Deck 12: Contemporary Critical Criminology

Question 1

Which of the following claims is most likely to be made by a critical criminologist?

A)We need to emphasize justice in the punishment of offenders.
B)We need a "get tough" approach to crime.
C)We need better ways to manage the poor and dangerous classes.
D)We need to provide justice to those who are marginalized.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

What concept did Foucault say extends beyond the state and is not a quantity to hold or possess,but rather is relational and only evident when exercised?

A)surveillance
B)discipline
C)governmentality
D)power

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which of the following refers to the calculated probability of an eventuality?

A)attentive gaze
B)deconstruction
C)habitus
D)actuarialism

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following concepts best illustrates the case of the modern police officer,who in investigating a traffic accident must gather information pertinent to the courts and police records as well as insurance companies,the public health system,and the automobile industry?

A)governmentality
B)soft city
C)risk society
D)surveillance

Question 5

Which of the following refers to statistical calculations of risk across time and groups?

A)risk calculus
B)risk expectancies
C)universal risk assessment
D)actuarial risks

Question 6

What did Taylor,Walton,and Young advocate a new critical criminology to accomplish?

A)to examine the structural and political-economic dimensions that produce criminal behaviour
B)to question how the criminal justice system can prevent crime for everyone
C)to understand individual instances of crime in their entirety
D)to ensure that a representative number of criminal justice professionals come from working class and marginal backgrounds

Question 7

What is the name applied by Chapter 12 to the group of scholars who,during the reign of Thatcher,Reagan,and Mulroney governments,advocated for more punitive sanctions for crime?

A)right realists
B)left realists
C)administrative criminologists
D)criminal justice apologists

Question 8

Which of the following best characterizes a key goal of critical criminology in recent years?

A)conceiving programs that will work well within the existing criminal justice system
B)systematically critiquing government intrusion into the lives of the powerful
C)helping to better manage the poor and dangerous classes
D)providing justice through opening minds to more just ways of being in the world

Question 9

Which of the following best represents Foucault's conception of power?

A)held by governments or individuals
B)only evident when it is exercised
C)always negative or repressive
D)obvious and therefore seldom influences behaviour

Question 10

For Foucault,which of the following is the direct or indirect observation of conduct toward producing a desired outcome?

A)attentive gaze
B)discipline
C)surveillance
D)risk

Question 11

Which of the following best illustrates the Foucauldian concept of a micro-power?

A)a police officer
B)the Criminal Code
C)a traffic light
D)a shopping mall security guard

Question 12

Which of the following thinkers advanced groundbreaking theories on power and governmentality that inspired new theorizing in the field of contemporary critical criminology?

A)Hogeveen
B)Foucault
C)Agamben
D)Derrida

Question 13

Which of the following schools of thought expressly attempts to draw attention to the hidden and overlooked injustices in society?

A)left realism
B)environmental criminology
C)structural Marxism
D)critical criminology

Question 14

What group of scholars was criticized by critical criminologists for romanticizing working class criminals as a potentially revolutionary force?

A)right realists
B)left realists
C)criminal justice apologists
D)administrative criminologists

Question 15

Which of the following best characterizes critical criminology?

A)takes the system to task
B)tinkers with parts
C)denies transformation through promises of justice
D)avoids judgment and critiques in an attempt to destabilize taken-for-granted assumptions

Question 16

Which of the following is NOT a reason why conceptions about actuarialism,risk,and the risk society influence critical criminology?

A)They provide qualitative estimates of the cost of various criminal justice programs.
B)The treatment of offenders has been increasingly affected by the governance of risk.
C)Increased surveillance of certain groups can be unjust.
D)Risk thinking has helped transform criminal justice practices.

Question 17

What social theorist complained that criminology's "garrulous discourse" and "endless repetitions" relieved judges and police officers of their guilt for delivering pain and suffering on the guilty?

A)Bourdieu
B)Foucault
C)Derrida
D)Agamben

Question 18

In their 1973 book The New Criminology,Taylor,Walton,and Young levelled a number of criticisms at mainstream criminology.Which of the following is NOT one of these critiques?

A)supporting the political and economic status quo
B)ignoring the structural causes of crime
C)insufficient research into how opportunities create criminals
D)focusing on biological and psychological factors

Question 19

According to your textbook,which of the following is NOT one of the goals of critical criminology?

A)draws attention to hidden and overlooked injustices
B)highlights inequalities,discrimination,and suffering and to relate these to the discipline of criminology
C)attends to the processes through which the social world restricts human freedom and choice
D)undertakes empirical research into the causes of crime as a means to help criminal justice policy making.

Question 20

Cultural criminologists Hayward and Young alert us to the importance of which of the following in the context of a criminal act?

