Deck 7: Deviance

Question 1

"Primary deviance" refers to the most serious offenses.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Labeling theory stresses that some actions are always wrong and others are always right.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

In general,people of higher social class position are less likely to be arrested for street crimes than people of lower class position.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Corporate crime refers to stealing or other crimes that are committed against a corporation or other large business.

Question 5

Organized crime refers to supplying legal goods and services at below market prices.

Question 6

Albert Cohen suggested that lower-class youths form a delinquent subculture to gain the self-respect that society denies them.

Question 7

Walter Reckless and Simon Dinitz developed containment theory,which claims that a strong superego helps boys stay out of trouble.

Question 8

Emile Durkheim's analysis suggests it would be impossible for a society to completely eliminate deviance.

Question 9

What is considered deviant is almost exactly the same behavior all around the world.

Question 10

Today in the United States,women are arrested for property crimes at the same rate as men are.

Question 11

Biological factors,including genetics,explain most criminal behavior.

Question 12

The stigma of deviance can encourage an individual to engage in further deviance.

Question 13

Cesare Lombroso,an Italian physician and criminologist,claimed that most criminals were people who had been mistreated by society.

Question 14

According to the social-conflict approach,deviance is a basic part of social organization.

Question 15

Robert Merton claimed that the "strains of masculinity" are an important cause of crime.

Question 16

Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz states that the label of "insanity" is widely applied to behavior that is actually only "different."

Question 17

A poor person who has little chance to go to college and who sells illegal drugs to make money is one example of deviance that Merton calls "innovation."

Question 18

Crime is only one category of deviance.

Question 19

The "medicalization of deviance" idea points to the fact that most crimes are committed by people who are under the influence of an illegal drug.

Question 20

Travis Hirschi's control theory makes the point that people who commit crimes typically have little concern about the potential consequences.

Question 21

In his study of New England's Puritans,Kai Erikson concluded that

A)people everywhere,for the most part,define the same things as deviant.
B)very religious people create very little deviance.
C)even this disciplined and highly religious group created deviance to clarify the moral boundaries of their community.
D)the proportion of people in the population that the Puritans defined as deviant kept rising over time.

Question 22

"Due process" means handling alleged offenders within the bounds of the law.

Question 23

Which of the following are functions of deviance noted by Emile Durkheim?

A)Deviance affirms cultural values and norms.
B)Responding to deviance promotes social unity.
C)Responding to deviance clarifies moral boundaries.
D)All of these responses are correct.

Question 24

What concept refers to the formal system that responds to alleged violations of the law using police,courts,and prison officials?

A)the normative system
B)social control
C)civil law
D)the criminal justice system

Question 25

The old saying,"An eye for an eye," expresses the essence of rehabilitation.

Question 26

Assume you were listening to a lecture on Durkheim's approach to deviance.Which of the following statements might well be the focus of the lecture?

A)Deviance is considered a normal element of social organization.
B)Deviance is a dysfunctional element of social organization.
C)Deviance is less common in modern societies.
D)Deviance is defined by the rich and used against the poor.

Question 27

Which of the following concepts refers to "the recognized violation of cultural norms"?

A)deviance
B)crime
C)legal infraction
D)juvenile delinquency

Question 28

In Robert Merton's strain theory of deviance,which of the following concepts refers to the process of seeking conventional goals but rejecting the conventional means to achieve them?

A)innovation
B)ritualism
C)retreatism
D)rebellion

Question 29

The United States is the only Western,high-income nation that routinely imposes the death penalty on convicted offenders.

Question 30

The value of psychological theories of deviance is limited because

A)very few people experience an "unsuccessful socialization."
B)there has been very little research of this kind.
C)there is no way to distinguish "normal" from "abnormal" people.
D)most people who commit serious crimes have normal psychological profiles.

Question 31

What does the story about the conviction and imprisonment of Bruce Glover suggest about punishment in the United States?

A)Crime truly does pay;the criminal justice system should hand down stiffer punishments to criminals.
B)Convicts can lose everything important to them while in prison and,after release,they often struggle to fit back into society.
C)The U.S.criminal justice system truly rehabilitates criminals effectively.
D)After criminals get out of prison,society welcomes them back with open arms.

Question 32

Walter Reckless and Simon Dinitz claimed that "good boys" have the ability to control deviant impulses.They called their analysis

A)differential opportunity theory.
B)containment theory.
C)libido theory.
D)differential association theory.

Question 33

Every person charged with a crime in the United States is sentenced after receiving a trial by jury.

Question 34

In the United States,even though the crime rate has gone down in recent years,the number of people in prison has gone up.

Question 35

Read the four statements below.Which comes closest to the correct view of the role of biology in causing people to commit crimes?

A)Males with certain body structure commit the most serious crimes.
B)Lombroso proved a century ago that biological factors are the major cause of crime.
C)Biological factors may affect behavior,but research puts greater emphasis on social influences.
D)Genetics research has succeeded in explaining most criminality.

