CJ 100 - Chapter 2: Criminal Justice, Society, and Morality

What laws contributed to mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders by authorizing life sentences for repeat offenders who committed minor crimes?

Three Strikes Laws

True or false, the rule of law helps to limit the power of government.

True

Which French sociologist argued that a truly crime-free society would require unanimous agreement on all aspects of life?

Emile Durkheim

_____ exists when citizens accept that their government has the right to govern them.

Legitimacy

Strategy

The broad approach that an agency or organization uses to address a problem or issue. A strategy is a broad plan that is put into effect through the use of various specific tactics.

Tactics

Specific actions that are taken to implement the broad idea outlined in a strategy.

Data

Careful and systematic observations that are analyzed to draw a conclusion about a research question. Examples of data include statistics, interviews, survey responses, and more.

Officers collecting and storing information on crimes for analysis is an example of departments collecting _____.

Data

Is the following an example of a strategy, a tactic, or a policy: officers deciding where, when, and how to administer DUI checkpoints over a holiday weekend?

A tactic

Tenacity

Believing that something is true based on the sheer desire to believe it, often because it is something that a person wants to be true.

A priori reasoning

A method of reasoning using inductive reasoning, taking a broad concept and applying it to a specific issue, but without verification by data or independent observations; can be utilized in developing theory.

Empiricism

The notion that the answers to questions should be grounded in the collection and analysis of data. This approach guides scholars in criminal justice and other fields.

True or false, the overall crime rate is significantly lower today than it was in the 1990s.

True

According to the text, which of the four methods of establishing a belief to eliminate doubt is the most reliable: tenacity, authority, a priori reasoning, or the scientific method?

The scientific method

Private morality

Members of the public and their individual concepts of what morality means to them.

Public morality

The moral beliefs held by a majority of society.

What are the five concepts of morality?

Knowledge, self, spirituality, universe, and death

True or false, Kohlberg argued that there are three stages of moral development?

False

Paradigms

Philosophical tendencies or worldviews held by individuals that they use to help them make decisions.

Idealists

An advocate of the philosophical perspective of idealism, which evaluates actions and decisions based on how well they meet broad goals or theoretical ideas.

Pragmatists

An advocate of the philosophical perspective of pragmatism, in which actions and decisions are evaluated based on empiricism and the analysis of data.