CCJ 3011 Exam 1

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?

1. control crime
2. prevent crime
3. 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

1. temporal ordering
2. correlation / covariation
3. 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

1. criminal homicide
2. forcible rape
3. robbery
4. aggravated assault
5. burglary
6. larceny/theft
7. motor vehicle theft
8. 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