Flashcards and Answers – Sociology Ch. 7
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In the United States, men account for about _____ of all arrests for violent crime.
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about 80 percent
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Albert Cohen suggested that lower-class youths form a delinquent subculture to gain the self-respect that society denies them.
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true
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The concept of criminal recidivism refers to ________
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later offenses by people previously convicted of crimes.
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In legal terms, a crime is composed of which two components?
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The act and criminal intent
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Today in the United States, women are arrested for property crimes at the same rate as men are.
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false
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According to Robert Merton's strain theory, how would you classify a low-paid, yet compulsively conforming bank teller who never seems to want to get ahead but never seems to do anything wrong?
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Ritualist
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Organized crime refers to supplying legal goods and services at below market prices.
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false
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Robert Merton claimed that the "strains of masculinity" are an important cause of crime.
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false
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"The recognized violation of cultural norms" refers to the concept of ________
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deviance
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An example of the "medicalization of deviance" is ________
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theft being redefined as a "compulsive stealing."
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The concept of due process refers to ________
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the criminal justice system operating within the bounds of the law.
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His friends begin to criticize Marco as a "juice-head," pushing him out of their social circle. Feeling rejected, Marco begins to drink even more, becomes bitter, and joins a new group of friends who also are heavy drinkers. According to Lemert, Marco's situation illustrates ________
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the onset of secondary deviance.
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According to Durkheim, functions of deviance include ________
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the idea that responding to deviance promotes social unity.
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Based on your reading, it would be correct to say that biological approaches offer ________
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a very limited understanding of crime.
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According to Robert Merton's strain theory, the term ________would correctly describe a gangster like Al Capone, who made a lot of money breaking the law.
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innovator
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The stigma of deviance can encourage an individual to engage in further deviance.
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true
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If a parent threatens a child with punishment in order to discourage wrongdoing, the parent is using punishment to accomplish ________
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deterrence
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Edwin Sutherland stated that white-collar crime ________
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is usually resolved in a civil rather than a criminal court.
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Crime committed by persons of high social position during the course of their occupations is called ________
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white-collar crime.
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Feminist theory states that gender figures into the study of deviance because ________
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every society in the world applies stronger normative controls to females than to males.
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In the United States, even though the crime rate has gone down in recent years, the number of people in prison has gone up.
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true
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According to Robert Merton's strain theory, the term _______ correctly describes the behavior of a radical activist who rejects just about everything in the existing society in favor of some alternative system.
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rebel
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The likelihood a person will be arrested for a street crime rises sharply ________
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during the late teenage years.
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Participating in the subculture that Elijah Anderson describes as "the code of the streets" raises the risk that young people will end up ________
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in jail or worse.
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Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz states that the label of "insanity" is widely applied to behavior that is actually only "different."
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true
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What does the story about the conviction and imprisonment of Bruce Glover suggest about punishment in the United States?
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Convicts can lose everything important to them while in prison and, after release, they often struggle to fit back into society.
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Travis Hirschi's control theory makes the point that people who commit crimes typically have little concern about the potential consequences.
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true
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Edwin Lemert described "primary deviance" as ________
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the amount of contact a person has with others who encourage or discourage conventional behavior.
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Probation and parole are two types of community-based corrections.
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true
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According to Elliot Currie, factors that explain the high crime rate in the United States by world standards include ________
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our emphasis on individual economic success, which weakens the social fabric.
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Looking back in history, the oldest justification for punishing an offender is ________
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retribution
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"Primary deviance" refers to the most serious offenses.
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false
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Walter Reckless and Simon Dinitz developed containment theory, which claims that a strong superego or conscience helps boys stay out of trouble.
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true
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A poor person who has little chance to go to college and who sells illegal drugs to make money is one example of what Robert Merton called a deviant "innovator."
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true
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A hate crime is defined as ________
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a criminal act motivated by race or other bias.
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Prostitution is widely regarded as a ________
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victimless crime.
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The old saying, "An eye for an eye," expresses the idea underlying the policy of rehabilitation.
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false
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"Crime" differs from "deviance" in that crime ________
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refers to a violation of norms enacted into law.
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Labeling theory stresses that some actions are always wrong just as others are always right.
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false
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The concept "retrospective labeling" refers to the process of ________
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interpreting someone's past consistent with present deviance.
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Both Albert Cohen and Walter Miller argue that delinquency is most likely to arise among ________
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low-income youths.
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Using a Marxist approach, Steven Spitzer claims that prime targets for deviant labeling include ________
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people who try to take the property of others.
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What is considered deviant is mostly the same behavior all around the world.
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false
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In general, people of higher social class position are less likely to be arrested for street crimes than people of lower class position.
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true
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The basic idea behind labeling theory is that ________
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deviance arises not so much from what people do as how others respond to what they do.
