Social Problems
Question Bank
Course Introduction
This course examines contemporary social problems affecting individuals and communities at local, national, and global levels. Students will explore the origins, development, and consequences of issues such as poverty, inequality, crime, discrimination, environmental degradation, and health disparities. Through analysis of sociological theories and research, the course fosters critical thinking about how social problems are defined, the roles of institutions and power structures, and potential solutions. Students are encouraged to consider diverse perspectives and engage in discussions on policy responses, advocacy, and the responsibilities of citizens in addressing social challenges.
Recommended Textbook
Criminology A Sociological Understanding 7th Edition by Steven E Barkan
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18 Chapters
1034 Verified Questions
1034 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Criminology and the Sociological Perspective
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56 Verified Questions
56 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) _____ stressed that social forces influence our behavior and attitudes.
A) Emile Durkheim
B) Cesare Beccaria
C) Adam Smith
D) Sigmund Freud
Answer: A
Q2) Which of the following would be considered a mala prohibita crime?
A) Public intoxication
B) Murder
C) Rape
D) Burglary
Answer: A
Q3) To protect the rights and _____________ of the nation's citizenry is a goal of the criminal justice system.
Answer: Freedoms
Q4) Observational studies are also known as ____ studies.
Answer: Field
Q5) Behavior that violates norms is described as _____.
Answer: Deviant
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Chapter 2: Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem
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55 Verified Questions
55 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) While they are least likely to be victims of crime,_____ have a high fear of crime.
A) Juveniles
B) Women
C) Elderly
D) African-Americans
Answer: C
Q2) Which of the following groups has often been the subject of distorted treatment in media coverage?
A) White males
B) Wealthy women
C) Homeless
D) Racial and ethnic minorities
Answer: D
Q3) Which of the following groups has a more negative view of police?
A) Whites
B) Native Americans
C) Women
D) African-Americans and Latinos
Answer: D
Page 4
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Chapter 3: The Measurement and Patterning of Criminal Behavior
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56 Verified Questions
56 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Those who engage in continual criminal behavior throughout adulthood are referred to as ____.
A) Mature offenders
B) Passive offenders
C) Chronic offenders
D) Seasonal offenders
Answer: C
Q2) Better known as _____ offenders,these offenders often continue their offending into adulthood as they enter criminal careers.
Answer: Chronic
Q3) Race is a _____,something we make up rather than something real.
A) Metaphorical concept
B) Structural perception
C) Social construction
D) Psychological condition
Answer: C
Q4) The NCVS contacts approximately 90,000 households each year.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 4: Victims and Victimization
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55 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) No universal definition for crime victim exists.
A)True
B)False
Q2) NCVS findings indicate that violent crime victims try to stop the event ____ percent of the time.
A) 10
B) 33
C) 41
D) 60
Q3) Almost all rape victimization reported in the NCVS involves _____.
A) African-Americans
B) Men
C) Juveniles
D) Women
Q4) _________________ disorder is another individual trait that may increase victimization.
Q5) Assaults in and outside bars are common because of the use of prescription drugs.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: Classical and Neoclassical Perspectives
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56 Verified Questions
56 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following best expresses situational crime prevention?
A) Efforts that aim to reduce exposure to motivated offenders
B) Efforts that encourage victims to contact the police
C) Efforts that encourage legislators to pass tougher sentencing laws
D) Efforts that aim to increase rehabilitation programs
Q2) Which of the following types of crimes is considered more deterrable?
A) Terminal offenses
B) Instrumental offenses
C) Expressive offenses
D) Penal offenses
Q3) _____ deterrence refers to the effect of having some legal punishment (arrest,incarceration,and so forth)versus the effect of having no legal punishment.
Q4) Contemporary rational choice suggests that:
A) Offenders commit crimes only for monetary gains
B) Offenders sometimes commit crimes for excitement or prestige
C) Offenders never commit crime unless provoked
D) Offenders carefully plan all crimes they commit
Q5) Hot-spot policing involves intensive police patrols of high crime areas.
A)True
B)False
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Biological and Psychological Explanations
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following may impair moral reasoning and the ability to appreciate the consequences of one's actions?
A) High testosterone
B) Low IQ
C) High serotonin
D) Low glucose
Q2) Who introduced the idea of personality being a product of id,ego and superego?
A) Fritz Mallack
B) Charles Darwin
C) Cesare Beccasia
D) Sigmund Freud
Q3) Phrenology concerns the size and shape of skull as a measurement of criminality.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Psychoanalytic explanations suggest that antisocial behavior is a mentally disordered behavior,which is not true for most individuals.
