What is criminology?

What do criminologists study?

The scientific study of crime, criminals, criminal behavior and efforts to regulate crime.

Sociology, psychology, political science, or some other related discipline.

Crime: breaking the law; govt provides punishment (1. categorized 2. voluntary illegal act or omission 3. criminal responsibility)

Deviance: behavior that violates social norms; rewarded or sanctioned; nothing is inherently deviant

Criminal law: criminal statutes , the violation of which may subject the accused person to govt prosecution. Those wrongs considered so serious as to threaten the welfare of society.

Civil Law: that part of the law concerned with the rules and enforcement of private or civil rights

1. Crime as breaking the law

2. Crime as a violation of conduct norms

3. Crime as human rights violation

How does the definition used affect what a criminologist studies?

1. categorized(degree/class, felony/misdemeanor, politicized/social factors), voluntary illegal act or omission(taxes, childcare, seatbelt), criminal responsibility(mens rea:guilty mind)

2.too subjective(be more comparative), use laws that constantly change

3. personal rights essential to life

Primary data: collected by researcher

Adv: accuracy, experience

DisAdv: biased, takes money and time

Secondary data: govt sources; other data previously investigated

Adv: cheaper, faster

Where does UCR(Uniform Crime Report) data come from?

What must happen in order for a crime to be counted in the UCR?

What is NIBRS? What additional info. does it provide?

The UCR is collected, compiled, and published by the FBI.

In order for a crime to be counted in the UCR an arrest must be made.

National Incident Based Reporting System. It provides a more through analysis including: demographics, weapons(legal/illegal), circumstance(people, place, relationship).

UCR: unreported crime; voluntary participation; federal crimes; most serious is what counts; legally defined categories; determination of Part Iⅈ what are we actually measuring

NCVS: underreporting; race & class; interview process(crime decreases)

Self-report: over/underreport; underusage due to race

Participant observation: danger

Offenders: Differences- serious property, violence, white collar, status offenses, general deliquency

Victims: Intraclass(violence and property crimes), Interclass(white collar crimes)

-Unemplyment and crime

-Inequality both real and perceived increases crime: a sense of fairness(ex: stealing at the end of bar shift)

Offenders: whites commit more total crime; youth- no racial differences; adult- more African-Americans; Interpersonal violence largely due to gangs; white collar crimes

Victims: Intra-racial; African-American males most likely victims, homicide leading cause of death

Race/Crim. Justice system (Mitchell and Mackenzie, 2004)

+African-Americans and Latinos are sentenced more harshly than whites: seriousness of offense; past criminal history

+Structured sentence guidelines: lead to less discrepency

Female dominated crimes: prostitution, fruad

-also commit violence and low level of embezzlement

Female gender socialization prompts women to be less aggressive and more likely to seek non-violent solutions; stresses passive sharing/caring behavior

Offenders: 

Property crime(13-17)

Violent crime(18-19)

Desitence: slower for violent crimes; aging out phenomenon

Victims:

Intra-age

Property Victimization (youngest heads of households)

Violent Victimization (16-19, lowest for over 65)

Those most likely to commit crime are also most likely to be the victims of crime 

Opportunities and motivations for crime depend on your social location

Lead to deterence of crime and the funding of programs that minimize negative effects

-Recognition of Free Will: rationale, not controlled by religion

-Law based in reason and experience, not faith and superstition

-Human action based on free will and we are all hedonistic; crime is voluntary(psychological and social motivations); rationality

-Concensus in society: protection of individual/property rights

-Punishment should fit the crime

Marxist Critique: Will acheive justice only in an Egaltarian society; Capitilist mode of production is unequal

Feminist Critique: Equality

Race Critique: Equality; law produces status quo

General deterrence: the impact of the threat of legal punishment on the public at large.

