Deck 9: The Law and Social Control

Question 1

The primary function of the law is to establish and maintain ______________ through a system of codified rules and regulations.

A) behavior
B) social control
C) actions
D) society

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What type of control is exemplified by the effect of a police officer-the uniformed symbol of law and control-on the behavior of those who are aware of the officer's presence?

A) informal
B) direct
C) indirect
D) peer

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Which type of control begins with the socialization process in which we internalize rules of proper conduct?

A) formal
B) direct
C) informal
D) internal

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Informal censure is accomplished through:

A) the raising of the eyebrows
B) the dressing down
C) the cold shoulder
D) all of the above

Question 5

Complex and ______________ societies also need social peace and predictability to function properly and may need alternative methods to get it.

A) homogeneous
B) homologous
C) heterogeneous
D) indistinguishable

Question 6

Donald Black's (1976) position on the relationship between formal and informal social control is that:

A) as law breaks down, social control is exercised by formal means
B) as informal controls weaken, increasing reliance is placed on formal legal controls
C) there is no relationship between the two
D) formal law is indirect, and informal law is direct

Question 7

When people violate the rules of acceptable behavior, they usually feel guilty in ______________ to the level of disapproval attached to the violation.

A) examination
B) contrast
C) relation
D) proportion

Question 8

What is the difference between the circumstances of punishment and the offender's usual life?

A) realization effect
B) contrast effect
C) reality effect
D) societal effect

Question 9

Some may insist that our _____________ and not the threat of punishment keeps us from committing criminal acts.

A) peers
B) moral conscience
C) family
D) government

Question 10

The point of Plato's allegory about the ring of Gyges is that:

A) specific deterrence does not work
B) most of us would commit crimes if guaranteed we would never be discovered
C) indirect/informal social control is best
D) none of us would commit crimes even if guaranteed we would never be discovered

Question 11

Legal scholars have traditionally identified _________ other major objectives or justifications for punishing criminals besides deterrence.

A) three
B) four
C) five
D) six

Question 12

Which model demands that punishment match the degree of harm inflicted on victims: minor crimes deserve minor punishments, and more serious crimes deserve more serious punishment?

A) just desserts
B) rehabilitation
C) reintegration
D) therapeutic

Question 13

Which of the following is curbed by proportionality and imposed by neutral parties bound by laws mandating respect for the rights of individuals against whom it is imposed?

A) covert revenge
B) constrained revenge
C) overt revenge
D) simple revenge

Question 14

Which philosophy of punishment refers to the inability of incarcerated criminals to victimize people outside the prison walls?

A) retribution
B) rehabilitation
C) reintegration
D) incapacitation

Question 15

Which philosophy of punishment means to restore or return to constructive or healthy activity?

A) retribution
B) rehabilitation
C) deterrence
D) incapacitation

Question 16

Which of the following used to view criminality in terms of "faulty thinking" and criminals in need of "programming" rather than "treatment."

A) medical model
B) deterrence
C) incapacitation
D) retribution

Question 17

The commonality that all the philosophies of punishment share is:

A) prevention of crime
B) rehabilitation
C) incapacitation
D) retribution

Question 18

Which of Black's (1976) styles of social control usually involves a breach in a harmonious relationship between two people who are now disputants?

A) penal
B) therapeutic
C) conciliatory
D) compensatory

Question 19

The penal style of social control shares with the compensatory style the characteristic of being:

A) accusatory
B) therapeutic
C) remedial
D) deterrent

Question 20

The therapeutic style of social control shares with the conciliatory style the characteristic of being:

A) accusatory
B) therapeutic
C) remedial
D) deterrent

Question 21

Which of Black's (1976) styles of social control assigns blame to individuals for their actions and punishes them accordingly?

A) compensatory
B) conciliatory
C) therapeutic
D) penal

Question 22

Which of Black's (1976) styles of social control invests criminals with a capacity for calculation exceeding that of most individuals but pays tribute to their capacity for moral responsibility?

A) conciliatory
B) penal
C) compensatory
D) therapeutic

Question 23

Personal and environmental factors influence the ______________ of criminal behavior, but rightly or wrongly, the law acts as if criminal activity is the product of free choice.

A) type
B) technicality
C) legality
D) probability

Question 24

______________ rates are determined by dividing the number of people incarcerated per 100,000 people (criminals and noncriminals alike) in the population.

A) crime
B) recidivism
C) conviction
D) incarceration

Question 25

What is defined as pleading guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence?