Question 36

Every society tries to regulate the behavior of individuals;this general process is called

A)a neighborhood watch.
B)self control.
C)social control.
D)the legal system.

Question 37

Read the following four statements about the social foundations of deviance.Select the one statement that is FALSE.

A)Deviance exists only in relation to cultural norms.
B)There are many acts that are always deviant everywhere.
C)People become deviant as others define them that way.
D)Both norms and how people define rule breaking involve social power.

Question 38

Probation and parole are two types of community-based corrections.

Question 39

Based on your reading,it would be correct to say that biological approaches offer

A)a very limited understanding of crime.
B)a good explanation of most crimes.
C)a good explanation of violent crime.
D)a good explanation of property crime.

Question 40

"Crime" differs from "deviance" in that crime

A)is always more serious.
B)is usually less serious.
C)refers to a violation of norms enacted into law.
D)involves a larger share of the population.

Question 41

The basic idea behind labeling theory is that

A)deviance is actually useful in a number of ways.
B)deviance arises not so much from what people do as how others respond to what they do.
C)power has much to do with how a society defines deviance.
D)All of these responses are correct.

Question 42

The concept "retrospective labeling" refers to the process of

A)reinterpreting someone's past in light of a present deviance.
B)defining someone as deviant for things done long before.
C)criminal adults encouraging their children to become deviant.
D)All of these responses are correct.

Question 43

Whether people respond to deviance as a moral issue or a medical matter affects which of the following?

A)who responds-police or medical personnel
B)whether the person is subject to punishment or treatment
C)how personally competent the person is assumed to be
D)All of these responses are correct.

Question 44

His friends begin to criticize Marco as a "juice-head," pushing him out of their social circle.Marco begins to drink even more,becomes bitter,and joins a new group of friends who also are heavy drinkers.According to Lemert,Marco's situation illustrates

A)the onset of primary deviance.
B)the onset of secondary deviance.
C)the formation of a deviant subculture.
D)the onset of retreatism.

Question 45

What concept did Erving Goffman use to refer to a powerful and negative label that greatly changes a person's self-concept and social identity?

A)a deviant ritual
B)a degradation ceremony
C)a secondary identity
D)stigma

Question 46

Using a Marxist approach,Steven Spitzer claims that prime targets for deviant labeling include

A)people who try to take the property of others.
B)people who do not want to work for a living.
C)radicals who call for basic change in society itself.
D)All of these responses are correct.

Question 47

Travis Hirschi's control theory suggests which of the following categories of people would be MOST likely to engage in deviance?

A)students enrolled in college
B)teenagers on sports teams with after-school jobs
C)youngsters who "hang out" waiting for something to happen
D)young people with respect for their parents

Question 48

Thomas Szasz made the controversial assertion that

A)having a physical or mental illness is grounds for a person to be labeled "deviant."
B)most people in the United States will become insane for some period during their lives.
C)mental illness is a myth;these conditions simply amount to differences in others that we don't like.
D)our society does not do nearly enough to treat the mentally ill.

Question 49

Edwin Lemert described "primary deviance" as

A)the most serious episodes of deviance.
B)actions that parents define as deviant.
C)a passing episode of deviance that has little effect on the person's self-concept.
D)the experience of deviance early in life.

Question 50

According to the social-conflict approach,what a society labels as deviant is based primarily on

A)how often the act occurs.
B)the moral foundation of the culture.
C)how harmful the act is to the public as a whole.
D)differences in power between various categories of people.

Question 51

Both Albert Cohen and Walter Miller argue that deviance is MOST likely to arise among

A)high-income males.
B)middle-class men and women.
C)low-income youths.
D)all class levels.

Question 52

Using the terms in Robert Merton's strain theory,which of the following concepts correctly describes the behavior of a radical activist who rejects just about everything in the existing society in favor of some alternative system?

A)innovator
B)ritualist
C)retreatist
D)rebel

Question 53

Participating in the subculture that Elijah Anderson describes as "the code of the streets" raises the risk that young people will end up

A)conforming to conventional morality.
B)doing better than their parents.
C)having a career in law enforcement.
D)in jail or worse.

Question 54

Cloward and Ohlin extended Merton's theory of deviance,stating that crime

A)results from limited (legal)opportunity as well as accessible (illegal)opportunity.
B)is more common among the rich who have more opportunity and are less likely to be apprehended.
C)is defined in such a way as to overly criminalize the poor.
D)typically results from drug dependence or other substance addiction.

Question 55

Using Robert Merton's strain theory,how would you classify a low-paid,yet compulsively conforming bank teller who never seems to want to get ahead but never seems to do anything wrong?

A)innovator
B)ritualist
C)retreatist
D)rebel

Question 56

Using the terms of Robert Merton's strain theory,which of the following terms would correctly describe a gangster like Al Capone who made a lot of money breaking the law?

