Soc 3600 – Flashcards
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Criminology uses the scientific method to study the _______ of criminal behavior
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Nature, extent, cause, and control
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Criminologists who study the correction and control of criminals?
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Penology
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Individuals interacting with people, organizations, institutes, and social norms as they develop and mature.
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Socialization
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A deviant act becomes a crime when it is deemed socially harmful or dangerous and ____
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is defined, prohibited, and punished under criminal law.
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Which concept of crime implies that crimes are behaviors that members of all societies consider repugnant whether rich or poor?
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The consensus view of crime
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Which view of crime sees society as a collection of diverse groups who are in a constant struggle to gain political power in order to advance their economic/social situation?
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The conflict view of crime
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The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is collected by who?
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FBI
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What is a validity concern with the National Crime Victimization survey?
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victims over reporting a crime
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The process of selecting for study a limited number of subjects in a population
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Sampling
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What phenomenon impacts the accuracy of self-report studies?
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"over reporting" phenomenon
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When evaluating three primary sources of crime data UCR, NCVS, and self-reporting, the crime patterns and trends are ____
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Quite similar
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Which factor regardless of economic and martial status have the greatest influence on crime rates?
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Age
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Higher crime rates in inner-city can be associated with?
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Law enforcement practices and social class
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What is a significant gender difference dealing with victimization risk?
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Women are more likely to be victimized by a stranger
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This refers to a victim's physical weakness or stress making them incapable of resisting or deterring crime
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Target vulnerability
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Person who is consistently victimized because of what they wear and them boasting about their income. What type of victimization?
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Target gratifiability
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Which victimization theory claims that victims may initiate, either passively or actively, the confrontation that leads to their victimization?
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Victim precipitation theory
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What theory is the greater one's exposure to dangerous places, the more likely they will become a victim of violence and crime?
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Deviant place theory
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What category of victim precipitation occurs when the victim has some personal characteristic that unknowingly threatens or encourages the attacker?
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Passive precipitation
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Theory that victim results from three everyday factors, availability of suitable targets, absence of guardian, and presence of motivated offenders.
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Routine activities theory
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According to the rational choice theory, what circumstance would prompt an offender to decide to not forgo crime?
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The offender would stand a good chance of being caught and punished
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The "high" one gets from committing successfully illegal activity
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Edgework
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The concept of general deterrence holds that:
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the decision to commit crime can be controlled by the threat of punishment
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What elements of deterrence does a person who believes they'll be caught if they commit a crime and are the ones most likely to not become criminals reflect?
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Certainty of punishment
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Research on the impact of well-publicized executions has:
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failed to find any influence that executions decrease murder rates.
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What is true about harsh sanctions and deterrence
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Can cause psychological problems, locks people into criminal careers, and may result in defiance rather than deterrence.
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If more criminals are sent to prison, then the incarceration rate should go down, is what?
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Incapacitation effect
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2 Categories in which criminologists develop theories of crime causation
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Psychological and sociological
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What are the three social goals of law?
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Creating equity, deterring criminal behavior, and enforcing social control
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What three things are included in the Victim's Bill of Rights?
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Speedy trial, victim's contact info confidential, and consulted before a case is dismissed or a plea agreement entered
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Offenses designed to improve the financial or social position of the criminal are known as what type of crime?
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Instrumental crimes
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What is a limitation of UCR data for criminologist interested in crime rate trends?
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Only the most serious crime reported
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T/F Crime is any action that violates a social norm
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False
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What criminological tradition was founded on the scientific method, logical reasoning, empirical verification, and value-free judgement?
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Positivist criminology
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What theory reflects the view that criminality is a product of abnormal biological or psychological traits?
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Trait Theory
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Diet hormones, and environmental factors are the causes of behavior in what perspective?
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Biochemical
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Locations with the highest concentrations of lead also report with the highest levels of what?
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Homicide
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What strongly predicts a child's criminal behavior?
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the child's criminal biological father
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The theory that people learn to be aggressive through their life experiences
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Social learning theory
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What are the three principle sources of behavior modeling?
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Mass media, family interactions, and environmental experiences
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What theory is a psychological perspective that focuses on mental processes and how people perceive and mentally represent the world around them?
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Cognitive Theory
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Cultural deviance theory combines elements of social disorganization theories and _______
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Strain
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Why are personal relationships strained in socially disorganized neighborhoods?
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Residents are constantly moving in and out of the neighborhood
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Social disorganization theory was popularized by the work of what two Chicago sociologists?
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Shaw and McKay
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Cohesive communities with high levels of social control and integration where people develop interpersonal ties are likely to develop what?
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Collective efficacy
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When members of the lower class are unable to achieve success and thus feel anger frustration, and resentment is what?
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Strain
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What two elements of culture interact to produce anomic conditions?
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Culturally defined goals and socially approved means for obtaining them.
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Which of Merton's social adaptations rejects the goals of society but excepts the means of obtaining them?
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Ritualism
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Which of Merton's social adaptations is most closely associated with criminal behavior?
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Innovation
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Judith and Peter Blau developed the concept of what?
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Relative deprivation
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General strain theory is not purely structural theory because it focuses on how ____ influence behavior
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Life events
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Walter Miller identified the three unique conduct norms that define lower class culture and clash with conventional values. What are they?
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Fate, toughness, and autonomy
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What is a basic concept of all social process theories?
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all people regardless of their race, class, or gender are basically good.
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What theory suggests that crime occurs when the force that bind people to society are weakened or broken?
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Social control theory
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What theory suggests that people become criminals when members of society successfully label them as such?
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Social Reaction (Labeling) theory
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According to Freud what is the primitive part of peoples makeup that represent the unconscious biological drives and has no concern for others?