A)adrenaline
B)cost-benefit analysis
C)heredity
D)rational choice

Question 21

Which of the following best illustrates a state of exception as described by Agamben?

A)the Harper era in federal politics
B)Canada during the 1950s
C)the war of 1812
D)the FLQ Crisis in Quebec

Question 22

How are cultural criminologists most likely to describe a rally where pro-cannabis protesters smoke pot on Parliament Hill?

A)a form of anti-governmentality
B)an act of transgression
C)a form of attentive gaze
D)a form of dangerous knowledge

Question 23

Whose work is grounded in a concern for the modern conditions of sovereignty and its use of repression resulting in the loss of rights in the post-9/11 era?

A)Bourdieu
B)Agamben
C)Spitzer
D)Quinney

Question 24

Which of the following scenarios best represents what cultural criminologists mean by the notion of the "soft city"?

A)rationally planned urban space
B)a supermarket placing commonly purchased goods at the back of the store
C)an illegal occupation of a park by advocates of the homeless
D)the use of more flexible construction materials on streets to lessen injuries resulting from traffic accidents

Question 25

Which of the following best describes Wacquant's critical criminological interpretation of Bourdieu?

A)He articulated how criminal justice is increasingly based on principles of actuarial risk.
B)He examined how symbolic,cultural,and economic factors empower dominant actors to create and apply criminal categories.
C)He articulated how the criminal justice system represents governmentality.
D)He examined how a sovereign power can return a society to a state of naked life (life unprotected by law and rights).

Question 26

Cultural criminologists propose an intensive ethnographic approach to studying crime.What is the term they use to describe this methodology?

A)dangerous knowledge
B)attentive gaze
C)acts of transgression
D)structural equation modelling

Question 27

Which of the following concepts best represents the following statement: "Opening up language to the silent,background suppositions that give words and phrases their meaning with the intention of encountering the hidden and excluded elements of language,meaning,and experience"?

A)attentive gaze
B)a state of exception
C)dangerous knowledge
D)deconstruction

Question 28

Who laid the theoretical groundwork for applying the technique of deconstruction to the criminal justice system?

A)Hogeveen
B)Bourdieu
C)Agamben
D)Derrida

Question 29

According to cultural criminologists,what hides beneath structured and rationally planned urban space?

A)the risk society
B)actuarial risk
C)the soft city
D)fields

Question 30

According to Derrida,which is the most commonplace understanding of justice?

A)vengeance
B)cooperation
C)respect for civil rights
D)respect for due process

Question 31

A stigma cast on a neighbourhood can be transferred to the residents,making it harder for them to improve their social standing.Which of the following refers to that circumstance?

A)negative symbolic capital
B)negative social capital
C)habitus
D)dangerous knowledge

Question 32

What is the term Bourdieu uses when someone has a real "feel for the game."

A)capital
B)habitus
C)endowment
D)capabilities

Question 33

Which of the following best represents what cultural criminologists mean by the notion of the "soft city"?

A)rationally planned urban space
B)street level possibilities and creativity that can thwart rationally planned urban space
C)the freedom to go and do as we please
D)the design of defensive urban space

Question 34

Maher Arar was falsely accused of collaborating with the terrorist group al-Qaeda.His case was cited in the textbook to substantiate a number of issues raised by Agamben. Which of the following is NOT one of these issues?

A)whether the suspension of individual rights is necessary for the protection and defence of society
B)whether we are witnessing a critical period in which religious rights of minority groups like Muslims are being eliminated
C)whether the war on terrorism should proceed at the expense of basic human rights
D)whether Canadians can now be detained indefinitely without charge and without full access to any evidence against them

Question 35

According to cultural criminologists,which of the following does "dangerous knowledge" refer to?

A)the urban "underlife" that hides beneath structured and rationally planned urban space
B)a set of acquired dispositions that allow one to achieve a "feel" for a specific activity
C)information gathered by police informants about marginalized offender populations
D)a form of knowledge that leaves no concept,notion,or idea unquestioned

Question 36

What term is used by Derrida to denote the silent or absent element of language that provides words with an essential part of their meaning?

A)a state of exception
B)a habit
C)a field
D)a trace

Question 37

A woman was raised by parents who are lawyers.She models her parents' ways of speaking,and thinks of the world in terms of adversarial justice.Which of the following terms is used by Bourdieu to indicate that this woman is already well armed with what will help her more easily navigate the legal profession?

A)an attentive gaze
B)negative social capital
C)habitus
D)dangerous knowledge

Question 38

Through his field theory of criminology,what sociologist provides insight into the cultural and economic conditions in which crime and our understanding of crime are produced?

A)Foucault
B)Bourdieu
C)Agamben
D)Derrida

Question 39

A heroin user is branded as an addict who will amount to nothing in life because she lives on "skid row." According to field theory,this example best illustrates the notion of which of the following?

