Deviance, Crime and Juvenile Delinquency MCQs 2026

In Merton's typology, conformity means acceptance of

1. A Neither goals nor means ✓
2. B Both cultural goals and legitimate means ✓
3. C Goals but rejection of all means ✓
4. D New goals through rebellion ✓

Differential opportunity theory of delinquency is associated with

1. A Mead and Cooley ✓
2. B Parsons and Merton only ✓
3. C Smith and Ricardo ✓
4. D Cloward and Ohlin ✓

Victimization surveys are used to estimate crime by

1. A Asking people about their experiences as victims ✓
2. B Counting only court buildings ✓
3. C Measuring rainfall records ✓
4. D Recording only prison staff opinions ✓

The dark figure of crime means crime that is

1. A Committed only at night ✓
2. B Unreported or undetected by official statistics ✓
3. C Always punished by death ✓
4. D Measured only in prisons ✓

Deviance is considered relative because norms vary by

1. A Only eye color ✓
2. B Only body height ✓
3. C Time, place and social group ✓
4. D Only blood type ✓

A moral panic is best described as

1. A Disproportionate public fear over a perceived threat ✓
2. B A routine census procedure ✓
3. C A type of soil erosion ✓
4. D A legal method of taxation ✓

Goffman's concept of stigma refers to an attribute that is

1. A Purely economic capital ✓
2. B A religious ceremony ✓
3. C A weather condition ✓
4. D Deeply socially discrediting ✓

Formal social control is most clearly represented by

1. A Family advice at home ✓
2. B Police, courts and written laws ✓
3. C Friendship networks only ✓
4. D Neighborhood gossip only ✓

Informal social control is exercised mainly through

1. A Family, peers and community sanctions ✓
2. B Only written penal codes ✓
3. C Only military courts ✓
4. D Only central bank policy ✓

Cesare Beccaria is best known in criminology for advocating

1. A Unrestricted arbitrary punishment ✓
2. B Crime as inherited destiny ✓
3. C Classical proportional punishment ✓
4. D Abolition of all courts ✓

Cesare Lombroso is associated with

1. A Postmodern feminism ✓
2. B Biological positivist criminology ✓
3. C Symbolic exchange theory ✓
4. D Urban human ecology only ✓

Parole normally means

1. A Arrest before investigation ✓
2. B A fine paid before trial ✓
3. C A rule of inheritance ✓
4. D Conditional release after part of a sentence ✓

Probation is usually understood as

1. A Supervised community release instead of imprisonment ✓
2. B Permanent exile from society ✓
3. C Secret detention without trial ✓
4. D A biological test for crime ✓

Actus reus refers to the

1. A Motive of a judge ✓
2. B Moral education of society ✓
3. C Guilty act or external conduct ✓
4. D Religious status of offender ✓

Cybercrime generally means offenses that involve

1. A Only agricultural machinery ✓
2. B Traditional oral poetry ✓
3. C Manual census taking ✓
4. D Computers or digital networks ✓

Organized crime is best described as

1. A A continuing structured group seeking illegal profit ✓
2. B A temporary classroom discussion ✓
3. C A legal public charity ✓
4. D A single accidental norm breach ✓

Corporate crime refers to illegal acts committed by

1. A Children inside schools ✓
2. B Organizations or their officials for corporate benefit ✓
3. C Only unemployed workers ✓
4. D Religious pilgrims only ✓

The retributive aim of punishment is best described as

1. A Training the offender for a job ✓
2. B Giving deserved punishment for wrongdoing ✓
3. C Measuring public opinion ✓
4. D Studying urban ecology ✓

Rehabilitation in criminal justice mainly aims to

1. A Reform offenders for social reintegration ✓
2. B Increase family size ✓
3. C Promote caste endogamy ✓
4. D Abolish all formal laws ✓

In criminal law terminology, mens rea means

1. A Physical place of crime ✓
2. B Guilty mind or criminal intent ✓
3. C Police station record ✓
4. D Age of the witness ✓

