Criminal Law Final Exam Essays Example

1) a. general deterrence
2) a. genetics
3) d. neither set of parents were criminals
4) a. drug addict
5) b. specific deterrence
6) a. neoclassical
7) a. criminality does tend to run in some families
8) c. there are many theories to explain why people behave the way that they do
9) b. frustration
10) b. dealing drugs
11) b. permanent population
12) d. Sutherland
13) a. conformity
14) c. control theory
15) c. labeling theory
16) b. primary deviance
17) f. control theories
18) a. Hirschi and Gottfredson
19) a. civil rights movement
20) b. the offender is arrested for possession of a controlled substance
21) b. Sutherland
22) d. white collar criminals
23) a. business executives
24) a. true
25) a. true
26) a. true
27) a. true
28) a. true
29) b. false
30) a. true
31) According to primitive criminological theories, criminality is caused by supernatural or religious factors. Crimes were attributed as the handiwork of Satan or of other extraordinary phenomena. Because of this belief, criminals were often subjected to inhumane punishment, such as quartering, beheading, burning at stake and other horrific means. This goal was perhaps to totally eliminate the evil spirits from walking among the living.
32) The most important distinction of the classical theories from other criminological theories is the emphasis on free will and individual choice. It also stressed social contract, which means that citizens promise to abide by the law of the land in exchange for the protection of the government and, therefore, anyone who violates that contract must be meted a corresponding punishment. Greatly influenced by the Enlightenment period, the classical theory believed that criminal behavior is a deliberate choice after an individual has calculated the advantages and disadvantages of committing a crime. Thus, committing a crime becomes disadvantageous if the risk of being caught is high and advantageous when the risk is low.
33) Establishments that serve alcohol, such as bars are typical targets of motivated offenders because the opportunity for committing crimes in those places is high. Many suitable targets can be found in those places in the person of drunken people who are most likely easy to victimize because of the expected low resistance due to the condition of drunkenness. In addition, such places often lack guardianship.
34) The three factors that constitute the routine activities theory, according to Cohen and Felson are: absence of capable guardian, a suitable target, and a motivated offender. Capable guardians include law enforcement authorities, homeowners, parents and other persons or things that can deter offenders from committing crimes because of the possibility that such guardians will be make the commission more difficult than usual. A suitable target, on the other hand, is anything that the offender sees as having value or interest and includes gadgets, expensive cars, and money, while a motivated offender is an individual that has a need that can be meet through offending. A motivated offender can be an unemployed person, a gang member or teenage boys. An example of a crime where all three elements are present is when gang members driving around a neighborhood chance upon a house whose windows are visibly open with none of its occupants around. The open windows and the absence of its occupants make it easier for the gang to commit the crime of burglary or trespassing.
35) In adoption studies, researchers found the effect of genetics and environment - the nature versus nurture discourse - on criminal propensity. These studies confirmed that both genetics and environment influence criminal behavior, but genetics has stronger influence than environment. Thus 24.5% of adoptees with biological parents that have criminal records eventually committed crimes, while only 14.7% of them committed crimes when the adoptive parents have criminal records. However, the percentage is highest when both biological and adoptive parents have criminal records, and lowest when both sets of parents had no criminal record.
36) According to Agnew, criminal behavior stems from intense feelings of anger and frustrations that individuals generally feel when achievements do not meet expectations. For example, a child born in a family where the parents and siblings are achievers, but finds himself unable to duplicate those achievements or meet the expectations of his family and friend may not be able to bear the pressure and resort to antisocial behavior, such as hanging out with gangs, smoking or alcoholism. On the other hand, Merton specifically the case of the US in which the goal of everybody is the American Dream – or economic success. The American Dream cannot be achieved by everybody because people do not start in life with the same resources, economically, socially and mentally. Some people who are born rich and intelligent will have an easy time reaching that goal, but others who are born poor and cannot afford to get college education will be left behind. The strain placed by the frustration of a sense of failure brought about by this inability will lead some to a path of criminality.
37) Differences in language and cultural values mean that people do not understand each other or are bound by common practices and beliefs. When this happened in Chicago in the 1800s, there was understandably chaos and disorder and a rise in crime. This happened because a neighborhood of strangers cannot effectively act as a social control mechanism to prevent people, especially the youth, from engaging in crimes. Thus, in the Chicago case, gangs became a common fixture of neighborhoods.
38) The social disorganization theory is characterized by poverty, heterogeneity, and physical dilapidation that bring about criminality and delinquency. When the neighborhood is made up mostly of the poor and the unemployed, people coming from various races, ethnics and culture, and its infrastructures has been neglected by the authorities, it is most likely that social disorganization is occurring in the neighborhood. Developed by Shaw and McKay, the theory posits that the emergence of factories and other smoke-stacked industries created various zones in the city that all revolved around the city center in various relative distances. The nearest to the center has the highest crime rate because of the instability of the area, where people are mostly transients or just merely passing through. The zone that comes next to it combines residential and commercial purposes and the same instability is present, thus, crime is still relatively high. As the center becomes farther and farther way, the zones become more stable, especially in suburbs inhabited by the well-off people, where residents have established homes. It is in this zone that criminality has the least rate.
39) Some criminological theories focused on genetics or on environmental influences, others on self-interest, others on pressure brought by the inability to achieve the perceived ideal state, other on the absence of control, but learning theories is differentiated from them in that it subscribes to the idea that criminal behavior is something that one acquires from socialization with others, such as family, friends, peers, neighbors, teachers, authority figures and others that an individual comes in contact with in the course of his life. Learning in this sense can embrace both physical and psychological. Thus a person can learn the techniques and skills involved in committing crimes, such as unlocking car doors, or learn how to rationalized or justify illegal acts so as not to feel a shred of guilt. Learning theories, therefore, is closely associated with socialization.
40) The following are some of the elements of the differential association theory: it is learned; it is learned through communication with others; the principal part of the learning process happens within intimate groups; delinquency stems from learning definitions favorable to crime, and; the frequency, duration, priority and intensity factor in the learning process of criminality. Criminal behavior is learned, which is tantamount to saying that a person is not born a criminal. The learning process is something that is akin to the learning process underwent by students in a class learning history or mathematics, that is, they are exposed to the principles of the subject on a daily basis with the goal of ingraining them in the minds of the students. The same cognitive principles underlie the learning process. A most important aspect of the learning is that the learning process becomes most effective when the learning takes place within groups whose members are emotionally and socially closest to the individual. For example, is within a circle of close friends, rather than in a class in school. In addition, the learning of criminal behavior is rendered effective by frequent exposure to experiences that illustrate crime as something advantageous to the individual. Like any other effective method of learning, criminal tendencies are learned most when a person’s exposure to it is regular, repeated, long in duration and forceful.