Chapter 4: Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System

Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. It is morally impermissible to treat people differently unless there are ______ differences between them.

a. racial

b. factual

c. economic

d. religious

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. In a political context, what means equal access to public office and equal treatment under the law?

a. justice

b. equality

c. rights

d. non-discrimination

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. The term “race” refers to groups of persons who are relatively alike in their biological inheritance and ______.

a. maintain a distinct subculture

b. share the same mitochondrial DNA

c. are distinct from other groups

d. cannot reproduce with other races

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. “Ethnicity” is a cultural feature and refers to a person’s ______.

a. identification with a particular group

b. primary language

c. country of origin

d. national identity

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. Social practices which attribute merits or allocate values to members of racially categorized groups solely because of race are ______.

a. ethnicity

b. race

c. racism

d. discrimination

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. Which of the following aspects to racism involves policies and practices of institutions operate to produce systematic and continuing differences between racial groups?

a. Personal prejudice

b. Ideological racism

c. Institutional racism

d.Practical racism

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. Petit apartheid is ______.

a. racism by high ranking government officials

b. overt racism

c. racism by the community

d. informal or hidden police racism during interactions with minorities

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. Much interaction between police and minorities may involve “petit apartheid.” This term means ______.

a. overt racism

b. legally sanctioned racism

c. Jim Crow laws

d. informal, low-visibility racism

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. The concept of “grand apartheid” (as distinguished from “petit apartheid”) refers to ______ racism in police interactions with members of minority groups.

a. occasional

b. overt

c. daily, informal

d. rare

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. What census year was used to justify discriminatory laws regarded by whites as necessary until blacks were able to overcome legacy of slavery through their own efforts?

a. 1870

b. 1880

c. 1890

d. 1900

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Historical Context

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. Discriminatory laws against blacks enforced by the courts until the mid-1900s were known as ______.

a.slavery laws

b. Jim Crow laws

c. apartheid laws

d. black laws

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Historical Context

Difficulty Level: Medium

12. In which United States Supreme Court case did the Court rule that the “separate but equal” doctrine in public schools?

a. Brown v. Topeka

b. Topeka v. Board of Education

c. Bartholomew v. Board of Education

d. Brown v. Board of Education

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Historical Context

Difficulty Level: Medium

13. Which group found that there are two justice systems at work in their state’s court; “one for whites, and a very different one for minorities and the poor”?

a. Christopher Commission

b. New York State Judicial Commission on Minorities

c. Warren Commission

d. Rodney King Commission

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Is There Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System?

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. With regard to the contention of systematic racism in the criminal justice system there is ______.

a. no consensus among the researchers

b. a strong consensus that systematic racism pervades every jurisdiction

c. a strong consensus that racism is rare and not systematic

d. very little research available

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Is There Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System?

Difficulty Level: Medium

15. Most research suggests that, while there is an absence of systematic racial discrimination in the U.S. criminal justice system ______.

a. there is systematic ethnic discrimination

b. Jim Crow laws still result in discrimination against minorities

c. grand apartheid is evident everywhere in the country

d. there is discrimination in some places at specific decision-making points

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Criminal Justice System: Discrimination and Decision-Making Points

Difficulty Level: Medium

16. Information collected by the organization Building Blocks for Youth (2000) revealed that African Americans represent ______% of juvenile arrests and ______% of the population nationwide.

a. 15; 26

b. 44; 15

c. 26; 15

d. 44; 58

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Discrimination in the Juvenile Justice System

Difficulty Level: Medium

17. Race is ______ factor in the juvenile justice systems not only for blacks but also for Latino and American Indian youth.

a. not a relevant

b. a minor relevant

c. a moderately relevant

d. is a relevant

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Discrimination in the Juvenile Justice System

Difficulty Level: Medium

18. It has been argued that any ______ within the juvenile justice system should be considered separately from the adult system.

a. arrests

b. discrimination

c. interrogation

d. charges brought

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Discrimination in the Juvenile Justice System

Difficulty Level: Medium

19. With regard to racism in police decision-making, including arrest and use of force the research results, ______.

a. almost unanimously show the influence of racial factors

b. almost unanimously show that race has no influence

c. are mixed

d. are not worthy of discussion because the research is poorly done

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Police Powers and Minorities