Individual deterrence: the impact of the actual legal punishment on those who are apprehended

Concept of always being watched

-multiple functions(house criminals,insane,sick,employ idle,training)

-center of criminal justice: visible to citizens and focused on reform

-focus on the criminal and the causes of crime

-human action as larely deterministic

-human beings are overall good, crime caused by defect

-punishment should fit the criminal

Critiques: labeling theory; Marxist criminology; neo-classicalism

-character replaces the extremes of free will and determinism 

-punishment should fit the crime(min. sentence)

-imprisonment for punishment, but dif. types of prisons: high risk or not; fed,state,county; gender/age

-treatment of criminal character should be individualized

-punishment should include deterrence

-death penalty should be abolished for nearly all crimes 

Crime is normal; crime is inevitable; crime is useful to create change and leads to social cohesion

Marx: social conflict theory; Capitalist rule

Criminal behavior is learned and thus maintained in an environment which encourages it. 

People continue to react even if they are not in the same environment anymore

Socities punish to keep order and reform.

For the criminal law to deter, they must implement punishment.

Social structure theories focus on varying patterns of criminal behavior within a social structure.

Social structure theory is also concerned with social change and its effect on behavior

He thinks there is a poor fit between the socially accepted goals of society and the socially approved means of obtaining those goals.

There is a lack of balance and adjustment in society.

So because some people cant get to the goals set by society through socially approved means they result to crime and deviance.

Social ecology claims that the environmental crisis is a result of the hierarchical organization of power & the authoritarian mentality rooted in the structures of our society. 

Social Ecology faculty apply scientific methods to the study of a wide array of recurring social, behavioral, and environmental problems.

 First, delinquency is mainly the consequence of a collapse of institutional, community-based controls. The people who live in these situations are not personally disoriented; instead, they are viewed as responding naturally to disorganized environmental conditions.

Second, the disorganization of community-based institutions is often a result of rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigrationprocesses  that occur primarily in urban areas.

These social scientists established a direct relation between higher crime incidence, gang organization, and juvenile delinquency and the more impoverished and precarious urban environments.

The group also concluded that higher crime rates were associated to the more central zones, where immigrants, nonwhites, and low-income families lived.

Descent family: learn decency through church and school

Street family: learn through family and streets

Whenever you walk the streets you need to know how to interact to prevent getting harmed.

Process of manhood: throw the first punch, commit crime w/o having to be told.

The economy: not enough jobs and not in inner city; zero-sum: limited resource, only so much to go around

-Increased violence(youth violent crimes)

-Technology

-Migration

-Membership(poverty, unstable family life/parents, access to drugs and alcohol, school, friends)

-Law enforcement underestimates % of female gangs (True)

-Girl gang members more violent than boys not in gangs (True)

-Gang girls commit dif. crimes than boys (False)

-Girl/Boy gangs describe their gangs similarly (True); Co-ed, Co-groups, Partners: leaders,core,hierarchy

The institution of the school embodies middle class values for honesty, courtesy, personality, responsibility, and so forth ("middle class measuring rod") Losers in the competition for status experience strong feelings of frustration or deprivation.

According to Cohen's strain theory, there is no abrupt, discontinuous leap from a pressure situation to crime. Instead, action is "tentative, groping, advancing, backtracking, and sounding out."

-nonutilitarian,nevativistic,and malicious(non goal oriented)

-versatility(no one particular crime)

-short run hedonism

-group autonomy(working together as one)

-working class membership

-male

Agree: blocked access, frustration, culturally transmitted

Disagree: nonutilitarian vs goal oriented( work towards money, etc; crimes they commit work towards goals) 

unequal distribution of opportunity

-illegitimate opportunity(unequal distribution)

-types of subcultures available

-trouble

-toughness

-smartness

-excitement 

-fate

-autonomy

Drift: committed to neither subculture or conventional culture, drift between

Situation of apprehension-show contrition

Situation of company- fluid values, begin w/commitment to delinquency, eventually laxes

Deny responsibility(it wasn't my fault)

Deny Injury(well no one got hurt)

Deny Victim(they aren't that good they got me to do it)

Condemn the condemners(ex:police are bad guys)

Appeal to higher loyalties

Routine Activities Theory

What causes crime?

you need three elements (motivated offender, suitable target, and lack of a capable guardian),

and those three elements must converge in space and time through routine activities

Left Realism:  the root causes of crime lie in relative deprivation, although preventative measures and policing are necessary, but these should be democratically controlled.

Left Idealism: