js midterm study guide

Consensus Perspective: Main ideas

• Criminal law reflects society’s consensus about what is morally right and wrong

• Criminal law is a self-evident reflection of agreed upon morals and values

  • Certain behaviors are criminal because society has come to a consensus that they are morally wrong, threaten the social order; and should be punished

Consensus Perspective: Social Contract Theory

• Enlightenment Movement (1500s-1700s)

  • Cultural and political movement emphasizing scientific reasoning over superstition, religion and tradition

  • Foundation of Liberalism

    • Individual liberty, equality before the law, religious tolerance, natural rights 

  • Liberalism: From subjects to citizens

    • Subjects are under the power of a monarch or dictator

      • Loyalty and obedience in exchange for protection

    • Citizens possess power as a self-governing community

      • Obligation to actively participate in self-governance as equals

  • Social Contract Theory

    • Individuals must relinquish some of their freedom to the state exchange for security and social order

    • Without a strong state to enforce the law, society would devolve into anarchy

    • The state exists to protect the rights of individuals

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) (Consensus Perspective)

• English political philosopher

  • What makes a government legitimate?

  • Why should people obey their rulers?

• Author of Leviathan (1651)

  • Foundational work of social contract theory

• Hobbes’s view of human nature

  • Humans are inherently selfish and violent

• Without a strong government to provide protection, society will descend into anarchy: a “war of all against all”

• Life would be “nasty, brutish, and short”

• Absolute government authority is more important than individual rights

  • The government’s main job is to control crime

• Conclusion - agreement between citizens and the government, citizens submit to government authority in exchange for protection

John Locke (1632-1704) (Consensus Perspective)

• English political philosopher

• Author of Two Treatises of Government (1690)

• “Father of Liberalism”

• Locke’s Social Contract Theory

  • Humans possess inherent “natural rights”

    • Freedom, equality, self-determination

  • A nation’s government requires the consent of citizens in order to be seen as legitimate

  • Citizens agree to surrender absolute freedom in exchange for protection and security

  • But, if the government unjustly threatens citizens’ lives, citizens no longer have to abide by the government's authority

  • Conclusion - individual rights and limited government, if governments fail to protect individual rights, they are no longer legitimate, individual rights are more important that absolute government power

    • The government's main job is to protect citizens from arbitrary punishment

Consensus Perspective: Sociological Theory: Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

• How do societies create and maintain social solidarity?

  • Relationships that bind people together into unified group

  • Sense of shared purpose and belonging

  • Mutual trust, interdependence, and cooperation

• What explains social order and stability?

• What prevents complex, modern societies from devolving into chaos and anarchy?

• Punishment’s primary function is to reinforce social solidarity

  • Public rituals to re-affirms collective values

  • Collective outrage against offenders reinforces in-group solidarity

• Public ceremonies of punishment

  • Brings the public together in a shared space

  • Communicates shared values and identity

  • Reinforces boundaries between insiders and outsiders

Conflict Perspective (Main ideas)

• Criminal law reflects the interest of the ruling class

• The ruling class uses criminal law to maintain the power and privilege over subordinate groups

  • Ruling elites use law to protect their advantages, control political and economic resources, and repress social change

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (conflict perspective)

• Humans are inherently cooperative

  • Humans are driven by self-preservation and can only survive in nature through cooperation

• Humans are driven to violence through resource scarcity and inequality

• The role of government is to grant security by removing the root sources of conflict

  • The main job of government is to provide economic security and reduce inequality

Punishment and Political Economy (Karl Marx (1818-1883))

• German philosopher

• Theory of Historical Materialism

  • Human behavior and history are determined by economic (material) forces

    • Economic development and class struggle determine the course of human history

    • Human behavior is driven by class interests

• Focus on understanding and critiquing capitalism

• Capitalism in fundamentally a system of exploitation

  • The capitalist class (Bourgeoisie) gets rich by underplaying the working class (Proletariat) for their labor

• Criminal law upholds the status quo of capitalist exploitation

  • Threat of punishment ensures the working class will accept their place as exploitable workers

  • Controls the disorders created by unemployed masses

Capitalist Class (bourgeoisie)

• Own society’s means of production (factories, machines, property, raw material, software etc)

• Accumulate profit, wealth, and political power through exploitation of workers

Class Interests:

• Perpetual profit growth

• Maximize profits by minimizing labor costs

• Pay workers less than the value of their labor

• Prevent workers from demanding better conditions

Working Class (proletariat)

• Must sell their labor to capitalists for a wage in order to survive

• Must constantly work to ensure daily survival

Class Interests:

• Form unions to demand better wages and working conditions

• Create collective ownership of the means of production

Law serves the interest of the capitalist class

• Law upholds the status quo of capitalist exploitation

  • Protects private ownership of the means of production

  • Allows capitalists to set low wages via “freedom” of contractual relationships

• Criminal Law upholds the social order

  • Threat of punishment ensures the working class will accept their place as exploitable workers

  • Controls the disorder created by the unemployed masses

Crime Control Model of Criminal Justice

• The repression of crime is the most important function of government

• The emphasis is on the rapid arrest, charging, conviction, and sentencing of the guilty

• Limiting the appeals process in order to remove antisocial individuals from society

Retribution

=  Social revenge

• “Just deserts” - punishment of lawbreakers should match the harm inflicted on the victim and society

• “An eye for an eye” 

  • The severity of punishment is proportionate to the harm of the offense

• Conception of Lawbreakers

  • Rational actors who freely choose to engage in criminal behavior

    • Lawbreakers freely choose to harm other

    • Therefore, they deserve to experience harm themselves

• Strategy of crime control

  • None; offenders simply deserve to be punished in proportion to the harm they caused

  • The victim and society deserve the satisfaction of seeing lawbreakers suffer

    • Balance the scales of justice

Deterrence

= Prevention of future crime

• The costs of punishment must outweigh the benefits of crime

  • Specific Deterrence: the pain of punishment dissuades offenders from engaging in crime again

    • “Pains of imprisonment”: social isolation

  • General Deterrence: the general public knows that punishment is painful and will obey the law to avoid punishment

• Conception of offenders

  • Rational actors who engage in cost-benefit calculations

  • Law breakers choose crime when the benefits of crime outweigh the costs

• Strategy of Crime Control

  • Instill fear in lawbreakers and the public at large

  • Disincentivize crime by making the costs of crime outweigh the benefits

  • Make punishment certain, swift, severe, and proportionate to the crime

Incapacitation

= Social Defense

• Isolate lawbreakers away from the community

  • Lawbreakers cannot victimize law abiding citizens while incarcerated

• Strategy of Crime Control

  • Long-term prison sentences

  • Death penalty

• Stresses the need for protecting suspects against the power of police, prosecutors, and judges

• Detailed procedures are viewed as the best protection against human error, mistreatment, corruption, and false convictions

• Speed and efficiency are sacrificed in the interest of protecting individuals’ rights, providing equal treatment, and ensuring reliable results

Due process

= the procedural rules that govern the manner in which the state may go about depriving an individual of his or her liberty

• Balancing the rights of individuals with the authority of the state of enforce laws

due process in Constitution

• 4th amendment: Prohibition against unlawful search and seizure

• 5th amendment: Prohibition against self incrimination

• 6th amendment: right to trial

  • Speedy trial

  • Public trial

  • Impartial jury of peers

  • Trial in location where crime was committed

  • Right to be informed of the nature and cause of accusation

  • Right to confront witnesses

  • Right to compel witness to testify in defendants favor

  • Right to assistance of counsel

• 8th amendment: prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment

• 14th amendment: No state shall… deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law

Adversarial system

• Trials are zero-sum contests between the individual and the state

• Careful determination of facts based on relevant rules

• Focus on procedural fairness

• The state must run through an “obstacle course” to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”

