SOC 275 Criminology Professor Anna Maria Marshall Lincoln Hall 3090 333 1950 amarshll illinois edu IMPORTANT There s no a between the h and ll Office Hours Wednesdays 9 30 am 11 am or by appointment Criminology o The body of knowledge regarding crimes as a social phenomenon o Includes within its scope the processes of making laws of breaking laws and of reacting toward the breaking of laws o The objective of criminology is the development of a body of general and verified principles and of other types of knowledge and regarding this process of law crime and treatment Overview of the course o Crime criminology and crime trends o Theories of crime o Typologies of crime What we re doing today o Distinguish deviance from crime Deviance and criminality o Deviance Unpopular acts departing from social norms How do we punish deviance ridicule ostracism Deviant not criminal o Criminality Conduct that violates the law Punishment Jail fines sometimes execution Research methods and Data in Criminology o Aggregate data Uniform crime report Created by the FBI with help from local police Index crime o Only the crimes that the FBI tend to be more interested in o Tend to be more serious felonies Going to end up lower than the actual crime rate people don t always report crime Accuracy Reporting practices Law enforcement practices o Survey research Criminals Juvenile delinquency Victims of crime National Crime Victimization Survey o Cohort research Panel studies that look over criminals over a long period of time o Qualitative research Crime trends o Why crime went down All possible explanations Technology surveillance Pop culture don t snitch Abortion unwanted children Gun control laws Increase in amount of police Factors that don t explain reductions in crime Strong economy of the 1990s Changing demographics Policing techniques Increased use of capital punishment Explanations for decrease in crime according to Steve Levitt Increase in number of police Rising prison population Receding crack epidemic Legalization of abortion o Ecology o Age o Gender o Guns and Violent Crime 20 of robberies 10 of Assaults 6 of rapes 70 of murders Instrumentality Theory Guns are correlated with crime SO reducing the number of guns will reduce the amount of crime Policies o Licensing o Waiting periods o Stricter sentencing Perpetrator Theory Guns don t kill people people kill people Guns are actually necessary for self defense Policy Concealed Weapons Law Assignments o Blogging Posting blog entries Articles from newspaper web sites 5 blog entries for the semester Posting comments on other blog entries Keep it respectful o Crime map Go to crimereports com Choose a category of crime and describe where it happens most often CHOICE 1 Choose a neighborhood and examine the kinds of crime that occurs there Choice 2 Look for something else interesting Write a 1 page essay about what you find Guns and Crime o John Lott s Study of Concealed Weapons Law Average gun owner white conservative middle aged Violent crime goes down Property crime goes up Crime against women drops o Lott s findings Concealed Weapons Laws reduce crime Comparing the crime rate in states with concealed weapons laws to states without such laws o His evidence suggested that the violent crime rate is lower in states with concealed weapons laws BUT when others changed the crime rate variable from arrest rate to incarceration rate the relationship disappeared o A Closer Look Other explanations for differences in crime rates Controlling for other factors o Population density o Age of population o Law enforcement practices Measures of crime Methods effect disappeared Averaged crime rates across states o Florida Mississippi Maine o When you measured the rate of crime differently the Florida went down Mississippi went up Maine stayed about the same Crime and the Media o Media distorts information about crime o Reciprocal effects between media and public attitudes about crime o Crime News Reflection of reality Far more violent than it really is More drugs and drug use More strangers people who don t know each other victimizing each other More African Americans o In custody looking disoriented More white female victims Emphasizes individual incidents o Encourages generalization from anecdotal evidence o Little information about trends Why Definition of news o Conflict o Good vs Evil Organizational Needs o The market for news Reliance on Official Sources o Crime is a source of popular entertainment surplus visibility or crime Violent crime especially murder Cable TV Significance Cause crime o No raises fear about crime enhances support for severe punishment What stories get told about crime Vigilante police Moral complexity Impact of Crime and Media on the Audience o Heavy viewers of entertainment Tend to overestimate serious crime Think crime is more prevalent than it really is More likely to distrust strangers Report crime is a serious problem o Experiments Social Scientific Theories o Concepts Broad ideas that reflect really complicated social phenomenon E g Crime o Definitions of concepts e g crime Nominal Operational E g breaking the criminal law deviance o Propositions linking the concepts Propose relationships between concepts Does poverty cause crime NO Theoretical assumptions o How we know what we know Empirical testing Critical interpretation o Human Nature o Value judgments and policy implications Testing theories o Explanatory Power Generalizability Different kinds of crime Different places at different times Verification and falsification o Evaluating theories What are the assumptions How generalizable is the theory How strong is the evidence Rational Choice Theory the offender s rational calculation o Maximizing benefits minimizing costs Factors they consider Immediate need Potential value of crime Risk of apprehension Seriousness of possible punishment o Context of the decision to commit a crime Personal characteristics of offender criminality Perception of opportunities Learning and experience Criminal techniques Personality Situational characteristics of offense crime The place of the crime Targets Rationality of Gang Membership Community profile Organizational structure o Franchise Sources of revenue Costs of doing business Rational Choice Theory o Deterrence o Eliminating Crime Incapacitation The use of punishment as a threat to deter people from offending Crimes averted by offender s physical isolation Specific deterrence Criminal punishment