Restorative justice gives special importance to

1. A Only longer prison terms ✓
2. B Secret court records ✓
3. C Repairing harm among victim, offender and community ✓
4. D Biological measurement of offenders ✓

The expression victimless crime is usually applied to offenses involving

1. A War crimes against civilians ✓
2. B Consensual illegal acts without a direct complainant ✓
3. C Kidnapping for ransom ✓
4. D Armed robbery in public ✓

A deviant subculture is a group whose norms

1. A Always match official law ✓
2. B Are written only in constitutions ✓
3. C Eliminate all social learning ✓
4. D Support conduct disapproved by wider society ✓

A status offense in juvenile justice is an act that is unlawful mainly because the actor is

1. A A police officer ✓
2. B A minor ✓
3. C A teacher ✓
4. D A landlord ✓

Juvenile delinquency usually refers to illegal or antisocial conduct by

1. A Minors below the legal adult age ✓
2. B Only elderly citizens ✓
3. C Only public officials ✓
4. D Only foreign migrants ✓

Social disorganization theory is strongly linked with the work of

1. A Freud and Jung ✓
2. B Smith and Ricardo ✓
3. C Mills and Dahrendorf ✓
4. D Shaw and McKay ✓

Deterrence theory assumes that crime can be reduced when punishment is perceived as

1. A Invisible and symbolic ✓
2. B Random and secret ✓
3. C Certain, swift and severe enough ✓
4. D Informal and friendly only ✓

Hirschi's social control theory identifies the main social bonds as

1. A Race, caste, tribe and clan ✓
2. B Income, rent, profit and wage ✓
3. C Attachment, commitment, involvement and belief ✓
4. D Force, fraud, fear and fashion ✓

Secondary deviance refers to deviance that occurs after a person

1. A Joins a formal school ✓
2. B Accepts or is shaped by a deviant label ✓
3. C Migrates from village to city ✓
4. D Learns a new occupation ✓

In Lemert's terminology, primary deviance means

1. A Initial rule breaking without deviant identity ✓
2. B Crime committed by a political leader ✓
3. C Punishment after conviction ✓
4. D A movement for social reform ✓

The broken windows thesis argues that visible disorder may

1. A Automatically end poverty ✓
2. B Remove the need for police ✓
3. C Encourage further disorder and crime ✓
4. D Prove that crime is inherited ✓

The term white-collar crime was popularized by

1. A Karl Marx ✓
2. B Max Weber ✓
3. C Edwin Sutherland ✓
4. D Talcott Parsons ✓

Howard S. Becker is especially associated with

1. A Strain theory ✓
2. B Functionalism of religion ✓
3. C Classical economics ✓
4. D Labeling theory ✓

Labeling theory focuses most directly on the effect of

1. A Social reaction and official labels ✓
2. B Soil fertility and rainfall ✓
3. C Inherited intelligence only ✓
4. D Population age structure only ✓

The traditional juvenile court philosophy of parens patriae treats the state as

1. A A protective parent for the child ✓
2. B A private business investor ✓
3. C A market competitor ✓
4. D A religious sect ✓

Ritualism in Merton's typology means

1. A Rejecting rules and goals completely ✓
2. B Changing laws through revolution ✓
3. C Abandoning success goals but following rules ✓
4. D Joining an organized criminal group ✓

Rebellion in Merton's typology is marked by

1. A Routine acceptance of all norms ✓
2. B Replacement of existing goals and means ✓
3. C Only technical job training ✓
4. D Biological inheritance of crime ✓

Retreatism in Merton's typology involves

1. A Accepting goals and means ✓
2. B Accepting only goals ✓
3. C Replacing society's goals with new ones ✓
4. D Rejecting both goals and means ✓

In Merton's typology, innovation means

1. A Accepting goals but using illegitimate means ✓
2. B Rejecting both goals and means ✓
3. C Following means without goals ✓
4. D Accepting no social values ✓

Sykes and Matza's techniques of neutralization are

1. A Weather forecasts used by police ✓
2. B Methods of genetic testing ✓
3. C Justifications that excuse rule breaking ✓
4. D Rules for census sampling ✓

Sutherland's differential association theory emphasizes that criminal behavior is

1. A Inherited at birth ✓
2. B Learned through social interaction ✓
3. C Caused only by poverty ✓
4. D Created by climate alone ✓

Durkheim used the term anomie to describe a condition of

1. A Perfect social harmony ✓
2. B Biological inferiority ✓
3. C Normlessness or weak regulation ✓
4. D Complete political equality ✓

Merton's strain theory explains deviance mainly through the gap between

1. A Cultural goals and legitimate means ✓
2. B Climate and population density ✓
3. C Religion and language ✓
4. D Age and biological maturity ✓

Crime differs from general deviance because crime involves violation of

1. A Customary etiquette ✓
2. B Religious ritual only ✓
3. C Family expectations ✓
4. D Formal criminal law ✓

In sociology, deviance primarily refers to behavior that

1. A Comes only from heredity ✓
2. B Violates accepted social norms ✓
3. C Always violates criminal law ✓
4. D Is limited to economic acts ✓

Recidivism means

1. A First entry into school ✓
2. B Voluntary migration ✓
3. C Marriage outside caste ✓
4. D Relapse into criminal behavior ✓

Cultural transmission theory in delinquency stresses that delinquent values are

1. A Passed through peer and neighborhood interaction ✓
2. B Fixed permanently by chromosomes ✓
3. C Created only by court judges ✓
4. D Spread only through rainfall patterns ✓

Durkheim argued that deviance can have a social function because it may

1. A Make all laws unnecessary ✓
2. B Eliminate punishment forever ✓
3. C Prove crime is biological ✓
4. D Clarify norms and promote change ✓

The word criminogenic means

1. A Punishment already completed ✓
2. B Legally licensed ✓
3. C Tending to produce or encourage crime ✓
4. D Unrelated to any social condition ✓

Diversion in juvenile justice refers to

1. A Keeping every juvenile in prison ✓
2. B Increasing sentence length automatically ✓
3. C Ending all community programs ✓
4. D Redirecting cases away from formal court processing ✓

Deviance is defined sociologically as

1. A only illegal acts by definition ✓
2. B behaviour that violates social norms and evokes negative reactions ✓
3. C only mental illness ✓
4. D only behaviour everyone admires ✓

Crime is a form of deviance that

1. A violates formally enacted criminal law ✓
2. B always violates only folkways ✓
3. C is always invisible ✓
4. D never punished ✓

Durkheim argued deviance is

1. A normal and functional in clarifying moral boundaries ✓
2. B always destructive with no social role ✓
3. C absent in healthy societies ✓
4. D unrelated to solidarity ✓

Anomie, in Durkheim's sense, refers to

1. A perfect moral integration ✓
2. B complete ritual order ✓
3. C fixed tribal custom only ✓
4. D normlessness or breakdown of regulatory standards ✓

Merton's strain theory explains deviance through

1. A only biological urges ✓
2. B only weather patterns ✓
3. C gap between cultural goals and legitimate means ✓
4. D only random luck ✓

Merton's innovation mode of adaptation involves

1. A rejecting goals and means ✓
2. B only conforming legally ✓
3. C withdrawing from society entirely ✓
4. D accepting goals but using illegitimate means ✓

Labeling theory focuses on

1. A only innate criminal types ✓
2. B only police weapons ✓
3. C how social reactions create and amplify deviant identities ✓
4. D only victimless physics ✓

Primary deviance is

1. A initial rule-breaking that may go unnoticed or be minor ✓
2. B deviance caused only by official labeling ✓
3. C career deviance entrenched by stigma ✓
4. D only violent crime ✓

