5.12 Glossary

Agents of social control: the positions in a society that have the power to report and punish people who violate norms. 

Altruistic suicide: suicide deaths that occur when an individual is highly integrated into the group.

Anomic suicide: suicide deaths that occur as a result anomie due to major life changes.

Anomie: the condition whereby norms are unclear, missing, or undergoing a transformation.

Audit study: research where individuals are matched on tested characteristics to determine how those characteristics affect their experience in specific scenarios like looking for a job.

Collateral consequences: the restrictions placed on an individual due to being convicted of a crime.

Crime: the violation of laws.

Critical race theory: a legal theory that focuses on how race, ideas about race, and racism are embedded in the social structure. 

Cultural goals: ​​the things people are socialized to expect and want (such as a home or a career).

Deviance: any behavior or beliefs that do not conform to social norms.

Egoistic suicide: suicide deaths that occur when there are low levels social regulation.

Fatalistic suicide: suicide deaths that occur as a result of having too much social regulation and can be understood as a form escape.

Formal social sanctions: usually involve someone with legal-rational authority responding to disapproved actions or attitudes in a more formal way, such as through arrest.

Informal social sanctions: responses that show others disapprove of one’s actions or attitudes.

Inner controls: internalized morality, which can include religious beliefs and ideas of right or wrong.

Institutionalized means: the socially approved means to reach cultural goals.

Labeling theory: explains deviance as being socially constructed, that is, an action or attitude is deviant because a social group has decided that it is deviant.

Marxist theory: examines how social class inequality is integral to capitalist economic systems and how it keeps workers’ dependent on their employers.

Mass incarceration: how laws and practices in conjunction with the criminal justice system controls people who have been arrested or convicted long after their sentence has been completed (Alexander, 2012).

Mass shooting: any incident where “four or more people are shot and killed, excluding the shooter, in a public location, with no connection to underlying criminal activity, such as gangs or drugs” (The Violence Project, 2024).

Medicalization: the process by which deviance comes under the purview of medical authority rather than or in addition to legal authority.

National Crime Victimization Surveys: nationally representative survey data reporting crime victimization collected by the Bureau of Justice.

Outer controls: the people, such as family, friends, teachers, and police, who influence us not to deviate.

Property crime: include damaging or stealing another person’s property (robbery, burglary, arson, fraud, shoplifting).

Social bonds: the attachments, commitments, involvements, and beliefs an individual has with other people, groups, and norms.

Social control: the process by which conformity to social norms is enforced, thereby maintaining social order.

Social control theory: explains deviance as a result of weak or broken social bonds.

Social facts: external factors that limit agency.

Social integration: how connected an individual is to their social group.

Social regulation: the volume of rules and expectations guiding one’s day-to-day life.

Social solidarity: the cohesiveness people feel among themselves and others.

Stigma: a negative mark due to one’s status.

Structural strain theory: ​​deviance or strain is created when people are socialized to desire a reward (i.e., cultural goals) but withholds the socially approved means to reach that goal (i.e., institutionalized means).

Suicide cluster: greater-than-expected number of suicides, typically among people who share sociodemographic factors, usually connected by geography and occurring within a brief period (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024b). 

Thomas Theorem: proposes that if people “define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas, 1928, p. 572).

Uniform Crime Report: crime statistics since the 1930s from 18,000 law enforcement agencies collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Violent crime: violence against another, including murder, sexual assault, harassment, and abuse (child, elder, animal).