Chapter 16 Crime, Deviance, and Social Control True or False 1. Andrew "naked guy" Martinez eventually inspired clothes optional zones on the Berkeley campus. Answer: False 2. A social group simply requires social interaction and a mutual feeling that everyone thinks alike for the most part. Answer: True 3. A shared language is NOT a marker of group identity. Answer: False 4. A church door is a symbolic border, but the border between Canada and the United States is purely physical. Answer: False 5. A negative affirmation is synonymous with excluded behavior. Answer: True 6. The "eye for an eye" principle was first established in the Jewish Talmud. Answer: False 7. If enough people used medical marijuana, it would normalize the "deviant" smoking of marijuana. Answer: True 8. A norm is a social construct that exists when it is not just understood, but in a bill of rights or a similar document. Answer: False 9. Recognizing that a person has personal space is recognizing a social norm. Answer: True 10. Establishing coed bathrooms will always violate a social norm. Answer: False 11. Like written laws, moral behavior, too, is subject to reinterpretation. Answer: True 12. We all have an interest in having our private property protected, but for holders of great wealth the stakes are much higher. Their interest in crimes against property are, therefore, said to be disinterested. Answer: False 13. Interested punishment can best be described as any measure to protect the interest made on the money owed to high-income individuals. Answer: False 14. Lawbreakers who engage in theft are the intended recipients of interested punishment. Answer: True 15. At one time in U.S. history, it was common for adult males to drink the equivalent of two bottles of 80proof hard liquor each week. Answer: True 16. In the labeling theory of deviance, an act that is considered to be deviant may have been considered to be normal at an earlier point in time. Answer: True 17. The Geneva Conventions are international agreements to ensure that prisoners of war are not mistreated. Answer: True 18. What sociologists find central to deviance is the pathological nature of the deviant. Answer: False 19. The criminal justice system doesn't include defense lawyers. Answer: False 20. Today's proponents of retribution for argue that the punishment should factor on statistical evidence that suggests harsher sentencing will reduce future crimes. Answer: False 21. Mass incarceration is another word for concentration camps. Answer: False 22. The rise in "moral crusades" has resulted in a rise in arrests. Answer: True 23. U.S. felons lose the right to vote in all 50 U.S. states. Answer: False 24. The New York City Police Department's "stop and frisk" policy is primarily a post-9/11 antiterrorist measure. Answer: False 25. "Defining deviance downward" means that the powerful define ordinary behavior of the weak as deviant. Answer: True Multiple Choice 1. In the case of the "naked guy," Andrew Martinez, who or what ultimately decided that he could no longer walk about the Berkeley campus without clothes? A. common sense B. those who write and enforce the laws C. family pressure D. public opinion (i.e., his fellow students) Answer: D 2. Andrew Martinez's attempt to conduct a "nude-in" with fellow nudists in the Berkeley area resembled, but was not a(n) __________ because he was still not deemed "normal"—indeed his very lack of that made it difficult to go about in a way that was "normal" to him. A. political movement B. affirmation of group boundary C. civil rights protest D. social group Answer: B 3. Deviance and control always constitute a paired relationship that consists of the __________ and __________. A. parents; their children B. controllers; the controlled C. boundaries; those inside the boundaries D. individual; group Answer: D 4. According to Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents, which of the following best exemplifies what he meant by basic needs and the "futility of rebellion"? A. Dorcas is told she must save her allowance or else. B. Magda is sent to bed early for wetting her pants. C. Carl, who is seven, is told "get to bed now" when he lies awake at night texting his friend. D. Having lost his second pair of contact lenses in a week, Lou is told he has to wear his glasses. He refuses. Answer: C 5. Our earliest encounter with what is perceived to be normality is, essentially, that of __________. A. our grandparents B. society C. your religion D. parents and the like Answer: D 6. Which of the following is NOT a positive affirmation that a group would apply to one of its members? A. anorexic friends who binge together B. always writing legibly for the benefit of others C. making a gang sign in a photograph posted on Facebook D. wearing the same clothes as your friends Answer: B 7. Which of the following is the least likely to be both a symbolic boundary and physical boundary? A. the doors of a synagogue B. a sorority house C. a police uniform D. a railroad track Answer: D 8. Which group is the most likely to perceive others as outsiders? A. a motorcycle club that takes over a bar on Friday nights B. so-called "Minutemen" patrolling the Texas–Mexico border C. an Evangelical church seeking new members D. the members of a group home for the mentally challenged Answer: B 9. When a group of girls determine that others can join their group only if they are gay, they are _________. A. establishing a symbolic boundary into which they conform B. insulting straight girls to feel better about themselves C. not sharing their identity D. establishing a negative affirmation Answer: D 10. If one were to conduct archival research on the oldest known written set of laws in human history, one would be examining __________. A. cave paintings B. the oral transmission of norms C. the first statistics collected on deviance D. Hammurabi's code