Deck 9: The Meaning of Crime: Social Process Perspective

Question 1

Howard Becker contends that deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of others applying rules and sanctions.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Essentially, labelling theory denies the concept of mala in se.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

According to the social process perspective, an offender who has acquired criminality, established deviant self-concepts, and participates in criminal behaviour, will likely continue to commit crimes.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

According to Edwin Lemert, offenders commit acts of primary and secondary deviance.

Question 5

Tagging is the process whereby an individual is negatively defined by agencies of justice.

Question 6

Labelling theorists would agree that labelling someone as a criminal is more detrimental to someone who has been falsely accused of a crime than someone who actually committed an offence.

Question 7

According to Edwin Sutherland, criminal behaviour is learned through a process of differential association with others who communicate criminal values and who advocate the commission of crimes.

Question 8

Social process theories are most closely associated with a biological predisposition appraoch to understanding criminal behaviour.

Question 9

Containment means those aspects of the social bond that act as a stabilizing force to prevent individuals from committing crimes and that keep them from engaging in deviance.

Question 10

According to David Matza, by employing techniques of neutralization, delinquents need not be fully alienated from the larger society because these techniques provide an effective way of overcoming feelings of guilt so they can commit crimes.

Question 11

Stigmatic shaming is used "to condemn the crime, not the criminal."

Question 12

Limited opportunities for acceptable behaviour, which follow from the negative responses of society to those defined as offenders, is offered as an explanation for continued crime by the labelling perspective.

Question 13

The efforts made by an interest group to have its sense of propriety embodied in law is known as moral enterprise.

Question 14

The neutralization technique known as denying the victim states that the victim deserved the victimization, such as stating "I only beat up drunks."

Question 15

According to Frank Tannenbaum, crime is the result of opposing definitions of the situation, between the delinquent and the community at large.

Question 16

According to the labelling theory, labelling by society and handling by the justice system tend to reduce crime and delinquency.

Question 17

When an offender justifies the harm done to a victim by indicating the victim deserved the victimization, the offender is using the neutralization technique referred to as "denial of injury."

Question 18

According to Edwin Sutherland, offenders are born with the attitudes required to justify criminal behaviour; however, they must learn the necessary techniques to commit crimes.

Question 19

Marvin Wolfgang's cohort study of boys in Philadelphia found that a relatively small number of violent offenders were responsible for most of the crimes committed by the cohort.

Question 20

Reintegrative shaming is a form of shaming, imposed as a sanction by the criminal justice system, that is thought to strengthen the moral bond between the offender and the community.

Question 21

According to Edwin Lemert, ________ becomes especially important because of the forceful role it plays in causing tagged individuals to internalize the negative labels which have been applied to them. Through such a process, labelled individuals assume the role of the deviant.

A) labelling
B) primary deviance
C) secondary deviance
D) tagging

Question 22

Life course theorists believe that as one's social capital increases, the chance of criminal activity decreases.

Question 23

Concepts such as criminal career, life course, social capital, cohort analysis, and evolutionary ecology are all associated with labelling theory.

Question 24

The commitment component of the social bond refers to the amount of time spent with others.

Question 25

According to differential association theory, how does learning criminal behaviour differ from learning other types of behaviour?

A) Learning criminal behaviour is much more a peer group exercise.
B) Learning criminal behaviour is a matter of imitation.
C) Learning criminal behaviour is more difficult.
D) There is no substantive difference between learning criminal behaviour and noncriminal behaviour.
E) Learning criminal behaviour is greater in intensity.

Question 26

A social bond is the link, created through socialization, between individuals and the society of which they are a part.

Question 27

A ________ is a group of individuals sharing certain significant social characteristics, such as gender and time and place of birth.

A) social capital
B) ecology
C) cohort
D) stigmatic shaming class
E) developmental dysfunctional pathway

Question 28

Which of the following perspectives sees continued crime as a consequence of limited opportunities for acceptable behaviour which follow from the negative responses of society to those defined as offenders?

A) Reintegrative shaming
B) Life course theory
C) Labelling
D) Containment theory
E) Social control theory

Question 29

According to containment theory, a positive self-image is an important ________ containment.

A) outer
B) external
C) inner
D) personal
E) social

Question 30

According to Travis Hirschi, the fourth component of the social bond, or _________________, an individual will commit criminal activities because, although they know the rules exist, they basically do not care and invest little of their sense of self in moral standards.

A) Stigmatic shaming
B) Reintegrative shaming
C) Social bonding
D) Labelling
E) belief

Question 31

Walter C. Reckless, Travis Hirschi, and Michael R. Gottfredson are all theorists associated with the concepts of inner and outer containment as well as social bonds.

Question 32

Gresham Sykes and David Matza put forth the notion of techniques of neutralization in 1957.

Question 33

________ contended that crime, like all human behaviour, is learned.

A) Howard Becker
B) Albert Cohen
C) Walter Reckless
D) Gresham Sykes
E) Edwin Sutherland

Question 34

One type of justification for offending by the offender is that of appealing to higher loyalties, whereby the offender may appeal to their family honour, gang, girlfriend, or neighbourhood and state "I have to protect myself!"

