Criminology Quiz #1

Theory

Consists of a set of propositions and/or hypotheses. They try and explain or understand phenomena to make sense out of observations and facts

Explains different types of crimes (serious, non-violent, misdemeanors) and explains offending behavior across demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, age, social class)

1. Correlation - must be a relationship between the variable or “thing” to explain the behavior

2. Specification or ordering - the explanation for the behavior must come before the behavior itself

   1. Direct

   2. Indirect

3. Relationship does not disappear - once we take into account other variables or aspects, to be a good theory, the relationship must still be there between the explanation (e.g., bonds) and offending behavior

4. Absence of Spuriousness - (Spurious Relationships), there might be a link between two things but they are not causally related

Criteria for Empirical Investigation

Micro-level theories

Focus on individual choice and free will, explain crime at an individual level

Macro-level Theories

Focus on structural, community, and neighborhood level explanations of offending behavior

Consensus Perspective

“Greatest good for the greatest number”, Classical school, positivism, based on Durkheim and states that law, punishment, and treatment derive from agreement (i.e., consensus) of norms and values, Focus: why people commit crime and what can be done to prevent or stop it

Conflict Perspective

“Greatest good for those in power”, Conflict and Radical/Critical Theories, an alternative to the consensus perspective and assumes a lack of consensus, belief is that majority groups serve and protect their own interests by manipulating: the law, law enforcement practices, and the courts, powerless groups are seen as a threat to those in power, law and the CJ system are seen as being biased toward groups based on class, gender, or race/ethnicity

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

Official statistics, where local and state law enforcement agencies sent collected information to the FBI, based on crimes reported to the police, published yearly, most well-known and widely cited source of official criminal statistics (moved to NIBRS as of 1/1/2021)

National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

Official statistics, Established to complement the UCR back in 1982 but now what FBI uses as of 1/1/2021, classifies each incident into categories and groups, redefines certain offenses and includes: blackmail, embezzlement, bribery, drug offenses, etc., reports more crime than the UCR but results are similar to UCR

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

Official statistics, The 1st large scale victimization survey that was first completed in 1973, uncovers crimes that have not been reported to the police, structure: telephone surveys to households; age 12+ can participate, overall results: more victimizations reported by NCVS than crime reported by UCR/NIBRS

Self-Report Surveys

Typically anonymous and ask individuals about their own crimes and demonstrate that the number of individuals breaking the law is greater than reported, no official agency involved, more crime reported in these than UCR, NIBRS, and NCVS

Strengths and Weaknesses of Uniform Crime Reports

Strengths:

• Shows big picture of serious crime in the US

Weaknesses:

• Participation by LE agencies is voluntary

• Limited number of crimes considered

• Victims fail to report due to lack of trust or do not think police will help situation

• Some victims have “dirty hands” and do not want to involve police

Strengths and Weaknesses of the National Incident Based Reporting System

Strengths:

• Allows for more accurate reporting

Weaknesses:

• Still voluntary

• Works best for small and mid-size LE agencies

• Coding scheme is more complex

Strengths and Weaknesses of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

Strengths:

• Believed to be more accurate measure of crime

• Believed to be more reliable than official law enforcement data

Weaknesses:

• Definitions of crime differ across social and cultural groups

• limited number of crimes considered

• Overreporting - misinterpretation of event

• Underreporting - due to embarrassment of reporting crime, fear of getting in trouble, or forgetting an incident

Strengths and Weaknesses of Self-report Surveys

Strengths:

• Learn about crimes not reported

• Offer unbiased and detailed accounts of crimes committed

Weaknesses:

• May measure only non-serious delinquency (if serious crimes youth will be in facility, not school

• Memory recollection

• Overreporting

• Underreporting by minorities

Hierarchy Rule

If multiple crimes are committed at the same time, only the most serious is counted by UCR

Dark Figure of Crime

Unreported crimes that are not in official crime statistics

US Crime Trends

Violent and property crime rates:

• decreased in early 1940s

• increased greatly between 1960-1990

• Since 1996, slowly decreased

Crime rates peaked in 1991; UCR recorded almost 15 million crimes in a single year

