SOC203 Essay Question
Pick any of the 8 out of 11 to answer.
Describe what the American dream is. Do you believe that merton’s theory explains crime adequately, both at the aggregate and at the individual level? Explain your answer
Provide examples of the five adaptations to strain that you see in your own life.
Provide three examples of the three sources of strain proposed be general strain theory. Does this theory adequately explain criminal behavior? Explain.
What characteristics distinguish the positivist school from the classical school regarding crime and criminals? Which of these schools of thought do you lean more toward when you think about crime and why?
What modern day criminal justice policies do you think are based upon the ideas proposed by Beccaria and/or Bentham?
Describe the difference between specific and general deterrence and provide an example of each. Give an example of a situation where there is a specific deterrent effect but no general deterrent effect.
Describe the “routine activities” in which you engage. How might these activities increase or decrease your chance of victimization?
Think back to your childhood. Was the level of collective efficacy high or low in your neighborhood? Give examples of when examples of collective efficacy were or were not activated to deal with public disorder or troublesome behaviors.
Although written several decades ago, how might Shaw and McKay’s theory help explain the occurrence of crime in today’s inner-city communities?
Have you encountered individuals who seem to engage in behaviors that fit with either Wolfgang and Ferracuti’s subculture of violence or Anderson’s code of the street? Why do you believe they fit these models?
Provide examples of : positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. Which of these concepts to you believe is the most effective to use to increase behavior. Why? Which of these concepts do you believe is the most effective to use to decrease behavior. Why?