A) confessing
B) pledging
C) plea bargaining
D) charge bargaining

Question 26

Which of the following is true regarding the benefits of plea bargaining?

A) police enjoy a benefit in that they are saved from numerous appearances in court
B) judges and prosecutors benefit by the speedy and efficient clearing of cases, and the community as a whole saves the cost of a trial
C) victims may be the least satisfied but have the benefit of certain conviction and at least some punishment for the offenders
D) all of the above

Question 27

The text argues that there still appears to be an element of punishment attached to ______________ in a plea bargain.

A) cooperation
B) charge bargaining
C) agreement
D) noncooperation

Question 28

What ultimate form of social control remains highly popular with the American public today?

A) incarceration for life
B) death penalty
C) incarceration
D) probation

Question 29

Support for the death penalty goes up and down with:

A) governmental support
B) societal movements
C) cultural growth
D) crime rates

Question 30

Very few challenges to the death penalty arose until the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) waged a joint attack on it beginning in the early:

A) 1950s
B) 1960s
C) 1970s
D) 1980s

Question 31

The first step to the bifurcated death penalty hearing process is to:

A) charge the defendant
B) impose the sentence
C) carry out the sentence
D) determine guilt

Question 32

In which case did the U.S. Supreme Court decide against mandatory death sentences?

A) Penry v. Lynaugh
B) Gregg v. Georgia
C) Coker v. Georgia
D) Woodson v. North Carolina

Question 33

In which case did the U.S. Supreme Court allow the imposition of the death penalty on juveniles?

A) Atkins v. Virginia
B) Roper v. Simmons
C) Stanford v. Kentucky
D) Baze and Bowling v. Rees

Question 34

In which case did the U.S. Supreme Court reverse itself on Eighth Amendment grounds in the matter of executing the mentally retarded?

A) Roper v. Simmons
B) Atkins v. Virginia
C) Coker v. Georgia
D) Stanford v. Kentucky

Question 35

The death penalty is carried out relatively ___________ in the United States today.

A) rarely
B) frequently
C) often
D) suddenly

Question 36

Opponents of capital punishment argue that our "______________" should preclude the United States from being associated in any way with countries that have the highest rates of executions.

A) evolving standards of decency
B) criminal justice system
C) system of government
D) leaders

Question 37

Proponents of capital punishment often cite its supposed ______________ effect, but opponents say that there is no sound evidence to support that position.

A) retributive
B) moral
C) societal
D) deterrent

Question 38

The _____________ effect is said to have its influence on "fringe" killers who see it as a contradictory message that is sent by the state killing people to teach other people that killing is wrong.

A) brutalization
B) murder
C) prosecution
D) homicide

Question 39

Which of the following is NOT an argument in favor of the death penalty?

A) it is a deterrent if imposed with greater certainty and frequency
B) it is only more costly of a penalty due to the appeals process
C) the moral equivalency of physical acts is not automatically valid
D) it creates a brutalization effect

Question 40

According to DeLisi (2005), in one study of the criminal activity of 39 convicted murderers after they had served their time for their murders found that, between them, they had ________ arrests for serious violent crimes.

A) 863
B) 218
C) 195
D) 122

Question 41

In which case did the U.S. Supreme Court move in the direction of placing limits on death penalty appeals?

A) Coleman v. Thompson
B) McKlesky v. Kemp
C) Brown v. Board of Education
D) Kansas v. Hendricks

Question 42

The solution to biased sentencing is _____________ in sentencing, which implies neither the abolition nor the retention of capital punishment.

A) authorization
B) equity
C) retribution
D) rehabilitation

Question 43

A government's need to control extremes of ______________ is even more important than its need to control crime.

A) mental illness
B) sentencing inequity
C) crime recidivism
D) political dissent

Question 44

Which type of government does not permit political neutrality, thus blurring the distinction between public and private lines?

A) authoritarian
B) democratic
C) totalitarian
D) communist

Question 45

Which type of government exercises less control over political dissent than other forms of government?

A) autocracy
B) plutocracy
C) authoritarian
D) democratic

Question 46

According to Dunn (1982), the Federal Bureau of Investigation burglarized the offices of the Socialist Workers Party no less than ______ times from 1960 to 1966.

A) 86
B) 88
C) 90
D) 92

Question 47

A more welcome method of destroying the appeal of threatening political third parties is to:

A) pass laws against their activities
B) employ "dirty tricks" to discredit them
C) use the Supreme Court to declare them illegal
D) co-opt what is most appealing about their political platforms

Question 48

Which president's administration made far-reaching use of the law to assure political conformity after the United States entered World War I?

