Chapter 1 What No One Is Telling You About Crime and Justice

QUIZ QUESTIONS CJS 101, BARKAN AND BRYJAK (2014 edition) AND OTHER REQUIRED READINGS USED TOGETHER WITH THAT TEXT

Chapter 1 – What No One is Telling You About Crime and Justice

According to Barkan and Bryjak, public beliefs about crime and justice in America are often inaccurate. Why do they say that is? Explain.
Ans: Sources of these beliefs often distort the true nature of criminal behavior and provide a misleading picture of the police, courts and penal system. P.2
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According to Barkan and Bryjak are most street crimes serious violent crimes? Explain.
Ans: No, only about 10% are murder, robbery, rape or aggravated assault. Street crimes include violent and property crimes. P.2
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According to Barkan and Bryjak do most street crimes result in an arrest? How about most violent crimes? Explain.
Ans: No, about 10% of all street crimes and less than 15% of all violent crimes end in arrest. P.2
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According to Barkan and Bryjak how common are criminal trials? Explain.
Ans: Fairly rare. 90% of criminal cases resolved by means of plea bargains. P.2
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According to Barkan and Bryjak how have federal and state governments gone about trying to reduce crime since the 1970s? Explain.
Ans: with a get-rough approach involving crackdowns on minor offenses, longer prison sentences, and large expenditures on police, prisons and a variety of law enforcement strategies. Criminal justice system now costs $260 compared to $36 per person in the early 1980s. Has produced highest incarceration rate in the Western world. P.3
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According to Barkan and Bryjak how successful has the “get-tough” approach to crime been and what problems has it caused? Explain.
Ans: Resulted in huge expenditures government is struggling to pay and has made only modest dent in crime. P.4
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what approach to crime reduction do most criminologists favor? Explain.
Ans: a public health strategy that attacks the causes of crime. Believe they will be much more cost effective. P.4
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Chapter 2 – The Crime Problem

According to Barkan and Bryjak does the United States have high or low murder rates compared to other Western countries? Explain.
Ans: highest homicide rates in the western world. P.7
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According to Barkan and Bryjak do Americans underestimate or overestimate the extent to which convicted offenders go to prison and the length of their sentences? Explain.
Ans: underestimate. P.8
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what do most American think has been happening to the crime rate? Are they correct? Explain.
Ans: Most think it is going up. Declined steadily 1993-2011 P.8
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According to Barkan and Bryjak homicide receives more media attention than it merits. Explain their argument.
Ans: Not among top ten causes of death. Heart disease, cancer, car accidents and suicide all account for more. P.8
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According to Barkan and Bryjakour focus on homicide leads us to neglect the seriousness of another type of crime which is in many ways more harmful than street crime. What kind of crime is that? Explain.
Ans: white collar crime including medical fraud, false advertising, price fixing, financial fraud, and corrupt practices. The costs of these dwarf costs of street crime. Annual death toll from white collar crime my exceed 100,000 compared to 14,500 homicides. Pp.8
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According to Barkan and Bryjak the media overdramatize crime in at least two ways. What are those two ways? Explain.
Ans: Report lots of crime stories to grab attention (which creates impression of crime wave) and they overdramatize crime by giving disproportionate attention to violent crime. P.9
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According to Barkan and Bryjak media coverage of crime often highlights crimes committed by two groups. Identify those two groups and explain.
Ans: minorities and teenagers. TV and newspaper stories about crime have more minority offenders and more white victims than is true in actual crime statistics. Similarly for teenagers where polls indicate people believe they commit most violent crime when in fact they commit 14-16%. Pp.9-10
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According to Barkan and Bryjak do most crimes involve offenders and victims of the same race or different races? Explain.
Ans: the same race although the media don’t usually portray it that way. P.9-10
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what do most people believe about teenagers and violent crimes? Is this belief accurate? Explain.
Ans: Believe youth homicides increasing although they are decreasing and believe youths commit most violent crime even though they actually commit 14-16% of it. P.10
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Barkan and Bryjak identify four different crime myths. Identify and explain any three of those.
Ans: 1) crime is rising, 2) most crime is violent, 3) overestimate the involvement of minorities and youths in crime, 4) people worry more about crime than the facts warrant. P.10
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According to Barkan and Bryjak there is another major contributing source of crime myths in addition to the media. What is that source? Explain.
Ans: Statements by public officials who use strong words about crime and criminals. Cites George H.W. Bush and Willie Horton ad. P.10
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According to Barkan and Bryjak do studies show that Americans prefer a “law enforcement” or a “social problems” approach to crime? Explain.
Ans: while many hold punitive views, the majority seemed to prefer a social problems approach. 64% chose social problems approach and 32% law enforcement approach. P.11
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what is the result of racial prejudice that affects the views of whites about crime and justice. Explain.
Ans: results in support for the death penalty, harsher courts, police brutality and for spending more to fight crime. P.12
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what do studies show about the views of public about the police? Explain.
Ans: African-Americans and Hispanics have much more negative views, more likely to question police honesty and ethics and African-Americans almost three times as likely as whites to believe there is police brutality in their neighborhoods. P.12
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According to Barkan and Bryjak how does the approach to dealing with crime differ between the United States and other Western nations? Explain.
Ans: We have focused on law enforcement strategy while others have focused on rehabilitation and social factors underlying crime. P.12-13
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According to Barkan and Bryjak how does the U.S. incarceration rate (percentage of people in jail or prison) compare with the rate in other countries? How does it compare with the U.S. incarceration rate in the past? Explain.
Ans: U.S. rate has grown significantly and is 5 times greater than in any other Western nation. P.13
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what have some states had to do to accommodate the growing costs of the criminal justice system? Explain.
Ans: some have had to divert money from higher education and social programs. P.13