A)True
B)False
Q5) An over production of the male hormone _____ may influence criminal behavior.
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Chapter 7: Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Structure
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61 Verified Questions
61 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Wilson and Kelling argued that signs of disorder-such as a _____ window-send a signal to potential criminals that neighborhood residents do not care.
Q2) On weekends,people typically drink,gamble,go out on the town,and have sex.Many men are involved in physical fights.Miller believed that the pursuit of _____ on weekends arises in part from boring lives led the rest of the week.
A) Toughness
B) Excitement
C) Smartness
D) Trouble
Q3) _______ is when people continue to accept the goal of economic success,but reject the means of working and undertake new means to achieve success.
Q4) Which of the following best represents Anderson's ideas regarding the "code of the street" among young urban African-Americans?
A) It arises from their desire for attention from the media
B) It arises from a pre-evolutionary need to mate
C) It arises from their despair and alienation
D) It arises from a lack of hope and change
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Chapter 8: Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Process
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61 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the 1950s and 1960s,sociologist Walter C.Reckless developed his _____ theory of delinquency,which stressed that inner and outer restraints help prevent juvenile offending.
Q2) Belief refers to:
A) An individual's investment of energy and emotion
B) Getting a good education
C) The amount of time an individual spends on a conventional pursuit
D) Acceptance of the norms of conventional society
Q3) Attachment,commitment,and involvement are elements of _____.
A) Neutralization
B) Social bond
C) Power-control
D) Rational choice
Q4) Matza argued that delinquents are not constantly delinquent and instead _____ into and out of delinquency.
A) Spin
B) Turn
C) Drift
D) Fall
Q5) How does social bond theory explain crime?
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Chapter 9: Sociological Theories: Critical Perspectives
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Sample Questions
Q1) In a self-fulfilling prophecy,the social-psychological and practical consequences of official labeling thus lead to _____,or the commission of continued deviance and the adoption of a deviant lifestyle.
A) Criminal consistency
B) Positivist magnification
C) Deviance amplification
D) Violence variation
Q2) Restorative justice is popular among native peoples in the United States and Canada and in some socialist nations and can include such things as _____.
A) Victim impact panels
B) Community corporal punishment
C) Offender defiance statements
D) Capital punishment
Q3) Which of the following would Marx consider proletariat?
A) A factory owner
B) A factory worker
C) A government employee
D) A high ranking politician
Q4) According to Marx,it is the _____ who work for the bourgeoisie.
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Chapter 10: Violent Crime: Homicide,assault,and Robbery
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56 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Mass murder and serial killing rarely receive heavy media attention because they are one of the most commonly committed crimes.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Someone who has been unlawfully attacked and suffered severe or aggravated bodily injury is a victim of _____ assault.
Q3) The South has the nation's lowest homicide rate.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The UCR defines _____ as an attack "where no weapon is used and which do not result in serious or aggravated injury to the victim."
A) Fourth-degree assault
B) involuntary assault
C) Simple assault
D) Aggravated assault
Q5) ____________ killing involves the methodological taking of human life one at a time of a period of days,weeks,months and even years.
Q6) Write mini-examples of each type of subcategories of murder and manslaughter.
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Chapter 11: Violence Against Women
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56 Verified Questions
56 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Nearly all states now have _____ that restrict the use of a woman's sexual history in rape cases.
A) Rape-shield laws
B) Predator-shield laws
C) Anti-defense laws
D) Anti-cross examination laws
Q2) Erin Andrews,a sideline reporter for ESPN,was _____ by a man who spied on her in hotel rooms.
Q3) Feminist scholars see rape and battering as inevitable consequences of:
A) Television influence
B) Female hierarchy
C) Patriarchy
D) The military industrial complex
Q4) Feminist scholars see rape and battering as inevitable consequences of patriarchy,or male dominance.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Another problem affecting many women of color in regards to reporting sexual assault is fear of and hostility toward the _____.
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Chapter 12: Property Crime and Fraud
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Sample Questions
Q1) Katz described property offenses as sneaky thrill crimes that offenders commit because they are excited by the idea of stealing.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Computer crime is a decreasing.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Amateur criminals comprise the vast majority of property offenders.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Who lets burglars know of safe,attractive targets? They come not only from the criminal world,but also from legitimate occupations.
A) Boosters
B) Snitches
C) Tipsters
D) Players
Q5) The male proportion of larceny arrests is lower than for the other crimes because females are more involved in one type of larceny,_____,than they are in other crimes.
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Chapter 13: White-Collar and Organized Crime
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57 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Explain the concept of corporate violence.Provide several examples.
Q2) There is very little fraud in the health care industry,less than $1 million per year.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In the early 1900s,the _____ bitterly criticized business and political corruption.
Q4) Which of the following terms emphasizes that crime can be done by and on behalf of organizations,many of them corporations,but some of them small businesses,including blue-collar businesses such as auto repair shops?
A) Walmart crime
B) Institutional crime
C) Situation crime
D) Organizational crime
Q5) Most organizational crime is committed by minorities.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Discuss the monetary cost of street crime compared to white-collar crime.
Q7) Bernard Madoff was discovered to have been using a(n)_____ scheme.
Q8) Explain why some claim the alien conspiracy model is really a myth.
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Political Crime
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Sample Questions
Q1) The FBI took part in a counterintelligence program called _____,begun in 1941 to target the Communist and Socialist Workers parties.
A) COINTELPRO
B) INTERPOL
C) UNGHC
D) WNASA
Q2) Which of the following is an example of genocide?
A) Darfur
B) Death of MLK
C) Civil War
D) The holocaust
Q3) Crime by government is called also called state-crime.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Political crime may be any illegal or socially harmful act aimed at preserving or changing the existing political and social order.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Crime by _____ is also called state-crime.
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Chapter 15: Consensual Crime
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Sample Questions
Q1) The federal,state,and local governments spend less than $7 million yearly on criminal justice expenses (law enforcement,courts,corrections)related to illegal drugs.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The best evidence is that women tend to use illegal drugs much more than men do.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Cocaine was once a major ingredient in Coca-Cola.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Some feminists distinguish between _____,which depicts sexual violence against women,and _____,which depicts respectful nudity and consensual,loving sexual interaction between adults.
A) Soft-core pornography, violent pornography
B) Violent pornography, erotica
C) Erotica, violent pornography
D) Pedophilia, high-class pornography
Q5) _____ is on the rise,as is evident by the number of new American-Indian casinos.
Q6) Prostitution is legal in the state of _____.
Page 17
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Chapter 16: Policing: Dilemmas of Crime Control in a Democratic Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) There is growing evidence on the effectiveness of directed police patrol or _____ policing,which targets the relatively few locations at which most of a city's serious street crime occurs.
Q2) Which of the following best represents the working personality of the police?
A) It helps police to bond with community members and create mutual trust and respect
B) It causes mistrust between police officers and erodes department esprit de corp, resulting in low police morale
C) It makes police have a sense of entitlement that encourages them to break the law and often abuse the rights of citizens
D) It makes police suspicious of and even hostile toward the public and reinforces police solidarity, or mutual loyalty
Q3) What is a police officer's working personality? How can some of the negative aspects of a police officer's working personality be improved?
Q4) Rodney King was a victim of police _____ and suffered severe injuries.
Q5) Police sometimes have an "us against them" mentality. A)True B)False
Page 18
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Chapter 17: Prosecution and Punishment
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements is accurate regarding criminal defense?
A) Criminal defendants who are poor are much more able than wealthy defendants to afford bail, to hire a skilled defense attorney, and to pay for investigators
B) Criminal defendants who are African-American are much more able than white defendants to afford bail, to hire a skilled defense attorney, and to pay for investigators
C) Criminal defendants who are women are much more able than male defendants to afford bail, to hire a skilled defense attorney, and to pay for investigators
D) Criminal defendants who are wealthy are much more able than poor defendants to afford bail, to hire a skilled defense attorney, and to pay for investigators
Q2) Women appear _____less likely than men with similar offenses and prior records to be incarcerated.
A) 60-70 percent
B) 40-55 percent
C) 30-40 percent
D) 10-25 percent
Q3) The vast majority of cases end in _____ bargaining.
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Chapter 18: Conclusion: How Can We Reduce Crime
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Sample Questions
Q1) Provide several examples of secondary prevention.
Q2) Although there are more than 21 million personal victimizations at the top of the funnel,at the bottom end just _____ persons eventual go to prison or jail.
A) 18, 851
B) 125, 896
C) 320,908
D) 1,349,021
Q3) Unemployment lines indicate a social problem-_____-that contributes to the crime rate.
A) The failure of individuals to seek out available jobs
B) The absence of a sufficient number of decent-paying jobs for the poor
C) The success of socialism and government intervention in the economy
D) The success of racial segregation
Q4) Neighborhood dilapidation increases the odds that children will come to respect the need to obey laws and other social norms.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The _____ penalty has no general deterrent effect and costs at least twice as much as life imprisonment.
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