Due Process Goals Overall Main Idea

Create safeguards to protect individuals rights and limit government power

Due Process Goals

• Decriminalization

• Diversion

• Decarceration

• Rehabilitation

Decriminalization

limit arrests and prosecution for low-level offenses

Diversion

redirect low-level offenders to community-based rehabilitation programs

Decarceration

early release for nonviolent offenders and limited use of incarceration for nonviolent offense

Rehabilitation

transform lawbreakers into productive citizens through training and therapy

• Restore lawbreakers to "healthy" and “normal” social life

• Conception of Offenders

  • People who require help and will respond to treatment and programming

• Strategy of Crime Control

  • Prevent recidivism by transforming lawbreakers into law abiding citizens

    • Correct destructive attitudes and behaviors, esp addiction and mental health

  • Addresses socio-economic disadvantaged, esp unemployment and homelessness

3 Branches of Government

1. Legislative (makes laws)

2. Executive (carries out laws)

3. Judicial (evaluates laws)

U.S. Legal System

Federal Courts

Dual Court System

Jurisdiction of Federal Courts

Federal Courts

• Article 3 of the Constitution created a single Supreme Court and left it to Congress to fill in the details of a national judicial system

• Judiciary Act of 1789 created a separate system of thirteen federal district courts

Dual Court System

• Federal system based on the U.S. Constitution and statutes passed by Congress

• State system based on state constitutions and statutes passed by state legislatures

Jurisdiction of Federal Courts

• Cases in which the United States is a party

• Cases involving a law passed by the U.S. Congress

• Cases raising Constitutional issues

• Cases requiring the interpretation of international treaties

Levels of system (by order sorted lowest to highest)

• District Courts

• Courts of Appeal

• Supreme Court

  • Nine justices

State Court System

• 98% of all cases are filed in state courts

• Traffic, civil and criminal cases, domestic relations, and juvenile cases

Civil Law

 = Private Disputes between individual citizens

• Plaintiff (harmed party) vs. Defendant (responsible party)

  • Fam disputes - divorce, custody, will)

  • Contract disputes - such as a worker who thinks their employer violated their terms of employment)

  • Trusts - financial contracts)

  • Torts - complaints about harm from the defendant’s actions or inspections

Criminal Law

= Violation of the criminal law

• The state (prosecutor) vs. Citizen (Defendant)

Characteristics of Criminal Law

• Politicality- crime is a function of formal state law;only violations of rules made by the state are crimes

• Specificity- criminal behavior is strictly defined as a specific and discrete act

• Uniformity- criminal law applies to all citizens equally and does not make distinctions based on social status; a crime is a crime no matter who perpetrates it

• Penal sanction -violators of criminal law will be punished by the state. Punishment is rational and civilized (i.e. not excessively violent or causing undue bodily harm)

Legal Elements of Crime

• Criminal Intent (Mens Rea)

• criminal Motive

• Criminal Act (Actus Reus)

Criminal Intent (Mens Rea)

• Intention to commit the behavior that resulted in the crime (‘guilty mind’)

• Intention to commit the behavior and may not be the intention to commit the actual outcome

  • Ex: killing a pedestrian while driving drunk

    • Intention to commit the crime of DUI makes you responsible for other outcomes

• 4 levels of intent

  • Purposeful

  • Knowing

  • Reckless

  • Negligence

    • All of the other kinds of action and this one lack of action (ex. Child neglect)

Criminal Motive

Cause or reason why the act was committed

Criminal Act (Actus Reus)

• Intentional or reckless action or inaction that brings about harmful consequences (‘guilty act’)

  • Voluntary bodily movement

  • Omission in the face of a duty to act

  • Possession

Legal Elements of Crime

• Felony

• misdemeanor

• infraction

Felony

• Serious crimes that typically carry more than one year of incarceration

Misdemeanor

• Less serious crimes that typically carry less than one year of incarceration (if at all)

Infraction

Non-criminal violations of the law (traffic violations, noise ordinances, etc.)

