Chapter 6

Deviance

a behavior, trait, belief, or other characteristic that violates a norm and causes a negative reaction (page 153)

Criminal justice system

a collection of social institutions, such as legislatures, police, courts, and prisons, that creates and enforces laws (page 170)

In-group orientation

among stigmatized individuals, the rejection of prevailing judgments or prejudice and the development of new standards that value their group identity (page 162)

Rehabilitation

an approach to punishment that attempts to reform criminals as part of their penalty (page 170)

Retribution

an approach to punishment that emphasizes retaliation or revenge for the crime as the appropriate goal (page 170)

Deterrence

an approach to punishment that relies on the threat of harsh penalties to discourage people from committing crimes (page 170)

Incapacitation

an approach to punishment that seeks to protect society from criminals by imprisoning or executing them (page 170)

Self-fulfilling prophecy

an inaccurate statement or belief that, by altering the situation, becomes accurate; a prediction that causes itself to come true (page 160)

Uniform Crime Report (UCR)

an official measure of crime in the United States, produced by the FBI's official tabulation of every crime reported by more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies (page 166)

Outsiders

according to Howard Becker, those labeled deviant and subsequently segregated from "normal" society (page 163)

Secondary deviance

in labeling theory, the subsequent deviant identity or career that develops as a result of being labeled deviant (page 160)

Stereotype threat

a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in which the fear of performing poorly -- and confirming stereotypes about their social groups -- causes students to perform poorly (page 160)

Social control theory

a theory of crime, proposed by Travis Hirschi, that posits that strong social bonds increase conformity and decrease deviance (page 155)

Crime

a violation of a norm that has been codified into law (page 165)

Positive deviance

actions considered deviant within a given context but are later reinterpreted as appropriate or even heroic (page 172)

White collar crime

crime committed by a high-status individual in the course of his occupation (page 167)

Cybercrime

crimes committed via the Internet, including identity theft, embezzlement, fraud, sexual predation, and financial scams (page 166)

Violent crime

crimes in which violence is either the objective or the means to an end, including murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery (page 166)

Property crime

crimes that do not involve violence, including burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson (page 166)

Primary deviance

in labeling theory, the initial act or attitude that causes one to be labeled deviant (page 160)

Criminology

the systematic scientific study of crime, criminals, and criminal justice (page 166)

Cyberbullying

the use of electronic media (web pages, social networking sites, e-mail, Twitter, cell phones) to tease, harass, threaten, or humiliate someone (page 158)

Differential association theory

Edwin Sutherland's hypothesis that we learn to be deviant through our associations with deviant peers (page 157)

Stigma

Erving Goffman's term for any physical or social attribute that devalues a person or group's identity and that may exclude those who are devalued from normal social interaction (page 161)

Innovators

individuals who accept society's approved goals but not society's approved means to achieve them (page 156)

Ritualists

individuals who have given up hope of achieving society's approved goals but still operate according to society's approved means (page 156)

Rebels

individuals who reject society's approved goals and means and instead create and work toward their own (sometimes revolutionary) goals using new means (page 156)

Retreatists

individuals who renounce society's approved goals and means entirely and live outside conventional norms altogether (page 156)

Passing

presenting yourself as a member of a different group than the stigmatized group to which you belong (page 162)

Deviance avowal

process by which an individual self-identifies as deviant and initiates her own labeling process (page 163)

Capital punishment

the death penalty (page 172)

Labeling theory

Howard Becker's idea that deviance is a consequence of external judgments, or labels, that modify the individual's self-concept and change the way others respond to the labeled person (page 158)

Stereotype promise

a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in which positive stereotypes, such as the "model minority" label applied to Asian Americans, lead to positive performance outcomes (page 161)

Tertiary deviance

redefining the stigma associated with a deviant label as a positive phenomenon (page 160)

Social control

the formal and informal mechanisms used to elicit conformity to values and norms and thus promote social cohesion (page 156)