SOCI 2250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Social Disorganization Theory, Social Learning Theory, Physiognomy
14 Nov 2016
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Criminal personality: criminals are poorly conditioned: they use justi cations and neutralizations to account for behavior. Abnormal psychology approach: mood, anxiety, and conduct disorders (the approach we take today) Lower class culture as distinct from middle class culture. Structural causation: crime arising directly from the character of the social environment. Crime is neither right or wrong, it is naturally a part of the society. Social disorganization theory -- primarily focuses on social structure. Differential association (a social learning theory) -- primarily focuses on individual dynamics, crime is not exclusive to the lower class. The direction of motivation is learned from de nitions of legal codes as favorable or unfavorable. A person becomes criminal because of an excess of de nitions favorable to law violation over de nitions that are unfavorable to law violation. Social control theory: why don"t most people engage in crime, certain factors control us -- deter us from committing crime.
