Crime and Deviance Key Words

Question	Answer
Crime and Deviance	Crime is breaking a written law. Deviance is breaking an unwritten law.
Sanctions	Punishment or reward for someone's actions (i.e prison or 'house points')
Formal and Informal Control	Formal social control = Agencies such as the police and courts/prisons that keep social order, punishing those who break the law and protecting the rest of society from them. Informal social control = Everyday influence that others, including family and friends, and strangers, have upon us. Both usually result in sanctions, either good or bad.
Subcultures	A society within a society, i.e hippies and goths.
Labelling	Labelling someone as a certain type of person by enforcing their own stereotypical views of society.
Moral Panics	The process of arousing social concern over an issue - usually the work of 'moral entrepreneurs'. This creates 'folk devil'.
Deviancy Amplification	Agencies like the police and media can actually generate an increase in deviance (glamourise).
White-Collar Crime (WCC)	Crimes committed by middle-class people, i.e fraud, bribery, inside trading and embezzlement. These crimes are typically non-violent and usually committed for money.
Street Crime	Common criminal acts such as theft and even murder. Usually committed by the lower-class and are labelled as being violent crimes (typical crimes that everyone hear and see in the media).
Dark Figure Of Crime	Crime that hasn't been reported and recorded by the police (unknown).

Resource summary

	Created by William Gripton over 5 years ago