CCJS 105 NOTES09/04- Science advances claims, racism, sexism, fascism, are all political groups attempting to claim legitimacy through science.- Establishing facts is the key to winning a debate.- DEFINITION OF CRIMINOLOGY- The systematic study of the process of making law, the breaking of law, and the reaction to the breaking of law.- Politics – Theory – Criminal Justice- A Theory explains why something happens.- Methods are both Quantitative and Qualitative- “Can we imagine major legislative decisions on health policy without careful consultation of doctors, insurance executives, and health care administrators?”- How about crime legislation without criminologists.- Criminologists lack the power to predict events.- However there has been a decline in crime since 1991.- This unexpected plummet made it more difficult to predict these acts.- Criminologists have been able to discredit certain proposed solutions, i.e’;1) Boot camps2) Death Penalty3) Three Strikes Legislation4) DARE5) Scared Straight6) Gun buy-backs- Ideology (def: a set of beliefs or values that ALL of us develop, usually unconsciously, about the way that the world is or ought to be.)- In a democracy we get to shape the policy through voting. This is informed byideology.- Conservative (right) – punitive and repressivea) Pay attention to jail statisticsb) Tend to enforce the law- Liberal (left) – forgiving and rehabilitativea) Hug-a-Thugb) Tend to forgive past crimes, to improve the environment.- What is “crime”?- The definition is not fixed and unchanging.- 1. Legal definition (nulla peona sine lege)- 2. Social harm (problems: loss of clarity, victimless crimes)- Should the field endorse policy solutions?- The American Society of Criminology has issued a statement against capital punishment. Is this an ideological or scientific stance?09/06- Independent Variable (IV)- cause(s) of- Dependent Variable (DV)- outcome, question attempting to be explained- CORRELATION and CAUSALITY- Just because two items happen to be consistently related, does not imply a causal connection.- Example: my having an umbrella every time it rains doesn’t mean I control the weather.Time Element- Cross-sectional data: data collected at only 1 point in time- Longitudinal data: data collected at more than 1 point in time.Level of Analysis- Macro- societal – nations, states, cities- Micro- individual- To establish causality, it is necessary to find a Correlation- Temporal ordering- Spuriousness must be eliminatedUniform Crime Reports (UCR)- Started in 1930- 18,000 law enforcement agencies reporting, representing 95% of population- 8 crimes listed – index crimes (homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, theft, arson)- Result calculated as a rate (# of crimes/population x 100,000) to standardize- Includes the Supplemental Homicide Report (SHR)- Very consistent and comprehensive- Can compare time and locationLimitation of the UCR- Subject to political manipulation- Hierarchy Rule- Despite best efforts difference remain in definitions- Ecological Fallacy- Measure of police activity rather than crime - officially reported crime - Underreporting National Crime Victimization Survey- Started in 1972- Household survey conducted by Census Bureau- Members older than 12 yrs are surveyed via telephone- 3 year inclusion/ 6 month intervals- Uses sampling to produce national estimates- Eliminates reporting bias- Reduces memory decay and telescoping seen in other self-report surveys by bounding.- Covers same region as UCR- More crimes reported- Misses homicide- Series victimization- Excludes business and victimless crimesSelf Report- No political manipulation- Uses bounding- No middleman (report straight to source not to police then computer)- Problems are that it is primarily data from juveniles- As such there is general falsification and memory problems- Geographically limited; Small sample just taken from one area- Interviewer effects data09/13/12SCOPE OF CRIME PROBLEM- 11,250,000 index crimes in 2007- Murder rate of 6/100,000 is 5x the average rate of other 15 industrializednations- 22.9 million victimizations- Violent crime rate nearly 5x that of the UCR- Property rate more than 4x that of the UCRCRIME CLOCK- Violent crime every 22 seconds- Murder every half-hour- Rape every 6 minutes- Robbery every minute- Burglary every 15 seconds- Theft every 5 seconds- MORE ACCURATELY- Evening and Nighttime hours have more crime- Weekends also have higher ratesHISTORICAL TRENDS- Comparisons to the 13th century England, reveals rates that were 10 to 20x asgreat as they are today.- Crime rose markedly in the 60s and 70s- Crime fell dramatically beginning in 1991REGIONAL DISPARITIES- Southern states: 37% of pop/41% of rapes, 45% of assaults (UCR)- The South has the highest rates of homicide- The NCVS indicates that the West has the most overall crime however- Metropolitan areas have significantly higher crime rates than rural areas.- Most violent crime, with the exception of rape, occur in public places.SEX/GENDER- No matter how you slice it, crime is a male driven phenomenon- The age of crime curve : 16-24RACE AND CRIME- AA Compromise 15% of the population, but 39% of arrests for violent crime and approx 50% of homicides- Criminology is beginning to look beyond black and white difference and including Hispanics- Self-report data undermines confidence in arrest reports, however no political manipulation occursSOCIAL CLASS AND CRIME- Early link was well established using official records- Self report data challenges some of this evidence- There is an enduring connection between poverty and crimeVICTIMIZATION- Poor more likely than affluent to be victimized- Urban centers have higher rates, when including property crime- AA/Hisp/White – greatest to least in personal victimization- Males more victimized than females- Teens have highest rates09/20Difficult on Relying on the Legal Definition of Violence- Some violence is approved:- executions- War- self-defense- Other types are prohibited- Homicide (unlawful killing of one human being by another)- VigilantismHOMICIDE- 80% of victims and 90% of perpetrators are male- Most victims 18-24, 50% happen in cities > 100,000- Most are intraracial- Roughly 85% committed by someone other than a family member- 25% are “victim precipitated”- Victim-Offender overlap (arrest records)RAPE/SEXUAL ASSAULT- Nearly exclusively female victim- Poor, young, unmarried, non-white more likely to be victimized- About ½
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