CRMJ 201 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Conflict Theories, Mens Rea, Social Science
31 Jan 2014
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Document Summary
The u. s. crime rate has declined since the early 1990"s yet the incarceration population has more than doubled. Sociological criminology: sociological understanding of crime and criminal justice. Sociological criminology gave explicit attention to issues of poverty, race, ethnicity as well as to the structure of communities and social relationships. Sociological perspectives: people are social beings, meaning that society shapes their behavior, attitude and life chances. Perspective derived from emile durkheim, a french sociologist. He explained differences by focusing on structural characteristics. Social structure: how a society is organized in terms of social relationships and social interaction. Horizontal social structure: social and physical characteristics of communities and network of social relationships to which an individual belongs. Vertical social structure (social inequality): how a society ranks different groups of people. Social imagination: ability to understand the structural and historical basis for personal troubles. One of sociology"s most important goals was to uncover inconvenient facts .