Criminal Defenses

• Excuse defenses

• Justification defenses

Excuse defenses

• Age - due to the defendants’ young age, they were not able to form the sufficient mens rea to be culpable for their actions

• Involuntary intoxication - defendant was forced or tricked into getting drunk or high

• Mistakes of fact - defendant thought they were actually doing something perfectly legal due to mistaken facts (ex. Picking up someone else’s phone)

• Entrapment - the police or another government authority led the defendant to commit a crime that the defendant otherwise would have not committed

• Insanity - at the time of the crime, the defendant was in such a mentally impaired state they they would not tell right from wrong (therefore being unable to form the sufficient mens rea)

Justification Defenses

• Duress -  defendant was coerced into committing the crime

  • Forced to commit the crime at gun point

• Necessity - crime was for a significant, necessary purpose

  • Stealing a car to flee a tornado

• Consent - the victim voluntarily consented to the activity

  • Loser of a boxing match presses charges for assault

• Self defense - defendant had to commit the act in order to protect themselves or others from a “reasonable and imminent threat of violence”

  • Reasonable: use of force was proportional

  • Imminent: violence was likely to immediately follow

Criminal Justice Process

Each step of the process depends on the discretion of criminal justice actors

Discretion

• ability to make independent decisions

  • Which calls get priority, which cases are investigated, who gets arrested, who gets charged, who gets a long sentence, who gets early release

• Entry into the system

Police

•  gatekeepers of the criminal justice system

  • Decide which calls for service get responded to, which cases to investigate, who to arrest

  • No entry into the system if…

    • Police do not respond to a call

    • Case goes old (no suspect identified)

    • Case gets dropped (suspect is cleared)

• Prosecution and pretrial services

Prosecutors

• most powerful gatekeepers of the criminal justice system

  • Power to file charges or drop the case

    • Little oversight or accountability

  • No entry to the system if…

    • Not enough evidence

    • Police conducted an illegal search

    • No reason at all

Initial court appearance

• Judge informs the suspect of the charges against them

• Informed of due process rights

• Bail may be set

Preliminary hearing

• Judge examines the evidence against the defendant

• Determines if there is sufficient probable cause

  • Reasonably trustworthy evidence that the defendant committed the specific criminal act

• The case is dismissed if…

  • Police did not have sufficient probable cause to make the arrest

  • Prosecutor does not have sufficient evidence to demonstrate probable cause

• Case proceeds to bail or detention hearing if there is sufficient probable cause

grand jury

• in some states, prosecutors must present evidence to a grand jury to determine if there is sufficient evidence

• if the grand jury agrees with the prosecution, they issue an indictment

Adjudication

• Arraignment

  • defendant is read the charge, advised of their rights to a defense attorney, and told to enter plea

    • guilty

    • not guilty

    • no contest: defendant accepts the penalty but does not admit guilt

Plea Bargaining

• prosecution and the defense work out a deal to grant the defendant a lesser penalty in exchange for pleading guilty

• 98% of cases are adjudicated via plea bargain

  • “Assembly line” rather than "obstacle course”

• “The Process is the Punishment”

• The adjudication process is so burdensome that defendants forgo their due process rights and enter guilty pleas

  • Stuck in jail during adjudication process

  • Missed work

  • Missed wages

  • No child care

Sentencing

• Presumptive sentence: recommended sentence based on sentencing guidelines

• Mandatory minimum

  • Judges may not impose a sentence below a minimum threshold

• Judicial discretion and departures

  • Upward departure: higher sentence due to aggravating circumstances

    • Increase blame: cruelty, weapon used, vulnerable victim, leadership role, hate crime motivation, abuse of trust

  • Downward departure: lower sentence due to mitigating circumstances

    • Decrease blame: age, mental illness, minor role, duress, remorse, severe childhood trauma

Jail

• funded and administered by local counties governments

  • 550,000 residents on any given

  • 7-10 million admissions per year

  • Designed for short-term detention

    • People awaiting trial (pre-trial detention)

      • 80% of jail inmates are “innocent until proven guilty”

