Sociology Crime Concept Cards

Front 1

crime

Back 1

an action that is against the law

Front 2

Norms

Back 2

a set of unwritten social rules

Front 3

values

Back 3

beliefs of right and wrong in society

Front 4

deviance

Back 4

actions that go against the norms and values of a society or group

Front 5

cross-cultural deviance

Back 5

something that is deviant in some cultures but not in others

Front 6

situational deviance

Back 6

something that is deviant only in certain situations

Front 7

Historical deviance

Back 7

something that is deviant only at a certain time

Front 8

conformity

Back 8

following the rules

Front 9

agents of social control

Back 9

the various groups, both formal and informal, that control our behavior

Front 10

formal agents of social control

Back 10

carried out by agents that only exist to control society

Front 11

informal social control

Back 11

carried out by agents that control society, although control is not their primary function

Front 12

official statistics

Back 12

numbers and percentages to show what crimes are being committed and who is committing them, taken from government sources. information can be supplied by such agencies as the police, the courts and the prison system

Front 13

victim survey

Back 13

people are asked what crimes have been committed against them

Front 14

self-report study

Back 14

a questionnaire that asks people what crimes they have committed

Front 15

delinquency

Back 15

the undesirable, antisocial behaviour of young people

Front 16

peer group pressure

Back 16

pressure applied to a person by a group of the same age to try to get them to fit in with the groups norms and values; often applies to young people

Front 17

labelling

Back 17

thinking of a person or a group of people in a particular way, often negatively, presuming that all of the group are a particular type of person

Front 18

gender socialisation

Back 18

teaching males and females the expected patterns of behaviour for their gender in society

Front 19

police targeting

Back 19

where the police focus on a particular group of people in society, believing them to be more likely to be involved in criminal behaviour than other groups

Front 20

discrimination

Back 20

treating people differently because of their social characteristics e.g. not giving someone a job because they are female

Front 21

racism

Back 21

a form of discrimination; treating someone differently to others in society because of their ethnicity

Front 22

alienation

Back 22

not feeling part of the wider society or culture; feeling separate and cut of from it

Front 23

self -fulfilling prophecy

Back 23

a way of thinking about a person or group of people, usually negative, that causes that person or group of people to behave in a way that makes the belief reality