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Research suggests that, with regard to social class, arrest for serious crime ________
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is higher for people at in lower class levels.
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In his study of New England's Puritans, Kai Erikson concluded that ________
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even this disciplined and highly religious group created deviance to clarify the moral boundaries of their community.
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The United States is the only Western, high-income nation that routinely imposes the death penalty on convicted offenders.
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true
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The correct view of the role of biology in causing people to commit crimes is that ________
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biological factors may have a real but small effect in causing some people to commit crimes.
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Whether people respond to deviance as a moral issue or a medical matter affects ________
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whether the person is subject to punishment or treatment.
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If a parent threatens a child with punishment in order to discourage wrongdoing, the parent is using punishment to accomplish ________
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deterrence
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According to the social-conflict approach, deviance has a number of useful functions for the operation of society as a whole.
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False
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Most criminal cases handled by the criminal justice system in the United States are resolved ________
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through plea bargaining.
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In terms of racial categories, most of the people in the United States arrested for FBI Index crimes are ________
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white
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Women commit ________
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a far smaller share of crimes than men.
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Every person charged with a crime in the United States is sentenced after receiving a trial by jury.
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false
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Corporate crime refers to stealing or other crimes that are committed against a corporation or other large business.
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false
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Cloward and Ohlin extended Merton's theory of deviance, stating that crime ________
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reflects both limited legitimate opportunity as well as accessible illegitimate opportunity.
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Reducing prison overcrowding, the costs of dealing with offenders, and helping offenders avoid the stigma of incarceration are all advantages of ________
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community-based corrections.
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Participating in the subculture that Elijah Anderson describes as "the code of the streets" raises the risk that young people will end up ________
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in jail or worse.
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Because there are several hundred people in the United States for every police officer, police ________
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use discretion in deciding which situations warrant their attention.
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"Due process" means handling alleged offenders within the bounds of the law.
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true
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"Crimes against the person" includes all but ________
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burglary
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Biological factors, including genetics, explain most criminal behavior.
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false
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Every society uses various strategies to regulate the behavior of individuals; this general process is called ________
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social control
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Alexander Liazos speaks for the social-conflict approach when he states that ________
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Correct powerless people are at the highest risk of being defined as deviant.
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Men, who represent about half the U.S. population, account for about _____ of all arrests for property crime.
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63%
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According to the social-conflict approach, what a society labels as deviant is based primarily on ________
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differences in power between various categories of people.
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The formal system that responds to alleged violations of the law using police, courts, and prison officials is called ________
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the criminal justice system
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The "medicalization of deviance" idea points to the fact that most crimes are committed by people who are under the influence of an illegal drug.
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false
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One of the social foundations of deviance is that ________
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deviance exists only in relation to cultural norms.
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Thomas Szasz made the controversial assertion that ________
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mental illness is a myth so that "insanity" is only "differences" that bother other people.
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The value of psychological theories of deviance is limited because ________
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most people who commit crimes have normal personalities.
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Mike reports the theft of his dirt bike from the front yard of his house. The police would record this event as which type of crime?
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Larceny-theft
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Feminist theory claims that women, compared to men, are subject to greater social control.
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true
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In Robert Merton's strain theory of deviance, ___________ refers to the process of seeking conventional goals but rejecting the conventional means to achieve them.
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innovation
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A judge sentences a young man who has committed several crimes to counseling and places him in a supportive foster home. These efforts to prevent further wrongdoing are called ________
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rehabilitation
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Cesare Lombroso, an Italian physician and criminologist, claimed that most criminals were people who had been mistreated by society.
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false
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Victimization surveys show that the actual amount of crime in the United States is about _____ what official reports indicate.
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more than twice as high
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Travis Hirschi's control theory suggests that the category of people most likely to engage in deviance is ________
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youngsters who "hang out" waiting for something to happen.
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Walter Reckless and Simon Dinitz claimed that "good boys" have the ability to rein in deviant impulses. They called their analysis ________
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containment theory
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Emile Durkheim's analysis suggests it would be impossible for a society to completely eliminate deviance.
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true
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Assume you were listening to a lecture on Durkheim's approach to deviance. The focus of the lecture might be that ________
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deviance is a normal element of social organization.
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What concept did Erving Goffman use to refer to a powerful and negative label that greatly changes a person's self-concept and social identity?
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stigma
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Organized crime refers to ________
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any business that supplies illegal goods or services.
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A judge orders that an offender be sentenced to prison for a short time, with most of the sentence served on probation. This sentence reflects a policy called ________
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shock probation.
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_________ refers to the illegal actions of a corporation or people acting on its behalf.
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corporate crime
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Edwin Sutherland's differential association theory links deviance to ________
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the amount of contact a person has with others who encourage or discourage conventional behavior.
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Of all the property crimes discussed in the chapter, one crime occurs far more than all the others. Which one is it?
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larceny-theft
