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WorksheetsCrime Lesson 5: Social class + Marxism
Total questions: 10
Worksheet time: 5mins
What do official statistics typically show about class differences in offending?
working class have lower offending rates
higher offending among the working class
higher offending among the middle class
equal offending across all classes
According to functionalism, what causes crime?
inadequate socialisation into shared values
the natural competitiveness of capitalism
police stereotyping of the working class
subcultures accepting mainstream values
According to Merton’s strain theory, the reason for working-class individuals being more likely to engage in crime is...
law enforcement labels them as criminals
unequal access to opportunities for success
they are naturally more inclined to crime
socialisation into a criminal subculture
Labelling theorists differ from other theories when explaining working-class crime, because they...
believe working-class crime is caused by blocked opportunities
argue that working-class people have unique subcultural values that encourage crime
believe that inappropriate socialization is the main cause of crime
see crime statistics as invalid and focus on how the working class is labelled as criminal
According to Marxists, why is crime inevitable in capitalist societies?
working class is poorly socialised into society’s values
competition and greed creates a strain to anomie
capitalist exploitation leads to poverty and alienation
law enforcement agencies label the working class as criminals
What does criminogenic capitalism refer to?
capitalism’s tendency to create crime
poverty and exploitation of the working class
alienation and frustration cause utilitarian crime
consumerism and competition cause non-utilitarian crime
According to Chambliss, the key purpose of laws protecting private property is to...
promote equal wealth distribution
maintain the foundations of the capitalist economy
protect traditional cultural practices
reduce conflict between social groups
Snider argues that, when regulating business activity, the capitalist state...
encourages state control of all major industries
prioritises strict regulation to protect workers
focuses mainly on punishing corporate crime
is reluctant to pass laws that threaten business profitability
What does selective enforcement refer to?
the law being applied more harshly to powerless groups
the equal application of the law across classes
the police focusing only on corporate crime
the refusal of the state to create any new laws
A criticism to the Marxist theory of crime is that it...
largely ignores the role of gender in shaping criminal behaviour
over-predicts working-class crime, since not all poor people offend
pays insufficient attention to crimes that occur within the working class
assumes capitalist societies always produce uniformly low crime rates