Answer: D 11. Simply put, to be a "deviant" entails __________. A. a range of outsider activities, most often sexual in nature B. violating religious commandments C. doing something as innocent as not tucking in your shirt D. violating a rule that brings with it the disapproval of others Answer: D 12. What key factor played into Cesare Beccaria's formula for making people obey the law? A. harshness B. fairness C. transparency D. all of the above Answer: B 13. Which of the following is an example of statistical deviance? A. Three men have built a meth lab in the basement. B. The Occupy Wall Street protesters marched without a permit. C. Four female students are arrested for appearing topless on the university commons. D. A man decides to sing loudly while he is shopping for groceries. Answer: D 14. From the point of view of sociology, an Orthodox Jewish school for girls requiring long skirts is __________ compared to the dress code of girls in most public schools. A. statistically deviant B. statistically moral C. socially deviant D. an acceptable norm Answer: A 15. When a couple gets married and vows to remain faithful, they are expressing a(n) __________. A. religious conviction B. willingness to behave according to what people expect of a faithful marriage C. acceptable behavior D. obedience vis-à-vis a civil marriage or union Answer: B 16. When is a "deviant" behavior deviant according to most sociologists? A. When it violates societal rules. B. When the behavior harms society vis-à-vis common law. C. Only when a written sanction (i.e., law) has been established for the deviant behavior. D. When the behavior receives arbitrary punishment. Answer: A 17. What did Durkheim mean by "the unstated terms of the social contract"? A. an enormous number of unwritten rules that belonged in the law codes of France B. what sociologists eventually called "norms" C. the unspeakable behavior of the nineteenth century D. the tacit understanding that the Victorian French cheated on their spouses Answer: B 18. A norm can best be defined as a(n) __________. A. engagement that makes a person comfortable B. acceptable behavior C. basic rule of society D. all of the above Answer: C 19. Why might a yogi in southern India or a Buddhist monk in Nepal violate a Westerner's so-called "norm of engagement"? A. Their meditation and postures can be disturbing to the uninitiated. B. They are being idle. C. What looks like their doing nothing is doing something according to their callings and culture. D. Southern India and Nepal have no norm of engagement. Answer: C 20. Which would most likely be a root for the discomfort described by Goffman (1963) in explaining the "norm of engagement"? A. Weber's Protestant work ethic B. Marx's belief in the capitalist dis-ease for exploitation C. Durkheim's social contract D. Freud's theory of the guilt complex Answer: A 21. The debtor's prisons of the nineteenth century are good examples __________. A. of interested punishment B. of uninterested punishment C. of both interested and uninterested punishment D. of "encouragement" to make the poor save money and pay debts Answer: C 22. Which group or cause became the primary driver of the Temperance Movement according to the author of this chapter? A. industrialization and excessive drinking proved to be incompatible for a compliant and productive working class B. foreign immigrants who were believed to drink in excess C. alcohol fuelled the abuse of women D. drinking less would better acclimate the new immigrants to the previous levels of morality and social drinking Answer: B 23. The 1919 constitutional amendment that outlawed the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages in the United States failed because __________. A. of civil disobedience B. organized crime undermined the new law C. the religiosity that once supported such a law vanished after World War I D. people were allowed to distill their own alcoholic beverages Answer: A 24. The widespread use of morphine that followed the Civil War was for what reason? A. as an alternative to alcohol consumption B. the spread of patent medicines C. the invention of the hypodermic needle D. to treat an array of medical problems Answer: D 25. The heaviest users of morphine in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century were __________. A. doctors B. middle-class white women C. Chinese immigrants D. Civil War veterans Answer: B 26. The great irony in American history is how the "demon rum" of the nineteenth century became a mark of good taste for the social drinker. What reason would best explain the cause? A. The patterns of consumption changed both in the amounts and who drank alcoholic beverages. B. The ingredients in rum no longer changed Christian Americans into "devils." C. After Prohibition, alcohol consumption became socially acceptable. D. Women began drinking more during the Roaring Twenties. Answer: A 27. The transition of opiate use from an acceptable, if often abused pain reliever to that of a pleasure seeking drug also saw a change _________. A. in the drug's pharmacology, which provided more relief for the "psychological pain" of poverty and urban life B. in the distribution from doctors to pushers C. in the demographics of the user to that of working-class—and very often black—males D. its former female demographic, which turned increasingly to social drinking during the Roaring Twenties Answer: C 28. The War on Drugs to reduce abuse, protect children, make neighbourhoods safer, and the like, fell disproportionately on __________, rather than treating the broader spectrum of social ills and classes for which it was intended. A. the urban and rural poor B. radical college students C. homosexuals D. African Americans Answer: D 29. One "success" for the modern crusade against homosexuality is __________. A. the military banning homosexual soldiers B. shutting