A) Jimmy Carter
B) Dwight D. Eisenhower
C) Woodrow Wilson
D) Ronald Reagan

Question 49

Which act(s) made it illegal for anyone to publicly express opposition to the war or to criticize the president or Congress?

A) Espionage Act of 1917
B) Subversive Activities Control Act of 1917
C) Sabotage and Sedition Acts of 1918
D) Espionage and Sabotage Acts of 1918

Question 50

Which of the following acts were NOT an attempt to control and destroy the American Communist Party?

A) Smith Act of 1940
B) Internal Security Act of 1950
C) Communist Control Act of 1954
D) Espionage Act of 1917

Question 51

In which case did the U.S. Supreme Court uphold a provision of the Smith Act of 1940 making it a crime to belong to the Communist Party?

A) Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Board
B) Scales v. United States
C) Gitlow v. New York
D) Dennis v. United States

Question 52

The ACLU fears that the USA Patriot Act's definition of "______________" has great potential for abuse.

A) communication
B) privacy
C) citizen
D) terrorism

Question 53

Psychiatry and its concepts of mental health and mental illness are potentially means of achieving ______________ in conjunction with the legal system.

A) therapy
B) social control
C) compensation
D) justice

Question 54

Since the goal of psychiatry is to cure and control, not punish, it is the quintessential example of Black's (1976) ______________ social control.

A) penal
B) conciliatory
C) therapeutic
D) compensatory

Question 55

In the former Soviet Union, "______________" often consisted of the involuntary administration of drugs, and one could not be considered "cured" until deemed to be in conformity with political orthodoxy, deviation from which served as the sole definition of the "illness" in the first place.

A) hospitalization
B) treatment
C) labeling
D) deviation

Question 56

In which case did the U.S. Supreme Court uphold a statute aimed at keeping certain sex offenders behind bars under civil commitment laws after they have served their prison terms if they demonstrated "mental abnormality" or "personality disorder"?

A) Holman v. Gaston
B) Missouri v. Jenkins
C) Hemmens v. Walsh
D) Kansas v. Hendricks

Question 57

Most people in the United States feel that the use of power to enforce rules is ______________ because that is how the law itself is seen.

A) legitimate
B) powerful
C) arbitrary
D) criminal

Question 58

In what case did the U.S. Supreme Court rule that it is permissible to double property taxes in order to build "magnet schools" to attract white students back to the inner city and combat "white flight" to the suburbs?

A) Holman v. Gaston
B) Missouri v. Jenkins
C) Hemmens v. Walsh
D) Kansas v. Hendricks

Question 59

Social control is maintained exclusively and most powerfully by the law.

Question 60

Direct control is accomplished by the person's own conscience.

Question 61

Indirect control is persuasive and voluntary.

Question 62

People who behave well regardless of the presence of an officer are controlled indirectly because they have internalized a belief in the rightness or wrongness of various acts.

Question 63

According to legal sociologist Donald Black (1976), the "Law varies upward with other forms of social control".

Question 64

Deterrence is defined as the prevention of criminal acts by the use or threat of punishment.

Question 65

The term general deterrence refers to the preventative effect of punishment on the person being punished.

Question 66

A philosophy of morality involves justifying the imposition of a painful burden on unwilling subjects.

Question 67

Retribution is the most honestly stated justification for punishment.

Question 68

James Q. Wilson remarked that: "Wicked people exist. Nothing avails except to set them apart from innocent people."

Question 69

The medical model used to view criminal behavior as a physical disease requiring treatment.

Question 70

Black's (1976) compensatory style of social control involves some breach of obligation resulting in an accused debtor and an alleged victim.

Question 71

Black's (1976) therapeutic style of social control is one in which a person has violated some aspect of the penal code and is thus subject to punishment.

Question 72

The law assumes rational individuals engage in therapeutic decision-making before they act.

Question 73

Plea bargaining is defined as pleading guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence.

Question 74

In Bordenkircher v. Hayes, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of imposing life sentences on defendants who refuse to plea bargain.

Question 75

Support for the death penalty goes up and down with crime rates.

Question 76

Legal opposition to the death penalty has revolved around the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.

Question 77

In Gregg v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the bifurcated hearing in death penalty cases.

Question 78

In Baze and Bowling v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection did not violate the Eighth Amendment.

Question 79

Death penalty abolitionists argue that executions may "cause" a slight rise in the homicide rate due to the prosecution effect.

Question 80

In Kansas v. Hendricks the U.S. Supreme Court moved in the direction of placing limits on death penalty appeals.