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Id
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What are the three major principles of differential association?
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Criminal behavior is learned, learning it involves assimilating techniques, and one becomes criminal when they perceive more favorable consequences of violating the law.
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What research findings support the core principles of differential association theory?
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Crime appears to be inter generational
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What are the criticisms of differential association theory?
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It assumes criminal and delinquent acts to be rational and systematic and it fails to account for the origin of criminal definitions
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What theory suggests that even the most committed criminals are not involved in criminality all the time?
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Neutralization theory
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What social bonds did Travis Hirischi state that a person maintains with society and are divided into three main elements?
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Attachment, commitment, and involvement
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What issue has been raised regarding the validity of social control?
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Delinquency may lead to weakened social bonds, but not vice versa
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What statements are supported by labeling theory?
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Labeling theory identifies the role played by social agents in crime causation and distinguishes between criminal acts and criminal careers
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Developmental theories provide a natural history of criminal careers by encompassing
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Its onset, continuation, and termination
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What theory is the belief that human development is controlled by a master trait present at birth or soon after that results in an increased propensity to commit crime?
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Latent Trait Theory
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What is an inaccurate statement about problem behaviors and its syndrome?
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Problem behavior syndrome portrays crime as the product of other social problems
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Why is early onset an important factor in crime?
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Because early onset of antisocial behavior predicts later, serious crime.
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What are significant life-changing events that reduce criminality according to Laub and Sampson?
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Getting married, getting a job, joining the military
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Laub and Sampson identify transitions as short-term events embedded in what?
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Trajectories
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Which empirical evidence supports the general theory of crime?
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low self-control is significantly related to antisocial behavior and the association can be seen regardless of culture or national setting
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What are the pathways identified by Lober's Trajectory theory?
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Overt, Covert, and authority conflict pathways
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T/F According to social structure theorists, social inequality is a real thing
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True
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T/F High crime rates are enough to prevent a neighborhood from having informal social controls
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False
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T/F According to social control theorists those not receiving affection during childhood are more prone to criminal behavior
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True
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According to conflict theorists, societal conflict promotes crime by what?
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Creating a social atmosphere in which the law is a mechanism for controlling have-not members of society
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According to critical theorists, crime is what?
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Political concept designed to protect the power and position of the upper class
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What are inherent contradictions in capitalism according to Marx and Engels?
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Market saturation, disparity between rich and poor, and displacement of human labor with technology
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______ are criminal acts committed by government officials
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State (organized) crime
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This is the view that the law and justice system are there to serve the interest of the upper class
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Instrumental theory
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This is the ability of persons to control behaviors, shape opinion, and define deviance/
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Power
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According to this type of critical theory, the poor may or may not commit more crimes than the rich, but they are arrested more
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Left Realism
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________ Reflects a critical perspective that explains the exploitation of women and their criminality in terms of inequality and patriarchy
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Critical feminism
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Which of the following have been know to reduce crime according to Reiman and Leighton?
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Therapy, education and thinking skills.
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According to power-control theory, what type of family produces daughters whose criminal behaviors mirror their brothers?
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Egalitarian families
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Peacemaking criminologists view the efforts of the state to punish and control crime as
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Encouraging crime rather than discouraging it
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The _____ perspective emphasizes the promotion of a peaceful society through reconciliation and reintegration of the person into society.
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Restorative justice
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Which of the following are an aim of restorative justice?
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Address victim's harms and needs, hold offender accountable, and involve victim offender and communities in healing
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Which of the following are a known source of crime according to Reiman and Leighton?
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Prison, guns, poverty and inequality
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Which of the following is a source of violence according to the textbook?
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Cultural values, substance abuse, and personal traits
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First-degree murder occurs when a person kills another after deliberation and ____
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Premeditation
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This is someone who kills four or more people in a single event
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Mass murderer
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A number of research studies have been focused on armed robbery, what have the studies found?
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Robbers are rational decision makers who look for easy prey
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______ is murder without malice
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Manslaughter
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________ violence are acts designed to improve the financial or social position of the offender?
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Instrumental
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This is offensive toughing, slapping, or hitting
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Battery
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This is the taking of anything of value
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Robbery
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Which of the following aspects of the criminal justice system distorts the reality of the crime according to Reiman and Leighton
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Legislators, police and prosecutors, and juries/ judges
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Which of the following is not one of the dangers to your health Reiman and Leighton identify?
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Family
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Which of the following are categories of political criminals?
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Occupational, organizational, and independent.
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This is the illegal interference with the process of an election
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Election fraud
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These are illegal acts that are designed to undermine, challenge or damage an existing government and threaten its survival
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Political Crimes
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This is any act that causes severe pain to obtain info or punish
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Torture
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Is the use of social, political, economical, and cultural practices to control people and their land?
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Neocolonialism
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What industry did Eisenhower warn the American people about in 61?
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Military industrial complex
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Who pilots drones in the film Drone?
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US Air Force
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T/F Assualt requires no actual touching, but involves either attempted battery or intentionally frightening the victim by word or deed
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True
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T/F definition of rape changed in 2012
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True
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T/F at Abu Ghraib prison Eric Fair was enlisted in the US military
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False
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Violations of laws designed to protect the environment
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Green-Collar Crime
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Economic crimes that involve business enterprise such as embezzlement, bribery, and price fixing
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White-Collar crime
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Theft of a small amount of money or property, punished as a misdemeanor
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Petty Larceny
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Theft of money or property of substantial value. Felony.
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Grand Larceny
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A type of larceny in which someone who is trusted with property fraudulently converts it to their own use of the use of others
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Embezzlement
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Injury caused to others by willful wrongful conduct
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Social Harm