down gay bathhouses C. bullying gays D. all of the above Answer: A 30. Moral regulation, indeed, the effort to legislate morality is being curbed by what phenomenon? A. There is a general support for lifestyle freedom rather than organized resistance. B. There is a perception that such initiatives are anachronisms, that they make you look old-fashioned. C. Young people are naturally curious and rebellious and want to see what will happen. D. There is a greater effort to teach people that enforcing morality is wrong. Answer: A 31. One police officer decides to pull over drivers going 10 miles over the speed limit. To make his quota, another police officer decides to pull over drivers going 7 mph over the limit. Who is being fairer? A. Both are since this range is the typical "grace" allowed to motorists. B. Neither. Both should enforce the posted speed limit. C. It depends on road conditions. D. Fairness is not the issue when both officers interpret the law arbitrarily. Answer: D 32. Which of the following would best illustrate how sociologists see process as defining deviance? A. Cigarette smoking can be interpreted as deviant behavior because it can be labelled as self-destructive rather than "sophisticated." B. The sexual mechanics between people of the same sex and how it looks "wrong" or "gross." C. The way something is deviant to one group and normal to another. D. Only those with power have the power to label certain behavior as deviant. Answer: A 33. How does labeling a one as deviant reinforce the so-called "deviance"? A. It becomes something like a "self-fulfilling prophecy," thereby proving the person is a deviant after all. B. Once labelled a deviant, an individual's actions are more closely scrutinized by others, improving the odds that the person will be caught in further acts of deviance. C. The person consciously accepts the premise of those in social control. D. Deviance becomes a form of social acceptances, that is, what society expects of the deviant. Answer: B 34. Edwin Sutherland (1949) coined the term __________ to describe a form of crime that was once not even considered a crime that put Americans at risk. A. white-collar justice B. corporate malfeasance C. embezzlement D. white-collar crime Answer: D 35. What criminal activity ultimately brought Enron executives to justice? A. overcharging California's energy users B. forcing elderly people to get off the power grid C. false profit reporting D. all of the above Answer: C 36. What is the deviant behavior of those people complicit in the 2008 U.S. financial crisis? A. deceptive subprime loans made to people who could not pay off their mortgages B. setting teaser rates C. people borrowing money they knew they would not pay back D. capitalism entails some form of deviant behavior in order to sell its products and services Answer: A 37. Why is white-collar crime punished disproportionally compared to blue-collar crime? A. White-collar criminals can easily pay their bails and penalties with the very money they steal. B. Only sociologists see white-collar crime as deviant. C. White-collar criminals are typically judged by other white-collar criminals. D. White-collar crimes are still perceived as victimless, that is, not harming its victims in the personal way a blue-collar crime harms its victims. Answer: D 38. When Congress and U.S. presidents altered the _________ that precipitated the S&L crisis and the subprime loan scandal, it prime example of how flexible __________ is for those who hold the power. A. U.S. Constitution; power B. banking laws; deviancy C. mortgage laws; state terrorism D. money supply; the goal post Answer: B 39. Which of the following is more likely to be punished by the criminal justice system? A. state deviance B. corporate crime C. "blue-collar crime" D. white-collar crime Answer: C 40. Which of the following is NOT an element of state deviance? A. violating international law B. government surveillance C. political ideology D. war crimes Answer: C 41. According the author of this chapter, an act of terrorism can only be performed by entities that are not nation states. A. False, guerillas and terrorists can be state-sponsored. B. True, because acts of terrorism are typically small and limited in impact. C. False, any entity, whether a state, group, or individual can perform a terrorist act. D. True, terrorism is the preferred method of warfare that is conducted by revolutionary forces. Answer: C 42. Why was guerilla warfare and acts of terrorism rare in history? A. States typically observed rules of engagement on a battlefield. B. The modern media did not exist yet. C. People had a morality that prevented them from committing terrorist acts. D. Terrorism has always existed. Political assassinations, for example, were premodern terrorist acts. Answer: A 43. State terrorism is a form of __________. A. counterterrorism so as to engage terrorists on an equal footing B. terrorism that violates the same laws and conventions that stateless and state-sponsored terrorists do C. terrorism in which prisoners are abused, such as those at Abu Ghraib. D. warfare conducted by terrorist states such as the former Libya. Answer: B 44. Why were the reprehensible acts (humiliation, cultural disrespect, torture, etc.) at the Abu Ghraib prison not a clear case of institutional deviance? A. The officers who ran the prison tried to cover for their subordinates. B. Military culture is impervious to taking responsibility. C. The Bush administration took full responsibility. D. The U.S. military blamed the sadistic tendencies of individual soldiers, not the chain of command. Answer: D 45. What is the critical difference between what President Obama did in regard to torture conducted by the military and his predecessor? A. President Obama put ex-President Bush on trial for continuing to allow waterboarding. B. President Obama