Deck 1: The Criminalization of Corporate Violence

Question 1

Whose definition of white-collar crime "could fit any illegal way of accumulating profits whether it violated existing criminal codes or not"?

A) Sutherland's
B) Tappan's
C) Clinard and Yeager's
D) E. A. Ross's

Answer 1

A

Question 2

In Sutherland's study of corporate crime, which of the following is false?

A) the majority of the corporations in the study were habitual criminals and recidivists
B) many of the corporate violations are industry-wide
C) corporate officials who violated the law did not lose status among peers
D) corporate crime is usually deliberate and organized
E) corporate criminals have a great deal of respect for the laws that govern their industries

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Which of the following would Sutherland disagree with?

A) a corporation is a criminal only when it has been found guilty by a criminal court
B) official crime statistics are biased because they do not include the occupational crimes of the rich
C) white-collar crime is widespread
D) the traditional image of crime is misleading

Answer 3

A

Question 4

The authors define corporate crime as illegal acts potentially punishable by criminal sanction and committed to advance the interest of the corporate organization.

Question 5

According to E. A. Ross, "criminaloids" refer to:

A) vagrants
B) rich and powerful business leaders
C) biological "throwbacks"
D) drug users
E) hard-core street offenders

Question 6

According to the Progressives, crime is due to:

A) defects of the social order of society
B) poor nutrition
C) broken homes
D) mental deficiencies
E) anomie

Question 7

Who was influential is exposing crimes by business people (e.g., helping to discover white-collar crime and corporate crime during the early 1900s)?

A) the FBI.
B) Clinard and Yeager
C) Cullen
D) the muckrakers

Question 8

Which of the following is true about Clinard and Yeager's study of corporate crime?

A) their study is important because the statistics they compiled tell us exactly how much corporate crime occurs in the United States
B) about 11 percent of the corporations violated the law in 1975-1976
C) a comparatively small group of chronic offenders accounted for about half of all offenses committed by the corporations studied
D) corporate crime is not really a problem; it has been grossly exaggerated by the media

Question 9

What is not considered to be a traditional mechanism for the social control of corporate conduct?

A) civil courts
B) regulatory agencies
C) criminal sanctions

Question 10

Which of the following is not true regarding Clinard and Yeager's study?

A) the data collected were based on actions taken by federal agencies
B) more than half of the violations were attributable to 8 percent of the corporations
C) the researchers were successful in obtaining records that detailed all actions taken against the corporations in the study
D) their data revealed a complete picture of the number of violations committed by these corporations

Question 11

Which of the following is not true regarding the "incredible electrical conspiracy"?

A) GE and Westinghouse received the harshest penalties
B) 45 corporate officials were fined
C) all individual corporate officials were sentenced to probation
D) the companies involved in price-fixing agreements received nearly two million dollars in fines

Question 12

Which of the following was involved in a check-kiting scheme?

A) First Bank of Boston
B) EFCA
C) Revco
D) E. F. Hutton
E) ESM

Question 13

Which of the following was involved in "securities fraud"?

A) EFCA
B) E. F. Hutton
C) ESM
D) First Bank of Boston

Question 14

Which of the following people was convicted of crimes related to insider trading?

A) Gerald Stern
B) Ivan Boesky
C) Susan Shapiro
D) Stefan Golab

Question 15

What was buried in the Love Canal?

A) Kepone
B) Methyl Isocyanate
C) Dioxin
D) nine bodies a corporation attempted to cover up following a hazardous chemical spill.

Question 16

"Septic spontaneous abortions" have been linked to:

A) the Dalkon Shield
B) silicosis
C) a drug meant to lower cholesterol
D) Neurontin

Question 17

According to the authors of Corporate Crime Under Attack, approximately how many people are estimated to die each year due to dangerous products?

A) 1,500
B) 9,500
C) 18,000
D) 28,000

Question 18

Which of the following is not true?

A) employees of pharmaceutical company falsified laboratory results to receive FDA approval for an anti-cholesterol drug
B) Ralph Nader exposed a drug company's fraudulent marketing of a drug to treat diabetes
C) the Hooker Chemical Company dumped 20,000 tons of chemical waste in a 15-acre trench in Niagara Falls, NY
D) Odwalla, Inc. marketed apple juice contaminated with E. coli bacteria

Question 19

Which of the following is not true regarding the case against W.R. Grace & Co.?

A) workers and families and the community of Libby, Montana, were exposed to the toxic dust of vermiculite
B) more than 1,000 of Libby's 8,000 residents suffered from asbestos-related health problems
C) a federal judge limited the case on a legal technicality because the conspiracy charges were not filed within the statute of limitations
D) seven executives each received prison terms ranging from 15-30 years

Question 20

Which of the following is true regarding the firm's owner, Emmett Roe, in the case against the Imperial Food Products company?

A) he was never tried because of a technicality
B) he was convicted of 25 counts of manslaughter
C) he was found not guilty on all 25 counts of manslaughter

Question 21

Which of the following tragedies claimed the greatest number of lives?

A) Triangle Shirtwaist Company
B) Film Recovery Systems
C) Buffalo Creek
D) Imperial Foods

Question 22

How did people like the Progressive muckrakers,E. A. Ross, and Edwin Sutherland "discover" or call attention to "white-collar crime"? In particular, why is Sutherland often called the "father of white-collar crime"?

Question 23

Is corporate crime very widespread? What did studies by scholars such as Sutherland and, later, Clinard and Yeager find?

Question 24

Is corporate crime economically costly? Why? Describe some recent cases that show why corporate crime has large financial costs.

Question 25

Discuss this statement: Although corporate crime might be financially costly, it is not as serious as street crime because it is not violent.

Question 26

How does corporate crime potentially injure workers, consumers, and the general public?