Crime Flashcards

Flashcards from lecture notes on crime.

Property Crime

Crimes related to theft, burglary, and robbery, often seen as less severe than white-collar crimes but still comprising a significant portion of reported crimes.

English Vagrancy Laws

Laws enacted after the Black Plague that made it illegal to refuse work, demand higher wages, or quit one's job, illustrating how laws can be used to control labor.

NZ Settlement Act 1863

Legislation that granted the Crown the right to confiscate land from 'rebellious Māori,' showing how property rights can be determined by power.

Marxian View on Law

The perspective that law supports the social structure by favoring the wealthy and making it difficult for the poor to attain wealth.

Crimes Act ss217 – 230 (Theft)

Defines theft as the illegal taking of property without colour of right, with the intent to permanently deprive the person, punishable by up to 7 years imprisonment.

Crimes Act 1961 ss 231 – 233 (Burglary)

Defines burglary as entering a building/ship without authority and with the intention of committing an imprisonable offence, carrying a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment.

Crimes Act 1961 s 234 (Robbery)

Defines robbery as theft accompanied by violence or threats of violence, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment (simple robbery) or 14 years (aggravated robbery).

White-Collar Crime

Crimes that occur in a legitimate occupational context, motivated by economic or occupational success, and are not characterized by direct, intentional violence.

Serious Fraud Office (SFO)

An office established in 1990 responsible for dealing with business fraud, empowered to direct any person to produce documents and require persons to attend interviews.

Tax Evasion and Avoidance

The area where the largest amount of public funds is stolen, with an estimated 10-20% of all taxes going uncollected.

Gender and Crime

Gender is the single biggest predictor of criminal behaviour where, statistically, men are more likely to offend and commit serious offences, while women are underrepresented in justice statistics.

Heteronormativity and Cisnormativity

Underpinnings of the discipline of criminology that historically focused on the normal state of being as heteronormative (sexual relationships are between only male and female) and cisnormative (people represent the sex that they were born with).

Violence and Crime

Violence represents 27% of crimes (in 2020) were crimes against people (e.g. assault, rape etc).

Criminal Assault (Crimes Act 1961)

Minor Assaults include: Common Assaults (1 yr imprisonment), Male Assaults Female (2yr imprisonment), and Assault with Intent to injure (3 yr imprisonment). Serious Assaults include: Injuring with Intent to Cause GBH (10yr imprisonment) and Wounding with Intent to Cause GBH (14yr imprisonment)

Domestic Violence Act 1995

Broadened the scope of domestic violence to include flatmates and people in close relationships not living together, and included psychological abuse. Later repealed by the Family Violence Act 2018

Definition of Murder

Where a person deliberately kills another, kills someone while being reckless about whether death happens, commits an unlawful act knowing that death is likely, or intends to grievously injure someone during the commission of a crime and death occurs

Definition of Manslaughter

An accidental homicide which occurs because of an unlawful act or mission where different from murder the act occurs without intent

Three-Strikes Legislation

A law that imposes stricter sentences on repeat violent offenders, with the third strike resulting in the maximum penalty without parole.

Sexual Deviance

Any sexual act or behavior that violates societal norms and is often determined by those in positions of power. Redefined by Durkheim as 'Today's deviance becomes tomorrow's morality’

Incest Taboo

A ban on sexual relations between specific classes of relatives that is based on social and biological concerns and ensures support between groups.

The Kinsey Reports

Research into American sexual behavior in the late 1940s and early 1950s that challenged many long-established ideas about human sexuality and showed the gap between feeling and behavior.

The Prostitution Reform Act 2003

Decriminalised sex work in NZ

Patriarchy

Structural or systemic inequality that places women in a subordinate position to men.

Second Wave of Feminism

Characterised by a wider and more generalised compass characterised the 1960s to discuss equal pay rights, women in roles of power

Rape Culture

The normalisation of rape due to societal attitudes and actions about gender and sexuality.

Rape Law Reform Act 1985

Crime of rape and indecent assault became subsumed under general title of sexual violation and the marital exemption was removed.

Misuse of Drugs Act 1975

Classifies controlled and illegal drugs according to the perceived level of harm they pose to people misusing them. Drugs classified by effect: depressants, hallucinogens, stimulants

Opium Prohibition Act 1908

Banned the smoking of opium and limited its importation following anti Chinese sentiments

Reefer Madness and the Assassin of youth

Anti-cannabis propaganda and related campaigns which laid the justificatory framework for a moral panic and resultant anti-cannabis laws.

Green Criminology

A field focused on environmental harm, state failure in environmental protection, and corporate offending. Includes responses by government and other organisations as well as assessment on ‘Risk’

Resource Management Act 1991

Bill to Repeal RMA amendments – keeps the fast-track consenting process consideration of repealing the RMA and replacing it with a ‘simpler set of standards’

Organised Crime (NZ Police Definition)

Is ongoing, involves profit, involves a group of persons, and is accompanied by use of fear or violence

Mongrel Mob

Largest gang in New Zealand

Ah Kong and Sin Ma

Other Asian organized crime groups in NZ include Yakuza/Boryokudan, and some evidence of Vietnamese gangs in NZ

Mr Big/Mr Asia

Early 80s Terry Clarke and other key figures in the Mr Asia gang were arrested and imprisoned - spelt the end of the Mr Asia gang and changed the nature of organised criminal activity in NZ

Gangs Act 2024

Recently implemented legislation which: Bans the display of gang patches and insignia in public places, Gives Police the power to stop gang members from gathering in public by issuing dispersal notices, and Gives police the power to apply for non-consorting orders to prevent specificed gang members from associating and communicating with other specified gang offenders, an act that has brought about a number of crtiques

Hate Crime

Violence directed against a person because of there shared characteristics with a group of people (e.g. Gender orientation, gender, age, race, physical ability etc)

Sentencing Act 2002

Provides hostility as a result of the victims particular characteritics as an aggravating factor in regards to sentencing (Section 9(1)(h)).

Contemporary Philosophy and practical needs of the ruling class

The development of penal policies is always related to contemporary philosophy and practical needs of the ruling class.

Lockstep mothod used under the silent system

Of moving prisoners while preventing them from speaking to each other-inmates marched back to chest with their heads to one side.

Edmund du Cane

Chairman of the Prison Commission of England - 1863 - 1893. Abandoned the seperate system and replaced it with on on punitive deterrance, meaningess work and harsh discipline. 'Hard work, hard fair and hard bed'.

Arthur Hume

A former army officer arrived in New Zealand in 1880 to manage and centralise the country's prison system

Paremoremo Prison

This New Prison opened in 1969 as a replacement for Mt Eden, was at the time the most sophisticated and secure prisons in the world.

Government policy regarding decarceration

Overrepresentation of Maori in the prison system (make up around 19% of population but 52.5% of prison population: Department of Corrections report - two explanatory approaches