CSS Forums - Criminology Notes!

Choose the one alternative that best completes the statement or answers the question.

1. Crime reports in the news media usually:
a. emphasize the race of the offenders and victims.
b. cite research by criminologists.
c. focus on violent crimes.
d. pay most attention to crimes involving large financial losses.
Answer: c
Objective: Demonstrate the influence of the media.

2. Someone who watches a lot of television would be especially likely to think that which of the following crimes was more common than it really is?
a. Murder
b. Corporate fraud
c. Burglary
d. Shoplifting
Answer: a
Objective: Demonstrate the influence of the media.

3. Criminals in prime-time television programs are __________ criminals in real life.
a. more likely to be arrested than
b. less likely to be arrested than
c. about as likely to be arrested as
Answer: a
Objective: Demonstrate the influence of the media.

4. Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi describe ordinary crime as providing immediate and easy gratification of desires, few long-term benefits, little skill or planning, and pain for the victim. Based on this description of ordinary crime, they define crime as
a. "violations of the historically determined rights of individuals."
b. "violations of federal, state, or local criminal laws."
c. "acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of self-interest."
d. "deviations from widely accepted social norms."
Answer: c
Objective: Differentiate between crime and delinquency.

5. Marxist criminologists Herman and Julia Schwendinger define crime as
a. "deviations from widely accepted social norms."
b. "acts of force or fraud undertaken in pursuit of self-interest."
c. "violations of federal, state, or local criminal laws."
d. "violations of the historically determined rights of individuals."
Answer: d
Objective: Differentiate between crime and delinquency.

6. A rule that makes explicit certain social expectations about the behavior that is appropriate for a particular person in a specific situation is called a:
a. norm.
b. value.
c. belief.
d. sanction.
Answer: a
Objective: Describe the historical origins of the criminal law.

7. A measure designed to ensure future conformity to the law and punish nonconformity is called a:
a. belief.
b. value.
c. sanction.
d. norm.
Answer: c
Objective: Describe the historical origins of the criminal law.

8. According to Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist who wrote in the late nineteenth century, the defining characteristic of crime is:
a. human rights.
b. negligence.
c. social harm.
d. punishment.
Answer: d
Objective: Describe the historical origins of the criminal law.

9. __________ is the willed or conscious desire to commit an act that violates the criminal law.
a. Malicious design
b. Criminal intent
c. Impulsivity
d. Deviant motivation
Answer: b
Objective: Discuss the characteristics of crime.

10. __________ is a defense to a criminal charge that denies criminal intent.
a. A justification
b. Mens rea
c. A self-fulfilling prophecy
d. An excuse
Answer: d
Objective: Discuss the characteristics of crime.

11. Which of the following is an excuse to a criminal charge?
a. Duress
b. Self-defense
c. Necessity
d. Entrapment
Answer: d
Objective: Discuss the characteristics of crime.

12. __________ is a legal defense to a criminal charge that claims that the law allows a person to act in a particular way.
a. A justification
b. Mens rea
c. A self-fulfilling prophecy
d. An excuse
Answer: a
Objective: Discuss the characteristics of crime.

13. Which of the following is a justification used as a defense to a criminal charge?
a. drug addiction
b. duress
c. entrapment
d. drunkenness
Answer: b
Objective: Discuss the characteristics of crime.

14. Which of the following is a status offense?
a. Stealing a car
b. Running away from home
c. Using crack cocaine
d. Beating up a schoolmate
Answer: b
Objective: Differentiate between crime and delinquency.

15. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in re Gault (1967) resulted in
a. the lowering of the age at which all suspects were considered adults from 18 to 16.
b. the increased formalization of juvenile court procedures.
c. the increased use of social workers to treat serious juvenile offenders.
d. the mandatory imprisonment of all juvenile offenders who committed crimes with firearms.
Answer: b
Objective: Differentiate between crime and delinquency.

16. Juveniles charged with __________ are the most likely to be treated as adults in criminal cases.
a. drug offenses
b. property offenses
c. violent offenses
d. status offenses
Answer: a
Objective: Differentiate between crime and delinquency.