A)negative symbolic capital
B)negative social capital
C)state of exception
D)habitus

Question 40

Which of the following is NOT a critique that stems from a deconstruction of the word "community" in the context of community crime prevention?

A)It is exclusionary.
B)It can limit,rather than encourage,inclusive patterns of harmony
C)When used to support gated communities,it can brand those who are not from the community as outsiders.
D)It can help build community within the criminal justice system.

Question 41

Beck's "risk society" thesis contends that society is organized around the management of risks.

Question 42

Critical criminology takes a dialectical approach to analyzing how individuals both influence and are influenced by dominant social structures.

Question 43

The primary focus of critical criminology is judging existing criminal justice policies,programs,and institutions.

Question 44

Critical criminology seeks ways to better manage the day-to-day operations of the criminal justice system.

Question 45

Restorative justice is a mode of governmentality because it fashions a way of understanding the world that makes the pursuit of "restorative" justice appear rational.

Question 46

The influence of Beck's concept of the risk society on critical criminology is that social problems become risks to be managed,not solved.

Question 47

Critical criminology has produced a unified group of scholars who promote the discipline under a single label.

Question 48

Cultural criminologists emphasize the importance of rational choice in the cost-benefit analysis of whether or not to break the law.

Question 49

The textbook uses Simon Cowell from the television show American Idol as good example of what they mean by the term "critical" as used in critical criminology.

Question 50

For Foucault,power is only evident when it is exercised.

Question 51

Wacquant's critical criminological interpretation of Bourdieu is to accept "criminalized" identities as constructed through criminal law

Question 52

The Foucauldian notion of power is exclusively negative and repressive.

Question 53

Critical criminology seeks ways to better manage the poor and dangerous classes that make up most of the criminal offenders.

Question 54

According to Agamben,human rights are afforded by specific geopolitical orders and can be suspended only by the de facto sovereign.

Question 55

According to Bourdieu,an actor's ability to display competence within a particular field depends,in part,upon his or her "habitus."

Question 56

Cultural criminology produces "dangerous knowledge" because it puts the lives of its proponents in danger from reactionary elements in American society.

Question 57

Today's critical criminology uses critique largely as a means of confronting inequalities and social suffering with promises of more just outcomes

Question 58

Critical criminology attempts to highlight inequalities,discrimination,and suffering as related to the discipline of criminology.

Question 59

The term governmentality is used to refer to the machinations of how the state wields power over civil society.

Question 60

Which of the following is NOT a criticism of contemporary critical criminology?

A)It is an obscure and abstract nature of critical criminological theorizing.
B)It has been used too frequently to rationalize tough-on-crime agendas.
C)It lacks implications for the real world of crime,crime control,and social justice.
D)Some find it difficult to discern a call to action in the theoretical language of contemporary critical criminology.

Question 61

Define Agamben's concept of the state of exception and explain its relationship to sovereignty.

Question 62

Describe how risk and actuarialism are prevalent in contemporary criminal justice practices and how this relates to the notion of the "risk society."

Question 63

Explain the basic tenets of contemporary critical criminology.

Question 64

How are offenders' lives organized around questions of risk? Be sure to describe the notion of a "risk society."

Question 65

For Agamben,naked life refers to a state of total protection akin to a fetus developing in its mother's womb.

Question 66

Explain the criminological research of Loïc Wacquant and how it builds upon Bourdieu's "field theory."

Question 67

Briefly describe what happened to suspected terrorist and Canadian citizen Maher Arar,and indicate the implications of his treatment for the relationship between Canada and its citizens.

Question 68

Much of Agamben's work is grounded in a concern for and about the modern conditions of sovereignty.

Question 69

Discuss cultural criminology and its contribution to critical criminology.

Question 70

For critical criminologists,vengeance is by far the most commonplace understanding of justice.

Question 71

Explain Pierre Bourdieu's "field theory." Provide practical examples in how criminal behaviour is caused that can be attributed to this theory.

Question 72

List and describe two of Hayward and Young's five "motifs" of cultural criminology that demonstrate the relevance of cultural criminology for critical criminologists.

Question 73

What is Michel Foucault's approach to the concept of power? Detail why it is important to critical criminology.

Question 74

Deconstruction attempts to reveal what is really going on in and through language.

Question 75

Is restorative justice a form of governmentality? Defend your answer.

Question 76

Explain what it means to be "critical" in critical criminology.

Question 77

Describe Derrida's notion of deconstruction and explain how it helps us understand a criminal justice term of your choosing.

Question 78

Summarize the critiques that have been levelled against critical criminology.Identify other critiques not discussed in Chapter 12.

Question 79

Outline the origins and early development of critical criminology in English Canada.