Studied by 6 people
Monitoring the Future
Measures substance & alcohol use patterns among youths
What is the primary role of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)?
educate others on how long-term exposure to violence affects children & find ways to address this problem
Criminology is distinguished from other perspectives of crime, such as journalistic, philosophical, or legal perspectives, because it involves the use of the
Scientific method
Who is the father of victimology
Mendelsohn
What is a victim impact statement?
A formal statements given by victims in court about the incident & could be considered in the offender’s sentencing
What are the 5 characteristics of a good theory ?
1.parsimony 2.scope 3.logical consistency 4. testability 5. empirical validity
Parsimony
explains criminal behavior with fewest possible concepts
scope
the range of criminal behavior that a theory attempts to explain
logical consistency
a theory makes sense in terms of its concepts and propositions
testability
scientifically tested through observation and empirical research
empirical validity
A theory is supported by scientific research
A researcher is trying to determine cause and effect between two factors. As part of this, the researcher ensures that no other factors could have affected the result. This researcher is checking for ______.
spuriousness
spuriousness
What may be the cause between two variable but there is a third variable that is not accounted for.
statutory exclusion
Excludes juvenile offenders from juvenile court jurisdiction
Which perspective assumes the law is implemented to maintain the power of the dominant group?
conflict
conflict perspective
assumes people disagree with the laws & rules of society
Consensus perspective
assumes that people agree with the laws & rules of society
What are the 3 components of the criminal justice system ?
courts, law enforcement, & corrections
What are the goal(s) of the criminal justice system?
control crime
prevent crime
provide and maintain justice
criminology vs criminal justice
Criminology explains the origin of crime, extent, & nature of crime is society while, criminal justice is the study of agencies
criminality
traits (influence) that correspond with criminal behavior
A study indicates social isolation is linked to depression; however, the researcher is not sure which variable is causing a change in the other. What is the researcher attempting to determine?
temporal ordering
temporal order
cause & effect in time
correlation
cause & effects of non-criminal factors of crimes
A criminologist states that the best criminology theory is one that explains criminal behavior in the simplest terms possible. What concept is this criminologist is referring to?
parsimony
Active victim precipitation
When individuals increase the likelihood they will be victimized by proactively doing something
Which is an example of active victim precipitation?
A person yells obscenities at someone while in the park.
A local law enforcement officer sends a substance collected at a crime scene to the crime lab for analysis. Which agency is the officer interacting with?
state police
state police
investigate major crimes; intelligence units, drug-trafficking units, juvenile units & crime laboratories
highway police
enforce the laws govern the operation of motor vehicles on public roads & highways
limited jurisdiction
misdemeanors
general jurisdiction
any case (misdemeanors & felonies) + appeals from a lower court
appellate jurisdiction
appeals from lower courts & trial courts
probation
offender to comply W/ certain terms for a specific amount of time
Jail
individuals convicted of a minor crime & individuals waiting for trial
prison
individuals convicted of more serious crimes W/ longer sentences
What is the difference between mala in se and mala prohibita offenses?
Mala in se acts are highly deviant and inherently immoral, whereas mala prohibita acts are not inherently immoral.
deviance
behaviors that are not normal; includes many illegal acts as well as activities that are not necessarily criminal but are unusual and often violate social norms
Mala is se
acts that are inherently evil
mala prohibita
crimes that are illegal but not immoral
parens patriae
allows states to intervene when it come to the care of juveniles
Which scenario demonstrates the concept of parens patriae?
A judge removes a child from an abusive home.
What type of case could both a court of general jurisdiction and a court of limited jurisdiction try and decide?
a criminal case about a misdemeanor crime
Three criteria for causation
temporal ordering
correlation / covariation
spuriousness
Criminology (Sutherland)
study of crime & describes why people engage / not in criminal behavior.
common themes in criminology definition(s)
A scientific study crime & criminal behavior (theory)
theory
explains why crime happens & proposed explanation
victimology
study of victims; legal rights of victims, & spatial (location) distribution of victimization in each geographic area.
methodology
explains why crime occurred, used to test theories, & observes trends in large populations
ideology
the set of beliefs / values that everyone develops about the way the world is (how we see the world)
crime (legalistic)
crime is an intention act in violation of the criminal law & excludes behavior that is not criminalized, detected, reported to law enforcement, or prosecuted.
crime (broader)
antisocial behavior that violates conduct norms / deviance
crime (critical)
political & economic forces play the key role in generating crime & deviance; power structure is considered.
