Learn what constitutes the concept of anomie. You will review anomie theory and examine several examples. Upon completion, you will have a thorough understanding of what constitutes anomie theory in criminal justice.
Definition of Anomie
The idea of anomie means the lack of normal ethical or social standards. This concept first emerged in 1893, when French sociologist Emile Durkheim published his book entitled, The Division of Labor in Society. In this book, Durkheim indicated that the rules of how individuals interact with one another were disintegrating and therefore people were unable to determine how to act with one another. As a consequence, Durkheim believed that anomie was a state where the expectations of behavior are unclear, and the system has broken down. This is known as normlessness. Durkheim claimed that this normlessness caused deviant behaviors, and later, as claimed in his 1897 work, Suicide, depression and suicide.

Durkheim’s theory was based upon the idea that the lack of rules and clarity resulted in psychological status of worthlessness, frustration, lack of purpose, and despair. In addition, since there is no idea of what is considered desirable, to strive for anything would be futile.

In criminology, the idea of anomie is that the person chooses criminal activity because the individual believes that there is no reason not to. In other words, the person is alienated, feels worthless and that their efforts to try and achieve anything else are fruitless. Therefore, with lack of any foreseeable alternative, the person falls into criminal activity.

Examples
When applying Durkheim’s theory, one could conceive of an example where the theory would apply. For instance, imagine a poor, inner-city teen with no access to job training or college. Crime pervaded the child’s world from birth; all of the child’s siblings were in a gang and served time in juvenile detention. The parents were uninvolved and had criminal histories. The teen, now an adult, was chronically unemployed and felt worthless, with no direction or sense of purpose. The teen became involved in crime as an outlet, because he felt that there were no other options; to try to achieve a higher purpose would be a waste of time.

How to Become a Sports Agent
Sports agents act on behalf of athletes, negotiating contracts and endorsement deals so as to maximize value for their client. Agents also help to promote the athletes they represent by keeping them in the public consciousness and raising their value in the eyes of prospective employers. Sports agents might work directly for the individuals they are promoting or in an agency alongside other sports agents. As such, there are no formal sports agent education requirements, although degrees in business, law or sports management may be highly beneficial.

There are however, general steps to take to become a sports agent:

Earn a bachelors degree in an applicable field
Get licensed and registered in your state
Earn an advanced degree or take on professional development opportunities
Sports Agent Education and Requirements
Degree Level Master’s degree encouraged, but no specific degree required
Degree Fields Law, business, sports management
Licensure/Registration License and/or registration required in several states
Key Traits/Skills Charisma, professional attitude, persuasiveness; willingness to travel; strong communication and argumentation skills; knowledge of marketing and law
While there is not one specific degree required to become an agent for athletes, education in areas of law, marketing, and management are necessary, even if it is obtained outside of a conventional degree program. Experience playing in the sport you intend to represent can be an advantage, but is not considered mandatory.

Other key sports agent qualifications include charisma and charm – which can help win over potential sponsors and clients alike. They should be personable and professional with everyone they meet, as reputation plays an important role in their industry. Excellent communication skills are also a must, as contract negotiations have little room for ambiguity. Agents often have as little as a day to win over a potential client, so a talent for persuasiveness and the ability to argue effectively may serve them well. Travel is common for sports agents, who must visit schools or sports teams across the country to find new talent or travel with the client to games and promotional events.

Sports Agent Degree
There are a few primary college majors of relevance to those who intend to become sports agents:

Law
Business
Sports management
Finance
Since sports agents are heavily involved in contract negotiation, an understanding of contract law is considered essential, so at least some level of legal education is recommended. When looking at sports management degrees, consider those that are more oriented towards business, rather than facilities, equipment, or exercise. While a bachelor’s degree in one of these areas may help to get your foot in the door, most agents operate with a master’s degree, often one that complements their undergraduate education to cover as much of these three areas as possible.

Master’s degree programs in sports management often include internships with agencies or other sports-related organizations, which offer critical real-world experience and networking opportunities. A Master of Business Administration degree program can also be extremely useful, providing knowledge of leadership to forge ahead on your client’s behalf and the business acumen needed at the negotiating table.

Sports Agent Internships and Licensure
Whether in the context of a degree program or without the help of a school, internships with agencies are a common path to becoming a sports agent. Internships provide an opportunity to learn about the field while assisting an experienced agent, and they give the agency the chance to see what you have to offer their business.

