Criminology - Exam 1

__________ is the most interracial crime.

Robbery

__________ refer(s) to the organized patterns of social interaction and social relationships that exist in a group or society.

Social structure

Which of the following is not one of the critiques mentioned in the text of the Uniform Crime Reports?

The UCR are fabricated by bureaucratic officials.

Which of the following is not one of the false beliefs perpetuated by distorted media coverage of crime?

The elderly are disproportionately involved in property crime.

A front-page article in The New York Times published during the 1980s reported that serial killing was a national epidemic. At that time, in fact, serial killing appeared to account for about __________ percent of all annual homicides.

2

The National Crime Victimization Survey estimates that overall, about __________ percent of all crimes are reported to the police.

40

__________ are very common in psychology, but much less common in sociology and criminology.

Experiments

As a social science, criminology is essentially the same as forensic science (crime scene investigation).

False

Consensus and conflict views of crime, law, and society are independent and have no relationship to analogous perspectives in the larger field of sociology.

False

Contact crime includes theft of personal property.

False

Crime has been thought of as a serious problem since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

False

Criminologists disagree on all sorts of issues involving the measurement and patterning of crime, and age is one of the variables in reference to which there is the most disagreement

False

Intensive interviewing is never involved in survey-oriented longitudinal studies.

False

It is long-standing news media practice to disclose the name of a woman of any age who tells police she was raped.

False

Law in the United States has its origins in Native American spiritual principles.

False

Long before the beginning of victimology, criminologists have studied the psychological consequences of criminal victimization.

False

Lost productivity, medical care for physical and mental health, and victim services are all examples of direct costs.

False

NCVS findings indicate that most violent crime victims passively let the crime occur, with fewer than 25 percent trying to keep the crime from being completed.

False

Over fifty percent of violent crime is committed by teenagers

False

Perhaps the first scientific criminologist was the French sociologist Emile Durkheim.

False

Public sentencing preferences are dramatically different among major demographic subgroups.

False

Race is what sociologists call a "social construction," meaning something that is real rather than something that is made up.

False

Random-digit dialing requires a separate procedure in order to yield random samples of respondents.

False

Repeat victimization is a fairly rare occurrence.

False

Scholarly investigations of media crime coverage suggest that news media seldom overdramatize crime.

False

The "three strikes and you're out" legislation required the death penalty for people convicted of a third violent felony

False

The case of W.C. Frosch is a well-known example of duress as a defense to criminal prosecution.

False

The media's over-reporting of crime tends to focus on property offenses.

False

The text points out that crime victims did not attract any attention until the mid-1980s, when the crack epidemic came crashing into American cities.

False

The text points out that international comparisons of crime data are extremely precise and U.S. crime data are almost totally reliable

False

The universally accepted definition of crime victim refers to people who have been victimized by street crime.

False

Thirty to 60 percent of convicted felons are found guilty at jury trials that do not involve plea bargaining.

False

When the U.S. Congress investigated the "Watergate" scandal, it was Chief Counsel to the President, John Dean who became famous for repeatedly asking about President Nixon, "What did he know and when did he know it?"

False

Women fear crime more than men do because they are more likely than men to be victims of all kinds of crime besides rape.

False

As cited in the text, one research team interviewed forty-seven people, many of them elderly, who lost funds when a savings and loan company collapsed because of criminal conduct by its officers and employees. __________ percent of the sample lost large sums of money and were affected by their victimization several years later.

Forty

Which of the following is not one of the explanations proposed in the text for women's low crime rates?

Girls are biologically more passive than boys.

In 1964, __________ initiated the study of crime seriousness with the publication of their book, The Measurement of Delinquency.

Thorsten Sellin and Marvin Wolfgang

In the late 1950s, __________ conducted what has since become a classic, self-report, longitudinal study, wherein they concluded that delinquency was not confined to youths from lower-or working-class backgrounds.

James F. Short Jr. and F. Ivan Nye

A century ago, some of the most respected physicians in the United States believed that women should not attend college because the rigors of higher education would upset their menstrual cycles and they could not be expected to perform well during "that time of the month."

True

A random sample allows for generalization of research results to the total population

True

African Americans comprise about 13 percent of the U.S. population and represent 39 percent of all Index violent crime arrests.

True

Although there have been many newspaper accounts of attacks on homeless people, social science research on their victimization has been lacking.

True

At one point in its history, Robert K. Merton's anomie theory fell out of favor and in its place arose a new control theory of criminal behavior that emphasized the criminogenic effects of weak bonds to social institutions.

True

__________ crimes refer to behaviors that violate contemporary standards only.

Mala prohibita

Comparative research usually means cross-cultural or international research.

True

In 1958, which criminologist developed the idea of "victim-precipitated" homicide?

Marvin Wolfgang

Conflict theory is generally the opposite of consensus theory.

True

If we combine the crimes of aggravated and simple assault, rape and sexual assault, and robbery, males have higher victimization rates than females.

True

Most people arrested and imprisoned for street crime are poorly educated with low incomes.

True

NCVS data reveal that most violent crime is intraracial.

