SOC 2700 Final: Notes for Final (2700).docx
22 Oct 2013
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Two type basic types of theories on crime: spiritual and natural. Spiritual explanations of crime are part of a general view of life in which many events are believed to result from the influence of otherworldly powers. Middle ages: crime was a private affair. The modern prison system originated from spiritual explanations of crime, in which criminals were isolated, given only bibles, and expected to repent: penitentiary used to describe the place where criminals become penitents. Make use of objects and events in the material world to explain crime. 16th/17th century philosophers such as hobbes, spinoza, descartes, leibniz studied human affairs impersonally and quantitatively. Make statements about the relationships between observable phenomena. Key characteristic of scientific theories is that they can be falsified by systematically observing the relationship described in the theory and then comparing the observation to the arguments (research)
