Deck 11: Conflict Theories

Question 1

Which of the following social theorists is not associated with the conflict approach?

A) Karl Marx
B) Emile Durkheim
C) Georg Simmel
D) Max Weber
E) Friedrich Engels

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Conflict theorists:

A) suggest that some criminals are just bad apples.
B) believe that people have free will and make rational choices to commit crime.
C) are especially interested in the formation of law and the activities of the criminal justice system.
D) focus on explaining chronic offending and societal variation in crime rates.
E) believe that human nature is unaffected by outside sources.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Conflict theories struggle to explain:

A) the origins of the criminal law.
B) how criminal justice systems change over time.
C) how institutional activities serve to create crime.
D) high rates of arrests among minority groups.
E) how individual differences relate to criminal behavior.

Answer 3

E

Question 4

According to Bonger's Marxist theory of crime, which of the following statements is true?

A) Poverty is generated by capitalism, which gives rise to crime.
B) Capitalism promotes individualism and egoism, which lead to increased crime.
C) Humans are inherently social.
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Question 5

Black's theory about the behavior of the criminal law:

A) is an attempt to apply legal realism and Freudian ideas to explain how criminal law is formed.
B) is based primarily on psychological learning theories.
C) argues that increases to certainty and severity of punishment could lower crime rates.
D) predicts that street criminals will be prosecuted at higher rates than corporations regardless of the amount of harm caused.
E) suggests that the law is formed through societal consensus about crime.

Question 6

Young's square of crime:

A) seeks to develop ideas first offered by the Chicago school.
B) is an attempt to understand crime based on the viewpoints of all parties involved, including the offender, victim, state, and public.
C) represents an effort to integrate Freudian ideas into a unified theory.
D) all of the above.
E) none of the above.

Question 7

Research on conflict theories in criminology:

A) demonstrates that less imprisonment leads to more crime.
B) suggests that neighborhood crime can be controlled by adding more police to the area.
C) has shown that there are great disparities in punishment based on social class.
D) indicates that chronic offenders commit a majority of the crimes.
E) all of the above.

Question 8

Which of the following would not be advocated by critical criminologists?

A) Stop-and-frisk policies
B) Reform of prostitution laws
C) Decriminalization of marijuana
D) Drug courts
E) Community policing

Question 9

Conflict theories focus more on explaining the origins of the law and activities
of the state and criminal justice system than on explaining individual criminal behavior.

Question 10

According to Turk's theory of the criminalization process, sophisticated individuals attract the attention of law enforcement at greater rates than those who are less sophisticated.

Question 11

Peacemaking criminology is closely tied to restorative justice practices.

Question 12

Legal realists are more interested in the specifics of legal statutes than in how the law plays out in the real world.

Question 13

Feminist critiques of criminology pointed out that many early criminological theories focused solely on male offending and ignored female offending.

Question 14

Research in feminist criminology has clearly demonstrated that equality between men and women leads to higher rates of female crime.

Question 15

Stop-and-frisk policies have been shown to have many positive benefits, including raising levels of public satisfaction with the police.

Question 16

Conflict theorists tend to downplay the importance of biological factors when explaining crime.

Question 17

How are the assumptions made by conflict theories relevant?
Conflict theorists assume that humans are naturally altruistic because human activity requires social interaction and interdependence. At the same time, one's social environment may serve to accentuate negative characteristics, such as aggression and greed. Conflict theorists suggest that society is a bad barrel that serves to corrupt otherwise good individuals.

Question 18

Why is the historical period in which these theories emerged important?

Question 19

What kinds of criminological issues do conflict theorists try to explain?

Question 20

List some practical approaches and programs suggested by conflict theories.

Question 21

Why are the critiques leveled against conflict theories important? How are they limited?