CCJS 105 Introduction to Criminology Final Exam Study Guide cumulative portion The final exam will consist of 100 multiple choice questions Approximately half of these questions will be drawn from the content covered in the first two exams In order to assist your studies a comprehensive list of these items are included below That is only these items appearing below will be drawn from in compiling the cumulative portion of the final exam Please note that some of the terms and concepts listed below are broader than others The dark figure of crime the ever present lack of knowledge of all crime we can never know all crime that has happened but over the years we have been getting better at understanding crime through official studies victimization surveys and self reported data Advantages of the UCR mostly consistent crime definitions Trend data National figures can be broken down by area Limits of the UCR Political manipulation Hierarchy rule with multiple offenses committed in one incident only most serious is counted on the UCR i e rape homicide is only a homicide Ecological Fallacy cannot represent population because crime can be by visitors to an area measures police response to crime not actually crime itself Strengths of the NCVS Weakness of NCVS eliminates reporting bias by police Bounding first round of interview questions are thrown out to ensure more accurate results redesigned rape question lead to higher estimates interview bias households exclude jails and businesses victimless crime and homicide are not reported series victimization NCVS rule where if you are a victim of the same crime multiple times than it is only counted as one ongoing crime i e robbed several times 1 robbery memory decay forgetfulness Telescoping over exaggerating Quantitative data data that can be measured or averaged Qualitative data data that can be observed or described by not measures cannot be averaged yes no The 3 part definition of criminology the study of crime to help predict events relative to time place and culture Crime harm mens rea actus reus Crime patterns Age age crime late teens early twenties peak age of crime Peak age of violent crime is 18 property crime is 16 Stops around mid 20s because employment family and marriage Gender almost exclusively male only 7 women but women have become more prevalent since their liberation men have more testostorone Geographic disproportionately high amount of crime in the south Neighborhood metropolitan areas have higher crime rates that rural areas most violent crime except rape occur in public places urban areas people feel more pressured to conform so they don t commit crime as ofter Race used to be believed that certain races were more criminal not credible today there is structural racism possible the criminal justice system is racist African americans have disproportionately higher crime rates Most crimes are INTRA racial Class originally believed that the poor committed most crime but than the idea of white collar crime came about higher rate of those who are poor being involved in street crime Conflict theory society has many different groups and those who rise to the top will make laws to criminalize acts of the other groups out groups Consensus theories society works together to create criminal law Mala in se an act that is wrong in and of itself ie rape murder Mala prohibita an act that goes against the law but is not necessarily immoral or wrong in and of itself drinking pot Actus reus a guilty act the actual act of commiting the crime Mens rea a guilty mind the intention to cause harm or do the bad act Victim offender overlap offenders and victims often are from the same background same race same area same social class The science of criminology It follows a scientific method uses observation to make inferences hard to enforce yet to be proven 3 criteria required to establish causal relationship Correlation Temporal ordering longitudinal data Spuriousness must be established The role of ideology and politics ideology is established to try to predict crime relative to time space and culture by knowing this politicians can try to establish policies to intercept crimes so they don t happen or can lessen the affect to society Independent variable the variable that causes the other variable to change Dependent variables outcome of the independent variable result Cross sectional data data collected at one time snapshot picture Longitudinal data data collected multiple times movie film Macro study of group interactions Micro study of individuals Relative rates of crimes and crime numbers produced by UCR and NCVS Most all crimes are male dominated many often committed by offenders they know south has higher rate of crime than is proportional to their population disproportionate number of African Americans and minorities in general committing crime UCR violent crime 13 property 87 NCVS 23 violent crimes property 77 Self report data data that is not from official sources such as police departments or agencies but reported by offenders or victims 3rd party agencies or the government Important figures Emile Durkheim large part of sociological criminology worked on strains of modernization theory believed that crime occurs because there is anomie in society anomie is a state of normlessness and chaos due to social change Cesare Beccaria father of classical theory who wrote on crimes and punishment in 1764 with important ideas such as free will rational choice hedonistic calculus utilitarianism social contract and deterrence His work was largely influential to shape the US constitution our rights came from his thinking and criminal justice theories that still are arising today were influenced Also came up with deterrence theory which emphasized swiftness severity and certainty Cesare Lombroso father of early biological theor Italian prison physician who applied darwins theory to criminology and coined the term atavism the idea of a biological throwback and created the idea that an individual was born criminal and you could identify a criminal man through certain traits he possessed Travis Hirschi control theorist whose theories were empirical and came up with the social bond theory and the self control theory Wrote a general theory of crime which focused on Shaw McKay zone II created the social disorganization theory based of burgess theory of concentric zones and the idea that human ecology is a cycle of invasion dominance and succession
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