Secondary deviance results when

1. A no one reacts to the act ✓
2. B individuals organize identity and behaviour around a deviant label ✓
3. C laws are abolished ✓
4. D norms are perfectly clear ✓

Becker argued deviance is not a quality of the act but

1. A inborn evil only ✓
2. B genetic fate only ✓
3. C a consequence of application of rules by others ✓
4. D unchanging across cultures ✓

Differential association theory (Sutherland) holds crime is learned through

1. A intimate groups transmitting definitions favourable to law violation ✓
2. B isolated hermits without contact ✓
3. C only mass media never peers ✓
4. D only biology ✓

Social control theory (Hirschi) stresses

1. A only strain from poverty ✓
2. B bonds to society that prevent delinquency when strong ✓
3. C only labeling by courts ✓
4. D only genetic markers ✓

Hirschi's four elements of social bond include

1. A strain, anomie, retreat and rebel ✓
2. B primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary deviance ✓
3. C police, courts, prisons and fines only ✓
4. D attachment, commitment, involvement and belief ✓

Incapacitation aims to

1. A change conscience only through talk ✓
2. B always educate without confinement ✓
3. C prevent reoffending by restricting offender's physical freedom ✓
4. D ignore future risk ✓

General deterrence seeks to

1. A only reform one person ✓
2. B discourage the public from crime by punishing offenders visibly ✓
3. C only compensate victims ✓
4. D only label children ✓

Specific deterrence targets

1. A all society equally without offenders ✓
2. B the individual offender to prevent repeat acts ✓
3. C only media audiences ✓
4. D only foreign states ✓

Retribution justifies punishment as

1. A only social utility without blame ✓
2. B moral desert—offenders ought to pay for wrongdoing ✓
3. C only random revenge without rules ✓
4. D only economic profit ✓

Rehabilitation focuses on

1. A permanent exclusion without change ✓
2. B only public shaming ✓
3. C only increasing stigma ✓
4. D treating causes of crime through education, therapy and skills ✓

Stigma of a criminal record can cause

1. A automatic wealth ✓
2. B instant political office ✓
3. C blocked employment and secondary deviance ✓
4. D zero social reaction ✓

Peer groups and delinquency are linked because

1. A peers always prevent crime ✓
2. B adolescents have no friends ✓
3. C schools have no influence ✓
4. D youth may reinforce rule-breaking through group loyalty ✓

Anomie in Merton's work ties deviance to

1. A perfect equal opportunity always ✓
2. B strain from unequal access to success goals in society ✓
3. C zero cultural goals ✓
4. D only biological reflex ✓

Juvenile detention should balance

1. A adult punishment only ✓
2. B public safety with developmental needs of children ✓
3. C no rights whatsoever ✓
4. D ignore education ✓

Community policing attempts to

1. A isolate police from public ✓
2. B only react after violence ✓
3. C build trust and prevent crime through local partnership ✓
4. D ignore neighbourhoods ✓

Deviance varies cross-culturally, showing

1. A norms and laws differ across societies and eras ✓
2. B one universal list of sins for all time ✓
3. C no social definition ✓
4. D only genetics decides ✓

Punishment purposes include

1. A deterrence, retribution, incapacitation and rehabilitation ✓
2. B only rewarding offenders ✓
3. C only ignoring victims ✓
4. D only celebrating crime ✓

Victimless crime debate concerns acts like

1. A drug use or prostitution where participants allegedly consent ✓
2. B murder with clear victims always ✓
3. C armed robbery of banks only ✓
4. D assault with injury ✓

Feminist criminology highlights

1. A crime is identical for all genders always ✓
2. B only male victims exist ✓
3. C law is always gender-neutral in practice ✓
4. D gendered patterns of crime and justice treatment ✓

Restorative justice seeks to

1. A repair harm through dialogue between offender, victim and community ✓
2. B only maximize prison building ✓
3. C ignore victims entirely ✓
4. D punish without accountability ✓

