Deck 1: Crime and Criminology

Question 1

What do results from victimization surveys usually show?

A) Victimization rates have increased.
B) The public's perception is that crime has increased.
C) The police report an actual decrease in crime.
D) The reporting of crime to the police is lower.

Answer 1

The public's perception is that crime has increased.

Question 2

What was the result of a poll conducted in the aftermath of the Jane Creba shooting?

A) People thought the shooting showed Toronto was experiencing more random violence.
B) People thought the shooting justified spending more money on social programs.
C) People thought there should be stricter penalties for crime.
D) People thought judges should be able to exercise more discretion.

Answer 2

People thought there should be stricter penalties for crime.

Question 3

What academic discipline is devoted to the development of valid and reliable information about the causes of crime, crime patterns, and crime trends?

A) criminology
B) criminal justice
C) sociology
D) deviance

Answer 3

criminology

Question 4

In their definition of criminology, Sutherland and Cressey use the term "verified principles." What does this term refer to?

A) the search for the true cause of crime
B) the use of the scientific method in criminology
C) the development of criminal law
D) the principles by which the criminal justice system is founded

Question 5

What is the primary interest of criminological practitioners?

A) to foster interdisciplinary theory
B) to understand the true nature of law, crime, and justice
C) to publish textbooks and academic journals
D) to join professional organizations

Question 6

What is the most important difference between the fields of criminology and criminal justice?

A) Criminology covers the development of the rule of law.
B) Criminology involves issues of crime prevention.
C) Criminology involves the study of the etiology or origin of criminal behaviour.
D) Criminology studies the effectiveness of punishment.

Question 7

Which statement best describes the relationship between criminologists and criminal justice scholars?

A) It can be characterized by jealousy and hostility.
B) It can be characterized as a partnership.
C) It is remote because the fields are actually quite different.
D) Criminologists study policy and criminal justice experts enforce it.

Question 8

What is characteristic of deviant behaviours?

A) They depart from social norms.
B) They violate legal rules.
C) They are in conflict with the laws of society.
D) They are banned by those who hold social power.

Question 9

Which statement best describes the recreational use of marijuana?

A) It is a crime, but not necessarily a deviant act because many Canadian youth have used marijuana.
B) It is a deviant act, but not a crime because recreational use of marijuana is generally legal.
C) It is an immoral act, but not a deviant act because it goes against religious scripture.
D) It is a sign of mental illness, but not a crime.

Question 10

According to the textbook, what did a 2004 Canadian Addiction survey show?

A) Most Canadians have never tried marijuana.
B) Seventy percent of Canadians reported using marijuana.
C) The majority of Canadians believe harsher drug laws need to be implemented.
D) Deviant acts such as marijuana use are causes of more serious crimes.

Question 11

What is one of the three dimensions of John Hagan's model depicting the relationship between crime and deviance?

A) the evaluation of the cost of crime
B) the level of political agreement about crime
C) the seriousness of the act
D) the severity of societal response

Question 12

According to the textbook, which statement best describes the most serious acts of deviance?

A) They are the most likely to occur.
B) They are as likely to occur as less severe acts.
C) They are relatively harmless.
D) They are the least likely to occur.

Question 13

What term refers to a reduction in the criminal penalty of a crime?

A) legalization
B) deviance enhancement
C) decriminalization
D) utilitarianism

Question 14

Which statement best summarizes the Middle Ages belief about people who violated social norms or religious practices?

A) They were atavistic anomalies.
B) They were witches or possessed by demons.
C) They were anomic individuals.
D) They were proletariats.

Question 15

R. v. Sharpe was a famous Canadian court case. What did it deal with?

A) protecting children from sexual exploitation
B) prostitution legislation
C) corporate crime
D) enforcing drug laws in Canada

Question 16

What does the philosophy of utilitarianism emphasize?

A) a fair, rational, and balanced approach to punishment
B) the use of cruel and excessive punishments
C) reliance on executions for both violent and property offences
D) the scientific approach to studying crime

Question 17

What term refers to the philosophical view that behaviour must have a rational and useful purpose?

A) utilitarianism
B) rationalism
C) existentialism
D) humanism

Question 18

Which policy was advocated by Cesare Beccaria's policy of deterrence?

A) Increase the number of social workers to help prevent the poor committing crime.
B) Increase the use of plea bargaining by prosecuting attorneys.
C) Decrease the time between arrest and conviction.
D) Increase the use of the death penalty for property and drug crimes.

Question 19

Which policy is based on the principles of utilitarianism?