banned torture in 2009. C. President Obama switched from torture to drone attacks. D. President Obama formally ended the War on Terror. Answer: B 46. A CIA black site is __________. A. a secret prison or holding facility in a country outside of U.S. legal authority B. foreign prisons rented by the U.S. government for interrogating prisoners accused of terrorism C. a drone launching facility D. a kind of torture in which terrorist suspects and deprived of light and go temporarily blind Answer: B 47. The deviance implicit in a drone strike is __________. A. that its operators can violate the values they supposedly uphold, such as the inviolability of a noncombatant state's borders B. killing noncombatants such as innocent civilians C. that it allows the United States to engage in political assassinations, which are illegal D. that it engages with the enemy without following the rules of engagement. Answer: B 48. Which of the following is NOT commonly understood to be an institution of social control? A. criminal courts B. police departments C. the workplace D. schools Answer: C 49. Social control requires both __________ and __________. A. rewards; punishments B. sanctions; compliments C. formal; informal control factors D. people to emulate; people to avoid Answer: A 50. In U.S. society, which group of people typically do NOT have the power to enforce formal sanctions? A. the clergy B. the National Guard C. the state highway patrol D. principals of Catholic schools Answer: A 51. In the list below, find a modern example of the Robin Hood paradigm that shows how society can "agree" with social deviancy. A. doctors who assist in letting terminal patients have the right to die B. activists who sit in trees to protect old-growth forests C. animal rights supporters who release animals from medical laboratories D. all of the above Answer: D 52. As societies become more complex, __________ even as these societies become more progressive. A. informal sanctions are being formalized B. formal means of control have expanded C. mass surveillance will replace both informal and formal sanctions D. they will see a rise in deviance vis-à-vis social control Answer: B 53. What is the critical difference between jail and prison? Prison is designated for true incarceration. Jail is intended for short periods of incarceration, prisons for longer. Prison is where deviants experience the full force of social control. Jail is for individual control; prison for mass. Answer: B 54. Probation can best be described as __________. A. as home incarceration B. the shock release of nonviolent prisoners into the general population C. another way to say "criminal probe." D. punishment that permits an offender to live in the community rather than serve a prison sentence Answer: D 55. Societies punish offenders of criminal law for four primary reasons: (1) to exact retribution for the victims of criminal acts; (2) to deter offenders, and others, from committing crimes in the future; (3) to incapacitate or otherwise prevent offenders from committing; and (4) to __________. A. exact revenge B. rehabilitate offenders C. reintroduce offenders back into society D. relearn social skills Answer: B 56. The victimization surveys used in social research are more reliable records in measuring world crime rates because __________. A. victims tend to be more honest than criminals B. such surveys ask questions that are specific to the country in which the victim lives C. police and government agencies in different countries record crimes differently D. they include murder witnesses to stand in for the murder victim Answer: C 57. Which of the following statements about the United States is indicative of reality? A. Crime rates in the United States are, on average, very similar to those of other first world nations. B. Crime rates are much higher in the United States, which now has a reputation overseas as a very violent place to visit. C. The United States actually imprisons, on average, the same number of people per capita as do other nations. D. Murders in the United States almost always are committed by strangers on strangers. Answer: A 58. Which of the following is identified by the author of this chapter as being a primary cause in the jump in prison populations since the early 1970s? A. the end of the Civil Rights era B. the decline of morals C. increased crime rates D. the criminalization of drug use and the War on Drugs Answer: D 59. Social scientists have identified three trends that indicated why Americans want increasing numbers of people incarcerated. Which of the following is NOT one of them identified by the author of this chapter? A. urban riots in the 1960s that signified societal decline B. the War on Poverty of the 1960s that created a criminal class C. the economic downturn in the 1970s that identified people to blame for social problems D. the conservative backlash to the 1960s Answer: B 60. The perception that African Americans are lawbreakers began __________. A. during the Colonial Period B. in the early twentieth century C. due to increasing film and television portrayals of blacks as criminals D. just after the Civil War Answer: B 61. When it comes to drug-related offenses, compared to whites, blacks are __________ more likely to serve a prison sentence. A. 30 percent B. three times C. four times D. 75 percent Answer: B 62. As one scholar opines, racial makeup of the rising prison population reflects a "new Jim Crow." What is meant by this? A. The large numbers of African Americans in the prison population suggest the "Coloured Only" accommodations (e.g., cinemas, restaurants, schools) that were once common in the American South up until the mid-twentieth century. B. It is a metaphorical way of saying that African Americans are being lynched today. C. White skinheads are increasingly behaving like the KKK. D. Laws are increasingly