A)innovator
B)ritualist
C)retreatist
D)rebel

Question 57

Alexander Liazos speaks for the social-conflict approach when he states that

A)powerless people are at the highest risk of being defined as deviant.
B)deviance has both functions and dysfunctions.
C)deviance exists only in the eye of the beholder.
D)society should ignore victimless crime.

Question 58

Edwin Sutherland's differential association theory links deviance to

A)how labeling someone as deviant can increase the deviant behavior.
B)the amount of contact a person has with others who encourage or discourage conventional behavior.
C)how well a person can contain deviant impulses.
D)how others respond to the race,ethnicity,gender,and class of the individual.

Question 59

Using the terms of Robert Merton's strain theory,which of the following concepts correctly describes the behavior of a school "dropout" who rejects both cultural goals and the conventional means to reach them?

A)innovator
B)ritualist
C)retreatist
D)rebel

Question 60

Which of the following statements illustrates the "medicalization of deviance"?

A)theft being redefined as a "compulsive stealing"
B)drinking too much being redefined as "alcoholism"
C)promiscuity being redefined as a "sexual addiction"
D)All of these responses are correct.

Question 61

In the United States,men account for about _____ of all arrests for violent crime.

A)about 20 percent
B)about 40 percent
C)about 60 percent
D)about 80 percent

Question 62

Of all the property crimes discussed in The CHAPTER,one occurs far more than all the others.Which one is it?

A)motor-vehicle theft
B)larceny-theft
C)robbery
D)forcible rape

Question 63

According to Elliot Currie,factors that explain the high crime rate in the United States by world standards include

A)our cultural homogeneity.
B)a lack of interest in punishing offenders.
C)the high level of immigration and unemployment.
D)our emphasis on individual economic success,at the expense of strong families.

Question 64

In legal terms,a crime is composed of which two components?

A)the act and criminal intent
B)a criminal and a victim
C)the act and the social harm
D)the law and the violation

Question 65

Which of the following statements is correct?

A)Men commit far fewer crimes than women.
B)Women commit far fewer crimes than men.
C)Women and men commit the same number of crimes.
D)Women commit more property crimes than men,but men commit more violent crimes.

Question 66

Mike reports the theft of his dirt bike from the front yard of his house.The police would record this as which of the following types of crime?

A)burglary
B)larceny-theft
C)robbery
D)auto-theft

Question 67

Research suggests that,with regard to social class,arrest for FBI index crimes

A)is about the same for people of all social positions.
B)is higher for people of higher social position.
C)is higher for people of lower social position.
D)almost always involves middle-class people.

Question 68

Edwin Sutherland stated that white-collar crime

A)almost always leads to a criminal conviction.
B)provokes a strong response from the community.
C)is usually resolved in a civil rather than a criminal court.
D)rarely involves serious harm to the public as a whole.

Question 69

A hate crime is defined as

A)any crime against a person who is a minority.
B)any crime involving anger or other powerful emotion.
C)a criminal act motivated by race or other bias.
D)any violation of antidiscrimination laws.

Question 70

Organized crime refers to

A)illegal actions by people with white-collar jobs.
B)illegal actions on the part of a corporation or large business.
C)crime involving the cooperation of two or more businesses.
D)any business that supplies illegal goods or services.

Question 71

"Crimes against the person" includes all of the following EXCEPT

A)murder.
B)aggravated assault.
C)burglary.
D)forcible rape.

Question 72

In terms of racial categories,MOST of the people arrested for FBI Index crimes in the United States are

A)white.
B)African American.
C)people of mixed race.
D)of Hispanic ancestry.

Question 73

Victimization surveys show that the actual amount of crime in the United States is about _____ what official reports indicate.

A)half as great as
B)the same as
C)more than twice as high as
D)ten times greater than

Question 74

Prostitution is widely regarded as which of the following types of crime?

A)crime against the person
B)crime against property
C)victimless crime
D)corporate crime

Question 75

The likelihood a person will be arrested for a street crime rises sharply

A)during the late teenage years.
B)in the late twenties.
C)during the middle thirties.
D)over age forty.

Question 76

Which of the following concepts refers to crime committed by persons of high social position during the course of their occupations?

A)victimless crime
B)white-collar crime
C)organized crime
D)street crime

Question 77

Gender figures into the study of deviance because

A)women account for most of the arrests for serious crimes in the United States.
B)every society in the world places stricter controls on the behavior of women than men.
C)most researchers in this area are women.
D)All of these are correct.

Question 78

Men,who represent about half the U.S.population,account for about _____ of all arrests for property crime.

A)33 percent
B)50 percent
C)62 percent
D)98 percent

Question 79

Which of the following refers to the illegal actions of a corporation or people acting on its behalf?

A)corporate crime
B)organized crime
C)victimless crime
D)secondary deviance

Question 80

Criminal statistics gathered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation reflect

A)all crimes that take place.
B)offenses cleared by arrest.
C)offenses resulting in a criminal conviction.
D)offenses known to the police.