A) Administer the death penalty in an unreasonable and unbalanced manner.
B) Hire fewer police officers so that only serious crimes are investigated.
C) Ensure that every defendant is able to appeal his or her case as often and as long as he or she wishes.
D) Make sure the all punishments are proportional and the least possible under the circumstances.

Question 20

Which statement best coincides with the classical concept of deterrence?

A) Let the punishment fit the crime.
B) People's choice of criminal solutions may be controlled by their fear of punishment.
C) People have free will to choose criminal or lawful solutions to meet their needs.
D) Human behaviour is a function of forces beyond an individual's control.

Question 21

Who believed that people wanted to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, and that crime must therefore provide pleasure to a criminal?

A) Cesare Beccaria
B) Franz Joseph Gall
C) Auguste Comte
D) Karl Marx

Question 22

What criminological perspective did Beccaria advocate for?

A) humanism
B) engenderment
C) utilitarianism
D) socialism

Question 23

Which policy would Beccaria find most appropriate?

A) Decrease the number of police officers on the street.
B) Shorten the time span between arrest, conviction, and execution of sentence.
C) Increase the number of appeals available to convicted murderers.
D) Abolish the death penalty and try to rehabilitate killers.

Question 24

According to classical criminology, what must punishment be to ensure it will be effective?

A) stringent
B) stern
C) secure
D) swift

Question 25

What is a basic element of classical criminology?

A) Criminal behaviour is a product of external forces on the individual.
B) The tendency to act criminally is inherited.
C) Crime is a product of social forces.
D) People have free will to choose to act criminally or lawfully.

Question 26

Which discipline takes the position that criminal solutions are frequently more attractive than conventional ones because they usually require less work for a greater reward?

A) positive criminology
B) classical criminology
C) criminal anthropology
D) criminal sociology

Question 27

You believe that the truth about human nature can be derived only through careful scientific observation of behaviour. What are you?

A) a positivist
B) a humanist
C) a socialist
D) a classicist

Question 28

Which statement illustrates one of the main elements of the positivist tradition?

A) Through evolution, deviant behaviour is passed from one generation to the next.
B) The choice to break the law is a rational one.
C) Empirical methods are used to test hypotheses.
D) The punishment should fit the criminal act, not the criminal.

Question 29

Which technique would a physiognomist use to explain criminal behaviour?

A) the tracing of inherited criminogenic traits
B) interviewing significant others to determine environmental factors that cause criminality
C) studying facial characteristics such as the shape of the ears, nose, and eyes, and the distance between them in relation to the propensity to commit crimes
D) studying the season, climate, gender, age, and the influences these factors have on the tendency to commit crimes

Question 30

What modern term is related to the French psychiatric term manie sans delire?

A) the psychopathic personality
B) anomie
C) the neurotic patient
D) schizophrenia

Question 31

Which criminology movement was inspired by new discoveries in biology, astronomy, and chemistry?

A) classical
B) phrenology
C) positivism
D) sociological

Question 32

What is one of the main elements of the positivist tradition?

A) Human behaviour is a function of external forces that are beyond individual control.
B) Criminal behaviour is a product of free will and rational choice.
C) Much of the research on criminal behaviour can be performed by a logical analysis of the Bible.
D) Let the punishment fit the crime.

Question 33

Who was a famous phrenologist?

A) Philippe Pinel
B) Auguste Comte
C) Franz Joseph Gall
D) Henry Maudsley

Question 34

Lombroso theorized that born criminals inherited physical problems that impelled them into a life of crime. What academic field did his theories generate an interest in?

A) criminal forensics
B) sociology
C) criminal anthropology
D) psychiatry

Question 35

Lombroso believed that criminals were biological throwbacks to primitive beasts. What did he call this condition?

A) moral degeneracy
B) biological primitivism
C) atavistic anomalies
D) criminaloids

Question 36

According to Lombroso, what traits would best predict a violent criminal career?

A) a diseased personality
B) enormous jaw and strong teeth
C) having friends who were criminals
D) living in a high-crime area

Question 37

What does the term "biosocial theory" refer to?

A) the assumed link between physical and mental traits, the social environment, and behaviour
B) the fact that crime has nothing at all to do with intra-personal traits
C) the theory that crime is related mostly to biology
D) biological determinism

Question 38

Who thought of crime as an outlet in which the unsound tendencies of the mentally ill are discharged?

