CJ 102 Unit 6 Worksheet

Student Name: _______________________________

After completing the readings, answer the following five questions:

What is neutralization theory?

Neutralization Theory is the “view that law violators learn to neutralize conventional values and attitudes, enabling them to drift back and forth between criminal and conventional behavior.”

Name 5 of these and illustrate how they work.

  • Denial of responsibility: Offenders not accepting their actions, stating that it is not their fault, or that it was an accident.
  • Denial of injury: An offender denying that their actions have injured another individual or thing, such as instead of stealing they claim they were just borrowing the item, with no intentions to give it back.
  • Denial of the victim: An offender neutralizing some or all their acts, they may state that “they deserved it” or “they asked for it”.
  • Condemnation of the Condemners: The offender views the world as corrupt, because teachers show favoritism and parents take their frustrations out on their children. Offenders claim it is ironic and unfair and shift the blame to others. Offenders repress their awareness that their acts are wrong.
  • Appeal to higher loyalties: New offenders, if in a gang or group, claim that their group has precedence because the groups demands are immediate and localized.

Define and contrast primary and secondary deviance. Provide an example for each.

Primary deviance is a norm violation or crime that has little or no long-term influence on the violator. Secondary deviance is a norm violation or crime that comes to the attention of significant others or social control agents, who apply a negative label that has long term consequences for the violators self-identity and social interactions. An example for primary deviance is an individual is out getting coffee at her local café, she notices her bus arriving, without paying she jumps up and runs out with her coffee, jay walks across the street and gets on the bus. She than arrives to work on time, later gets a promotion, and a bonus for attendance. Her stealing of the coffee, and jay walking across the street went unnoticed, and is a unimportant event that has little to no effect on her future. An example of secondary deviance is, would be the woman in the café, is trying to rush by to the bus, before she can get out the door an employee tries to stop her, she pushes her to try to get the woman out the way, so she can make it to the bus. The employee falls and hits her head on the café counter, the woman missed her bus, and is now being charged for felony assault. She lost her job, gets labeled as a careless woman, and now struggles financially and emotionally.

What are the policy implications of labeling theory?

Diversion, Decriminalization, Legalization, Restitution, and Medication

How was social structure theory used to inform policy in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations?

The social structure theory were a critical ingredient in the Kennedy and Johnson administration, the war on poverty began in the 1960’s, programs such as Head Start, Neighborhood Legal Services, and the Community Action Program, help people and still to this day help people.

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