17. Trying youths in criminal courts and incarcerating them with adults:
a. may actually increase the chance that juveniles will commit more crimes in the future.
b. often results in severe penalties for minor offenders rather than for the violent ones at which the measures are aimed.
c. were the results of a "get tough" policy toward juveniles that developed in the 1980s.
d. all of the above.
Answer: d
Objective: Differentiate between crime and delinquency.

18. American criminal law is based on precedents set by English judges' decisions that are collectively known as:
a. the Decalogue.
b. the Twelve Tables.
c. statutory law.
d. common law.
Answer: b
Objective: Describe the origins of the criminal law.

19. The idea that criminal law is closely intertwined with the distribution of political power and economic resources in a society is called the __________ perspective.
a. classical
b. consensus
c. social constructionist
d. conflict
Answer: d
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

20. __________ is a form of conflict theory that focuses on social class.
a. Consensus theory
b. Marxist theory
c. Social constructionism
d. Cohort theory
Answer: b
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

21. Low crime rates in Japan and Switzerland __________ the ideas of Marxist criminology.
a. support
b. neither support nor contradict
c. contradict
d. conform to
Answer: c
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

22. __________ is a conflict theory that has shifted the emphasis from crime by the ruling class to the impact that crime by the lower and working classes has on other members of those classes.
a. Left realism
b. Radical criminology
c. Consensus theory
d. Social constructionism
Answer: a
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

23. __________ are the most likely to argue that criminology should link the study of crime to the pursuit of social justice and the liberation of oppressed people.
a. Conflict theorists
b. Comparative theorists
c. Social constructionists
d. Consensus theorists
Answer: a
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

24. The idea that the values and norms shared by all members of a society are reflected in that society's criminal law is central to:
a. left realism.
b. the social constructionist perspective.
c. the consensus perspective.
d. peacemaking criminology.
Answer: c
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

25. Consensus theorists claim that the law is:
a. imposed on the rest of society by the capitalist class.
b. a product of discussion and compromise by lawmakers.
c. applied in a way that discriminates against racial and ethnic minorities.
d. rarely supported by the public.
Answer: b
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

26. The social construction of crime perspective proposes that:
a. young people in poverty-stricken communities learn that it is acceptable to commit crime by seeing reports of white-collar crime on television and in the newspapers.
b. the meaning given to crime varies from group to group and over time.
c. capitalists impose criminal laws on other social classes.
d. more prisons should be built to solve the social problem of crime.
Answer: b
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

27. Those primarily responsible for establishing the frame of reference within which the crime issue is discussed are:
a. religious and moral leaders.
b. the police and politicians.
c. television and film producers.
d. professors and nonacademic researchers.
Answer: b
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

28. Which is NOT an example of the social construction of crime?
a. Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin's Philadelphia cohort study
b. LaFree's study of the official processing of sexual assault cases
c. The FBI's reaction to serial murder in the 1980s
d. Research on the abduction of children by strangers
Answer: a
Objective: Summarize the different theoretical perspectives of criminology.

29. Which is NOT a significant obstacle to comparative research on crime?
a. The unwillingness of researchers to cooperate with their colleagues in other nations
b. The lack of a research tradition in many societies
c. The lack of funding
d. The lack of comparability of crime statistics gathered in different countries
Answer: a
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

30. Historical research on crime:
a. often relies on nonstatistical evidence.
b. is frequently used by today's lawmakers to develop new crime policies.
c. has no application to contemporary crime problems.
d. avoids the use of accounts of crime by observers in the past because their accounts are untrustworthy.
Answer: a
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

31. J. J. Tobias's research on crime in industrializing England found that throughout the nineteenth century, crime rates:
a. increased because of a steady growth in income inequality.
b. increased because opportunities for crime increased.
c. decreased because of England's growing involvement in foreign wars.
d. decreased because incomes and the number of jobs increased.
Answer: d
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

32. The biographical method is most useful for understanding:
a. how offenders learn criminal behavior.
b. why a society's crime rate changes over time.
c. which treatment programs are most effective.
d. why crime rates are higher in one country than another.
Answer: a
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

