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CSS Criminology Foundations of Criminology Flashcards
50 question-and-answer cards covering Foundations of Criminology as it is examined in CSS Criminology. 24 of them are printed below, taken from across the deck — no signup, no paywall on the preview.
24 sample cards from the Foundations of Criminology deck
Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.
Define 'deviance'.
Behaviour that violates the social norms, expectations, or values of a group or society; it may or may not be illegal.
How do crime and deviance differ?
Crime violates codified criminal law (illegal); deviance violates social norms. All crime is deviant, but not all deviance is criminal (e.g. picking one's nose in public).
Define 'sin' and how it differs from crime.
Sin is an act that violates religious or moral/divine law and is judged by religious authority; crime violates secular state law. An act may be a sin without being a crime, or both.
Define 'vice' in criminological terms.
Immoral or degrading habits or conduct (e.g. gambling, prostitution, drug use) that violate moral standards; 'vice crimes' are those the state criminalizes despite lacking a clear individual victim.
Define 'evil' as distinguished from crime.
Evil is a moral/philosophical judgment of profound wrongness or wickedness; it is not a legal category. An act can be evil without being legally a crime, and vice versa.
What are 'norms'?
Established rules, standards, and expectations that guide and regulate behaviour within a society or group, defining what is acceptable and unacceptable conduct.
What are the main types of norms (per William Sumner)?
Folkways (everyday customs, mild sanctions), mores (moral norms with strong sanctions), taboos (forbidden acts), and laws (formally codified, state-enforced norms).
What is the difference between folkways and mores?
Folkways are routine conventions of everyday life whose violation brings mild disapproval; mores are norms with strong moral significance whose violation brings severe condemnation.
What are 'values' in sociology, and how do they relate to norms?
Values are broad, abstract beliefs about what is good, desirable, and proper in a society; norms are the concrete rules that translate those values into expected behaviour.
Define 'social control'.
The mechanisms, strategies, and institutions by which a society regulates individual and group behaviour to ensure conformity to its norms and values.
Distinguish between formal and informal social control.
Formal control is exercised through codified rules and official agencies (police, courts, laws); informal control operates through unofficial means like family, peers, customs, praise, and ridicule.
Define 'conformity'.
The process of aligning one's attitudes and behaviour with the established norms, values, and expectations of a group or society.
In Merton's strain theory, what is 'conformity' as a mode of adaptation?
Acceptance of both the culturally approved goals (e.g. success/wealth) and the legitimate institutionalized means of achieving them; it is the most common, non-deviant adaptation.
What are the dimensions of security relevant to criminology?
Commonly: national security, human security, physical/personal security, economic security, food security, environmental security, political security, community security, and cyber security.
What is 'human security' as distinct from national security?
Human security centres on protecting individuals from threats to their safety, dignity, and well-being (freedom from fear and want), whereas national security centres on protecting the state from external/internal threats.
What are the main sources of crime statistics?
(1) Official statistics (police/court/prison records), (2) Victimization surveys, and (3) Self-report studies.
What are 'official crime statistics' and who compiles them in Pakistan?
Records of crimes known to and recorded by criminal justice agencies (police FIRs, courts, prisons); in Pakistan compiled by police departments, the National Police Bureau, and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
What is a key limitation of official crime statistics?
They record only crimes reported to and registered by police, so they understate true crime levels and are affected by reporting and recording practices (the dark figure of crime).
Define the 'dark figure of crime'.
The volume of crime that is committed but never reported to, recorded by, or known to the police, and thus never appears in official crime statistics.
Give three reasons crimes go unreported, contributing to the dark figure.
Fear of reprisal, distrust of police, embarrassment/shame (e.g. sexual offences), belief that police can do nothing, the matter seeming too trivial, or the victim being unaware a crime occurred.
What is a 'victimization survey'?
A survey that asks a representative sample of the population directly about crimes committed against them, whether or not those crimes were reported to police.
What is the chief advantage of victimization surveys?
They capture unreported crime, helping to estimate the dark figure of crime and giving a fuller picture than police statistics; e.g. the British Crime Survey / US NCVS.
What is a 'self-report study'?
A research method in which respondents are asked to confidentially reveal the offences they themselves have committed, regardless of whether they were caught or recorded.
What are the main limitations of victimization and self-report studies?
They rely on memory and honesty (under- or over-reporting), suffer from sampling and recall errors, usually exclude victimless and corporate crimes, and self-reports tend to capture only minor offences.
What this deck covers
The Foundations of Criminology deck follows the CSS Criminology Foundations of Criminology syllabus — 3 chapters and 13 topics — so questions land on material that is genuinely examinable rather than trivia around it. That works out to roughly 16.7 cards per chapter.
Answers are written to be recallable, not just readable — averaging about 172 characters, which is long enough to carry the reasoning and short enough to say out loud.
A deck like this earns its keep on the second and third pass. Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then use the cards to find the specific facts that have not stuck.
Foundations of Criminology flashcards FAQ
How many Foundations of Criminology flashcards are in this CSS Criminology deck?
50 cards. This page previews 24 of them, sampled evenly across the deck so you can judge the difficulty before installing anything.
Are these CSS Criminology flashcards free?
Yes. The preview here is free to read with no signup, and the full 50-card deck is free inside the Examius app.
What do the Foundations of Criminology cards cover?
They follow the CSS Criminology Foundations of Criminology syllabus — 3 chapters and 13 topics — so the questions track what is actually examinable.
How should I use these flashcards?
Read the syllabus first so you know the shape of the subject, then drill the deck. Examius schedules each card with spaced repetition, so cards you keep missing come back sooner and ones you know drift further apart.