Chapter 12 Complete Test Bank Explaining White-Collar Crime

Chapter 12: Explaining White-Collar Crime

Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. What is one criterion that theories or explanations regarding white-collar crime

must meet?

• 1. offer ideas that should be avoided because they would increase

white-collar crime

• 1. help point to changes that would reduce, not increase, white-collar crime
  2. be thoroughly researched and guaranteed true to be considered a theory
  3. provide insight into individual and corporate motives for their misconduct

Learning Objective:

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Introduction

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. What did criminologist James Coleman think was promoted through industrial

capitalism?

• 1. culture of competition
  2. wide range of misconduct
  3. fierce loyalty to one’s company
  4. determination to offend

Learning Objective: 12-1: Compare the motivations that push poor and white-collar offenders to commit white-collar crimes.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Culture and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. How did Hirschi and Gottfredson criticize the cultural theory of white-collar

crime?

• 1. They said it was too hard of a concept for the general public to grasp because

they had an image of elitists when it came to picturing white-collar crime.

• 1. They said it was too broad, and it if were true more people would be

offending.

• 1. They said it was more useful for explaining traditional crimes than white-collar

crime.

• 1. They said it was too narrow and that it didn’t explain enough crime.

Learning Objective: 12-1: Compare the motivations that push poor and white-collar offenders to commit white-collar crimes.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Culture and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. What does the deterrence theory rely on to be effective?
   1. rewards for good behavior
   2. making spectacles out of offenders that get caught
   3. the idea that people are rational
   4. that people are irrational

Learning Objective: 12-2: Discuss the idea of punishment as a deterrent to white-collar misconduct and re-offending.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Deterrence Theory/Rational Choice Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

1. The desire for an offender to gain control of his or her environment is

associated with which theory?

• 1. deterrence theory
  2. self-control theory
  3. rational choice theory
  4. control theory

Learning Objective: 12-2: Discuss the idea of punishment as a deterrent to white-collar misconduct and re-offending.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Deterrence Theory/Rational Choice Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. What mode of adaptation associated with classical strain theory is analogous

to the given example of podium politics at the Olympics, where medalists make prohibited symbolic gestures while receiving their medals?

• 1. innovators
  2. ritualists
  3. retreatists
  4. rebels

Learning Objective: 12-3: Describe the basic tenets of strain theory and learning theory and how each explains white-collar offending.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Classical Strain Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. In regard to the institutional anomie theory, which of the following is not a

value promoted in America that encourages individuals to engage in crime?

• 1. Loyalty encourages the lines to be blurred for close friends.
  2. Achievement encourages Americans to always want more.
  3. Universalism suggests everyone should want the same success.
  4. Individualism suggests we should all attain success on our own.

Learning Objective: 12-3: Describe the basic tenets of strain theory and learning theory and how each explains white-collar offending.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Institutional Anomie Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Not being promoted or not being given a raise (a positive stimulus) can result

in workplace misconduct under which criminal theory?

• 1. control theory
  2. general strain theory
  3. justifying theory
  4. conflict theory

Learning Objective: 12-3: Describe the basic tenets of strain theory and learning theory and how each explains white-collar offending.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: General Strain Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. What does the differential association theory suggest that offenders learn

from their peers?

• 1. laws on crime are wrong
  2. work habits
  3. moral values
  4. when not to commit crimes

Learning Objective: 12-3: Describe the basic tenets of strain theory and learning theory and how each explains white-collar offending.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Learning Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. When offenders believe their victims deserve the harm, what theory are they

playing into?

• 1. justification theory
  2. neutralization theory
  3. control theory
  4. conflict theory

Learning Objective: 12-4: Explain why and how white-collar offenders justify their crimes and actions.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Neutralizations and White-Collar Offending

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Based on research which type of offender is more likely to neutralize their

actions?

• 1. older workers
  2. younger workers
  3. male workers
  4. executives

Learning Objective: 12-4: Explain why and how white-collar offenders justify their crimes and actions.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Neutralizations and White-Collar Offending

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Which of the following is an appeal to accidents excuse?
   1. borrowing, claiming they were going to give it back
   2. scapegoating, blaming others
   3. denial of law, describing the law as unfair
   4. describing the outcome as an accident

Learning Objective: 12-4: Explain why and how white-collar offenders justify their crimes and actions.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Accounts and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

13. Why do offenders rationalize their engagement in white-collar crime?

1. so that they control how others see them
2. to gain sympathy from coworkers
3. because they feel bad about their behavior
4. so that they do not get caught

Learning Objective: 12-4: Explain why and how white-collar offenders justify their crimes and actions.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Purposes of Rationalizations and Accounts

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. What question does control theory ask that is different from other theory perspectives?