becoming black-only when enforced. Answer: A 63. Who else suffers from mass incarceration? A. the victims of crimes because retribution is purely an emotional reward B. the families of incarcerated individuals, especially African Americans C. the victims of black-on-black crime D. all of the above Answer: B 64. The author of this chapter proposes that __________ would have had a much different outcome, had millions not lost the right to vote in that election decades earlier. A. the presidential election of 1996 B. the presidential election of 1992 C. the presidential election of 2000 D. the presidential election of 2008 Answer: C 65. To prove how those in power have the ability to define deviance and set the formal sanctions for punishment and reward, the author of this chapter describes a "what-if" scenario: What if the British had beaten the American colonies during the Revolutionary War? How might the British victors have addressed the deviance of the Founding Fathers and their supporters? A. by freeing their slaves as punishment B. by arresting and punishing the revolutionaries and rewarding the loyalists by formally annexing the C. colonies to Canada D. by trying the Founding Father for their attempt to break royal treaties with the Indians Answer: B Scenario Multiple Choice 1. Felix's family recently moved from a small town to a big city, where he is now "the new kid" at his high school. Eager to figure out where and how to fit in, Felix observed the school's informal cliques. He quickly learned that each group had its own way of defining themselves as well as labeling other groups outside its own territory. Felix was identifying the __________ of these groups. A. deviant behavior B. norms C. sanctions D. symbolic boundaries Answer: D 2. Taylor and Ally are attending a home game to cheer on their favourite baseball team. Taylor, like the vast majority of fans in attendance, is wearing the home team's jersey. Ally is wearing a random T-shirt, that isn't even the team's colour. Ally's behavior is __________. A. socially controlled B. socially deviant C. statistically deviant D. the norm Answer: C 3. An elite group of wealthy property owners is meeting to discuss common concerns. At the top of its list is the recent increase in identity theft and fraud. The group wants to toughen its town's laws and penalties against such criminal behavior, in an effort to protect citizens and deter offenders. This group is considering __________. A. disinterested behavior B. disinterested punishment C. interested punishment D. labeling theory Answer: C 4. Ever since it was discovered that their children's principal is gay, a group of concerned parents has been on a mission to have the principal removed from office. There are no reported instances of any inappropriate behavior, and no one has filed a specific complaint against the principal. The actions of these parents, who are uncomfortable with having a gay administrator in their children's school, is often called a __________. A. deterrence B. moral crusade C. prohibition D. sanction Answer: B 5. For as long as he can remember, Kerry has been known as a troublemaker. His parents and siblings often tell him he will not amount to anything, and some of his neighbours call him a punk. He has even been referred to as "hopeless" by his teachers. By the time Kerry turned 16, he had dropped out of school and had been arrested twice. Kerry's trajectory toward a life of crime can best be explained by using __________. A. archival research B. labeling theory C. social norms D. symbolic boundaries Answer: B 6. For several years, a manufacturing plant had been knowingly polluting a nearby river with chemical waste, resulting in serious illnesses and at least three deaths among area residents. When the source of the pollution was proven to be plant waste, charges and lawsuits were filed, but the company's CEO was never held officially accountable. This situation is an example of __________. A. retribution B. social control C. state deviance D. white-collar crime Answer: D 7. Which of the following scenarios best demonstrates the relationship that exists between deviance and power? A. Carlton desperately wants an A in his economics class but currently has a B-. The professor (who is also the dean) refuses to let him improve his grade through extra credit, so Carlton cheats on one of his exams. Carlton is caught by the professor, who gives him a zero on that test and threatens to expel him. B. A well-respected city alderman, whose campaign was hugely supported by the local police force, was caught driving under the influence. When the police officer realized whom, he had stopped, he decided to let the alderman off with a warning, not arrest him. C. A black public defender took the case of a black defendant who allegedly stole a white woman's car. The victim demanded that the defendant's lawyer be replaced with a white lawyer, to "improve her chances for a fair trial." The black judge denied her request. D. Sherri was laid off from her job six months ago and has had no success finding other employment. As a single mother, she's worried about her family's future. She has applied for loans from four major financial institutions but has been denied by each one. Feeling powerless against the big banks and desperate for money, she begins stealing food and other items needed by her family. Answer: B 8. In an attempt to rid the land of undesirables, one country's leaders sanctioned the expulsion of over 10,000 residents. Another country's government officials utilized inhumane methods to extract information from detainees. Both of these cases are examples of state ________. A. retribution B. control C. state deviance D. terrorism Answer: C 9. When it was learned that a community leader was having an extramarital affair, his constituents were outraged at the effects his actions had