True

One of the most influential self-report studies during the late 1950s was conducted by Short and Nye

True

One problem of experiments is that they are not generalizable.

True

One reason U.S. crime rates rose during the 1960s was the entrance of the "baby boom" generation born after World War II into the 15 to 25 age group.

True

Part of the reason for victimization's weak effect on the fear of crime is that some of the demographic groups that are most afraid of crime are those with relatively low victimization rates.

True

Research on the effects of victims' gender and age on case processing and outcomes is inconsistent.

True

The majority of the nonstrangers who commit violence are friends or acquaintances, but a significant minority are intimates.

True

The most important goal of criminal law is to prevent and control crime and criminal behavior

True

The news media tend to give more coverage to crimes whose victims seem to be entirely innocent or virtuous.

True

The official number of crimes in the UCR may change artificially if citizens become more or less likely to report offenses committed against them.

True

The text points out that clearly, people can be victimized by behaviors that do not necessarily violate the law and do not represent crimes.

True

The text points out that of all the legal defenses to criminal liability, perhaps the most controversial is the insanity defense.

True

The text suggests that offending and physical proximity to high-crime areas affect one's chances of becoming a crime victim

True

There are some crimes in which victims seem to play an active role in their own victimization.

True

Various government reports indicate that between 1.5 million and 2.5 million children are reported missing each year, but most missing children are in fact runaways.

True

When the police do record a crime, an arrest is the exception and not the rule.

True

__________ means "guilty mind" and refers to criminal intent.

Mens rea

A very popular self-report survey that involves both a cross-sectional design and a longitudinal follow-up of a sample of its respondents is called

Monitoring the Future.

Which of the following is one of the major advantages of the NCVS in comparison to the UCR?

NCVS information on the characteristics of victims and the context of victimization has furthered the development of theories of victimization.

In the early 1970s, with the aid of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the U.S. Department of Justice initiated the __________ to avoid the police reporting problems of potential bias and inconsistencies in the UCR and to gather information not available from the UCR.

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

To gather more information on Index crimes, the FBI has recently begun the __________, involving the collection from police departments of extensive information for the eight Index crimes and fourteen other Part II crimes, including the relationship between offenders and victims and the use of alcohol and other drugs immediately before the offense.

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

According to the text, which of the following statements is confirmed by the facts?

Well under 10 percent of all felonies in a given year lead to someone being imprisoned for committing the felony.

The text points out that __________ people a year die from illegal drugs.

about 17,000

In constructing a legal defense to their criminal liability, some antiwar protestors during the Vietnam conflict who had been arrested for civil disobedience claimed in their trials that they were

acting under duress of their consciences.

According to the text's discussion of Latino criminality, -Latinos have higher serious crime and victimization rates than non-Latino whites have, but lower rates than African Americans have. -Latinos are now the largest minority group in America. -Latinos' crime rates are generally explained by the fact that they tend to live amidst structural criminogenic conditions. -all of the above

all of the above

According to the text's discussion of recent trends in U.S. crime rates, there occurred -a sharp increase from the 1960s into the 1970s. -a leveling off and decrease in the early to mid 1980s. -another increase in the late 1980s and a leveling off and even decrease in the early 1990s. -all of the above

all of the above

According to the text's discussion of the 1990s crime decline, -one side gives the bulk of the credit for the decline to the criminal justice system; specifically, a get-tough-on-crime approach and smarter policing. -the other side says that social and demographic factors explain most of the crime-rate decline. -ironically, it might be possible that neither of these camps has a good explanation -all of the above

all of the above

In discussing the National Crime Victimization Survey, the text points out that -the risk of victimization varies dramatically for the demographic subgroups of the population. -the annual risk of victimization adds up and over the course of a lifetime can become quite high. -most of us will become a victim of at least one violent or property crime during our lifetime. -all of the above

all of the above

The text points out that public judgments of crime seriousness are important because these assessments -are part of a society's ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that we call its culture. -help determine appropriate penalties for criminal offenders. -affect their own views of appropriate punishment for criminal offenders and their own fear of crime. -all of the above

all of the above

The text points out that street crime is primarily a young person's phenomenon because -adolescence is a time when peer influences and the desire for friendships are especially strong. -adolescents have an increasing need for money that part-time jobs or parental allowances may not satisfy. -our ties to society rise as we leave adolescence and move into early adulthood. -all of the above

all of the above

n developing his __________ theory, Robert K. Merton attributed deviance to the socioeconomically disadvantaged's inability to achieve economic success in a society that highly values such success.

anomie

According to the text's discussion of geographical patterns of crime

cities have higher victimization rates than rural areas.

Behavior that violates social norms and arouses negative social reactions is called

deviance.

Edwin Sutherland's __________ theory centered on peer influences as a prime ingredient in the promotion of criminality.

differential association

Which of the following is not a "Part I" offense or "Index" crime within the Uniform Crime Reports?

embezzlement

According to the text's discussion of cross-national victimization patterns

for overall victimization, the United States rate is about average for industrialized nations.