    • People convicted of felonies and sentenced to less than 1 year

      • 20% have been convicted on a felony

Prison

• funded and administered by state governments and the Federal Bureau of Prisons

  • 1,071,00 residents on any given day

  • 469,000 admissions in 2022

  • Designed for long term detention

  • People convicted of felonies and serving sentences of at least 1 year

    • Average sentence for people serving non-life terms: 5 years

Community Corrections

Probation and parole

• Common conditions of probation and parole:

  • Pay fines and fees

  • Drug testing

  • Full-time employment or school

  • Movement and travel restrictions

  • Relationship or “association” restrictions

  • Random searches

Probation

Convicted person can live in the community under the supervision of a probation officer and follow certain conditions

Parole

person is released from prison early and completes their sentence under the supervision of a parole officer

Criminology

the study of why people engage in criminal or antisocial behavior

• Why do people break the law?

• How can we prevent people from breaking the law?

• How can we protect society from lawbreakers?

• How can we correct the behavior of lawbreakers?

Multiple Theories of Crime Causation

• Individualistic Theories

• micro-sociological

• macro-sociological

Theory

well tested explanation of a behavior that can be used to predict future behavior

Individualistic Theories

• “Kinds of People”

  • Biological traits” physiological and genetic explanations

Micro-sociological

• “Kind of Relationships”

  • Social relationships: influence of peer groups and families

Macro-sociological

• “Kinds of Places”

  • Social ecologies: neighborhoods, political economy of society

Pre-Modern Criminology

• Religious and supernatural explanations for crime

  • Crime caused by demonic possession and evil spirits

Classical Criminology

• Cesare Beccaria - On Crimes and Punishment (1764)

• Jeremy Bentham - An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)

1. Criminal behavior is a rational choice

2. People commit crime when the benefit is greater than the cost

3. If punishment is swift, severe, and certain, people will be deterred from committing crime

4. Punishment should be proportional to the crime

5. The criminal justice system should not be arbitrary, and laws should be known to the public

Determinism (late 1800s to early 1900s)

• A body of theories that reject the “free will” conception of human nature

• Human behavior is determined by factors outside of individual control

  • Biology

  • Psychology

  • Social environment

Biological Determinism

• Cesare Lombroso - 19th C. Italian Physician

• Criminal Man (1876)

  • Criminals are biologically distinct from non-criminals

• Criminals are atavistic - they are genetically inferior and physically distinct species of humans

  • Remnants of earlier stages of human development

  • Hairy bodies, curly hair, receding foreheads, long arms, large skulls, nostrils, and ears

    • Common among “colored races”

Pseudoscience

• Misapplies scientific language to support a biased argument

• Scientific racism: using “science” to justify white supremacy

Confirmation bias

Only studied people who are incarcerated

Biological determinism

eugenics

Contemporary biosocial theory

• Biology does not fully explain criminal behavior

  • Biology operates in conjunction with other influence 

• Focus on gene-environment interactions

  • Certain genetic predispositions can be triggered by environmental factors

    • E.g. predisposition to addiction or mental illness exacerbated by adverse social conditions

• Brain damage

• psychological determinism

• social psychological theories of crime

Brain damage

• Damage to the pre-frontal cortex lobe of the brain

  • Governs functions of emotional regulation, foresight, and moral judgement

• Traumatic brain injury, substance abuse, birth defects, toxic exposure, poor diet in infancy

  • Toxic lead exposure

  • CTE

Psychological determinism

• Also assumes that criminals are fundamentally different than non criminals

  • Defects in mental, emotional, personality traits cause criminal acts

• Personality and crime

  • Psychopaths and sociopaths

    • Lack of impulse control coupled with lacking the capacity to experience guilt, empathy, caring, or obligations to other

    • Critique: these conditions are incredibly rare and difficult to diagnose

Social psychological theories of crime

• Criminal behavior is the result of exposure to negative environmental conditions

• Anyone could become a criminal if exposed to the wrong environment

• Focus on how social interaction shapes individual behavior

  • How human behavior changes and adapts to different social situations

• How do individuals learn to favor or disfavor criminal behavior?