Difficulty Level: Medium

20. In one study of police employed by the Cincinnati Police Division, they discovered that more ______ interactions ended in arrest than black officer-suspect interactions.

a. white officer-suspect

b. Native American officer-suspect

c. hispanic officer-suspect

d. Asian officer-suspect

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Police Powers and Minorities

Difficulty Level: Medium

21. According to the results of criminal justice research, which of the following statistics or factors do not evidence the effect of racism against blacks in police–citizen encounters?

a. The frequency of arrests of blacks for sale of cocaine and heroin in proportion to whites.

b. The frequency of arrests of black in proportion to whites

c. The neighborhoods in which arrests take place.

d. The frequency of police shooting of blacks in proportion to whites.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Application | Analysis

Answer Location: Police Powers and Minorities

Difficulty Level: Hard

22. Some have argued that the ______ has been the cause of high ranking enjoyed by drug enforcement.

a. rise of drug arrests

b. Comprehensive Crime Act of 1984

c. Drug Abuse Act of 1968

d. none of these

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Drug Enforcement

Difficulty Level: Medium

23. According to Spohn, Gruhl, and Welch (1987), one analysis showed cases against blacks and Hispanics were ______ likely to be prosecuted than cases against whites.

a. less

b. twice as

c. more

d. three times as

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Prosecutorial Discretion

Difficulty Level: Medium

24. A number of studies have concluded that ______ defendants are offered plea bargains more frequently and obtain better deals.

a. black

b. hispanic

c. asian

d. white

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Prosecutorial Discretion

Difficulty Level: Medium

25. A study of federal criminal cases found that when federal prosecutors request a sentence lower than stipulated minimum for those they seemed “salvageable” and “sympathetic” they were ______ likely to request lower sentences for blacks and Hispanic males than for white males.

a. less

b. twice as

c. more

d. three times as

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Prosecutorial Discretion

Difficulty Level: Medium

26. In which case did the court strike down a statute limiting jury service to white men on grounds it violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution?

a. Strauder v. West Virginia

b. McClesky v. Kemp

c. Brown v. Board of Education

d. Batson v. Kentucky

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Jury Selection

Difficulty Level: Medium

27. Stereotypes concerning jurors of different races, especially in relation to judgments that are made on the basis of limited knowledge ______.

a. render it precisely the type of judgment most likely to be biased by race

b. lead to the conviction of innocent defendants

c. require the prosecutor to get special permission to question the juror

d. all the defense attorney to file a motion of in re delimited

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Jury Selection

Difficulty Level: Medium

28. Which court case dealt with the issue of using race as sole reason for excusing potential jurors using peremptory challenges?

a. Strauder v. West Virginia

b. McClesky v. Kemp

c. Brown v. Board of Education

d. Batson v. Kentucky

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Jury Selection

Difficulty Level: Medium

29. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Batson v. Kentucky (1986) that prosecutors engage in unlawful discrimination when they exclude blacks from jury service through the use of ______.

a. inflammatory arguments

b. prosecutorial misconduct

c. challenges for cause

d. peremptory challenges

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Case Study 4.1: In Dallas, Dismissal of Black Jurors Leads to Appeal by Death Row Inmate

Difficulty Level: Medium

30. In the aggregate, ______ tend to be convicted less than ______.

a. Whites; Blacks

b. Whites; Hispanics

c. Blacks; Hispanics

d. Blacks; Whites

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Conviction

Difficulty Level: Medium

31. Research on discrimination in the sentencing process has found that ______,

a. Blacks are disproportionately given more severe sentences than Whites

b. past criminal record affects sentencing more than race

c. Blacks receive proportionately more “three-strikes” sentences than Whites

d. Blacks receive proportionately fewer sentences of probation than Whites

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Sentencing

Difficulty Level: Medium

32. Social factors examined by researchers include ______.

a. role of poverty

b. urbanization

c. macro-social factors

d. all of these

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Economic and Social Factors

Difficulty Level: Medium

33. Although disputes about the causes remain open, which of the following statements about incarceration rates (per 100,000 persons in the general population) in the U.S. is correct?

a. The Black rate is higher than either the Hispanic or white rate.

b. The Hispanic rate is higher than either the Black or white rate.

c. The White rate is higher than either the Black or Hispanic rate.

