Chapter 1: Criminal Justice Today Objectives

After reading this chapter, students should be able to: 

1. Describe the two most common models of how society determines which acts are criminal.
2. Explain two main purposes of the criminal justice system.
3. Outline the three levels of law enforcement.
4. List the essential elements of the corrections system.
5. Explain the difference between the formal and informal criminal justice processes.
6. Define ethics, and describe the role that it plays in discretionary decision making.
7. Contrast the crime control and due process models.
8. List the major issues in criminal justice today.

Chapter 2: Measuring and Explaining Crime Objectives

After reading this chapter, students should:

1. Identify the six main categories of crime.
2. Identify the publication in which the FBI reports crime data, and list the two main ways in which the data are reported. 
3. Distinguish between the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and self-reported surveys.
4. Explain why income level appears to be more important than race or ethnicity when it comes to crime trends.
5. Discuss the difference between a hypothesis and a theory in the context of criminology. 
6. Explain the theory of the chronic offender and its usefulness for law enforcement.
7. Describe the importance of early childhood behavior for those who subscribe to self-control theory.
8. Explain the routine activities theory of victimization. 
9. Discuss the connection between the learning process and the start of an individual’s drug use.