Criminology Topic 1

Question 1

What are White Collar Crimes?

Answer 1

Crimes committed by higher-ups or people in positions of power.

Question 2

What are State Crimes?

Answer 2

Crimes committed by the state.

Question 3

What is an Honour crime?

Answer 3

Some cultures value family honour very highly, above the rights of individuals in the family. Sometimes this leads to violence, murder, abuse and forced marriages.

Question 4

What is the current statistics of Honour Crime?

Answer 4

2,823 honour crimes annually.
8 per day.
13 out of 52 police forces don’t respond.

Question 5

What crimes fall under the blanket term ‘domestic violence’?

Answer 5

Physical and sexual assault,
murder, emotional, economic and verbal abuse, blackmail, and coercive control.

Question 6

Who was Clair Woods?

Answer 6

Claire Woods was a mother and victim of domestic violence, killed by an ex-boyfriend in 2009. In the months leading up to her death, she made numerous reports to the police about this ex and the threat he posed, but she was ignored.

Question 7

What are Hate Crimes?

Answer 7

Crimes committed against a minority or marginalised group due to discrimination or prejudice held by the offenders.

Question 8

Why do people not report crimes?

Answer 8

Fear, shame, lack of knowledge, lack of public concern, language or culture barrier, lack of trust in the police, etc.

Question 9

What are some examples of the most under-reported crimes?

Answer 9

Hate crimes, domestic violence, white collar crimes, cybercrimes, street crimes and honour crimes.

Question 10

What is the Ripple Effect?

Answer 10

Explains how crime can impact more than just the victim of the crime, but spread throughout family, friends, the local community, and wider society.

Question 11

What are ‘sink areas’?

Answer 11

A council housing estate with high levels of social problems, particularly crime.

Question 12

What is the Broken Window Thesis?

Answer 12

A theory proposed by Wilson and Kelling that suggests unchecked and unreported minor crime leads to further and more serious crime.

Question 13

Who lead the broken window experiment?

Answer 13

Philip Zimbardo.

Question 14

What is Modern Witchcraft?

Answer 14

An extremist reaction to accusing someone of the supernatural or acts against their beliefs. This usually leads to violence, abuse, or abandoning children.

Question 15

Kristy Bamu

Answer 15

A victim of modern witchcraft who was tortured and eventually killed by his sister and her friend as they believed he was ‘possessed’.

Question 16

Mardoche Yembi

Answer 16

A boy who was abused and mistreated while staying with his aunt of uncle as they accused him of having a ‘dark spirit’ within him. He was taken to social services and stayed in foster care after confirming that his aunt and uncle weren’t his real parents.

Question 17

What is Decriminalisation?

Answer 17

The legislative process which removes prosecutions against an action so that the action remains illegal but has no criminal penalties or at most some civil fine.

Question 18

Which European country has the most liberal drug use laws?

Answer 18

Portugal.

Question 19

How do articles spread misinformation?

Answer 19

Sensationalisation, over-reporting, glamorisation, glorification, misrepresenting, scaremongering, embellishing.

Question 20

What are the 8 criteria which act as guides to the construction of news stories?

Answer 20

Immediacy, dramatisation, personalisation, higher status persons, simplification, novelty, risk, and violence.

Question 21

Surette’s law of opposites

Answer 21

Over-exaggerated representations of risk of crime especially serious crime.

Question 22

How has the trend of crime changed over time?

Answer 22

Generally, the total police recorded crime and ASB incidents have decreased over time.

Question 23

Who conducted the experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience?

Answer 23

Stanely Milgram (1963).

Question 24

What are the problems with eyewitness identification?

Answer 24

Reconstructed memories - the brain filling in things that didn’t happen due to a lapse in memory.

Question 25

What is meant by Moral Panic?

Answer 25

When a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.

Question 26

What is an example of moral panic?

Answer 26

The Mods and Rockers.

Question 27

What percentage of offences reported were not recorded?

Answer 27

Over 30%