d. There are no statistically significant differences in rates between the three groups.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration Rates

Difficulty Level: Medium

34. According to Doerner and Demuth (2009), which of the following factors was found to have a significant effect on sentencing and makes them suggest that stereotypes may be influential?

a. age

b. level of education

c. prior history

d. type of offense

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration Rates

Difficulty Level: Medium

35. Research studies continue to find that ______ has a dramatic effect on reducing criminal behavior.

a. use of force

b. imprisonment

c. education

d. age

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration Rates

Difficulty Level: Medium

36. Historically, race and the ______ have been closely associated.

a. level of education of inmates

b. death penalty

c. drug war

d. none of these

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Death Penalty Disparities

Difficulty Level: Medium

37. Research on the death penalty tends to show that ______.

a. race of the offender plays a role but race of the victim does not

b. race of the victim plays a role, but race of the victim does not

c. race of both the victim and offender play a role

d. neither the race of the offender or of the victim plays a role

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Death Penalty Disparities

Difficulty Level: Medium

38. In which United States Supreme Court case was Baldus’ research rejected by the Court?

a. Strauder v. West Virginia

b. McClesky v. Kemp

c. Brown v. Board of Education

d. Plessy v. Ferguson

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Death Penalty Disparities

Difficulty Level: Medium

39. In the 2002 General Social Survey, ______% of blacks favored the death penalty.

a. 24.3

b. 42.1

c. 69.8

d. 74.3

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Death Penalty Disparities

Difficulty Level: Medium

40. What percentage of Americans now support the death penalty for murder and what percentage of Americans oppose death sentences for murder, according to a 2016 Pew Research poll?

a. 42% and 49%

b. 49% and 42%

c. 29% and 57%

d. 57% and 29%

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Death Penalty Disparities

Difficulty Level: Medium

41. A difficulty in prosecutions for hate crimes is proving the defendant’s ______.

a. purpose

b. intent

c. motive

d. knowledge

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Hate Crimes

Difficulty Level: Medium

42. Crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity are known as ______.

a. race crimes

b. hate crimes

c. bias-motivated crimes

d. both b and c

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Hate Crimes

Difficulty Level: Medium

43. What can be said of racial disparities within the criminal justice system?

a. while there is some evidence, they largely do not exist

b. They have been clearly identified, but nevertheless persist.

c. They do not qualify as moral issue due to the government being above common people.

d. It is not for policy makers to get involved in eradicating racial inequalities.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: How Do We Explain the Existence of Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System?

Difficulty Level: Medium

44. According to conflict theorists ______.

a. individuals share values with state

b. society is comprised of groups of who work together to solve common problems

c. criminal law is viewed as an instrument of protection for the powerful elite

d. punishment is based on rational factors

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Conflict Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

45. In ______ theory, criminal law is viewed as an instrument for the protection of the powerful and the elite, and punishment is based on nonrational factors such as race and social class.

a. consensus

b. symbolic aspect of social conflict

c. conflict

d. moral panics

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Conflict Theory

Difficulty Level: Medium

46. Mauer (2006) contends that since the ______ no policy has impacted Black incarceration more than the War on Drugs.

a. 1960s

b. 1970s

c. 1980s

d. 1990s

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration and the War on Drugs

Difficulty Level: Medium

47. Mauer (2006) notes that in 1980 Blacks accounted for 21% of drug possession arrests rose to 36% by 1991 and then declined to ______% in 2000.

a. 26

b. 32

c. 36

d. 44

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration and the War on Drugs

Difficulty Level: Medium

48. Tonry (1998) ______.

a. argues that the targeting of Black drug offenders was unconsciously done

b. reported that those who promoted drug policies were not aware that they would disproportionately affect Blacks

c. points to the reality of ghetto life that entices young Black males into selling drugs

d. found that it was not easy for drug agents to infiltrate disorganized Black urban drug markets

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration and the War on Drugs

Difficulty Level: Medium

49. According to Tonry, (2010: 294) longstanding ______ has created unconscious support for programs and policies that sustain white dominance. Drug and crime control policies have the effect of destabilizing black communities and reinforce white dominance in economic, social, and political spheres.

a. reverse racism

b. white self-interest

c. dominance

d. inequities

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Incarceration and The War on Drugs