Several states require that sports agents obtain a license or register with the state in order to operate. Licensure and registration requirements can vary substantially between states, but often consist of a background check and a simple application, with associated fees. After receiving any necessary license, you may begin working with clients already at the agency or seek out your own.

A sports agent and sports team stack hands
Career as a Sports Agent
Sports agents are likely to build up a stable of talent whom the agent will represent for the duration of their careers. Agents will still need to recruit new clients to replace those who retire or otherwise leave athletics as well as try to use their reputation to attract established professionals into switching agencies. After years of experience working for an agency, an agent might wish to go out on their own. While the head of an agency might see to a few of the major names that they represent, they may focus on operating the business at this point. Agents looking to advance their careers can also consider moving into related fields, such as scouting for teams.

Sports Agent Salary and Industry Information
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics determined that the median salary of a sports agent (and other business managers of artists, performers, and athletes) was $73,740 in May of 2019. Agents predominantly work in New York, Florida, Tennessee, and Texas, although any area with a large number of universities with athletics programs is likely to have sports agents working there in some capacity. Between 2019-2029, the BLS projects a 12% increase in sports agent jobs, which is much faster growth than average.

In this lesson, we’ll go over the main differences between ADH and aldosterone, including where they originate in the body, their functions, and their mechanisms.
Definitions of ADH and Aldosterone
Picture a hot summer day. Your heart is pounding as you finish your afternoon run. Your mouth is dry and your skin is soaked with sweat. The bright sun beats down on your shoulders, and you’re desperate for a nice cool drink. What really causes you to feel thirst? How does your body know it’s time for an icy lemonade?

The answer comes down to the chemicals in your body called hormones. Hormones are secreted by glands and organs, and they tell your body what to do or how to feel. When you’ve lost too much water, hormones play an important part in communicating your thirst to the rest of the body.

Two hormones have very specific jobs of controlling the kidneys, the bean-shaped organs in the back of your abdomen responsible for managing water balance. Antidiuretic hormone (or ADH) and aldosterone tell the kidneys to hold onto water if you become too dehydrated. Before we explore the differences between these two hormones, let’s look at some basic kidney anatomy.

Kidney Anatomy and Function
Your kidneys are important organs for maintaining the right amount of water in your body. When there’s too much water, it’s released as urine. If you don’t have enough water, your kidneys help hold onto it, so you urinate less.

The kidneys function in these ways through little compartments made of tiny tubules called nephrons. The tubules are responsible for reabsorbing water and salt when the body needs it, and carrying anything the body doesn’t need to the bladder as urine. The liquid inside the tubules is called filtrate, and that’s what will become urine. The liquid outside the tubules is called the interstitial fluid and will eventually go back into the blood. The tubules wind through the nephron, collecting water and salt. ADH and aldosterone work mainly in the last part of the tubule, the collecting duct.

ADH vs. Aldosterone
Now that we know where these hormones work in the kidney, let’s hone in on the differences between the two: where they’re made, their structures, and their mechanisms.

Where They Are Made
ADH is a hormone made in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain responsible for a wide variety of the body’s metabolic processes. ADH is moved to the posterior pituitary gland just beneath the hypothalamus, where it is secreted into the blood.

Aldosterone, on the other hand, is made right on top of the kidney in a tissue called the adrenal gland. The adrenal gland also releases aldosterone into the blood, much like the posterior pituitary releases ADH. Now let’s take a closer look at the structure of both ADH and of aldosterone.

Structure
ADH is a peptide made up of nine amino acids: tyrosine, phenylalanine, glutamine, asparagine, proline, arginine, glycine, and two instances of cysteine. Aldosterone, on the other hand, is a mineralocorticoid, which is a corticosteroid made of cholesterol. Mineralocorticoid is similar in structure to sex hormones like estrogen, and it’s much smaller than ADH.

Mechanisms
As we discussed, both hormones work in the collecting duct of the kidney. But how, precisely, do they function within the collecting ducts? Let’s explore. First, we’ll take a closer look at the mechanisms ADH possesses, followed by a closer look at those possessed by aldosterone.

