Soc 4350: Study Guide 1 Spring 2008
Instructor: Bruce Mork

I. Multiple choice. 50 points of the exam will be based on 20 multiple choice questions covering material from the first six weeks of our course--readings, movies, lecture and discussion. The following concepts and people will be of some help in preparing for this part of the exam.

white collar crime, organizational crime, organizational deviance, externalities, stages of corporate deviance (initiatining deviance, institutionalization, reaction), whistleblowers: Frank Serpico, Joseph Rose, and degradation ceremonies, criminaloid, Edwin Sutherland, research basis for White Collar Crime, corporate good will, public attitudes toward corporate crime, Clinard and Yeager: corporations with multiple violations, price-fixing, rationalizations, anomie theory, differential association theory, subculture theory, conflict theory, Sherman and Clayton Anti-trust Acts, heavy electric anti-trust cases, Goodrich Aircraft brake hazards, My Lai massacre: Sgt. Calley, CWO Hugh Thompson, military law about obeying orders, sanctioned massacres: authorization, routinization and dehumanization, Imperial Food Products and chained fire exits: mass media "blaming," Courtroom 302: police record-keeping and interrogation, the role of prosecutors and judges, "The Chain Never Stops," speed-up, corporate good will, public attitudes toward corporate crime, Cold War

Videos: The Corporation, Taken for a Ride, Rollover, Trade Secrets, Where Do you Stand?, The Fog of War (review your worksheets)

II. Essay Questions. I will give you four of the following questions and ask you to write about two of them (25 points each):

1. For a century or more, large corporations have sought to minimize the power of government to regulate their activities, while on the other side workers and consumers have tried to use law and government agencies to limit what they see as the negative effects of unregulated corporate power. Use course materials to illustrate both sides of this struggle.

2. How did corporate crime emerge as an issue in criminology, and why has it been getting more attention in recent years? What are the signs that our society is taking it more seriously?

3. Which of the sociological theories of deviance seem most helpful in understanding the patterns of organizational crime covered in our readings and videos? Show how they fit, with specific examples.

4. E. A. Ross says: “The key to the criminaloid is not evil impulse but moral insensibility.” Is this a helpful distinction? If so, use it as a basis for discussing some of our readings and videos.

5. How can we estimate the prevalence of corporate crime in our society and the harm it causes? What are the major obstacles to a true assessment?

6. Why do employees of large corporations get involved in corporate wrong-doing? How do they justify their behavior? Why are they so rarely punished by the criminal justice system?

7. How do corporate trade associations tend to react when evidence emerges that their products or practices pose dangers, whether to their customers, their workers, or society at large? Why do you suppose they react that way?