Mills Sociological Imagination

Albertina Mendoza SJSU SOC 101 Sec 80 Mills' Imagination Due 8/25/17 Reply to: Hi Richard, I agree with your view on sharing your own persona; perspective and experience with body shaming. Athletics, such as football is very competitive and physically demanding. The football players exercise and train many hours a day.

To expand my research to attain the goal of understanding specification of both explanations, The southern subculture of violence theory blames higher crime rates in the South on “cultural values that evolved from that region’s unique history” (Ousey, 2000:268). All cultural explanations are based on the social learning approach, which holds that criminality is learned through intimate interactions with others. Another example is that capital punishment is highest in the South. The economic deprivation explanation to differences of crime rates within regions of the country is synonymous with strain theories.

Crime is a socially constructed term for deviant behavior and can be examined through two primary lenses. The first is from an individual standpoint, and the second is from a societal standpoint. Psychology pertains to the individual, and sociology pertains to the societal. Psychology studies internal mental processes and human interaction and sociology studies the development, structure, and functioning of society. A part of sociology attempts to identify and explain crime patterns and how they occur.

As we have learned in previous readings, people relate crime to the typical criminal which is characterized as black, poor, urban and male. This racial typification has led to greater social control, which currently aims at reducing crime and deviance, as stated in our previous reading. We also know that media, specifically the news plays a big role in perpetuated these racial stereotypes and fear through the selection of the violent crimes and criminals they portray. This perpetuated fear affects mainly whites, which leads to their support in harsher punishments and policies that are directed towards blacks because whites support the idea that crime is racial as evidenced through their exaggeration of black involvement in violent crime and burglary. Of course, other variables like education, religious beliefs, and racial prejudice impact this view that crime is a racial activity, but even after controlling for these mainly whites still use racially typification to substantially support harsh punishments and polices.

What impact has the social construction of crime had on fear of crime, our view of victims and offenders and resulting criminal justice policy? The media has been influential in shaping the way society thinks about certain issues, including crime. This essay argues that social construction has a negative impact on society’s view of the fear of crime, victims, and offenders. It’ll also study how social construction affects government policy.

While a few theories are not as regular, others have developed and are utilized as a part of numerous criminal reviews today. Cutting edge criminologists consolidate the most important aspects of sociology, psychology, anthropology, and biological theories to advance their comprehension of criminal behavior. Rational choice theory, psychological, biological, and strain theory are used to analyze the

Within the past couple of decades, criminologists have developed different criminological theories that apply to the social behaviors and decisions of criminals. One of the earliest theories developed regarding criminality is the rational choice theory, in which describes the rationalization of determining if the rewards from committing the crime outweigh the consequences. In Scarver’s case, his decision to engage in criminal activities outweighed the potential consequences, or the other alternatives if he did not engage in such criminal activities. In addition to the rational choice theory, Scarver’s criminality can be related to the social disorganization theory, which describes the influence of one’s social and physical environment on one’s decision to commit a crime. Lastly, the strain theory can be related to Scarver’s criminality as well, as it is used to describe an individual who lacks the means to obtain such goals, and aspirations, so therefore, he or she engages in criminal activities to acquire the goals.

How do the various psychological and psychiatric approaches presented in this chapter differ from one another? Psychological theories of criminal behavior differ from other theories like social structure theories of crime in the sense that psychological theories of crime place the emphasis on the individual and their cognitive abilities as opposed to social institutions and larger groups. Nearly all psychological theories of crime focus entirely on an individual and their cognition as the explanation of crime as opposed to social processes and social life. Psychological and psychiatric approaches to deviant, criminal, and antisocial behaviors differ in the sense that psychiatric approaches tend to focus on treating the symptoms of antisocial behavior through varying means. Psychological approaches on the other hand tend to focus on determining the causes of crime from within and individual.

It does not consider other factors such as criminal associations, individual traits, and inner strains, which plays a significant role in determining punishment for the individuals in committing crimes. It is observed that this theory endeavours to know that whether the activities of crime as well as the victim’s choice, criminals commit the activities on start from rational decisions. The theory also determines that criminals consider different elements before committing crime. They engage in the exchange of ideas before reaching on any final decision. These elements consist of consequences of their crimes, which include revealing their families to problems or death, chances of being arrested, and others elements, which comprises of placement of surveillance systems (Walsh & Hemmens, 2010; Lichbach,

From a neo-classical theoretical perspective, Mills writes about the growth of white-collar jobs, and how these jobs determine the values and perceptions of the people who hold them, and how the growth of these jobs affect other sectors of society. He writes about the growth in the size and scope of bureaucratic power in industrial society, how this concentration of authority affects those who hold it and those who are subject to it, and how this growth affects traditional democratic institutions. Similarly to Max Weber, Mills interprets the world through a coherent theoretical perspective. He uses this theory to explain social structures and processes, rather than obscuring them (either intentionally or inadvertently) through data and jargon.

C. Wright Mills C. Wright Mills played a very large role on society in the past, as well as now. He critiqued sociology, causing people to see it in a different way. Multiple things played a role in his reasoning for doing this and why it actually worked. His upbringing was one of the largest things that caused him to see sociology in this way and actually speak up about it. His many books and ideas, then impacted sociology by showing this new perspective that he had created.

Furthermore, the psychology of criminal behavior, psychology, and criminology all have a primary objective of achieving an understanding of the variation in the criminal behavior of individuals (Andrews and Bonta , 2010). Empirically, the study of variation in criminal behavior is done by the studying of covariates (Andrews and Bonta , 2010). The primary covariates that PCC studies are biological, social, and psychological (Andrews and Bonta , 2010). Although, criminology tends to assess criminality at an aggregate level, in comparison to the psychology of criminal conduct’s focus on an individual level. Additionally, a psychology of criminal conduct involves applying what is learned by the studying of psychological information and methods to the predicting and influencing the propensity of criminal behavior on an individual

Sociological theories of crime contend that no unlawful act is intrinsically criminal. These theories stress that social unification, cultural conflict, and social disparity are potential causes of crime (Engelen, Lander, & Essen, 2016). For several decades, sociological criminology has mainly concentrated on inner-city violence and the most illustrious explanations which assert that “within certain isolated and disadvantaged cities, subcultures, or distinct ways of thinking and behaving, arise in response to environmental conditions” (Rocque, Posick, & Felix, p. 95, 2015). Sociological theories essentially maintain that crime is a symptom of poverty, rather than the source of it. For instance, if youth grow up in impoverished families, they may be more likely to commit crime as they may be exposed to more crime and stress than individuals with a higher socio-economic status.

If an individual can learn how to attain goals with crime due to the illegitimate opportunities then they can just as easily learn legitimate ways just the same. As we know, the opportunity theory can be used to fill in the gaps of Merton’s strain theory, Merton fails to recognize that illegitimate opportunity as well as legitimate opportunities play an important role in crime. Merton believes that the pressures or strains brought on through social interactions. Cloward and Ohlin make a valid point when they suggest that to explain crime you have to take into consideration a person’s access to legitimate opportunity and access to illegitimate opportunity. Moreover, this theory can also be used to inform and extend the social learning theory.

As far as crime is concerned, it is defined by the law. Deviance is unexpected behaviour, but not exactly considered criminal. Many consider crime as a social problem – a problem as defined by society, such as homelessness, drug abuse, etc. Others would say crime is a sociological problem – something defined as a problem by sociologists and should be dealt with accordingly by sociologists. This essay attempts to discover the boundaries between these two and ultimately come to an appropriate conclusion.