Explain the idea of the “global fallacy.” Do you believe that there can be such a thing as a “general theory of crime?” Support your answer.

What will be an ideal response?


The global fallacy refers to the tendency to attempt to generalize relatively specific explanations to all types of crimes (Hagan, 1987c). Many individual theories are not invalid in themselves, but they are either too globally ambitious or are interpreted as such. A perfectly appropriate theory for explaining burglary may not apply at all to inside trading, nor should it be expected to do so.An excellent illustration of the global fallacy is the neoclassical “general theory of crime” proposed by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990; Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1987, 1989). They maintain that all crime is owing to an individual’s lack of self-control and that white collar crime (defined solely as the Uniform Crime Reports’ inadequate measures of only embezzlement, fraud, and forgery) does not require any different explanation than street crime. This is a “baffling” (Reed & Yeager, 1991) disregard of elementary research findings on white collar crime, which will be discussed in Chapter 10. Do corporations, state terrorists, the Mafia, or Iran-Contra conspirators all lack self-control?

Criminal Justice

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The prison problem of restorative justice refers to which of the following:

a. the approach wants to make sure that offenders remain in prison until they are ready to apologize to their victims b. the approach wants to reform prisons so they are set up like a community for offenders to practice going into the community c. the approach wants to process nearly all offenders in the community d. the approach wants to only select certain types of offenders that are in prison

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Family organizations formed by female inmates who take the roles of parents and children and other relatives are called ________

Fill in the blank(s) with correct word

Criminal Justice

Identify and explain the importance of the three key characteristics of the common law.

What will be an ideal response?

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Beyond raising awareness about a specific topic, outreach and education programs should motivate individuals to ______.

a. organize advocacy groups to actively work together in addressing the problem and its evolving nature b. actively lobby congress in support of progressive change c. boycott the Internet d. take action or make changes to improve their safety

Criminal Justice