on his wife and children. They couldn't throw him in jail, so they shunned him. In essence, they pretended that their leader didn't exist. By ignoring him whenever they encountered him, what form of social control did the community exercise? A. formal sanctions B. informal sanctions C. labeling D. probation Answer: B 10. According to current ideology among social scientists, which of the following reasons best explains why the United States is experiencing mass incarceration and has a significantly higher incarceration rate than any other country? A. an increase in immigration to the United States B. an increase in moral crusades against drugs and drug users and tougher political stances against crime and criminals C. higher crime rates than any other country D. a drastic increase in crime over the last decade Answer: B Short Answer 1. What did Freud see as one of the first lessons of dominance and social control? Answer: In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud pointed out that all cultures impose upon their young some very strict rules about the most basic of needs, which sets up the first great conflict between individual and society. 2. Symbolic boundaries are what give a group its identity. Define. (REMEMBER Answer: A symbolic boundaries are the symbolic ideas and values about who the group members are and allow for value judgments ranging from labels that are used to identify the group and its members. 3. Groups outside the family exert similar pressures to conform throughout an individual's life. Describe the two ways groups achieve this power. Answer: One way is through positive affirmations—or claims—that groups use to establish boundaries as to what group members must do. The other is negative affirmations, what group members do not do. 4. What is the difference between statistical deviance and social deviance? Answer: Statistical deviance is a measure of behavior that are rare or unusual, but not necessarily in violation of social norms; social deviance is behavior that violates societal rules. 5. Explain what Emile Durkheim meant by "the unstated terms of the social contract." Answer: Durkheim refers to the fact that rules of behavior do not need to be written down in order to require conformity. 6. What is the opposite of interested punishment? Explain. Answer: Disinterested punishment controls the morals and social behavior of people unlike interested punishment, punishment, which is designed to protect property. 7. How does the meaning of the word "temperance" illustrate the original goals of the Temperance Movement that ultimately led to Prohibition? Answer: As it was understood during the nineteenth century, "temperance" meant to drink in moderation rather than abstinence. Historians note that there had been strong and insistent calls for moderation of alcohol consumption for decades before this time. 8. What do the stories of Prohibition and the campaign against opium explain about the structural forces that shape who gets to be normal and who gets labelled as deviant? Answer: The location of power and the capacity to use the levers of state power to exercise control are key to these two stories. Those in power perceived the primary consumers of alcohol and opiates were dramatically transformed into morally reprehensible deviants and enacted laws to ban the substances. 9. Which social class used opiate drugs during the nineteenth century and how did its members differ from modern users of the latter half of the twentieth century to the present? Answer: The majority of opiate users were once middle-class white women seeking relief from the pain of what were once called "female complaints." Today's users tend to be urban, people of colour, and poor. 10. Which event at the end of the 1960s marked a turnaround the moral crusade against gay people? Answer: The Stonewall Riots of June 1969, when patrons of a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village—the Stonewall Inn—fought back when police raided the bar. 11. What advantage do the proponents of legalized medical and recreational use marijuana have over their opponents? Answer: It is increasingly difficult for opponents of marijuana to persuade citizens that it makes sense to allow alcohol consumption, whose effects are more debilitating, while still outlawing marijuana. 12. What do guerilla armies and terrorist cells seek to achieve by their brand of what military strategists call asymmetrical warfare? Answer: Outside the theatre of war that is battlefield, the guerilla and terrorist equalize matters by finding ways to make the fight fairer. 13. Provide a standard and working definition of social controls that virtually all sociologists agree on. Answer: A social control can be any of the ways societies regulate and sanction behavior to encourage conformity to and discourage deviance from the norms. 14. A traffic cop presses both hands down in the air as you speed past him. Why is this NOT a formal sanction? Answer: Even though the traffic cop represents the law (i.e., formal sanctions), his gesture is an informal sanction. 15. What does the author of this chapter identify as two important shapers of the perception that people of colour commit the most crime? Answer: Perceptions are biased against racial minorities given the media coverage and the adoption of especially punitive crime policies vis-à-vis African American and Latino criminal suspects and offenders. Essay 1. How do groups, especially those outside the family, exert pressure to force individuals to conform and so not deviate? Answer: Groups outside the family exert similar pressures to conform throughout an individual's life. One way they achieve this power is through positive affirmations—or claims—that groups use to establish boundaries. There are an infinite variety of markings, behavior, and attributes that are possible, from wearing special clothes or uniforms, wearing tattoos with certain designs, body piercings, flash mobbing, and the like to using a specific language and code of behavior. Such positive affirmations signal who is in the group and who is out. But merely being a compliant member in good standing of a group is not the whole story; the negative affirmations of group membership—what we aren't allowed to do if we are to retain membership—constitute the other side of group influence. Both are important. 