Question 35

The technique of neutralization which involves a young offender claiming that the unlawful acts were "not my fault" is known as ________.

A) denial of injury
B) denial of responsibility
C) appeal to higher loyalties
D) condemnation of the condemners
E) denial of the victim

Question 36

Listing the names of drunk drivers on a public billboard is an example of ________ shaming.

A) reintegrative
B) restorative
C) diversionary
D) rehabilitative
E) stigmatic

Question 37

According to Travis Hirschi, the third component of the social bond, or _________________, means "engrossment in conventional activities" and is similar to reckless's concept of meaningful roles.

A) involvement
B) dramatization of evil
C) tagging out
D) primary deviance
E) secondary deviance

Question 38

Secondary deviance is deviant behaviour that results from official labelling and from association with others who have been so labelled.

Question 39

According to Edwin Lemert, ________ is the initial deviant act which results in being caught and labelled as a deviant.

A) primary deviance
B) secondary deviance
C) tagging
D) labelling
E) information reaction

Question 40

Which one of the following is NOT descriptive of the labelling theory?

A) Deviation is criminal only if effectively reacted to and symbolized as such.
B) Negative self-images follow from processing by the formal mechanisms of criminal justice, rather than preceding delinquency.
C) Deviance is the result of social processes involving the imposition of definitions.
D) Deviant individuals achieve their status by virtue of social definition rather than because of inborn traits.
E) Children learn to become delinquents by becoming members of groups in which delinquent conduct is already established.

Question 41

List and briefly elaborate upon Sykes and Matza's five types of justification for techniques of neutralization.

Question 42

________ is considered to be a way to deal with transient problems in living.

A) Moral enterprise
B) Penal couple
C) Primary deviance
D) Secondary deviance
E) Reintegrative shaming

Question 43

According to Sutherland's nine principles of differential association, the principal part of the learning of criminal behaviour occurs ______________________.

A) within primary deviance
B) within secondary deviance
C) with tagging
D) within intimate personal groups
E) within the moral enterprise

Question 44

________________ is an approach to understanding crime that draws attention to the ways people develop over the course of their lives.

A) Authority conflict theories
B) Life course theories
C) Evolutionary ecology
D) Social control theories
E) Social capital theories

Question 45

_________________ is a term that defines efforts of a particular interest group to have its sense of propriety enacted into law.

A) Reintegrative shaming
B) Secondary deviance
C) Primary deviance
D) Tagging
E) Moral enterprise

Question 46

Integrated views of human development that examine multiple maturation levels simultaneously, including psychological, biological, familial, interpersonal, cultural, social, and ecological aspects of development, are referred to as _______________.

A) biobehavioural theories
B) social development theories
C) moral entrepreneurial theories
D) classical theories
E) psychiatric theories

Question 47

During his research, Walter C. Reckless realized that most sociological theories, although conceptually enlightening, offered less than perfect _______________, being unable to predict which individuals (even those exposed to various "causes" of crime) would become criminal.

A) predictability
B) tagging coordinates
C) stigmatic shaming
D) reintegrative shaming
E) probability algorithms

Question 48

Rather than stressing causative factors in criminal behaviour, ________ tend to ask why people actually obey rules instead of breaking them.

A) social control theories
B) subcultural theory
C) strain theory
D) differential association
E) labelling theory

Question 49

Regarding _____________, Travis Hirschi cited the psychopath as an example of a kind of person whose attachment to society is nearly non-existent.

A) reintegrative shaming
B) labelling
C) stigmatic shaming
D) public humiliation
E) attachment

Question 50

Differential association theory was developed by ________.

A) Travis Hirschi
B) Edwin Sutherland
C) Robert Agnew
D) Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck
E) Edwin Lemert

Question 51

According to Howard Becker's typology of delinquents, the ________ does not receive negative reactions from society for his deviant behaviour because his or her behaviour is not noticed.

A) falsely accused deviant
B) secret deviant
C) pure deviant
D) career deviant
E) oppressed deviant

Question 52

According to ________, crime is the consequence of social pressures to involve oneself in violations of the law, as well as of failure to resist such pressures.

A) labelling theory
B) environmental criminology
C) social control theory
D) learning theory
E) containment theory

Question 53

________ provide criminal offenders with the means to deny responsibility for their behaviour.

A) Techniques of neutralization
B) Reaction formation
C) Conduct norms
D) Anomie
E) Focal concerns

Question 54

Current restitution and court diversion programs are examples of policy initiatives that recognize the principles of ______________.

A) labeling theory
B) primary deviance
C) secondary deviance
D) career deviants
E) biobehaviourism

Question 55

List and briefly elaborate upon the seven developmental tasks identified by life course theorists that all adolescents must confront.

Question 56

The specific direction of motives and drives, according to Sutherland's nine principles of differential association, is ___________ from definitions of the legal codes as favourable or unfavourable.

A) expressed
B) prioritized
C) frequented
D) intensified
E) learned

Question 57

According to Travis Hirschi, the four components of the social bond are involvement, attachment, commitment, and ________.

A) socialization
B) containment
C) identity
D) agreement
E) belief