A) Franz Joseph Gall
B) Charles Darwin
C) Karl Marx
D) Henry Maudsley Remember

Question 39

Who thought that insanity, deafness, syphilis, epilepsy, and alcoholism in a family were the cause of criminogenic traits in the offspring?

A) Cesare Beccaria
B) Adolphe Quetelet
C) Émile Durkheim
D) Cesare Lombroso

Question 40

Who was the first social scientist to use objective mathematical techniques to investigate the influence of social factors on the propensity to commit crime?

A) Adolphe Quetelet
B) Émile Durkheim
C) Herbert Spencer
D) Max Weber

Question 41

What is considered to be Quetelet's most significant finding?

A) Social forces were significantly correlated with crime rates.
B) The middle class are more criminally active during the winter months.
C) Anomie is a significant factor in the prediction of crime.
D) Crime is unaffected by social forces.

Question 42

Who is considered to be one of the founders of sociology and a contributor to criminology?

A) Karl Marx
B) Auguste Comte
C) Herbert Spencer
D) Émile Durkheim

Question 43

Who said that crime can be necessary for a society?

A) Philippe Pinel
B) Cesare Lombroso
C) Émile Durkheim
D) August Comte

Question 44

Which criminology perspective would agree that an abstract concept like IQ exists because it can be measured, but would question the concept of the "soul"?

A) positivist
B) classical
C) sociological
D) interactionist

Question 45

Which criminological positivist argued that crime can be useful and healthy for society?

A) Cesare Beccaria
B) Émile Durkheim
C) Charles Darwin
D) Cesare Lombroso

Question 46

Why did Durkheim believe that crime was inevitable?

A) If "real" crimes were eliminated, human weakness and petty disputes would elevate to the level of crime status.
B) There will always be lawmakers.
C) Criminogenic traits will always be present in certain individuals.
D) Deterrence is not sufficient to override criminal tendencies.

Question 47

Who said that crime can serve as a symbolic reminder of the moral boundaries of society?

A) Adolphe Quetelet
B) Ernest Burgess
C) Émile Durkheim
D) Hans von Hentig

Question 48

According to Durkheim, how can crime be beneficial for a society?

A) Crime ensures that the state will maintain a status quo of industrial production.
B) Crime's existence implies that a way is open for social change and that the social structure is not rigid or inflexible.
C) Crime alleviates anomie by creating alternatives to the normalcy of social life.
D) Crime controls surplus populations.

Question 49

Who argued that crime is beneficial because it calls attention to social ills?

A) Karl Marx
B) Émile Durkheim
C) Frederic Thrasher
D) Cesare Lombroso

Question 50

Who wrote The Division of Labor in Society?

A) Cesare Lombroso
B) Adolphe Quetelet
C) Émile Durkheim
D) Cesare Beccaria

Question 51

When does anomie occur?

A) when the rules, behaviours, and norms of society have broken down
B) when crime rates skyrocket
C) when the means of acquiring wealth are kept in the hands of only a few people
D) when the government ignores the needs of citizens and schemes to keep itself in power

Question 52

Durkheim attributes anomie as arising from a shift between societies. What shift is he referring to?

A) from a mechanical to an organic society
B) from an organic to a mechanical society
C) from a society in isolation to one of public interaction
D) from a society with no crime to one of high crime

Question 53

What did Durkheim's research on suicide rates indicate?

A) Anomic societies have low suicide rates.
B) Anomic societies have lower rates of euthanasia.
C) Anomic societies have high rates of suicide.
D) Anomic societies have values that condone suicide.

Question 54

Who were the pioneers of the Chicago School?

A) von Hentig and Schafer
B) Gall and Kasper
C) Park, Burgess, and Wirth
D) Durkheim and Quetelet

Question 55

What is the basic tenet of the ecological study of crime as pioneered by the Chicago School?

A) Crime is a function of where one lives.
B) Litter is related to crime.
C) Poverty, education, and family relations breed criminal behaviour.
D) Crime is a function of chemical imbalances in the brain and body.

Question 56

Which approach uses the concentric zone model of deviance?

A) ecological
B) classical
C) conflict
D) biosocial

Question 57

Who could be considered the "father" of conflict criminology?

A) Émile Durkheim
B) Edwin Sutherland
C) Karl Marx
D) Cesare Lombroso

Question 58

What is the Marxist term for the owners of the means of production in a society?

A) proletariat
B) capitalist bourgeoisie
C) atavistic anomalies
D) entrepreneurs

Question 59

Which statement best describes the Marxist theory of crime?

A) It was richly detailed and complete.
B) It was based on the problems created by the capitalist system.
C) It was based on his belief that poor criminals actually were revolutionaries against the capitalist system.
D) It was inferred from Marx's research on the social relations of production.

Question 60

Which theory argues that criminals are rational and use available information to decide whether crime is worthwhile?

A) process
B) deterrence
C) sociological
D) choice

Question 61

Which theory maintains that an individual's lifestyles and living conditions directly control their criminal behaviour?

A) Marxist
B) conflict
C) sociological
D) choice

Question 62

Which of the following is one sub-area of criminology?

A) measuring the amount and trends of criminal activity
B) rallying against the government whenever controversial laws are created
C) blaming the victims of crime
D) making sure police follow arrest procedures properly

Question 63

Imagine that a work of art is branded obscene by the courts even though consumers believe the work makes a valuable artistic statement. What area of criminology would explore this controversy?

A) criminal behaviour systems
B) penology
C) victimology
D) sociology of law

Question 64

Who wrote the landmark analysis of the nature of homicide and the relationship between victims and offenders?

A) the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics
B) Hans von Hentig
C) Sue Rodriguez
D) Marvin Wolfgang

Question 65

What is a crime typology?

A) research on the links between different types of crime and criminals
B) the measure of crime as it relates to geographic distribution
C) collections of criminals by their modus operandi
D) groups of crime thought to be committed by serial offenders

Question 66

What is the study of the correction and control of known offenders?

A) penology
B) typology
C) criminology
D) victimology

Question 67

What term is used to describe reoffending behaviour after a criminal is released from prison?

A) reoffending
B) victimizing
C) recidivating
D) reinvolvement

Question 68

Who first identified the critical role of the victim in the criminal process?

A) Cesare Beccaria
B) interactionist theorists
C) Howard Becker
D) von Hentig and Schafer

Question 69

What sub-area of criminology studies victimization surveys, cost of crime for victims, and victim culpability?

A) victimology
B) conflict
C) economicology
D) penology

Question 70

Which statement best describes Canadian crime trends?

A) The crime rate has declined in recent years.
B) Crime rates have stayed the same in Canada.
C) Crime rates in Canada have surpassed the United States, namely in violent crimes and robberies.
D) There has been a gradual increase in crime rates in Canada.

Question 71

Which statement is indicative of the relationship between fear about crime and actual victimization rates?

A) Homicide rates are decreasing while property offences are increasing.
B) Victimization measurements are totally inaccurate.
C) Canada has a relatively lower crime rate than other industrialized countries and is becoming safer.
D) The United States and Canada have equally low crime rates.

Question 72

According to the consensus model of crime, why are burglary, robbery, or theft considered criminal?

A) Only the wealthy and powerful face the risk of these offences.
B) These acts are committed by the poor of society.
C) These offences are considered repugnant by all elements of society.
D) These behaviours are deviant in a normal society.

Question 73

According to the consensus model of crime, when is an act truly a crime?

A) when it is repugnant to most members of society
B) when it is in violation of the existing criminal law
C) when it is considered immoral
D) when it violates the principles of Judeo-Christian morality

Question 74

Which view of crime perceives criminal laws as being created to protect the "haves" from the "have-nots"?

A) conflict
B) interactionist
C) consensus
D) sociological

Question 75

If you subscribe to the conflict view of crime, which statement would you most likely agree with?

A) A crime is not really a crime unless it is prohibited by the law.
B) The definition of crime is controlled by wealth, power, and position, and not by moral consensus or fear of social disruption.
C) Criminals are individuals whom society chooses to label.
D) Crimes are repugnant to all members of society.

Question 76

What view of crime considers violations of human rights and unsafe working conditions to be crimes?

A) consensus
B) interactionist
C) conflict
D) substantive

Question 77

According to the interactionist view of crime, who is a criminal?

A) someone who is immoral
B) someone who is incorrigible
C) someone who has been labelled that way by society
D) someone who has committed an inherently evil or immoral act

Question 78

According to the interactionist view of crime, what term refers to a person who uses his or her influence to shape the legal process?

A) power broker
B) moral entrepreneur
C) moral broker
D) symbolic interactionist

Question 79

Who argued that the "deviant"' is one to whom that label has successfully been applied?

A) Karl Marx
B) L.A.J. Quetelet
C) Émile Durkheim
D) Howard Becker

Question 80

Which view of crime is concerned with shifting moral and legal standards, and sees crime as having no meaning unless people react to it?

A) critical
B) conflict
C) interactionist
D) consensus