Skewed distributions are asymmetrical and have data that clusters toward one end. In this lesson, learn about positively skewed distributions, negatively skewed distributions, and more.
Skewed Data
Imagine that you were interested in studying the annual income of students one year after they have completed their Masters of Business Administration (MBA). You collect data from 400 graduates and find that their yearly income ranges from $20,000 to $150,000. This table summarizes the data that you have collected.

Income of MBA graduates
Data table
Let’s say that you are also interested in examining the number of applications each graduate completed before they found their current job. Using data collected from the same 400 graduates, you find that the number of applications they completed ranges from 1 to 15. This table summarizes the data that you have collected.

Number of applications submitted before finding work
data table
You probably could not tell by looking at the tables, but the data you collected in both of the studies above is skewed.

What Is a Skewed Distribution?
A distribution is said to be skewed when the data points cluster more toward one side of the scale than the other, creating a curve that is not symmetrical. In other words, the right and the left side of the distribution are shaped differently from each other. There are two types of skewed distributions.

A distribution is positively skewed if the scores fall toward the lower side of the scale and there are very few higher scores. Positively skewed data is also referred to as skewed to the right because that is the direction of the ‘long tail end’ of the chart. Let’s create a chart using the yearly income data that we collected from the MBA graduates.

data chart showing positively skewed distribution
You can see that most of the graduates reported annual income between $31,000 and $70,000. You can see that there are very few graduates that make more than $70,000. The yearly income for MBA graduates is positively skewed, and the ‘long tail end’ of the chart points to the right.

A distribution is negatively skewed if the scores fall toward the higher side of the scale and there are very few low scores. Let’s take a look at the chart of the number of applications each graduate completed before they found their current job.

Data chart showing negatively skewed distribution
We can see that most of the graduates completed between 9 and 13 applications. Only 56 out of the 400 graduates completed less than 9 applications. The number of applications completed for MBA graduates is negatively skewed, and the ‘long tail end’ points to the left. Negatively skewed data is also referred to as ‘skewed to the left’ because that is the direction of the ‘long tail end.’

Characteristics of Skewed Distributions
You are probably somewhat familiar with the mean, median, and mode. The mode is the most frequently occurring score in a distribution. The median is the middle value that separates the top 50% of the distribution from the bottom 50%. The mean is the average found by adding all of the scores together and dividing the sum by the total number of scores.

The mean, median, and mode are measures of central tendency that are used to describe a data set. Here are a few key points to remember:

Life on Earth is incredibly diverse, with over one million species. But have you ever wondered how all these organisms are named? In this lesson, you’ll learn about the scientific naming system called binomial nomenclature.
Binomial Nomenclature Definition
The most well-known living things have common names. For example, you are probably familiar with the small, red insects dotted with little black spots. You might call them ‘ladybugs’ or ‘ladybird beetles.’ But did you know there are actually many different species of these insects? Just using common names may make it difficult for scientists to differentiate between them, so every species is given a unique scientific name.

Binomial nomenclature is the formal naming system for living things that all scientists use. It gives every species a two-part scientific name. For example, a ladybug found in the United States goes by the fancy name of Harmonia axyridis.

The first part of a scientific name, like Harmonia, is called the genus. A genus is typically the name for a small group of closely related organisms. The second part of a scientific name, axyridis in this example, is the specific epithet. It is used to identify a particular species as separate from others belonging to the same genus. Together, the genus plus the specific epithet is the full scientific name for an organism.

I bet that you actually already know the scientific name for at least one animal, although you may not have realized it. Ever heard of the dinosaur T. rex? T. rex is actually a scientific name – the ‘T’ is just an abbreviation of the genus Tyrannosaurus. So the scientific name is actually Tyrannosaurus rex.

Binomial Nomenclature Rules
Because scientific names are unique species identifiers, they ensure that there is never any confusion as to which organism a scientist may be referring. Additionally, there are some important rules that must be followed to keep all binomial names standardized:

The entire two-part name must be written in italics (or underlined when handwritten).
The genus name is always written first.
The genus name must be capitalized.
The specific epithet is never capitalized.
Higher Classification
In addition to giving a species a binomial scientific name, it must also belong to higher levels of classification. Each level of classification is called a taxon (plural is taxa). The broadest taxon is the domain. All living things fit into only three domains: archaea, bacteria, and eukarya. Nested within each of these domains, there are kingdoms. Each kingdom contains phyla (singular is phylum). The taxonomic levels below phylum are class, order, family, genus, and species.