With respect to violent crime victimization rates and different family incomes, the text points out that

for property crime, income is not related to overall victimization.

Much of the research of the three so-called founders of sociology—Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx—was

historical

The text points out that the riskiest locations for crime seem to be those with the most economic and social disadvantages: poverty, unemployment, and so forth. These locations are referred to as

hot spots.

In addition to suffering the grief that accompanies any loved one's death, relatives of homicide victims, as well as partners of rape victims, have been found to experience symptoms to those of victims of violent crimes. This has been referred to as

indirect victimization.

In reference to what makes some people more afraid of crime than others, __________ include demographic variables such as age, gender, and race, and crime-related factors such as personal and vicarious victimization.

individual characteristics

If a defendant does not have criminal intent at the time he or she commits a criminal act, the person is not assumed to have the necessary mens rea for criminal liability. These circumstances usually lead to a(n) __________ defense.

insanity

In expanding the definition of victims and victimization, the text points out that the term __________ implies that the very structure of society is one that inherently oppresses, subtly or more overtly, the poor, women, and people of color.

institutional

In larger, more modern societies, norms tend to be more formal and codified; these formal norms are referred to as

laws

Increasingly, intensive interviewing has been combined with surveying in

longitudinal studies.

According to the text, most Americans said that there was __________ in comparison to one year earlier.

more crime

Women are __________ likely to be attacked by someone they know than by a stranger.

more than twice as

People who are 65 years of age and older are more fearful of crime than their younger counterparts, and their victimization rates are

much lower.

The text lists three of the most common kinds of surveys. Which of the following is not one of these? -face-to-face interviews -mailed surveys -telephone surveys -non-structured survey

non-structured survey

In the last several decades, one of the most famous __________ in sociology is the late Elliott Liebow's Tally's Corner, a study of urban African-American men.

observational studies

Which of the following groups of people is/are more likely than their counterparts to support the death penalty?

older people

Strangers commit about __________ of assault, rape or sexual assault, or robbery victimizations, with the remainder committed by family members, friends, or acquaintances.

one-third

Regarding the time and place of occurrence of crimes, the text points out that

only 20 percent of all household thefts occur at night.

According to the text's discussion of the economic and medical costs and consequences of victimization

only about 18 percent of victims who had money or property stolen can expect to recover all of it.

For Part II offenses the FBI reports

only the number of people arrested.

Scholarly investigation of media crime coverage reveal that the news media

overdramatize crime.

With respect to the relationship between crime and victimization, the text points out that

people can be victimized in many ways, but only sometimes are they victims of actual crimes.

According to the text's discussion of public opinion about crime: -people have many strong opinions about the causes of crime and the punishment of criminals. -public views about crime topics are always well informed. -most media coverage of violent crime is neither sensationalistic or alarmist. -none of the above

people have many strong opinions about the causes of crime and the punishment of criminals.

The text points out that self-report studies can be used to demonstrate the __________ of offending—the proportion of respondents who have committed a particular offense at least once in the time period under study—and the __________ of offending—the average number of offenses per person in the study.

prevalence/incidence

C. Wright Mills emphasized that what people may define as private troubles are often more accurately described as

public issues.

According to scholars of democratic theory, policy decisions by public officials should reflect

public opinion.

The familiar Gallup Poll is a __________ sample of the adult population of the United States, allowing for generalization of the results to the population.

random

Deviance is a(n) __________ concept.

relative

The text points out that most feminist scholars who have studied rape find the notion of victim-precipitated rape to be

repugnant

In criminology, surveys are a popular way of gathering "__________" data on crime and delinquency.

self-report

Routine activities, lifestyle, and proximity explanations are all __________ explanations.

situational

The text points out that race is a __________ construction.

social

In reference to what makes some people more afraid of crime than others, __________ concern the social and physical characteristics of the locations in which people live.

structural factors

According to investigations cited in the text, which of the following groups of college students have been found to be more likely to be crime victims?

students who spend more money on nonessential items

In his most famous study, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim determined that __________ has social roots.

suicide

In the industrial world, __________ is the worst offender for violent crime.

the United States

Increases in UCR rapes since the 1970s probably reflect

the greater willingness of rape victims to notify the police.

According to the text's discussion (Crime and Controversy box on the news media and rape victims),

the practice of not disclosing women's names in cases of rape allegation began in the 1970s.

C. Wright Mills referred to the ability to understand the structural and historical basis for personal troubles as

the sociological imagination.

If we consider __________ crime along with street crime, there probably is no relationship between social class and criminality.

white-collar

According to the text's discussion of the relationship between race, ethnicity, and victimization

whites are more likely than blacks to be violent crime victims.

According to the text's discussion of racial and ethnic stereotyping in reference to crime,

whites tend to think they are more likely to be victims of crimes committed by people of color.

When people are asked about their perceptions of fear in various kinds of hypothetical crime scenarios, which of the following is not one of the scenarios they mention as being most fearful?

with a close friend

According to the text's discussion of gender and crime

women's crime rates are much lower than men's.

According to the text's discussion of the fear of crime,

women's high fear of crime reflects their fear of rape.