Social contracts (Hobbes)
promise the state / government not to commit offenses against other citizens & in turn gain protection from being violated by other citizens.
criminal behavior
socially enacted contracts describing appropriate & inappropriate behaviors. (legality)
criminality
underlying traits that are ultimately responsible for bringing about criminal behavior
social universals
something that is constant across all social groups
Uniform Crime Report (UCR)
generate a consistent count of crime
Part I Offenses
criminal homicide
forcible rape
robbery
aggravated assault
burglary
larceny/theft
motor vehicle theft
arson
Part II Offenses
all other crimes includes 21 specific crimes
UCR reporting rules
based on actual counts of those crimes reported by law enforcement agencies.
UCR strengths
(1) nationwide statics (generalizability), (2) collected & stored since 1930, (3) Easily accessible, & (4) includes homicide measure
UCR limitations
(1) emphasis on street crimes, (2) subject to political manipulation, (3) lack of detail, (4) inaccurate counts (indirect measure of crimes
UCR historical development
developed in the 1920s, finalized in 1929,
UCR population
most cited statistics, collected from police departments, submitted voluntarily, more than 18,000 agencies report data & Florida had paper files since 2021
UCR availability
publicly available (FBI website)
UCR primary aim(s)
(1) crime that has been brought to the attention of the police, (2) Reports a minimal amount of information, (3) Primarily a count or tally of crime in the US for a given year
theoretical explanations for changes from 1920-1930
prohibition & great depression
homicide as a “proxy”
(1) homicide rates tend to be a good indication of overall crime & (2) possible to plot homicide rates since 1930 using the UCR
crime rates in the 1910s - 1930s
(1) crime rates relatively low at the beginning of the 20th century, (2) sharp increases between 1910-1920, (3) due to industrialization in the US, (4) resulted in population increases and rapid urbanization, & (5) largest increase in the early 1900s
crime rates in the 1940s - 1950s
(1) sharp decrease beginning in the early 1940s, (2) new economic polices (Roosevelt new deal), (3) prohibition was repealed, (4) The US entered WWII a huge proportion of males are victims or offenders
crime rates 1960s-1970s
(1) began to increase dramatically in the early 1960s, (2) dramatic increase between 1965-1975, (3) overall crime more than doubled, (4) greatest increase in overall crime
What caused the crime rate increase in the 1960s & 1970s ?
(1) baby boomers entering adolescence, (2) drug use and favorable attitudes toward drugs, & (3) social unrest during the time period - women’s rights, Vietnam protests, civil disobedience
crime rates in 1980s - 1990s
(1) overall peak in violent crime was in 1980, (2) no period in the 1900s with higher crime, (3) declined somewhat in the early 1980s & then rose again in the late 1980s & early 90s
Crime rates in the 1990s -2000s
(1) dropped virtually every year since 1994 & (2) rates similar to those from about 40 years prior
what cause the decrease on crime in the 90s & early 2000s?
(1) incarceration practice, (2) policing practices, (3) demographic changes, & (4) abortion
What are the factors contributing to differences in crime rates?
(1) anonymity & (2) opportunity
anonymity
harder to build interpersonal relations because people are moving out of the community
opportunity
greater number of potential targets for criminal activity
community size & crime
(1) rural areas tend to be safer than urban areas & (2) suburban areas tend to fall in-between
geographic distribution
(1) crime does cluster within specific regions of the country, (2) states in the west and south have the highest crime rates, & (3) states in the northeast tend to be the safest
How to calculate crime ?
(Crime rates / population) * 100,000
What is the importance of using rates?
Standardizes the statistic
What are crime rates?
statistics that allows us to compare across different populations
how much crime is there in the US?
depends on who you ask
Spatial Analysis of crime
mapping crimes which provides information about location, distance, direction & pattern.
what’s the volume of crime?
how much crime in the US
What are crime rates?
allows us to compare across different population
National prisoner statistics (NPS)
collects information about incarcerated individuals in state & federal prisons
Law enforcement offers killed & assailed (LEOKA)
collects data on officer line-of-duty deaths & assaults
line-of-duty
An officer killed whether on/ off duty while performing official duties of a law enforcement officer.
felonious death
when an officer is killed because of / while performing his / her official duties & as a direct result of a criminal act by a subject
accidental death
when an officer dies as a result of an accident, he / she is involved in while performing his / her duties
Hate Crime data
collects information on location, victim type, number of offenders, race of offender, & bias motivation
Supplementary Homicide Reports
details about homicides in the United States, including information about offenders, victims, and incidents
dark figure of crime
unreported crimes
What is the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)?
an enhanced version of the UCR that collects more detailed information on incidents.
What's the differences between the UCR & NIBRS?
(1) UCR collects the # of criminal incidents (8 offenses), (2) NIBRS expands the types of offenses reported, (3) NIBRS uses an incident-based reporting system
NIBRS segments
(a) administrative, (b) offense, (c) property, (d) victim, (e) offender, (f) arrestee – armed W/ weapon, resident status
administrative
incident # & incident date / hour
Note 
Flashcard (24)