Difficulty Level: Medium

50. Moore (2015) found that between 2004 and 2009, 11 major sentencing reform bills were introduced, and out of the 45 reform measures, only ______ were enacted.

a. two

b. four

c. seven

d. ten

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration and The War on Drugs

Difficulty Level: Medium

True/False

1. Biologically, the term “race” has a very clear, specific meaning.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. The institution of slavery reinforced the idea that there were superior and inferior races.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Historical Context

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. Disparity in sentencing over the past couple of decades has been highlighted by differing sentences for possessing equal amounts of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration and The War on Drugs

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. The essence of hate crimes is that they are motivated by bias against the victim’s race, ethnicity, religion, etc.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Hate Crimes

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. Prosecutors and defense lawyers are able to use peremptory challenges to excuse potential jurors without identifying any cause or explanation and without any accountability to the court, so it is therefore possible to employ peremptory challenges in the practice of racial discrimination in jury selection.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. Ethnicity is a nonspecific term that means nothing until applied to a particular context.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. Petit apartheid encompasses overt racism.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. In the aggregate, Blacks tend to be convicted less than Whites.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Conviction and Sentencing

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. There is no difference between white and black views about the death penalty.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Sentencing

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. Consensus theory believes punishment is based on rational factors such as the seriousness of the offense and prior convictions.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: How Do We Explain the Existence of Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System?

Difficulty Level: Medium

Short Answer

1. Define race.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. Define “ethnicity.”

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. Grand apartheid encompasses what type of racism?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension

Answer Location: Ethical Background

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. What is the importance of Brown v. Board of Education?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge | Comprehension | Application

Answer Location: Historical Context

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. What is a “peremptory challenge?”

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Jury Selection

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. According to Statistica, in 2016, the U.S. median household income for Hispanics was ______, for blacks was ______, and for whites was ______.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Economic and Social Factors

Difficulty Level: Hard

7. In 2016, the incarceration rate for black male inmates in state or federal institutions with sentences longer than 1 year was ______ per 100,000 population, white males’ rate was ______ per 10,000 population, and Hispanic males’ rate was ______.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration Rates

Difficulty Level: Hard

8. In U.S. federal prisons in 2016, ______% of all inmates were service sentences for drug-related offenses. Serving sentences for drug-related crimes are ______% of white males, ______% of Black males, and ______% of Hispanic males.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Explaining Racial Disproportionality in Incarceration

Difficulty Level: Hard

9. Historically, ______ and the death penalty have been closely associated.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Death Penalty Disparities

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. In general, what is the difference between Black and White attitudes toward the death penalty?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Death Penalty Disparities

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. Define “hate crime.”

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Hate Crimes

Difficulty Level: Medium

12. Despite the 2009 federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, only five states do not off ptotection with specific hate crime laws. These states are ______, ______, ______, ______, and ______.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Hate Crimes

Difficulty Level: Hard

13. It has been argued “that police and minorities should be viewed as distinct groups dynamically and intractably opposed, and that police brutality is an outcome and a symptom of that relationship.” How does this situation exacerbate discrimination?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Conflict Theory

Difficulty Level: Hard

14. What is the most discussed disparity in drug sentencing in recent years?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Incarceration and The War on Drugs

Difficulty Level: Medium

Essay

1. Discuss two theories that attempt to explain racial discrimination in the American criminal justice system. Give a specific example for each theory.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: How Do We Explain the Existence of Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System? | Conflict Theory | Incarceration and The War on Drugs

Difficulty Level: Hard

2. Discuss, describe, compare and contrast the results of the New York City and Memphis studies on police use of deadly force and race. What might account for the difference between the two cities?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Police Powers and Minorities

Difficulty Level: Hard

3. Why does focusing on racial discrimination at the formal, easily observed stages of a criminal case give a limited view of the problem?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Is there Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System? | Criminal Justice System: Discrimination and Decision-Making Points | Police Powers and Minorities | Explaining Racial Disproportionality in Incarceration

Difficulty Level: Hard

4. What practices would you implement to reduce the discrimination that takes place when making bail decisions?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Bail

Difficulty Level: Hard

5. If you were in charge of creating a pool of potential jurors, from where would you draw the names? Why? How might that method be discriminatory?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Jury Selection

Difficulty Level: Hard