Relationship Between Age and Crime

25% of violent crimes are committed by younger (less than 18 years old) individuals, 16 to mid to late 20s = peak, then trails off, there is a reduction in supervision during this time period, an increase in social/academic demands, increased desire for adult privileges, and they are unwilling to delay gratification

Relationship Between Race and Crime

In 2010, Blacks made up 13.4% of general population; however, they are disproportionately represented in the CJ system. This may reflect true racial differences in the crime rate but, also likely they reflect the bias in justice process, race gap not as large with self-reports, race gap larger with official data, most research fails to find a link between immigration and crime; some research suggests that immigrants have lower levels of crime

Relationship Between Gender and Crime

Men and women each = 50% of population (data typically only include these 2 categories), men account for more than 80% or more of the arrests, females have higher percentages in

• larceny-theft = 37%

• Forgery = 40%

• Fraud = 45%

• Embezzlement = 50%

Relationship Between Social Class and Crime

• Crime is generally thought of as committed by lower classes, self-report surveys show no direct relationship between social class and juvenile delinquency

• One reason is that police might devote more resources to poor/impoverished areas which leads to more crimes noticed or individuals arrested

• Serious felonies → lower-class juveniles

• Non-serious → spread throughout all classes

• All comes back to which measurement being used

Strengths and Weaknesses of Classical Criminology

Strengths:

• Foundation of criminal justice systems in US and Europe

• First modern approach to understand crime

Weaknesses:

• Does not fully explain motivation of criminal behavior

• Ignores the why and how people decide to commit crime

• Claims were made without true scientific testing

• What about people who do not have free-will to make these decisions? (e.g., under the influence, mental distress)

Strengths and Weaknesses of Rational Choice Theories

Strengths:

• Some empirical/research support for it

• Strong like to policy with situational crime prevention

Weaknesses:

• Assumes everyone is capable of making rational decisions

• Does not consider impact of emotions, substance use, etc.

• Displacement = an effect that occurs when crime control efforts move or redirect offenders to less heavily guarded targets

Routine Activities Theory

Developed by Cohen and Felson, based on some changes to society at the time, Crime began to increase in the US as the country changed from a nation of smaller villages and towns to one of larger urban environments, in the suburbs, parents go to work and children go to school at routine times making the activities of the family/individuals well-known

Three key things for when a crime would occur are:

1. Convergence in time and space of a motivated offender

2. Suitable target

3. Absence of a capable guardian (e.g., police, homeowners, neighbors, friends)

Lifestyle Approach

Crime is viewed not as a random occurrence but as a function of a victim’s lifestyle, some individuals live more high-risk lifestylesSi

Situational Crime Prevention (SCP)/Situation Choice Theory

If a crime is a function of choices, decisions, situations/opportunities = crime can be decreased if you change the environment, shift the focus away from the offender and onto the context in which crime occurs

People who frequently engage in public activities are more exposed to potential offenders and therefore more likely to be victimized, marital status, age, gender, race, socioeconomic status

What characteristics of people are most likely to be victimized?

Offense-Specific Choice Theory

Focus on the characteristics of the crime (e.g., alarm systems for the home), offenders react selectively to the immediate characteristics of a specific actO

Offender-Specific Choice Theories

Focus on the characteristics of people (e.g., individual has certain skills), individuals who engage in crime are not robots who engage in unplanned acts of offending behavior

Specific Deterrence

Prevent a PARTICULAR offender from repeating criminality

General Deterrence

Prevent OTHERS from committing crimes (swift, certain, and severe)

Positivism

Assumes that criminals are different and not all are able to think rationally. Individuals are not only different in their behavior but their biological and psychological factors

Phrenology

Gall (1758-1828), believed that the shape of the human skull was related to the personality and could be used to distinguish criminals from “normal” males and females, believed there were 3 brain regions (intellectual, moral, lower), oddly shaped lower portion led to criminal behavior