1. why people commit crimes
2. why people commit their first crime
3. why people get caught offending
4. why don’t people commit crime

Learning Objective: 12-5: Compare and contrast control theory and self-control

theory in how they explain white-collar crime.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Control Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

15. Which of the following theorems of white-collar offending developed by Hirschi is correct?

1. Executives with strong commitments to lines of action will have lower

workplace offending rates.

1. Executives with weak bonds to coworkers, who could be potential

offenders, are less likely to engage in criminal behavior.

1. Executives who believe in the rules are more likely to break them.
2. Executives with strong involvement in corporate activities are just as likely

to offend.

Learning Objective: 12-5: Compare and contrast control theory and self-control

theory in how they explain white-collar crime.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Control Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

16. One study on self-control suggests that individuals with high morality have what tendency with regard to committing white-collar crime?

1. They can be more likely to offend, even with high self-control.
2. High morality can lead to low self-control, increasing their chances of

offending.

1. They are less likely to offend, regardless of their level of self-control.
2. Low self-control is unlikely among high morality individuals; therefore such

individuals would not offend.

Learning Objective: 12-5: Compare and contrast control theory and self-control theory in how they explain white-collar crime.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Self-Control Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

17. What idea was established after two researchers studied presentence reports of both white-collar criminals and conventional criminals?

1. Self-control operates differently based on circumstances and situational

factors.

1. Self-control theory does not explain corporate offending.
2. The self-control theory is oversimplified.
3. Traditional offenders exhibited high self-control.

Learning Objective: 12-5: Compare and contrast control theory and self-control theory in how they explain white-collar crime.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Self-Control Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Which theory focuses on changes in society impacting white-collar crime

rates?

• 1. routine activities theory
  2. conflict theory
  3. systems theory
  4. learning theory

Learning Objective: 12-6: Explain how routine societal changes can result in increased white-collar fraud in certain occupations.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Routine Activities Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

1. According to the routine activities theory, which of the following is not an

element that must be present for crime to occur?

• 1. presence of motivated offenders
  2. absence of capable guardians
  3. motivations to commit crime
  4. availability of suitable targets

Learning Objective: 12-6: Explain how routine societal changes can result in increased white-collar fraud in certain occupations.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Routine Activities Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

1. Which theory focuses on the way in which those with power exert influence

in order to use the law as an instrument of power?

• 1. routine activities theory
  2. conflict theory
  3. systems theory
  4. learning theory

Learning Objective: 12-7: Discuss the conflict theory as an explanation of how the powerful influence the notion of crime and how it is applied.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Conflict Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

21. In regard to the conflict theory of white-collar crime, which of the following statements based on propositions outlined to show how powerful classes exert their power to define behavior as criminal, is true?

1. Crime is created by authorities in a politically organized society.
2. Criminal definitions describe behavior consistent with the interests of the

segments of society.

1. People engage in activities that have relative probabilities of being defined as

non-criminal behavior.

1. Applied criminal definitions do not have the ability to shape the enforcement of

criminal law.

Learning Objective: 12-7: Discuss conflict theory as an explanation of how the powerful influence the notion of crime and how it is applied.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Conflict Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Which of the following is not focused on an explanation of corporate crime?
   1. structure of organization
   2. organizational process
   3. values promoted within an organization
   4. top-down pressure

Learning Objective: 12-8: Analyze why corporate crime is difficult to assess and the types of crimes committed by corporations.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Organizational Processes and Corporate Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. In regards to explaining corporate crimes, what is one aspect the

organizational processes focus on?

• 1. how pressure from employers results in crime
  2. how crime is more likely to occur in declining organizations
  3. how lack of success leads to misconduct
  4. how peer-pressure at work results in offending

Learning Objective: 12-8: Analyze why corporate crime is difficult to assess and the types of crimes committed by corporations.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Organizational Processes and Corporate Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. When Green highlighted four steps that he felt led to embezzlement, what

idea was he unknowingly demonstrating?

• 1. apply more traditional crime theories to white-collar crime
  2. white-collar offenders have similar backgrounds to traditional offenders
  3. treatment of victims needs more study by researchers
  4. the integration of theories

Learning Objective:

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Integrated Efforts to Explain White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. What does the systems theory focus on?
   1. How change in one system can lead to changes in another system, which can

lead to crime.