• How do social relationships (peers, family) shape attitudes toward criminal behavior?

Social learning theory

• Criminal behavior is not caused by biological, psychological or moral pathologies

• Criminal behavior is learned, not inherited

• Learning occurs in social interactions with deviant peers

• What gets taught?

  • Motivations

    • Attitudes, ideas, beliefs, and values toward crime

    • Fit in with friends

    • Rebel against authority

    • Fun, thrilling, and empowering

    • Easy way to get money

  • Techniques: in order to commit a crime, and individual must first learn how to do it

    • The “know-how” of criminal behavior

    • Example: theft

      • What would you need to know in order to be a successful thief?

        • How to break into a house/car, picking locks, shutting down alarms, how to “fence” a stolen item, knowing the best time to strike, avoid the police, how to pickpocket undetected

    • Getting high is a learned practice

      • Learning to smoke in a way that produces real effects

      • Learning to recognize the effects of marijuana and connect them with drug use

      • Learning to enjoy the sensations

Differential association

• Criminal behavior occurs when there is an excess of definitions favorable to the violation of law over definitions unfavorable to the violation of law

• Criminal behavior occurs when individuals become isolated from non-criminal peer groups

• Immersed in situations that define violations of the law as favorable

  • Peer pressure

Macro-sociological theories

• Focus on “social ecology”

  • Spatial organization and distribution of resource in a place

    • Organizations of cities

    • Levels of poverty and inequality

    • Built environment of a neighborhood

    • Social network of local residents

• What explains the geographic concentration of crime in certain areas of the city over time

Social Disorganization theory

• “Chicago School” of Criminology

  • Groups of University of Chicago sociologists studying the problems associated with rapid social change at the start of the 1900s

    • Urbanization, industrialization, immigration

  • Crime is caused by the social ecology of neighborhoods, not the cultural or moral pathologies of residents

• Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (1942) by Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. Mckay

  • Mapped the addresses of arrested delinquents from 1920-1950s

    • Areas of high crime remained stable regardless of population turnover

    • Ethnic groups who left high crime areas committed less crime

    • Ethnic groups that entered high crime areas committed more crime

Spatial approach to studying violence

• community-level factors drive violence

• Histories of racial segregation create…

  • Divestment from public infrastructure

  • Concentrated poverty

  • Weak social cohesion and trust

• Taken together, these factors increase the risk of neighborhood violence

Concentrated Disadvantage and violence

• Decay of the built environment

  • Decline of political influence and state funding = deterioration of public infrastructure

    • Built environment decays, poorly lit spaces, abandoned buildings, vacant lots, litter and graffiti, lack of public transit and food traffic (places where violence is most likely)

    • Residents retreat from public space, leading to further decay

    • Schools, daycare centers, parks, playgrounds, libraries close or deteriorate

Measuring Crime

• How do we know how much crime there is in society?

• Where does that information come from and how is it protected

• How reliable and valid is that information

• Why does having accurate crime data matter?

3 sources of crime statistics

1. Uniform Crime Report (UCR) / National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

2. National Crime Victims Survey (NCVS)

3. Report Studies

Uniform Crime Report (UCR)

• The most widely used official source of data regarding criminal offenses in the United States

• Annual report compiled by the FBI based on reports from nearly all local law enforcement agencies in the US

• Published from 1930-2019

• The Crime Rate

  • Measures the amount of crime relative to the size of the population

    • Crime rate = (number of reported crimes/total population) x 100,000

    • Example: city with 50,000 residents has 250 reported thefts

    • (250/50,000) x 100,000 = 500 thefts per 100,000 residents

• Clearance rates

  • The clearance rate is a measure of “solved” crimes

    • Dividing the number of reports for each Index crime by the number of arrests for that crime

      • Note that it focuses on arrest, not conviction

UCR Part 1 Offenses or Index Crimes

• Violent index crimes (crimes against persons)

  • murder/non-negligent homicide

  • Rape

  • Aggravated assault

  • Armed robbery

• Property index crimes (crimes against property)

  • Larceny-theft

  • Burglary

  • Motor-vehicle theft

  • Arson

• Data on Index Crimes are the ones most often cited in media reports and public discussions about how much crime is occurring in society

UCR Part 2 Offenses or non-index crimes

• 20 (mostly non-violent) categories of violations

• Drug abuse violations; prostitution; simple assault; public order offenses; status offenses

UCR Strengths and Weaknesses

• Strengths

  • Relatively valid and reliable sources of data on what police and citizens …

• Weaknesses 

  • Non-reporting - a crime occurs, citizens may not report it for a number of reasons:

1. They may not know that the behavior is criminal

2. They may not consider the behavior to be criminal

3. They may distrust the police and feel that the problem is better handled privately

4. They may not know the perpetrator and be unwilling to turn them in

• Violence against women, particularly rape and domestic battery, are two of the most under-reported crimes. Why?

  • Victims feel humiliated and embarrassed

  • Fear further violence or retaliation by the offender

  • Fear they won't be believed

National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

• New system of crime reporting as of Jan. 1 2021

  • Provides more detailed data on crime incidents in the U.S.

• Changes from the UCR

  • Eliminated UCR’s “hierarchy rule” (only recording most serious offenses

    • Records separate crimes within the same incident

    • Example: bank robbery where guard is murdered - in the UCR only the murder is recorded - in NIBRS both the robbery and the murder are recorded

  • Expanded offense categories

    • Group A offenses

      • Maintains Part 1 and 2 categories

      • Adds 28 expanded offense categories

    • Group B offenses

  • Recorded detailed information about each incident

    • Age, sex, race/ethnicity of both victim and offender(s) (if known)

    • Relationship between victim and offender(s)

    • Date, time, and location of the incident

    • Type and value of property stolen

    • Weapons used

    • Any injuries

• Implementation problems

  • Agencies weren’t prepared for extra work of new system

    • 63% of police agencies submitted data in 2021

    • 82.3% police agencies submitted data in 2022

National Crime Victims Survey (NCVS)

• NCVS: was developed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the 1960s to address the problems of underreporting in the UCR

• Draws on a random, nationally representative sample of households and business in the US

• Every surveys 163,000 individuals from 92,000 households

• Phone or in person interviews

NCVS Strengths and Weaknesses

• Strengths

  • Provides a reliable alternative source of crime data 

  • Identifies crime not reported to the police

• Weaknesses

  • Until 1992, no specific questions about rape

    • Pre-1992: did anyone TRY to attack you in some other way?

    • Survey redesign alone accounted for doubling in reported rapes

    • Victims of rape or domestic battery may be surveyed while their assailant is in the room (if spouse or partner)

    • Interviewer effects

      • Interviewers may be better or worse at eliciting responses from respondents

    • Sampling bias

      • Victim surveys seek a general sample of the population

      • Omits the homeless and institutionalized populations

        • Disproportionately victims of violence

    • Response bias 

      • Refers to a situation when an interviewer knowingly or unknowingly reports inaccurate information in an interview

        • Crime victims may be uncomfortable recounting their victimization

        • Crime victims may not recall their victimization

        • Crime victims may classify crimes differently (or not at all) compared to the police

        • Crime victims may report a trivial event as a serious crime

Report Studies

• Self-report surveys are primarily interested in obtaining information about respondents’ own delinquents and criminal behavior

• Mostly conducted with adolescents and often administered in school settings

• Focus on a wider range of less serious behaviors that remain outside the domain of official records

  • Drug use, underage drinking, sexual activity, truancy

• The National Survey of Youth (NSY)

  • Surveys a nationally representative sample of adolescents in the US

• Drug surveys

  • Monitoring the Future (MTF)

    • Annual nationally representative survey of high school seniors

Report Studies Weaknesses

• Social desirability: not reporting criminal behavior out of fear of being judged

• Telescoping: wrongly reporting the time when a crime occurred

• Forgetting: not remembering that a crime occured

• Under and over reporting