Lewis Calem CCJS105 Sec 0205 The Science of Criminology The politicization of science o Science is commonly used to advance political claims Racism sexism environmentalism fascism o Nearly every ism and ALL political groups attempt to claim the legitimacy of science o Establishing facts is the key to winning The definition of criminology o The systematic study of o 1 The processes of making law 2 The breaking of law 3 The reaction to the breaking of law o Politics Theory Criminal Justice Is criminology a science o Theory explains why something happens o Methods Quantitative and Qualitative Looking for patterns consistencies Statistical analysis Comparisons Personal characteristics unique aspects to the person incident What role does the field play in shaping policy o 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 w o criminologists The state of criminology s science relatively weak o We lack predictive power o Crime decline in 1991 However o We ve been able to discredit several proposed solutions such as 1 Boot camps 2 Death penalty 3 Three strikes legislation 4 DARE 5 Scared straight 6 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 is or ought to be o In a democracy we get to shape policy through voting This is informed by ideology The range of ideology o Conservative right punitive and repressive o Liberal left forgiving and rehabilitative The problem in creating a science o What is crime o The definition is not fixed and unchanging o 1 Legal definition o 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 Discussion groups o Relativity of crime mala in se and mala prohibita Mala in se wrong because its evil immoral o Ex Murder Mala prohibita wrong because its prohibited by law o Ex Prostitution Gambling o Conflict versus consensus assumptions Conflict Marx laws are a form of repression by a ruling class that prevent people from doing certain things Consensus Durkheim people of society create a set of rules laws standards that all should live by o The five paradigms of criminology 1 Rational Choice people choose to commit crimes when the cost benefit is in their favor 2 Positivism People are compelled to commit crime by some sort of defect in themselves or it can be a defect in what they learned or who they hang out with Inherently good people unless something has acted upon the person in a bad way 3 Interactionalism behavior is labeled as criminal and the state makes criminals by labeling them and it becomes sort of a self fulfilling prophecy 4 Critical Any behavior deemed to be illegal is just a form of oppression about 99 conflict theory Anything deemed criminal is not inherently bad 5 Integration takes bits and pieces from all of the different things and combines it to come up with a kind of universal outlook on crime and the role of the state and all that Accepts both conflict and consensus to achieve a sort of balance of theory Measuring Crime Catching the Wind with a Sieve Research Methodology Vocabulary Independent IV and dependent DV variables o IV cause s of o DV outcome what we are attempting to explain Does my assigning a paper produce the heedless death of students grandmothers o Correlation and causality Just because two items are consistently related correlated does not imply a causal connection Example my having an umbrella handy every time it rains doesn t mean I control the weather Temporal i e Time Element Cross sectional data data collected at only 1 point in time Longitudinal data data collected at more than 1 point in time Levels of Analysis Macro societal nations states cities Micro individual To establish causality 3 criteria Correlation it is a necessary but insufficient condition Temporal ordering Spuriousness must be eliminated The Dark Figure of Crime The unknown and Unknowable Tally Crimes Committed Official Reports Victim Reports 3 general sources of crime statistics Official reports Victim surveys Self reports Uniform Crime Reports UCR FBI Crime in the United States Started 1930 18 000 law enforcement agencies reporting representing 95 of pop 8 crimes listed Index Crimes homicide rape robbery gag assault burglary theft MV theft arson Results calculated as a rate crimes population X 100 000 to standardize Includes the supplemental homicide report SHR Advantage of the UCR Consistent definition of crime Trend data National figures can be broken down these are raw counts and represent a census Limitations of the UCR Subject to political manipulation i e unfound crime Hierarchy Rule when a number of crimes are committed only the crime that is classified as the highest offense is reported Despite best efforts difference remain in definitions o Ex Illinois and rape Ecological Fallacy implies that group characteristics accurately portray characteristics about individuals o Ex Everyone that lives in an area with a high murder rate is a Measure of police activity rather than crime officially reported crime murderer 86 7 o Underestimate of the amount of crime that actually occurs National Crime Victimization Survey NCVS Started 1972 Household survey conducted by Census Bureau Members older than 12 years are surveyed via telephone Uses sampling to produce national estimates 3 year inclusion 6 month intervals NCVS strengths Design reduces memory decay and telescoping seen in other self Eliminates reporting reports surveys by bounding o Memory Decay forgotten details faded memory over time o Telescoping thinking of something beyond a time frame This can overstate actual crime numbers o Bounding setting boundaries Tries to reduce telescoping and memory decay NCVS weaknesses Rape question redesign in 1992 produced much higher estimates Household survey excludes institutions like jails and businesses Victimless crimes and homicide not included Series victimizations produces undercounting UCR NCVS Comparison 11 250 000 index crimes 2007 3 370 per 100 00 Murder rate of 6 100 000 is 5x the avg rate for other 15 industrialized nations Discussion Groups NIBRS What is the importance
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