• 1. How policies developed in the political system affect crime.
  2. How deregulation in any system can lead to fraud.
  3. That all interconnections don’t provide adequate explanations for white-collar

crime.

Learning Objective: 12-10: Analyze how integrated theories and a systems approach to the study of white-collar crime can advance understanding of white-collar misconduct.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Systems Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

True/False

1. Critics of the cultural theory of white-collar crime argue that crime is far rarer

than it would actually be if culture was a true cause of crime.

Learning Objective: 12-1: Compare the motivations that push poor and white-collar offenders to commit white-collar crimes.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Culture and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. The self-control theory of white-collar crime relies on swift and guaranteed

punishments.

Learning Objective: 12-5: Compare and contrast control theory and self-control theory in how they explain white-collar crime.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Deterrence Theory/Rational Choice Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Although life course theory is not used to examine white-collar crime, one

researcher suggests that workplace misconduct committed by young people may connect to how such individuals behave in the workplace when they are older.

Learning Objective:

crime that need further study, and what could be learned.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Life Course Theories and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. The differential association theory of white-collar crime suggests that

offenders learn how to commit crimes, but do so for their own reasons and motivations.

Learning Objective: 12-3: Describe the basic tenets of strain theory and learning theory and how each explains white-collar offending.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Learning Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. The control theory of white-collar crime asks why people do commit

crimes.

Learning Objective: 12-5: Compare and contrast control theory and self-control theory in how they explain white-collar crime.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Control Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Easy

1. The self-control theory is criticized on grounds of empirical concerns because

the theory states that a lack of self-control leads to crime, but white-collar workers have to have some self-control to achieve their status in the first place.

Learning Objective: 12-5: Compare and contrast control theory and self-control theory in how they explain white-collar crime.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Self-Control Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. According to gender theory researcher Kathleen Daly, women, who work

alone in their offending, commit white-collar crime mostly due to financial need.

Learning Objective: 12-9: Discuss the criminological theories of white-collar crime that need further study and what could be learned.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Gender Theories and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Corporate crime is more likely to occur in smaller businesses because they

see the penalties of getting caught as a mere cost of business.

Learning Objective: 12-8: Analyze why corporate crime is difficult to assess and the types of crimes committed by corporations.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Organizational Structure and Corporate Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Linking together different crime theories is the best method for a full

understanding of why white-collar crime occurs.

Learning Objective: 12-10: Analyze how integrated theories and a systems approach to the study of white-collar crime can advance understanding white-collar misconduct.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Integrated Efforts to Explain White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Researchers suggest that changes in economic policies developed through

legislation can lead to white-collar crime.

Learning Objective: 12-10: Analyze how integrated theories and a systems approach to the study of white-collar crime can advance understanding white-collar misconduct.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Systems Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

Short Answer

1. Based on the institutional anomie theory, list three of the four values

Americans are socialized with that actually breed crime.

Learning Objective: 12-3: Describe the basic tenets of strain theory and learning theory and how each explains white-collar offending.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Institutional Anomie Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. According to the differential association theory of white-collar crime, describe

the three main factors that offenders can learn from their peers.

Learning Objective: 12-3: Describe the basic tenets of strain theory and learning theory and how each explains white-collar offending.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Learning Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. Describe the self-control theory of white-collar crime.

Learning Objective: 12-5: Compare and contrast control theory and self-control theory in how they explain white-collar crime.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Self-Control Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. What unusual question does the control theory of white-collar crime focus

on? What answer does the theory provide?

Learning Objective:

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Control Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. List three of the four theories that are typically ignored in terms of white-collar

crime, and discuss why they are still prevalent in explaining traditional crimes.

Learning Objective: 12-9: Discuss the criminological theories of white-collar

crime that need further study, and what could be learned.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Theories Ignored in the White-Collar Crime Literature

Difficulty Level: Medium

Essay

1. Explain the three cultural factors in white-collar crime according to the cultural

theory.

Learning Objective: 12-1: Compare the motivations that push poor and white-collar offenders to commit white-collar crimes.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Culture and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Medium

1. In a persuasive essay defend or argue the deterrence theory of white-collar

crime.

Learning Objective: 12-2: Discuss the idea of punishment as a deterrent to white-collar misconduct and re-offending.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Deterrence Theory/Rational Choice Theory and White-Collar Crime

Difficulty Level: Hard

1. Compare and contrast the classical strain theory with one of the other two

tenets of the strain theory of white-collar crime.

Learning Objective: 12-3: Describe the basic tenets of strain theory and learning theory and how each explains white-collar offending.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Classical Strain Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard