Crime

Question 1

What is crime?

Answer 1

Any act that violates written criminal law and is enforced through formal sanctions.

Question 2

What are the types of crime?

Answer 2

Crime against the person, crime against property, victimless crimes, white collar crimes, and corporate crimes.

Question 3

What is a crime against the person?

Answer 3

An act that threatens, harasses, or injures another person or deprives them of their freedom, fatal or non-fatal.

Question 4

What is a crime against property?

Answer 4

The most common crime in Australia. Includes damage or destruction of homes, businesses and land, burglary, and theft.

Question 5

What are victimless crimes?

Answer 5

All parties involved in the criminal activity consent to the act and no one appears harmed in the process.

Question 6

What is white collar crime?

Answer 6

Introduced as crime carried out by privileged classes, often against companies they work for, but now includes a range of non-violent crimes.

Question 7

What is corporate crime?

Answer 7

Crime committed by large corporations that can impact individuals, groups, other corporations, and society as a whole.

Question 8

What are the factors contributing to crime?

Answer 8

Poverty, addiction, abuse and rebellion

Question 9

What is poverty?

Answer 9

High crime rates are often associated with poverty, unemployment, low levels of educational attainment, family relationship problems and high levels of drug use.

Question 10

What is addiction?

Answer 10

Addiction to gambling and illicit drugs is a risk factor in criminal behaviour. Data has been collected to support the connection between addiction and crime.

Question 11

What is abuse?

Answer 11

Child abuse and neglect is a contributing factor to participation in criminal behaviour later in life. Children do not have to directly experience abuse for it to influence their behaviour.

Question 12

What is rebellion?

Answer 12

A refusal to obey social order is considered an act of rebellion. Most rebellious uprisings are against established authorities such as the state government and can be violent or non violent.

Question 13

What are the aims of punishment?

Answer 13

Retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation and societal protection.

Question 14

What is retribution?

Answer 14

Society’s revenge for a moral wrong.

Question 15

What is deterrence?

Answer 15

Based on the belief that crime is a social disruption, which society acts to control. It’s believed that humans as rational beings would not break the law if they think that the pain of punishment will outweigh the pleasure of crime.

Question 16

What is rehabilitation?

Answer 16

Where crime is seen as the result of social problems or personal problems. It’s believed that as social conditions are improved, so too will an offender’s behaviour. Rehabilitation motivates the offender to conform to socially acceptable behaviours.

Question 17

What is societal protection?

Answer 17

Making an offender incapable of further offences through imprisonment.

Question 18

What is reintegrative shaming?

Answer 18

Expressions of community disapproval are followed by gestures of re-acceptance into the community of law-abiding citizens.

Question 19

What is restorative justice?

Answer 19

Viewing a crime as harm done to people or a community, not as a violation of a law or an offence against the state. Restorative justice sees offender accountability as repairing harm, apologising and taking responsibility, not as punishment.

Question 20

What is socio economic status?

Answer 20

The position of an individual determined by social and economic factors such as income, education, occupation, place of residence, etc.

Question 21

What is recidivism?

Answer 21

The tendency of a criminal to reoffend.

Question 22

What factors are taken into account when a judge must decide on a sentence?

Answer 22

Intention, consequences of the offence, the use of weapons, any braech of trust, the offendor’s history of offending, the offendor’s response to previous court orders, alcohol or drug addiction.