hormonal, and intellectual change

Front 28

Some delinquents, however, persists, and show a link between adult and youth violence

Back 28

o Aggression is the most extreme between 2 and 4 years old
o In some, that aggression does not get appropriately controlled.

Front 29

What explains aggression in pre school years?

Back 29

o Not peers
o Older siblings
• Birth order
• Born first have a certain sets of characteristics
 Speak earlier
 Source of target of aggression by younger siblings
• Second born tend to speak later
 Socialized by older siblings
o Parents separated before birth
o Low income
o Mother’s antisocial behavior in adolescence
o Giving birth before 21
• Studies have shown to ensure success the single best thing that someone can do is to wait until they are older to have children
• Pregnancy between 15-19 carrying twice the risk for the women and the fetus
o Dropping out of high school
o Smoking during pregnancy
o Parental dysfunction
o Coercive/hostile mothering style

Front 30

The Terrible two's

Back 30

• Child development involves frustrations
• Learning to delay gratification and to express oneself is key to lowering aggression
• Genetic factors are very important predictors of aggression levels in toddles
• Environmental factors are the necessary trigger to these genetic factors
o Those who learn how to speak earlier is easier to maintain frustration levels down

Front 31

Neuroscience:

Back 31

Acknowledges that the experiences we encounter largely determine the patterns of our neuronal connections, and thus our ability to successfully navigate our lives (Quartz & Segnowski)

• “Experience in adults alters the organized brain, but in infants and children it organizes the developing brain.”

Front 32

Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)

Back 32

o In the brain stem

o Involuntary regulation of visceral functions
• (heart rate, digestion, breathing, salivation, perspiration, pupils dilation, sexual arousal, etc.)

Includes:
• Quick response mobilizing system (sympathetic nervous system)
• A slow response dampening system (parasympathetic nervous system)

Front 33

Crime is linked to low arousal (faulty sympathetic nervous system)

Back 33

• Fearlessness
• Stimulation-seeking

Quick response mobilizing system (sympathetic nervous system)

Front 34

Brain Injury to the prefrontal Cortex

Back 34

• Regulates who we are as a conscious, rational being
• Can lead to a variety of personality transfers, including the possibility of violent behavior

Front 35

Phinneas Gage, 1848

Back 35

 Working on railroad track while trying to put a railroad spike they were exploding things, there was a mishap, spike went into his head and he survived, led to behavior modification

Front 36

Brain Injury to the Orbital Cortex-amygdala

Back 36

• Regulates how we react to ethical dilemmas, our sense of empathy
• Charles Whitman, the Texas Sniper, 1966
 “I have felt like I had overwhelming violent impulses”

Front 37

Violence on Television
(External influences on our personalities)

Back 37

o Aggressive individuals are more susceptible to television violence
• But this might be because their aggressive tendencies dictate their television choices

Front 38

Longitudinal studies showed that television violence preceded violent behavior?

Back 38

• These however do not take into consideration that fact that violence peaks around 2 years old.