2. How do physical and symbolic boundaries work to define groups? Answer: Symbolic boundaries are the distinctions that people make between themselves and others on the basis of taste, socioeconomic status, morality or other differences. All groups set markers at their boundaries. One way to think about symbolic boundaries is in terms of how different spaces are defined. When you enter a church, for example, you are not simply crossing a physical boundary between the church doors and the outside world, but also a symbolic boundary between a religious space and a secular one. The very meaning of the space is different, as is how we are supposed to behave in it. Immigration—the process of moving from one country to another—provides another good example of how physical and symbolic boundaries work to define groups. Countries often mark boundaries between themselves by establishing physical borders, perhaps most dramatically on the U.S.-Mexico border. Such borders signal to us that we are moving from a territory belonging to one group to territory belonging to another. 3. Discuss the problem that exists in determining what is morality and appropriately moral behavior. Provide one example of this problem from modern life. Answer: Societies have long struggled with questions of moral behavior—that is, which types of behavior will be considered good and right (or moral ) versus those which are bad and wrong (or immoral ). Some common examples in the contemporary United States would include whether or smoking marijuana or gay marriage is compatible with our understanding of morality. What is considered immoral behavior is constantly at issue because in any society different groups will inevitably have different views and understandings. When societies attempt to outlaw certain kinds of previously common and widespread behavior across society, it is invariably a highly controversial process. For example, marijuana use rivals that of alcohol consumption and some would say marijuana is less debilitating. The growing campaign to legalize marijuana exemplifies the changing dynamics of moral regulation and how hard it is to fix moral behavior. It is increasingly difficult for opponents of marijuana to persuade citizens that it makes sense to allow alcohol consumption, which can kill both the drinker and others, while still outlawing marijuana and considering it a deviant activity. 4. Describe how sociologists arrived on labeling theory and its reception. What does this theory say about deviance? Provide an example of a behavior that was labelled deviant but has since become virtually normalized, that is, relabelled and the persons in authority who contributed to it happening. Answer: One of the new theories that emerged during the 1960s, when it became clear how deviant, criminal, and abnormal behavior were being defined by people in positions of authority, was labeling theory. It challenged the idea that there are real and objective differences in behavior that is normal versus what is deviant. Most sociologists now argue that the process by which a behavior comes to be defined as deviant is critical to understanding what causes it. In other words, instead of focusing on the behavior of individuals, they argue we need to look at how the behavior came to be defined as deviant. Deviant behavior is "caused" by the process through which a behavior comes to be defined, or as they say, labelled, as deviant. These ideas developed into the labeling theory of deviance, the idea that many kinds of behavior are deviant solely because they are labelled as such. An example of a behavior that is relabelled is homosexuality, which had been a crime in Texas until the Supreme Court ruled against the state keeping anachronistic sodomy laws on the books. 5. The power of a label to change what was once business as usual in the United States to a serious form of criminal activity can be seen in the gradual acceptance that businesspeople are very much capable of deviance specific to their group. Discuss and name at least one modern example. Answer: One of the most important developments in the study of deviance and crime, and one that extended the idea of labeling theory into arenas where power is particularly important, was the introduction of the concept of white collar crime. First introduced by the famous criminologist Edwin Sutherland in 1949, the term white-collar crime refers to unethical business practices committed by people in the course of their work lives. Historically, crimes that would be understood as white-collar crimes are not new. However, they were rarely if ever treated as criminal cases (such notable exceptions as the Ponzi scheme of the 1920s) were handled almost solely in civil courts. This was, in Sutherland's view, often perverse: Some kinds of white-collar crime can have as much or more of a negative impact and cause injury to more people in a society than ordinary street crimes (such as burglary, robbery, vandalism, shoplifting, or assault). For example, when a corporation or business owner knowingly markets an unsafe product, far more people may suffer significantly greater harms than any thief or bank robber can cause. Understood as such, business activity can be understood as criminal when it damages innocent people's property or physical well-being. White-collar crime can take many forms, from those that are closer to street crimes (e.g., stealing money from your employer) to sophisticated investment schemes, such as the Bernie Madoff's scandal., that actually used a variation of the Ponzi scheme in which investors were paid dividends that were actually the new investments of fellow investors, not profits. 6. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, the U.S. government justified the use of state terrorism—what was its rationale? What happened as a result? Answer: The idea that a "ticking time bomb" of additional terrorist plots and attacks were imminent, and in order to foil them immediate and unconditionally, action was necessary—what can be interpreted as state terrorism. Officials in the White House justified the use of a variety of tactics that were not in accord with current international or American constitutional law (and that would later be denounced by virtually all legal scholars). Using these memos as a cover for their actions, for several years the government rounded up many people suspected of being involved in terrorist activity and took them to hidden locations where they could be subjected to "extreme interrogation" techniques in the hopes of gathering intelligence, otherwise known as torture. We know now—as a result of many important journalistic revelations—that many of the interrogation techniques used by agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and special military units defied the international human rights protections codified in the Geneva Conventions, a series of international agreements about the fair treatment of prisoners of war. 7. Define sanctions and the two forms discussed in your textbook. Include examples. Answer: A key dimension of social control occurs through sanctions, or punishments—including imprisonment—that groups and societies establish to enforce norms. However, sanctions are not the only way social control is promoted. We more often follow rules and norms not just because we are worried about punishment but also because we may seek rewards that good behavior provides. Positive rewards might include things like praise, awards, and salary raises. Doing what the boss wants, no matter how irrational it may be, can be a good way of moving up in the company (whereas challenging the boss can put an employee at risk). Sociologists also distinguish between formal and informal sanctions and rewards. Formal sanctions are those used to enforce the norms that are written into law, and are usually carried out by a group of people who have been given the specific task and power to do so, including the police or school principals. Examples of such sanctions are fines or arrests (and possible prison sentences), while formal rewards might be getting good grades or promotions. On the other hand, informal sanctions might include such things as insults or giving someone a dirty look, while informal rewards include things like giving people compliments. 8. A key reason for sending people to prison is vengeance. This notion goes back to the very first codifications of law. Provide a definition and commentary. Answer: Retribution is the appropriated term for this simple vengeance, founded on the notion that those who have committed crimes should suffer for the harm they have caused others. Modern proponents of retribution argue that the punishment should fit the crime already committed rather than future crimes that the criminal or others might commit. In contrast to retribution, which is designed to redress crimes already committed, deterrence endeavours to prevent future crimes by creating a disincentive to violate the law by threatening punishment. 9. Describe the comparative difference between U.S. incarceration rates and those of other countries discussed in your book. What is the special term some scholars use to describe the phenomenon? Answer: The growth of the prison population in the United States over the past 40 years is unprecedented around the world. The United States incarcerates vastly more people per capita than almost any other country in the world today. Many scholars have come to describe this level of punishment as "mass incarceration," a situation where vastly greater numbers of people are held in prisons than in earlier periods of history or in comparison to similar countries. The countries closest to us in having high incarceration rates are countries like Russia, Cuba, and South Africa, not the West European countries, Canada, Australia, or Japan, which are otherwise much more similar to the United States. The United States sends 6 to 8 times as many people in prison as those countries, and more than 10 times as many people as Japan! Indeed, Many Americans are surprised to learn that overall crime rates in the United States are not particularly high by comparison with other countries. 10. Why have Americans wanted increasing numbers of people in prison since the late 1960s? List and briefly describe three reasons that fundamentally transformed the criminal justice policy environment to this day. What does research say about which American political party took advantage of these trends first? Answer: (1) The conservative backlash to the social movements and cultural trends of the 1960s; (2) an economic downturn in the 1970s that precipitated a search for reasons, and scapegoats, for social problems after 1973; and (3) urban riots in the 1960s that signified decline and disorder and left lasting images that made urban crime the focus of intensive media scrutiny. The most careful research suggests that Republican politicians, where they controlled state governments, moved first and fastest on crime, with the Democrats following suit later. Test Bank for The Sociology Project : Introducing the Sociological Imagination Jeff Manza, Richard Arum, Lynne Haney 9780205949601, 9780205093823, 9780133792249
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