33. Which is the most important problem associated with the biographical method?
a. Getting information from interviews with offenders takes too long.
b. Few criminals are willing to talk to criminologists.
c. Interviewed offenders might not be representative of all offenders.
d. Criminologists are often assaulted or robbed by the offenders they are interviewing.
Answer: c
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

34. Offenders' faulty and distorted memories are a significant problem with:
a. historical research.
b. comparative research.
c. patterns-of-crime studies.
d. the biographical method.
Answer: d
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

35. Darrell Steffensmeier's use of the biographical method to study "Sam Goodman," a professional fence, allowed him to learn:
a. about the social network of which the fence is a part.
b. which prison treatment programs work best to rehabilitate fences.
c. how fences' childhoods differ from the childhoods of violent offenders.
d. how the police can most effectively prevent larceny and burglary.
Answer: a
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

36. Which research method relies most heavily on the use of police statistics?
a. The survey
b. Observation
c. The biographical method
d. The patterns-of-crime approach
Answer: d
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

37. Which of the following is most likely to be studied using the patterns-of-crime approach?
a. The relationships between offenders and their victims
b. The relationship between child abuse and delinquency
c. The attitudes of the public toward the criminal justice system
d. The factors that increase the chance that offenders will leave a life of crime
Answer: a
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

38. An important problem with the patterns-of-crime approach is that:
a. many crimes are not reported by victims or recorded by the police.
b. it is difficult to follow the members of a cohort over the years without losing track of many of them.
c. the police often alter their records before allowing criminologists to use them.
d. interviewed criminals may not be representative of all criminals.
Answer: a
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

39. Marvin Wolfgang's patterns-of-crime study of homicide in Philadelphia revealed that:
a. drugs were more common than alcohol in the homicide situation.
b. most offenders and victims were strangers to one another.
c. most murders were cross-racial; that is, involved blacks killing whites or whites killing blacks.
d. none of the above.
Answer: d
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

40. A cohort is:
a. a sample of inmates randomly selected from the total prison population.
b. a group of people in a common situation at one time.
c. a juvenile gang.
d. a year's worth of crime statistics.
Answer: b
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

41. In their two Philadelphia cohort studies, Marvin Wolfgang and his colleagues found that:
a. there were no differences between boys and girls in police contacts.
b. there were no differences between whites and blacks in police contacts.
c. a small percentage of boys accounted for the majority of all police contacts.
d. all boys had approximately the same number of police contacts.
Answer: c
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

42. The key to a good survey is:
a. a sample representative of some larger population.
b. avoiding excessive reliance on statistical analysis.
c. a large sample size.
d. access to the latest in computer technology.
Answer: a
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

43. Fisher, Cullen, and Turner's survey of rape on college campuses found that:
a. the majority of the reported rapes occurred in fraternity houses.
b. fewer than 5 percent of the rapes were reported to the police.
c. nearly all females who had been sexually assaulted defined the event as a rape.
d. fewer than 1 percent of the female students had ever been sexually assaulted.
Answer: b
Objective: Describe the various types and strategies of criminological research.

Chapter 1 Essay

1. Discuss legal excuses and justifications as defense to criminal charges. What are examples of legal excuses? Give examples of justifications. How are they treated by the court?

Answer: Excuses include insanity defense, influence of drugs or alcohol, ignorance of the law, and entrapment. Justifications include self-defense, defense of duress, and defense of necessity.
Objective: Differentiate between crime and delinquency.

2. Explain the conflict perspective of the law. Include some of the different forms of conflict theory in your explanation. Explain the consensus perspective of the law. Which perspective best reflects criminal law today? Why?

Answer: Conflict perspective includes a political and economic power. Marxist or radical criminology and left realism are part of conflict. Consensus is based on agreement about which kinds of behavior should be punished.
Objective: Summarize the different theoretic perspectives of criminology.

3. Discuss the differences between the classical criminology and positivism. What were the major contributions of both?

Answer: Classical criminology was based on the free will of the offender. Punishment should instill fear in the offender to deter them from committing crime. Positivism disagreed with the concept of free will and criminal behavior was the result of biological factors. Positivists emphasized measurement and testing of hypotheses.
Objective: Describe the development of criminology, including classical thought and positivism.