According to Barkan and Bryjak there is a way to get greater crime reduction per dollar spent than we now achieve. How do they think we could do that? Explain.
Ans: spend more on underlying causes of crime and rehabilitation of offenders and less on police and especially on prisons and jails. Pp. 14
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According to Barkan and Bryjak there are significant racial disparities rates of imprisonment that have resulted from our “get-tough” approach to crime. Explain.
Ans: About 12% of African-American and 4% of Hispanic males in their late 20s are incarcerated at any one time compared to less than2% of whites. About 5% of all Americans will go to prison at least some time in their lives but this is 16% for Hispanic men and 30% for African American men. These can’t be explained by the differences in the offense rates. P.14

According to Barkan and Bryjak what is the “funnel effect?” Explain.
Ans: Think of criminal justice system as funnel with many cases entering at the top and a small numbering trickling out the bottom into prison. Less than 2/3 of serious crimes even investigated (because many not reported). Of those they investigate, only 20% lead to arrest. Fewer still are prosecuted. So for every 1000 felonies about 15 (i.e. 1.5%) result in a prison sentence for someone. Some are dismissed and others don’t involve prison. However, convictions for serious crimes do tend to result in heavy punishment. P.15
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What do Barkan and Bryjak mean by the “wedding-cake” model of the criminal justice system? Explain.
Ans: small layer at the top is highly celebrated cases. Second layer is serious felonies which usually go to trial because prosecutors think they merit harsh punishment. Third is less serious felonies and then misdemeanors which make up the bulk of crime. Model helps us understand that different kinds of cases in the system dealt with very differently. Pp.15-16
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According to Barkan and Bryjak one way to understand the criminal justice system is through a “discretionary model.” What do they mean by this? Explain.
Ans: victims and witnesses decide whether to report, police decide how to investigate and whether to arrest, prosecutors decide whether to prosecute and which charges, defendants decide whether to plead guilty, judges whether to dismiss and juries whether to convict and then judges how to sentence. System can’t operate without all this discretion. P.17
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According to Barkan and Bryjak we usually think of ourselves as having an adversarial model of justice. Do they view this as accurate in most criminal cases? Explain.
Ans: No, really a consensual model in which prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges cooperate to push cases through quickly and efficiently. Pp. 17-18
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Barkan and Bryjak compare the crime control model to the due process model. How are they different? Explain.
Ans: crime control model assumes most suspects guilty and emphasizes quick and efficient processing of cases. Key goal of due process model is to prevent government abuse of the legal system against both the guilty and the innocent. P.18
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Chapter 3 – How Much Crime is There and Who Commits It?

