Deck 1: The Problem of Crime

Question 1

In 1970 the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence predicted that

A) private homes would be increasingly monitored by security equipment.
B) armed guards would be monitoring public schools.
C) gun ownership would be nearly universal.
D) all of the above

Answer 1

D

Question 2

In 1970 the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence predicted that

A) American cities would experience widespread ethnic pluralism.
B) American suburbs would no longer exist due to terrorism.
C) streets and neighborhoods would be unsafe in differing degrees.
D) slums would be transformed into places for urban renewal.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which of the following populations has the highest levels of fear of crime?

A) children in all communities
B) elderly, women, and racial minorities
C) African Americans, white-collar professionals, and law enforcement officers
D) blue-collar workers, Native Americans, and adolescents

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Anderson, an economist, estimated that the annual cost of crime in the United States is

A) $450 billion.
B) $450 million.
C) $1,700 billion.
D) $800 million.

Question 5

The cost of crime includes

A) crime-induced production.
B) opportunity costs and economic transfers.
C) the value of risks to life and health.
D) all of the above

Question 6

After September 11, 2001, American's greatest fear shifted from crime to

A) street crime.
B) terrorism.
C) environmental risks and hazards.
D) nuclear war.

Question 7

The public's view of social problems always includes

A) child abuse.
B) crime in general.
C) drug abuse.
D) none of the above

Question 8

Which of the following has the greatest effect on whether a condition is perceived as a social problem?

A) political debate
B) the mass media
C) advertising
D) consumerism

Question 9

Where do most people get their "knowledge" of crime from?

A) television
B) movies
C) the Internet
D) criminology courses

Question 10

Approximately what proportion of total television programming is devoted to crime or law enforcement?

A) 10 percent
B) 80 percent
C) 33 percent
D) 50 percent

Question 11

Which type of crime is least likely to be covered by television news?

A) rape
B) murder
C) white-collar crime
D) drug-related crime

Question 12

When crime is reported on the evening news, it is primarily

A) white-collar crime.
B) violent street crime.
C) property crime.
D) political crime.

Question 13

A recent study found that a majority of television shows depicted scenes of sexual harassment and that these offenses were

A) treated seriously by the proper authorities.
B) perpetuating the myth that sexual harassment is not a serious crime.
C) quickly defused by the targets of harassment.
D) always dismissed as unimportant in the work environment.

Question 14

_____ is the least likely type of crime reported on television.

A) Violent street crime
B) Property crime
C) Public order crime
D) White-collar crime

Question 15

What percentage of Americans has no experience with crime?

A) 90 percent
B) 75 percent
C) 33 percent
D) 25 percent

Question 16

What is crime from a legal standpoint?

A) An unintentional act, committed with defense or excuse and modestly penalized.
B) An intentional act, committed without defense or excuse and severely penalized.
C) An unintentional act in violation of the criminal law, committed without defense.
D) An intentional act in violation of the criminal law, committed without defense or excuse and penalized by the state.

Question 17

A basic principle expressed in English common law is:

A) no crime without law, no punishment without law.
B) no crime without criminals, no punishment without crime.
C) no criminals without crime, no state without punishment.
D) no law without lawyers, no crime without the state.

Question 18

Which of the following is not a type of law?

A) canon law
B) criminal law
C) civil law
D) conditional law

Question 19

Responsibility for a crime requires that criminal intent be evaluated. This intent includes if the defendant acted

A) purposefully.
B) knowingly.
C) negligently or recklessly.
D) All of the above are aspects of criminal intent.

Question 20

Criminal responsibility can be avoided if the act was "justified" based on

A) insanity.
B) duress, necessity, or duty.
C) entrapment.
D) a disease of the mind.

Question 21

The successful defense of "duty" to avoid criminal responsibility usually involves cases in which

A) anti-abortion activists kill abortion doctors to "save babies."
B) firefighters break and enter a home to save a small domesticated animal.
C) police officers kill a person in the line of duty.
D) politicians engage in corruption because everyone else does it.

Question 22

The ________ defense is successfully used when the defendant "lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law."

A) entrapment
B) duress
C) duty
D) insanity

Question 23

One problem with the legalistic definition of crime is that it is based on an assumption of

A) free will.
B) precedent.
C) habitual offending.
D) none of the above

Question 24

Law is

A) the expressed will of God.
B) ultimately connected with justice.
C) a social phenomenon created by members of society under specific historical conditions.
D) immutable and never changing.

Question 25

In hunter-gatherer societies

A) property was communally owned.
B) social classes did not exist.
C) an organized state or ruler did not exist.
D) all of the above.

Question 26

As social inequality increases, law

A) decreases.
B) increases.
C) evaporates.
D) stagnates.

Question 27

The rise of state governments and legal systems emerged within which historical condition?

A) postindustrial society
B) nomadic society
C) agricultural society
D) militant society

Question 28

What does it mean to say that law serves a function of social control?

A) It manufactures conformity, suppresses deviance, establishes guilt, and provides for punishments.
B) It manufactures conformity, suppresses deviance, establishes guilt, and precludes punishment.
C) It manufactures deviance, suppresses conformity, establishes guilt, and executes punishment.
D) It manufactures conformity, suppresses deviance, excuses guilt, and forgoes punishment.

