CCJS105 01 26 2012 1 31 12 The Science of Criminology The politicization of science o Science is commonly used to advance political claims racism sexism environmentalism facism socialism o Early every ism and ALL political groups attempt to claim the legitimacy of science o Establishing facts is the key to winning debate The Definition of Criminology o The systematic study of 1 the processes of making law 2 the breaking of law and 3 the reaction to the breaking of law o Politics Theory Criminal Justice Is Criminology a Science o Theory Explains why something happens A way in which to approach a question o Methods Quantitative Qualitative stories Q What role does the field play in shaping policy o A Negligible 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 The state of criminology s science relatively weak o We lack predictive power o Crime decline in 1991 However as o We ve been able to discredit several proposed solutions such Boot camps death penalty three strikes legislation DARE scared straight gun buy backs Nevertheless several of these programs remain Why o Ideology def a set of beliefs or values that ALL of us develop usually unconsciously about the way that the world o In a democracy we get to shape policy through voting This is is or ought to be informed by ideology o Ideology how the world ought to be ideal The range of ideology o Conservative right wing punitive and repressive o Liberal left wing forgiving and rehabilitative The problem in creating a science o What is a crime o The definition is not fixed and unchanging 1 Legal definition nulla poena sine lege No punishment without the crime without having defined a particular act as a crime 2 Social harm problems loss of clarity victimless crimes The problem with applying knowledge o Should the field endorse policy solutions o The American Society of Criminology has issued a statement against capital punishment Is this an ideological or scientific stance 2 2 12 Measuring Crime Catching the Wind with a Sieve We attempt to mimic how the harder sciences work to further legitimize criminology and to expand possibilities for predictive capability Research Methodology Vocabulary o Independent IV and Dependent Variables DV o IV cause s of o DV outcome what we are attempting to explain How do we attempt to understand human behavior By establishing Does my assigning a paper produce the needless death of students a causal relationship grandmothers o Correlation and causality post hoc ergo propter hoc o Just because two items are consistently related correlated does not imply a causal connection o Ex my having an umbrella handy every tie it rains doesn t mean I control the weather o Consider the possible existence of extraneous variables Temporal i e time Element o Cross sectional data Data collected at only one point in time o Longitudinal data data collected at more than one point in time Levels of Analysis o Macro societal nations states cities o Micro individual To establish causality 3 criteria o Correlation it is a necessary but insufficient condition o Temporal ordering o Spuriousness must be eliminated The Dark Figure of Crime the Unknown Unknowable Tally o Total Crime o Official Reports o Victim Reports 2 7 12 The Dark Figure of Crime the Unknown and Unknowable Tally We need some understanding of reality some understanding of the real amounts of crime We have Total Crime Official Reports and Victim Reports To assess the crime problem we use o Media reports Problems Political bias availability bias not enough room time to report everything sensational crime trends ex Everyone is freaked out about cyber bullying atm o Prison counts Doesn t take into account people who weren t put in prison for their crimes or people who weren t caught or crimes that weren t reported 3 General Sources of Crime Statistics o Official Reports o Victim Surveys o Self Reports Uniform Crime Reports UCR FBI Crime in the US o Started 1930 o 18 000 Law enforcement agencies reporting representing 95 of population o 8 crimes listed Index Crimes homicide rape robbery aggravated assault burglary theft motor vehicle theft o Results calculated as a rate crimes population X 100 000 Arson to standardize o Includes the Supplemental Homicide Report SHR Advantages of the UCR o Consistent definition of crime o Trend data o National Figures and represent a census Limitations of the UCR can be broken down these are raw counts o Subject to political manipulation i e unfound crime Ex Police chief my underreport crimes so there is a lower crime rate so they have a better chance at reelection o Hierarchy Rule UCR only reports the highest crime committed ex If someone rapes and murders someone only the murder is recorded Leads to an underestimate of the crime that actually takes place o Despite best efforts difference remain in definitions ex Illinois and rape o Ecological Fallacy Error of thinking When people make assumptions about these particular people from this particular area Ex Las Vegas crime rate is SUPER high but they aren t residents The crime rate is reported from the resident count not including travelers o Measure of police activity rather than crime officially reported crime 66 7 National Crime Victimization Survey NCVS o Started in 1972 o Household survey conducted by the Census Bureau o Members older than 12 years are surveyed via telephone o 3 year inclusion 6 month intervals o Uses sampling to produce national estimates Strengths of the NCVS o Eliminates reporting bias o Design reduces memory decay and telescoping seen in other self report surveys by bounding Telescope look at something far away and it appears bigger to you Weaknesses of the NCVS o Rape question redesign in 1992 produced much higher o Household survey excludes institutions like jails and estimates businesses o Victimless crimes and homicide not included o Series victimizations produces undercounting UCR NCVS Comparison 2 9 12 The Distribution of Crime Crime Patterns Scope of the Crime Problem UCR Data o 11 250 000 index crimes in 2007 3 370 per 100 000 o Murder rate of 6 100 000 is 5x the average rate for other 15 industrialized nations Why Gun control laws economic stress intensity diversity differences etc Scope of Crime Problem NCVS o 22 9 million victimizations o Violent crime rate nearly 5x that of the UCR o Property rate
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