According to Barkan and Bryjak, what is the principal reason that our data on serious street crime are inaccurate? Explain.
Ans: Police only hear of about 40% of serious street crime. Rest not reported. Even when police do hear about a crime, it may not get counted as an official crime. P.23 Sometimes police don’t do the paperwork for more minor crimes if they are busy. P.26
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According to Barkan and Bryjak why is it so difficult to know if our efforts to reduce crime are succeeding or failing? Explain.
Ans: since we don’t have the data to tell us for sure if crime is increasing or decreasing or if it is higher in one place than another. P.27
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According to Barkan and Bryjak, how are the FBI Uniform Crime Reports data compiled (i.e. what is their source) and what are some of the principal problems with those data? Explain.
Ans: Compiled from police reports. Police learn of only about 3% of crimes on their own and learn of 40% total (the rest reported to them). Reporting rates vary by crime (e.g. higher for vehicle theft than for rape. Pp. 24-25
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According to Barkan and Bryjak there is a better source of crime data than the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. What is that source? How is it compiled (i.e. where do the data come from)? How is it better?
Ans: National Crime Victimization Survey which comes from survey of random sample of households. Don’t use crime terms (like burglary) but rather read respondents descriptions of crimes. Doesn’t include all crimes (e.g. homicide) but is usually twice as high as UCR. P.25
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According to Barkan and Bryjak why is it that crimes reported by citizens to police don’t always make it into the crime statistics? Explain.
Ans: May not be crimes. May be made up to get someone in trouble or may be that police conclude no crime committed. May also be police too busy to bother with the paperwork. Police only record about 2/3 of crimes reported to them. P.26
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According to Barkan and Bryjak sometimes police deliberately record fewer crimes than actually occur. Why do they do this? Explain.
Ans: to make it appear police are doing a better job controlling crime. Has led to some crime reporting scandals and may also occur on college and university campuses. Pp.26-27
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what is the impact of police crackdowns on crime statistics? Explain.
Ans: Results in many more arrests and reports of particular crime for a brief period. Makes the number of these crimes soar in the UCR even though the actual number has not changed at all. P.27
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According to Barkan and Bryjak the Uniform Crime Reports showed an increased number of rapes in the 1970s and 1980s. Why did recorded rapes increase in that period? Explain.
Ans: Probably did not reflect more rapes but more reported and the reports taken more seriously by the police. P.27
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According to Barkan and Bryjak a technological change resulted in a significant increase in crimes recorded in the Uniform Crime Reports. What was the technological change and why did have this effect on the UCR data? Explain.
Ans: Introduction of 911 which made it much easier to report crimes. P.28
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According to Barkan and Bryjak there is a major category of crime that is excluded from the Uniform Crime Reports. What is that category and what is the effect of excluding it? Explain.
Ans: Corporate crime, e.g. financial corruption, dangerous work places and products, and pollution. Sends the message that corporate crime is not so important. P.28
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what are some of the problems with the accuracy of the National Crime Victimization Survey? Explain.
Ans: excludes commercial and white collar crimes and crimes against those under 12. Also respondents may forget certain victimizations or choose not to tell the interviewer. P.28
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According to Barkan and Bryjak in what parts of the country and what types of areas are crime rates highest? Explain.
Ans: Higher in south and west than northeast and Midwest. Reasons not clear. Higher in urban than rural areas which is probably related to features of urban life including population density and presence of bars and other businesses where people congregate. P.30
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what is the impact of climate on crime? Explain.
Ans: Assaults, rapes, burglaries and larcenies higher in warm weather. Makes people more irritable and they spend more time outdoors. P.31
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According to Barkan and Bryjak do younger people or older people commit more street crimes? Explain.
Ans: Younger people. Peak is 17-19. Reflects adventurousness and immaturity of adolescents. Also period of strong peer influence. Also period when people may want a lot of things they don’t have the money to buy. Also period in which people have little stake in conforming. Pp. 31-32
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what is the gender pattern of crime? Explain.
Ans: Men have much higher rate of serious crime than women. For robbery 90% arrestees male and for aggravated assault 80%. P.32
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what are the most current explanations for the differences in crime rates between males and females? Explain.
Ans: Males biologically more aggressive and socialized to be more assertive and aggressive while women socialized to be more gentle and nurturing. P.32-33
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According to Barkan and Bryjak do different social classes have different crime rates? Explain.
Ans: Some criminologists say yes blaming poverty, etc., but others say this is a myth based on the biases of the criminal justice system. Studies reflect the kind of crimes being measured and problems measuring social class. Some evidence that the very poor commit more street crime. If include white collar crime, then there is no difference in crime rates by social class. Pp.33-34
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According to Barkan and Bryjak is there a difference in the imprisonment rates for whites and blacks? Explain.
Ans: Blacks about 13% of population but about 50% of inmates at state prisons. 1/3 of young black men under correctional supervision. P.34
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what are the major “criminogenic structural conditions” in African-American communities that make their members more likely to commit serious crimes than members of other communities? Explain.
Ans: Much poorer than whites and much more likely to live in segregated high crime communities. P.35
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According to Barkan and Bryjak what has been the impact of increased immigration on U.S. crime rates? Explain.
Ans: myth that this is responsible for more crime. Actually first generation Hispanics have lower crime rates than other Americans and their growing numbers may have been partly responsible for falling crime rates. Second generation migrants have higher crime rates and third generation even higher so seems living in the USA increases the crime rates for these groups. Pp. 35-36
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