CCJS105 Final Cumulative Portion Test One Material o Example Tallying the number of crimes in regards to prison The Dark Figure of Crime The unknown and unknowable tally population o Total Crime o Official Reports o Victim Reports The Science of Criminology 1 The Role of Ideology and Politics 2 Lack of Predictive Power Politicization o The politicization of science is the manipulation of science for political gain It occurs when government business or advocacy groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way it is disseminated reported or interpreted occurs on a continuum Ideology o Basic beliefs or values usually formed in early life and through which people filter information Two Essential Components of Science Theoretical and its Methodological branches o Theory and methods are integrally related in the scientific method of studying crime o Theory represents an effort to explain or make sense of the world thus revolving around the why of crime criminalization and similar concerns o Methodology refers to the techniques or methods that criminologists use as they attempt to determine the whys of crime Cross sectional and Longitudinal Data o Cross sectional data data collected at only 1 point in time Definitive point in time 1 o Longitudinal data data collected at more than 1 point in time How many times have you been a victim in a crime repeated Macro and Micro Level of Measurement o Macro societal nations states cities o Micro individual Quantitative and Qualitative Data o Quantitative statistical data crime statistics o Qualitative stories provides detail To Establish Causality 3 Criteria o 1 Correlation it is necessary but insufficient condition o 2 Temporal Ordering A cause has to precede the effect o 3 Spuriousness not being what it purports to be must be eliminated Are their elements outside of the one you are pointing to that are the actual cause Conflict and Consensus Theory Conflict A belief that the law disproportionately reflects the interest of a powerful minority within society Consensus A belief that the law reflects the interest of most people in society more or less evenly The Powerful vs The Masses The 3 Part Definition of Criminology The systematic study of 1 the processes of making law 2 the breaking of law pondering why people break the law and 3 the reaction to the breaking of law Politics Theory Criminal Justice holy trinity 2 Correlation and Causation Just because two items are consistently related correlated does not imply a casual connection Example my having an umbrella handy every time it rains doesn t mean I control the weather Mala in se Evil in itself morally wrong regardless of government legislation Commanded because they are just inherent morality o Example Murder theft and rape Mala prohibita It is wrong because it is prohibited by the law there is no moral value to it victimless crime Just because they are commanded Actus Reas Conduct that is prohibited or of failure to act in a manner required Guilty Act the physical element of crime by the criminal law Mens Rea Mental element of crime generally termed intent do not apply to Guilty Mind civil law violations Bounding the validity of a self report Example As a way of addressing memory decay and telescoping threaten o NCVS This procedure produces a panel design that allows the same group of people to be queried over a period of time It also provides the opportunity to control for the problem of telescoping by comparing the most recently reported victimizations with responses from the previous interview Hierarchy Rule and Series Victimization Underestimate of the amount of crime that actually takes place only reports most serious crimes o This can have the effect of understanding the extent of certain types of victimization 3 Victim Offender Overlap The relationship between the victim and offender being from the same background roughly the same involvement with criminal activity drawn from same kind of pools White Collar Crime Two compelling definitions o 1 Restricted to the class position of people who commit certain kinds of offenses i e corporate and banking executives Identity issue competing school of thought o 2 Applied to the offenses themselves regardless of who the perpetrators are i e abusing your position within a company for personal gain Studying WCC o Difficulty results from its complexity criminology criminal law organizational theory psychology accounting and o Management structure institutional rewards that lead to this others outcome o Offenders are less accessible to research efforts o They have a lot invested in this jeopardize themselves Relative Rates of Crime and Crime Numbers produced by UCR and NCVS 11 250 000 index crimes 2007 3 370 per 100 000 Murder rate of 6 100 000 is 5x the avg rate for other 15 industrialized nations 22 9 million victimizations Violent crime rate nearly 5x that of the UCR Property rate more than 4x that of the UCR Strengths and Limitations UCR and NCVS UCR Uniform Crime Reports Strengths 4 o Consistent definition of crime o Trend data o National figures can be broken down these are raw counts and represent a census Weaknesses o Subject to political manipulation i e unfound crime o Hierarchy Rule o Underestimate of the amount of crime that actually takes place only reports most serious crimes o Despite best efforts difference remain in definitions ex Illinois and rape only state that takes in account male rape o Ecological Fallacy o Measure of police activity rather than crime officially reported crime 66 7 o Competing styles of police management reflects in crime numbers results into odd figures National Crime Victimization Surveys NCVS Strengths o Eliminates reporting Affects overall count Weaknesses o Rape question redesign in 1992 produced much higher o Household survey excludes institutions like jails and estimates businesses For example excludes dorms o Victimless crimes and homicide not included because they are dead really important element o Series victimizations produces undercounting similar to hierarchy rule 5 Self Report Data National Incident Based Reporting System NIBRS Goal 1 To enhance the quantity quality and timeliness of statistical data collected by law enforcement Goal 2 To improve the methodology used for compiling analyzing and publishing crime data o Strengths Good context of the crime gives you more details evolution of crime understanding crime through collecting richer data
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