Question 29

Criminalization refers to

A) the enactment of legislation that outlaws certain types of behavior.
B) the surveillance and the policing of outlawed behavior.
C) punishment for the offense (if detected).
D) all of the above.

Question 30

The criminalization process maintains

A) the interest of the powerless and reduces the benefits of privilege to the powerful.
B) the interest of the powerful and tends to increase access to resources by the powerless.
C) the social inequalities throughout society by preserving the interest of the powerful.
D) social equality and treats all citizens fairly.

Question 31

The term criminology derives from the latin crimen, which translates to

A) judgment, accusation, or offense.
B) criminal, offender, or judge.
C) prejudice, accusation, or justice.
D) action, movement, change.

Question 32

Criminology, as a respectable academic discipline, was established within what era in U.S. history?

A) The Depression Era.
B) The Progressive Era.
C) The radical era of the 1960s.
D) The World War II Era.

Question 33

Thorsten Sellin wanted to expand the definition of crime beyond the legalistic view. He saw crime as a

A) form of deviance.
B) violation of human rights.
C) violation of conduct norms.
D) social harm.

Question 34

Defining crime as a violation of human rights means that criminologists may study ________ from inadequate guarantees of basic rights that are essential to life.

A) poverty and homelessness
B) limited health care availability
C) gender discrimination
D) all of the above

Question 35

Edwin Sutherland suggested that crime should be understood within the context of the harm done, which means that

A) white-collar offenses would be criminally rather than civilly prosecuted.
B) anyone who harms another person, regardless of motive, would be criminally responsible.
C) everyone who inadvertently causes damage to another's property would be criminally responsible.
D) none of the above

Question 36

According to Raymond Michalowski, crime based on analogous social injury allows criminologists to study _________ acts as having similar consequences to criminal acts.

A) courageous
B) illegal
C) legal
D) discourteous

Question 37

Based on the concept of analogous social injury, tobacco companies should be held criminally responsible for

A) nothing, because smokers choose their addiction.
B) the nearly 200,000 tobacco-related deaths each year.
C) the thousands of low birth-weight babies whose mothers smoke.
D) the cost to taxpayers for medical treatment for smokers.

Question 38

Which of the following is an example of media bias regarding crime?

A) Mass media underreporting white-collar crime.
B) Mass media exaggerating the amount of violent interpersonal crime.
C) Mass media often distorting racial patterns of crime and victimization.
D) All of the above are examples of mass media bias regarding crime.

Question 39

The process of defining crime is an inherently __________ activity.

A) radical
B) political
C) obfuscating
D) objective

Question 40

Which of the following is not an advantage of the rights approach to defining crime?

A) The content of rights do not vary across cultures.
B) Some legal categories themselves might be considered criminal.
C) It is less objective than the legal approach is.
D) It would allow criminologists to consider the rights of animals.

Question 41

When was the ICC created?

A) 1945
B) 1950
C) 2002
D) 2008

Question 42

Because crime should be seen as a sociological problem, we must examine

A) how patterns of reproduction generate crime.
B) how patterns of political and economic power are distributed.
C) how patterns of social and ideological structures are created.
D) both b and c above.

Question 43

One effect of globalization has been

A) an increase in opportunities for crime.
B) a creation of victims who are impacted by global crime.
C) an emergence of global conduct norms.
D) all of above

Question 44

What historical event eventually led to the creation of the ICC?

A) Nuremberg Trials
B) September 11, 2001
C) My Lai massacre in Vietnam
D) Charges of "torture" during the Bush era

Question 45

In 1970, the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence predicted that, in the near future, society would be free of crime and violence because the known causes would be eliminated.

Question 46

The perception of social problems changes over time and place, and depends on the perspective of the group examining it.

Question 47

The media almost always portrays crime accurately.

Question 48

In a violence index from 1967 to 1987, researcher George Gerbner found that 80 percent of television programming contained violence.

Question 49

If one relies on the mass media for crime information, he or she will have an accurate image of crime in the United States.

Question 50

There is no behavior that is universally defined as criminal in all societies at all times.

Question 51

Criminal law, which deals with public offenses, is virtually the same as civil law.

Question 52

Felonies are offenses that carry less than one year in jail as a punishment.

Question 53

As societies become increasingly complex, more laws are passed to regulate transactions between those with power and those with less power.

Question 54

Criminalization is the process in which an offender is adjudicated through the criminal justice system.

Question 55

Defining crime based on conduct norms, as Thorsten Sellin advocated, requires a unified consensus of what is considered "right" and "wrong."

Question 56

The mass media rarely alters the events of a crime.

Question 57

Law originated in a society that had little or no inequality.

Question 58

Crime is a category that has absolute and universal meaning.

Question 59

Globalization has not changed the dynamics of crime in the United States.

Question 60

Criminologists agree that the criminalization process represents increased humanity and rationality as states and nations modernize.

Question 61

Although many people think of crime as a legal problem, crime is also a social problem. Briefly explain what it means to describe crime as a "social problem."

Question 62

Demonstrate your understanding of the nature of criminal law by addressing its origin, its purpose, and the nature of criminal culpability.

Question 63

Compare and contrast the legalistic and sociological approaches to crime. In the course of your answer, be sure to identify how each approach defines crime and include at least one strength and one weakness of each approach.

Question 64

Briefly explain what the criminalization process is and why the authors argue that criminalization is not a neutral process.