Sociology Ch. 7

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

about 80 percent

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

true

The concept of criminal recidivism refers to ________

later offenses by people previously convicted of crimes.

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

The act and criminal intent

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

false

According to 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?

Ritualist

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

false

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

false

"The recognized violation of cultural norms" refers to the concept of ________

deviance

An example of the "medicalization of deviance" is ________

theft being redefined as a "compulsive stealing."

The concept of due process refers to ________

the criminal justice system operating within the bounds of the law.

His friends begin to criticize Marco as a "juice-head," pushing him out of their social circle. Feeling rejected, 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 ________

the onset of secondary deviance.

According to Durkheim, functions of deviance include ________

the idea that responding to deviance promotes social unity.

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

a very limited understanding of crime.

According to Robert Merton’s strain theory, the term ________would correctly describe a gangster like Al Capone, who made a lot of money breaking the law.

innovator

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

true

If a parent threatens a child with punishment in order to discourage wrongdoing, the parent is using punishment to accomplish ________

deterrence

Edwin Sutherland stated that white-collar crime ________

is usually resolved in a civil rather than a criminal court.

Crime committed by persons of high social position during the course of their occupations is called ________

white-collar crime.

Feminist theory states that gender figures into the study of deviance because ________

every society in the world applies stronger normative controls to females than to males.

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

true

According to Robert Merton’s strain theory, the term _______ correctly describes the behavior of a radical activist who rejects just about everything in the existing society in favor of some alternative system.

rebel

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

during the late teenage years.

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

in jail or worse.

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

true

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

Convicts can lose everything important to them while in prison and, after release, they often struggle to fit back into society.

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

true

Edwin Lemert described "primary deviance" as ________

the amount of contact a person has with others who encourage or discourage conventional behavior.

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

true

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

our emphasis on individual economic success, which weakens the social fabric.

Looking back in history, the oldest justification for punishing an offender is ________

retribution

"Primary deviance" refers to the most serious offenses.

false

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

true

A poor person who has little chance to go to college and who sells illegal drugs to make money is one example of what Robert Merton called a deviant "innovator."

true

A hate crime is defined as ________

a criminal act motivated by race or other bias.

Prostitution is widely regarded as a ________

victimless crime.

The old saying, "An eye for an eye," expresses the idea underlying the policy of rehabilitation.

false

"Crime" differs from "deviance" in that crime ________

refers to a violation of norms enacted into law.

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

false

The concept "retrospective labeling" refers to the process of ________

interpreting someone’s past consistent with present deviance.

Both Albert Cohen and Walter Miller argue that delinquency is most likely to arise among ________

low-income youths.

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

people who try to take the property of others.

What is considered deviant is mostly the same behavior all around the world.

false

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

true

The basic idea behind labeling theory is that ________

deviance arises not so much from what people do as how others respond to what they do.

Research suggests that, with regard to social class, arrest for serious crime ________

is higher for people at in lower class levels.

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

even this disciplined and highly religious group created deviance to clarify the moral boundaries of their community.

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

true

The correct view of the role of biology in causing people to commit crimes is that ________

biological factors may have a real but small effect in causing some people to commit crimes.

Whether people respond to deviance as a moral issue or a medical matter affects ________

whether the person is subject to punishment or treatment.

If a parent threatens a child with punishment in order to discourage wrongdoing, the parent is using punishment to accomplish ________

deterrence

According to the social-conflict approach, deviance has a number of useful functions for the operation of society as a whole.

False

Most criminal cases handled by the criminal justice system in the United States are resolved ________

through plea bargaining.

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

white

Women commit ________

a far smaller share of crimes than men.

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

false

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

false

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

reflects both limited legitimate opportunity as well as accessible illegitimate opportunity.

Reducing prison overcrowding, the costs of dealing with offenders, and helping offenders avoid the stigma of incarceration are all advantages of ________

community-based corrections.

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

in jail or worse.

Because there are several hundred people in the United States for every police officer, police ________

use discretion in deciding which situations warrant their attention.

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

true

"Crimes against the person" includes all but ________

burglary

Biological factors, including genetics, explain most criminal behavior.

false

Every society uses various strategies to regulate the behavior of individuals; this general process is called ________

social control

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

Correct powerless people are at the highest risk of being defined as deviant.

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

63%

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

differences in power between various categories of people.

The formal system that responds to alleged violations of the law using police, courts, and prison officials is called ________

the criminal justice system

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.

false

One of the social foundations of deviance is that ________

deviance exists only in relation to cultural norms.

Thomas Szasz made the controversial assertion that ________

mental illness is a myth so that "insanity" is only "differences" that bother other people.

The value of psychological theories of deviance is limited because ________

most people who commit crimes have normal personalities.

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

Larceny-theft

Feminist theory claims that women, compared to men, are subject to greater social control.

true

In Robert Merton’s strain theory of deviance, ___________ refers to the process of seeking conventional goals but rejecting the conventional means to achieve them.

innovation

A judge sentences a young man who has committed several crimes to counseling and places him in a supportive foster home. These efforts to prevent further wrongdoing are called ________

rehabilitation

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

false

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

more than twice as high

Travis Hirschi’s control theory suggests that the category of people most likely to engage in deviance is ________

youngsters who "hang out" waiting for something to happen.

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

containment theory

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

true

Assume you were listening to a lecture on Durkheim’s approach to deviance. The focus of the lecture might be that ________

deviance is a normal element of social organization.

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?

stigma

Organized crime refers to ________

any business that supplies illegal goods or services.

A judge orders that an offender be sentenced to prison for a short time, with most of the sentence served on probation. This sentence reflects a policy called ________

shock probation.

_________ refers to the illegal actions of a corporation or people acting on its behalf.

corporate crime

Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory links deviance to ________

the amount of contact a person has with others who encourage or discourage conventional behavior.

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

larceny-theft