Broken windows theory suggests

1. A order has no effect on crime ✓
2. B only genetics matter ✓
3. C visible disorder encourages more serious crime ✓
4. D labeling is irrelevant ✓

Social disorganization theory links crime to

1. A perfect cohesion in all slums ✓
2. B only individual evil ✓
3. C weak community ties and instability in urban areas ✓
4. D only rural harmony always ✓

Corporate crime is committed by

1. A organizations or employees on behalf of firms ✓
2. B only solitary juveniles ✓
3. C only athletes ✓
4. D only artists ✓

Subculture of violence thesis argues some groups

1. A have cultural norms tolerating aggression ✓
2. B reject all violence universally ✓
3. C never learn norms ✓
4. D only obey police ✓

Techniques of neutralization (Sykes and Matza) allow offenders to

1. A reject all society permanently ✓
2. B never feel guilt ✓
3. C justify deviance while accepting conventional norms ✓
4. D only conform always ✓

Deviance amplification occurs when

1. A crime disappears from news ✓
2. B media and moral panics intensify perceived threat of a group ✓
3. C labels have no effect ✓
4. D public ignores all stories ✓

Moral panic is a heightened social reaction to

1. A routine minor customs only ✓
2. B stable scientific facts only ✓
3. C a group or behaviour defined as threatening societal values ✓
4. D unchanging norms ✓

Cybercrime as deviance includes

1. A only face-to-face theft ✓
2. B hacking, online fraud and digital harassment ✓
3. C only prehistoric conflict ✓
4. D only oral gossip without tech ✓

Organized crime features

1. A spontaneous single acts only ✓
2. B only juvenile pranks ✓
3. C only accidental violations ✓
4. D continuing criminal enterprise with hierarchy and corruption ✓

White-collar crime involves

1. A only street mugging ✓
2. B only juvenile truancy ✓
3. C only tribal feuds ✓
4. D illegal acts committed in the course of respectable occupational roles ✓

Terrorism as a social problem is defined politically as

1. A violence against civilians to intimidate and achieve ideological aims ✓
2. B only state military drills ✓
3. C only sports riots ✓
4. D only civil disobedience always ✓

Pakistan's juvenile justice framework includes

1. A treating all children as adults always ✓
2. B no legal age distinction ✓
3. C special courts, probation and emphasis on child welfare ✓
4. D only corporal punishment ✓

Child abuse and neglect are deviance problems because

1. A they violate norms protecting vulnerable dependents ✓
2. B only affect strangers ✓
3. C are always legal ✓
4. D never harm development ✓

Domestic violence illustrates

1. A only public street crime ✓
2. B only corporate fraud ✓
3. C deviance occurring in private intimate relationships ✓
4. D only international war ✓

Hate crime involves offense motivated by bias against

1. A only property value ✓
2. B race, religion, ethnicity or other group characteristics ✓
3. C only random accident ✓
4. D only self-defense without bias ✓

Informal social control of deviance includes

1. A community disapproval, family discipline and peer pressure ✓
2. B only Supreme Court rulings ✓
3. C only UN treaties ✓
4. D only laboratory experiments ✓

Formal social control of crime uses

1. A only gossip ✓
2. B only prayer without law ✓
3. C only private letters ✓
4. D police, prosecution, courts and corrections ✓

Diversion programs in juvenile justice aim to

1. A mandate adult prison always ✓
2. B keep youth out of formal court through counseling or community service ✓
3. C ignore offenders ✓
4. D abolish all supervision ✓

Status offense is an act illegal only for juveniles such as

1. A murder defined for all ages ✓
2. B theft by adults only ✓
3. C tax evasion by corporations ✓
4. D truancy or running away from home ✓

Juvenile justice systems emphasize ideally

1. A identical adult prisons always ✓
2. B rehabilitation and reintegration over pure punishment ✓
3. C no due process ever ✓
4. D automatic life sentences ✓