Exam 9: Contesting Crime

Richard used to dream of owning a nice house in the suburbs, but after 15 years in a dead-end job, he's given up. Every morning, Richard leaves his small rented apartment, makes the long commute to work, and clocks in promptly at 8 A.m. to a job he hates. Which typology describes Richard's mode of adaptation to anomic imbalance?

What is the purpose of critical theory?

The Uniform Crime Report reported 16,214 homicides in the United States in 2018. If based on this data, I was to make the claim: "…there were 16,214 murders in the United States in 2018", why would it be inaccurate?

What is the "dark figure of crime"?

Social disorganization theory suggests that crime is primarily caused by macro-level factors such as poverty and population transience.

The more local news people consume, the greater their fear of becoming a victim of crime.

Norms are shared ideas about what kind of behavior is appropriate and desirable. When someone violates a norm, they are likely to face negative sanctions. However, not all norm violations are punished equally. Define and describe the three types of norms categorized based on how strictly they are enforced with sanctions. Give an example for each norm, and suggest a negative sanction that would be likely to result from violating each norm.

Identify the different types of norms in order of how harshly people are negatively sanctioned for breaking them, from the least severe sanctions to the most severe sanctions.

Mae has lived in her home for nearly 70 years. It seems that every few years, people move into the community, and move out, and Mae never seems to have time to get to know them. In contrast to the transient population, a few things have remained constant: Her neighborhood's high crime rate and high poverty rate. What theory can help us understand why crime rates remain the same in Mae's neighborhood, even though the entire population has changed?

What are the features that differentiate folkways, mores, and taboos?

Violating a folkway will result in the harshest negative sanctions of all types of social norms.

Immigrants' disproportionality commits more crimes than their native-born counterparts.

Name and describe the three types of norms in the order of how harshly an individual would be sanctioned for violating them.

According to Merton, people will experience strain whenever they cannot achieve the culturally approved goals of society while following the institutionalized means.

Merton claimed that individuals who fall in the "retreatist" typology were often addicted to drugs or alcohol.

How is the "dark figure of crime" relevant to both the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey?

The ______ is an annual survey of a nationally-representative sample of American households.

The dark figure of crime refers to the actual amount of crimes committed, which is higher than the number of crimes reported.

Why are the number of violent crimes reported in the NCVS higher than the number of violent crimes reported in the UCR?

Why would a classical criminologist be opposed to keeping a convicted criminal's sentence secret from the public?