Chapter 1 What is crime Crime is human conduct that violates criminal laws Created by legislative activity No law no crime Deviant Behavior Violating social norms Not all deviant behavior violates laws Delinquency Violations of criminal law committed by youths 16 18 Offenses ONLY illegal for children o Running away o Being ungovernable uncontrollable o Drinking What should be criminal Consensus perspective laws should be enacted to criminalize certain behavior when all members of society agree they are necessary Pluralist Perspective behaviors typically criminalized through a political process and those of power only after debate Criminology vs Criminologists Criminologist someone who studies crime criminals and criminal behavior o Typically reserved for academics researchers and policy annalists o Generally hold doctoral degrees in criminology or criminal justice Teach and research one who is a specialist in the collection and examination of Criminalist physical evidence of a crime o Lab technicians o Police officers corrections professionals probation and parole officers criminal defense attorneys etc Careers in Criminology Masters or bachelor s degrees in criminology police investigative work probation and parole agencies court support activities government agencies private security officers There are twice as many law enforcement personnel employed by private security agencies than public law enforcement agencies Defining Criminology breaking of laws o Process of making and breaking laws and reacting toward the o Criminology is an interdisciplinary profession built on scientific study of crime and criminal behavior Interdisciplinary because draws on other disciplines to provide an integrated approach o Discipline of criminal justice emphasizes application of criminal law and study of components of criminal justice system Criminology is considered primarily a social science Theoretical perspective discipline Offers explanations and understating for criminal behavior Theory clearly state propositions suggesting relationships between events and occurrences being studied General Theory vs Integrated Theory o General theory explains most forms of criminal conduct through a single approach Unicasual posing a single identifiable source for all serious deviant and criminal behavior o Integrated theory does not necessarily explain all criminality Distinguished because it merges concepts drawn from different sources social events are interpreted differently according to Social relativity cultural experiences and personal interests of initiator observer or recipient of behavior o Crime does not occur in a vacuum Different people will have various interpretations o Crime is fundamentally a social construction Crime may carry different meanings to different people Reporting and Measuring Crime Uniform Crime Report o Created by FBI as official crime data gathering program o For statistical use o Cleared Part I offenses Crimes for which an arrest has been made or for which perpetrator is known but arrest is not possible o Criticisms Data is based only on reported crime Underreporting crime Part I offenses include o Violent personal crimes o Property crimes Crime rate o UCR NIBRS Program express rates of crime as X number of offenses o 2010 rate of criminal homicide 4 8 murders for every 100 000 per 100 000 people people in US o 2005 FBI discontinued term Crime Index National Incidence Based Reporting System o Revises definitions of a number of offenses o Incident driven nature most important feature o Goal to make data on reported crime more useful by relating more completely than old system to other available info victim and offender characteristics o 22 crime categories made up of 46 specific crimes called Group A offenses and 11 Group B offenses ucr only had 8 major offenses National Crime Victimization Survey o Interviews of randomly selected households throughout nation o Began 1972 o More accurate o Households are individual units o Info characteristics gathered on victims offenders and crimes Protective measures used by victims possibility of substance abuse by offenders level of pervious experience with offender o Interviews ask about incidences of offenses over last 6 months Offenses include rape personal robbery aggravated and simple assault burglary theft vehicle theft o Unreported crime Only 51 of violent victimizations and close to 39 property crimes are reported to police Personal thefts least likely to be reported Most highly report crime is motor vehicle thefts 83 reported to police 2 most common reasons for not reporting violent crimes are crime is a personal or private matter offender was unsuccessful and crime was only attempted Criticisms Over reporting No reliable measure o False reports compare findings Changes in categories resulted in inability to easily Statistics and trends in US Crime Rates Presently most major crime s rates have decreased Dark Figure of crime Unreported crimes o Anonymous self report surveys can help Females are involved in a much higher proportion of crime than we thought Race differential in crime are smaller than data indicated Violent offenders begin lives of crime much earlier than thought o Criticisms of self report surveys Limited to petty offenses Done on young people False reports Evidence based Criminology Contemporary criminology that uses rigorous social scientific techniques o Controlled experiments o Systematic review of research results Resulted in effective social policies o Social policy is a government initiative person or plan intended to address problems in societies o Based on scientific evidence Translational criminology seeks to translate research findings into field of practical and workable policy initiatives o not always easy to translate research into practice Chapter 2 Classical and Neo Classical Criminology Choice and Consequences Principles Enlightenment o 18th century o Europe o Rational thought and application of reasoned scientific principles o Freedom of choice in beliefs o Led to development of Classical School of Criminological Thought Crime and deviance came to be understood of exercise of free will Crime moral wrong fueled by personal choice Became first modern approach to making sense of crime and criminal behavior Caesar Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham o Ceasare Beccaria Essays on Crime and Punishment Claimed punishment should be based on degree of injury caused Purpose of punishment Deterrence Punishment
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