Exam 7: Deviance and Crime

Emile Durkheim believed that deviance is rooted in societal factors such as rapid social change and the lack of social integration among people.

New legislation being passed as a result of a criminal trial illustrates which function of deviance?

In a classic study of the "Saints and the Roughnecks," sociologist William Chambliss concluded that:

Functionalist theorists focus on how power relations in society influence the law and the criminal justice system,often to the detriment of people who are at the bottom of the social structure hierarchy.

Sociologist Edwin Sutherland's __________ theory states that people have a greater tendency to deviate from societal norms when they frequently affiliate with individuals who are more favorable toward deviance than conformity.

Deviance is relative-that is,an act becomes deviant when it is socially defined as such.Definitions of deviance vary widely from place to place,from time to time,and from group to group.

__________ crimes include burglary (breaking into private property to commit a serious crime),motor vehicle theft,larceny-theft (theft of property worth $50 or more),and arson.

__________ crime refers to illegal acts committed by an organization's employees on behalf of the organization and with its support.

A major strength of the rational choice theory of deviance is that it explains why high-risk youths do not constantly engage in delinquent acts.They have learned to balance risk against the potential for criminal gain in each situation.

In 1972,the United States Supreme Court ruled (in Furman v.Georgia) that arbitrary application of the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution,but that the death penalty itself is not unconstitutional.In other words,capital punishment is legal if it is fairly imposed.

When people accept culturally approved goals and pursue them through the approved means,__________ occurs.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) was developed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics as an alternate means of collecting crime statistics.The most recent (NCVS) indicates that __________ percent of all violent crimes are not reported to the police.

The __________ is the major source of information on crimes reported in the United States.

The Uniform Crime Report focuses on:

The most important gender difference in arrest rates are reflected in the proportionately greater involvement of men in major crimes.In 2009,men accounted for almost __________ percent of violent crime in the United States.

According to the text,occupational (white-collar) crime comprises illegal activities committed by people in the course of their employment or financial affairs.

According to sociologist Edwin Sutherland,__________ crime comprises illegal activities committed by people in the course of their employment or financial affairs.

According to sociologist Howard Becker,__________ are often the ones who create the rules about what constitutes deviant or conventional behavior.Becker believes that these individuals use their own perspectives on "right" and "wrong" to establish the rules by which they expect other people to live.

Based on the symbolic interaction theory of sociologists Charles.H.Cooley and George H.Mead,the __________ theory states that deviance is a socially constructed process in which social control agencies designate certain people as deviants and they,in turn,come to accept the marker placed upon them and begin to act accordingly.

Based on sociologist Robert Merton's strain theory,skid-row alcoholics and drug addicts reflect a pattern of: