Deck 6: White Collar Crime

Question 1

What most people mean by corporate crime is typically white-collar crime.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Corporate crime tends not to be a classic, clear-cut case of deviance; in some respects, it is a form of deviance, in some respects, it is not.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

In most corporate crime, victimization tends to be diffuse, or spread out among the population.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Most corporate crime is intermingled with legitimate, law-abiding behavior.

Question 5

The most basic reason that people engage in white collar crime is that they are in a position to do so.

Question 6

All white-collar criminals are rich and powerful.

Question 7

All white-collar crime is corporate crime and vice versa.

Question 8

In embezzlement, the victim is the corporation.

Question 9

Embezzlement tends to be committed against the corporation on behalf of an employee.

Question 10

Corporate crime tends to be made up of complex, sophisticated, and relatively technical acts.

Question 11

Corporate crime, unlike the typical street crime, tends to be intermingled with legitimate behavior.

Question 12

When convicted corporate offenders who commit acts that harm many people are sentenced, juries tend to hand down penalties that are commensurate with the crimes.

Question 13

By definition, white collar crime is the type of crime that most outrages the public conscience.

Question 14

The intention to do harm to certain parties is a common, even typical, feature of corporate crime.

Question 15

Corporate crime is less likely to stigmatize the perpetrator than street crime.

Question 16

All corporate crime is deviant.

Question 17

Public opinion polls indicate that, typically, the public makes no distinction between white collar crime and street crime.

Question 18

The perpetrators of most forms of ecocide tend to be, in comparison with street crime, insulated from both condemnation and prosecution by an aura of legitimacy.

Question 19

Federal prosecutors consider ecocide a high-priority crime.

Question 20

Relatively few sociologists of deviance conduct research on environmental crime.

Question 21

What makes the argument that the US is a "rogue nation" questionable? The fact that:

A) it did not sponsor or engage in any of the harmful acts of which it is accused.
B) other nations have engaged in worse activities and so, the US is not the worst rogue nation.
C) the US is multiply interconnected with nearly every country on Earth and so, it is not an isolate or a pariah, a crucial defining quality of a rogue state.
D) there is no evidence of any kind that could measure, quantify, or indicate what defines a "rogue" or "pariah" state.
E) none of the above

Question 22

Which of the following is not an example of a global malfeasance?

A) multinational corporate crime
B) cybercrime across national borders
C) the trafficking of drugs across national borders
D) the violation of copyright and patent laws across national borders
E) none of the above; all are instances of global malfeasance

Question 23

Which of the following is the basis of the he most profitable of all transnational crimes, according to expert estimates, is:

A) counterfeiting
B) human trafficking
C) the illegal drug trade
D) the illegal sale of gold
E) the sale of stolen art

Question 24

For which of the following types of wrongdoing is there the greatest disjunction between degree of harm (high) and sanctioning (typically, low)?

A) murder
B) robbery
C) corporate pollution
D) terrorism
E) the drug trade

Question 25

Experts estimate the worldwide cost of computer crime at:

A) one billion $
B) ten billion $
C) $500 billion $
D) over two trillion $
E) the sum is unknown and inherently unknowable

Question 26

The form of crime that has the greatest likelihood of harming the greatest number of people in the most serious ways is:

A) robbery
B) embezzlement
C) terrorism
D) global environmental pollution, or ecocide
E) corruption by the media

Question 27

In embezzlement, the victims are typically:

A) employees of a firm
B) the general public
C) consumers
D) the corporation
E) none of the above

Question 28

Which of the following are not features or elements of corporate crime?

A) The actions are intermingled with legitimate activities.
B) Victimization tends to be diffuse.
C) The actions tend to be made up of complex, technical acts.
D) The sums tend to be large.
E) None of the above; all are features of the corporate crime.

Question 29

What people generally mean by "white collar crime" is:

A) embezzlement
B) tax fraud
C) crimes against a corporation
D) corporate crime
E) crimes against the general public

Question 30

Which of the following statements is true? By definition:

A) All white crime is illegal, but not all white collar crime is deviant.
B) Not all white collar crime is illegal, and not all white collar crime is deviant.
C) Not all white collar crime is illegal, but all white collar crime is deviant.
D) All white collar crime is illegal, and all white collar crime is deviant.
E) none of the above

Question 31

Which of the following statements is true? By definition:

A) All corporate crime is white collar crime, and all white collar crime is corporate crime.
B) All corporate crime is white collar crime, but not all white collar crime is corporate crime.
C) Not all corporate crime is white collar crime, but all white collar crime is corporate crime.
D) Not all corporate crime is white collar crime, and not all corporate crime is white collar crime.
E) none of the above

Question 32

Which of the following offenses, for the most part, stands outside Goffman's classic sources of stigma?

A) robbery
B) organizational deviance
C) murder
D) unemployment
E) alcoholism

Question 33

Most white collar crime is:

A) corporate crime.
B) embezzlement
C) Ponzi schemes
D) robbery
E) larceny

Question 34

The commission of most forms of deviance is engaged in only by:

A) a collective enterprise
B) the poverty-stricken
C) people who possess a particular physique
D) someone located within a particular organizational structure
E) none of the above; there is no single criminal category that comprises most forms of deviance

Question 35

As a general rule, negative public sentiment about most white collar crimes is:

A) muted, muffled, subdued
B) outraged
C) nonexistent
D) proportional to the damage inflicted
E) unknown

Question 36

The biggest, baddest, most famous white collar criminal of all time is:

A) Al Capone
B) Bernard Madoff
C) Dwight David Eisenhower
D) Denny Chin
E) Steve Fishman

Question 37

With most corporate crime:

A) Nobody did anything wrong.
B) Nobody thinks that there's anything wrong with what is referred to as "corporate crime."
C) The outrage is proportional to the harm.
D) A mountain is being made out of a molehill.
E) None of the above.

Question 38

Which of the following statements about corporate crime is true:

A) It is virtually identical to nearly all the other types of deviant behavior.
B) It is engaged in by isolated individuals.
C) Most people cannot engage in it because, outside of the organizational structure, they are not in a position to do so.
D) The likelihood of getting caught and imprisoned for committing the offense is higher than it is for most forms of deviance.
E) none of the above

Question 39

The earliest "muckrakers," who provided the inspiration for the white collar crime concept, were:

A) journalists
B) sociologists
C) criminologists
D) social workers
E) politicians

Question 40

According to criminologists and sociologists, corporate crime:

A) steals money from the public but causes no physical harm.
B) steals money from the public and causes physical harm as well.
C) does not steal money from the public but causes physical harm.
D) neither steals money from the public nor does it cause physical harm.
E) none of the above

Question 41

The victim of corporate collar crime is solely and exclusively the:

A) corporation itself
B) general public
C) consumer
D) employee
E) none of the above; there is no sole or exclusive party that corporate crime harms

Question 42

Sociologically, is corporate crime a form of deviance?

A) In all cases, yes.
B) In all cases, no.
C) Only if the act is against the law.
D) To the extent that the public condemns the actors for their deeds.
E) none of the above

Question 43

The sociologist who coined the term and launched the concept "white collar crime" was:

A) Erving Goffman
B) Jennifer Hunt
C) James Fyfe
D) Patrick Lynch
E) Edwin Sutherland

Question 44

Which of the following types of deviance is not part of Erving Goffman's three classic types of stigma?

A) abominations of the body
B) blemishes of individual character
C) tribal stigma of race, nation, and religion
D) organizational deviance
E) none of the above; all are part of Goffman's types of stigma

Question 45

According to criminologists, which of the following statements is true?

A) Corporate crime is an Index Crime.
B) Embezzlement is a type of Index Crime.
C) Corporate crime is by definition a type of embezzlement.
D) Embezzlement is by definition a type of robbery.
E) none of the above

Question 46

Which of the following categories is not a victim of corporate crime?

A) the general public
B) the corporate competition
C) employees
D) the federal government
E) none of the above; all can be victims of corporate crime

Question 47

Corporate crime includes:

A) an executive murdering his wife (or her husband)
B) selling cigarettes, which kill people
C) having three-martini lunches
D) theft and pilferage on the job
E) none of the above

Question 48

Most white collar offenders convicted for their crimes (tax evasion, bank embezzlement, securities fraud, credit card fraud, etc.):

A) are rich and powerful.
B) occupied high status positions.
C) are more likely than the average to have had a criminal record.
D) are actually manual laborers
E) none of the above

Question 49

According to the author:

A) all white collar crime is corporate crime and vice versa.
B) no white collar crime is corporate crime and vice versa.
C) all white collar crime is corporate crime but not all corporate crime is white collar crime.
D) all corporate crime is white collar crime but not all white collar crime is corporate crime.
E) none of the above

Question 50

Which of the following statements is false? Corporate crime tends to:

A) be intermingled with legitimate behavior.
B) generate harm that is diffuse.
C) more difficult to detect than street crime.
D) involve much larger sums of money than is true of street crime.
E) none of the above is false

Question 51

When corporate criminals are arrested and go to trial (which is rare), juries:

A) are eager to impose even harsher sentences on them than they would for convicted street criminals.
B) are reluctant to impose harsh penalties on them.
C) make decisions about their penalties that are exactly the same ones they would make for street criminals.
D) The sentences juries impose on corporate criminals is unknown because their trials are almost always secret.
E) none of the above

Question 52

Which of the following statements is true?

A) All corporate crime is white collar crime.
B) All white collar crime is corporate crime.
C) No corporate crime is white collar crime.
D) No white collar crime is corporate crime.
E) none of the above is true

Question 53

Corporate crime is a subset of a larger category that sociologists and criminologists refer to as:

A) embezzlement
B) street crime
C) organizational deviance
D) civil crime
E) torts

Question 54

For which of the following types of deviance is it impossible to place every single person in the society along a single axis or dimension, from deviant to more conventional?

A) honest or dishonest
B) atheists, agnostics, or believers
C) alcoholics, moderate drinkers, or abstainers
D) fat, less fat, or not at all fat
E) none of the above; for all of these dimensions, people can be placed along this dimension

Question 55

In the world of white collar crime, there are:

A) a lot more "small fry" than "big fish"
B) a lot more "big fish" than "small fry"
C) about the same number of "small fry" as "big fish"
D) an unknowable number of "small fry" and "big fish"
E) none of the above

Question 56

Which of the following financial figures are well-informed experts most likely to place on their "Top Ten" list of white collar criminals?

A) Jerome Mayne, author of Diary of a White Collar Criminal
B) The Pentagon
C) Volkswagen
D) Donald J. Trump
E) Bernard Madoff

Question 57

Which of the following academic specialty is most likely to study ecocide?

A) green criminology
B) political science
C) the sociology of deviance
D) psychology
E) psychiatry

Question 58

Which of the following normative violator is least likely to be discredited, condemned, and stigmatized? The:

A) drug dealer
B) street criminal
C) mentally ill person
D) beggar
E) degrader of the environment

Question 59

Which of the following offenders engaged in what criminologists refer to as a "Ponzi scheme"?

A) FIFA
B) VW
C) the EPA
D) the CIA
E) none of the above

Question 60

The perpetrators of which of the following forms of malfeasance tend to be protected from condemnation and prosecution by an aura of legitimacy?

A) illegal immigration
B) cocaine trafficking
C) ecocide
D) Russian trolling
E) none of the above

Question 61

Illegal immigration is an example of which of the following offenses?

A) corporate crime
B) white collar offenses
C) global malfeasances
D) common crime
E) none of the above

Question 62

Which of the following offenses is not an example of global deviance or malfeasance?

A) the ethnic cleansing of foreigners from a country's borders
B) piracy
C) drug importing and trafficking
D) the trafficking of women from one country to another
E) none of the above

Question 63

Which of the following dimension of deviance is irrelevant as a dimension along which the sociologist can determine the wrongdoing of each and every individual?

A) weight
B) beliefs
C) degree of honesty
D) level of drinking
E) white collar offenses

Question 64

Which of the following types of offenses is the perpetrator (or perpetrators) most likely to be enmeshed in a network of persons who act in concert and coordination:

A) corporate crime
B) robbery
C) alcoholism
D) embezzlement
E) adultery

Question 65

Which of the following offenders is on every expert's list of "Top 10 White Collar Criminals"?

A) Edwin Sutherland
B) Bernard Madoff
C) Jerome Mayne
D) Erich Goode
E) none of the above

Question 66

Why does certain behavior that is enacted within an organization setting merit belonging to a separate and distinct type of deviance? Does this distinction make sense or is it an effort to over-complicate the picture? Why or why not?

Question 67

In what ways do the four cases of corporate crime-the collapse of WorldCom, the pillaging of Tyco, the bankruptcy of Global Crossing, and the cooked books of Enron-illustrate the generalizations that apply to corporate crime discussed in this chapter?

Question 68

Discuss in what specific ways white collar and corporate crime are forms of deviance-and in what ways they are not forms of deviance-and in what specific ways corporate crime is, and is not, a form of white collar crime. Who, specifically, are the relevant audiences?

Question 69

In what ways does the notion of risk assessment come into the corporate and white collar crime picture?

Question 70

"Robert," a lawyer whose account appears in this chapter, was convicted of "structuring," a white collar crime. Point out the ways his behavior illustrates some of the principles discussed in this chapter and the ways in which it does not.