SOCL 3371 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: White-Collar Crime, Motor Vehicle Theft, Corporate Crime
Document Summary
Chapter 1: crime and the problem of social control. Social control: the rules, habits, and customs a society uses to enforce conformity to its norms. Basically keeps people in line; tells us what we can and can"t do: 2 ways of controlling crime: Formal crime control: the legal controls imposed by the law and carried out by official organization (police). The criminal justice system is the only organization that is responsible for enforcing formal control. Informal crime control: the moral rules and norms prescribed by unofficial groups, such as family and peers. Socialization: the process in which individuals acquire a personal identity and learn the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to their society: institutions of socialization county/parish. Maintains local jails: inmates awaiting trial, serving less than a year, waiting for transfer to state prisons. Courts systems only deal with misdemeanors: state-level criminal justice. Family: primary, most important, shapes our behavior into expected behavior, emotionally secure and supportive environment.