Atavism

Lombroso (1836-1909, Father of Positivism), coined the term, stated that criminality was the result of primitive urges, urges heightened criminal tendencies, looked at criminals in jail and noted that they had similar physical characteristics, these “abnormalities” could be used to distinguish criminal offenders from people, “born criminal”

Somatology

Sheldon, certain body shapes led to specific personality traits, an endomorph was round and overweight, a mesomorph was athletic/muscular, an ectomorph was thin and frail, mesomorphs were more likely to commit crime

Relationship between Chemicals and Crime

Hypoglycemia - low blood sugar leads to an inability to reason effectively, PET scans have showed that lower glucose levels lead to violent behavior

Relationship between Hormones and Crime

Testosterone theory of criminality - testosterone is said to explain why men commit more crime than women, testosterone has been associated with sensation seeking behaviors, impulsivity, dominance, and reduced verbal skills, greater levels of testosterone = antisocial/aggressive behavior and more crime

Premenstrual syndrome - women’s serotonin levels drop, a significant number of incarcerated females committed their crimes during their premenstrual phase

weaknesses: they do not affect everyone in the same way, ignores free-will, choice, personality, and geography

Study Adopted Twins

What is the ideal method for studying inheritance?

Relationship Between Heredity & Genetics and Crime

The biological father’s criminality strongly predicted the child’s criminal behavior

Puberty Theory of Criminality

The earlier an individual reaches puberty, the greater the change of engaging in crime

Relationship between Intelligence & IQ and Crime

Low intelligence (biological factor) has also been linked to crime as individuals with low intelligence are less able to be socialized and more likely to commit crime, low intelligence → cannot be socialized → crime, Hirchi and Hindelang (1977) found that low IQ scores were associated with delinquency

Limitations of Twin and Adoption Studies

1. Lack control groups (no comparison group)

2. Sample sizes are small (not many twins exist or are included in studies)

3. MZ twins considered DZ twins (early research did not have technology to truly distinguish between the two types)

   1. Generalizability? (can the findings from twin studies be generalized to the general population to explain offending behavior when most people do not have a twin?

Weaknesses of Intelligence and IQ Theories

1. Might be biased due as an individual’s IQ is usually assessed via a test. Some individuals are not good test takers but this might not be an indicator of their IQ

2. IQ indirectly influences delinquency through academic abilities, but only mildly

3. Peer associations → more directly associated with delinquency

Psychoanalytic Thought

Freud, believed that delinquency is a response to psychological problems

Psychoanalytic Structure of Personality

Freud, Developed that personality is developed early in life and is composed of three distinct parts: id, ego, and superego

Subconscious mental processes:

• id represents our basic instinctual drives

• ego helps to regulate the id and represents social norms

• superego is our moral guide that includes our inner restraints and guilt

Crime/delinquency occurs as a result of an imbalance between the three parts of our personality

Psychosexual Stages of Development

Freud, if someone gets “stuck” at a stage, that would lead to issues with personality later in life, links with the idea of adult personality traits being tied to childhood experiences

1. Oral (0-1 years of age) - a baby can do very little for itself, if stuck, an adult would be highly dependent of independent

2. Anal (1-3 years of age) - we learn to control urges and behaviors, if stuck, an adult would be very rigid

3. Phallic (3-6 years of age) - hostile toward parent of same sex, if stuck, an adult would be more promiscuous

Attachment Theory

John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, based on Bowlby’s own childhood experiences, focuses on relationship between a mother and child, important for a child’s emotional development and can impact their future relationships

Strengths and Weaknesses of Psychological Theories

Strengths:

• Childhood and parent relationships are important - a target for policy to help improve these relationships and ideally decrease crime

• Treatment implications can be useful to help individuals (counseling, talk therapy)

Weaknesses

• Lack scientific support

• Treatment is expensive and time-consuming (will take time to see changes)

• Overemphasis on the past rather than addressing current behavior

• Overemphasis on individual and family (what about other factors like social conditions and/or personal choice)

• Some critics say the theories are sexist because Freud’s ideas focus on females engaging in crime to be more like males (e.g., “penis envy”)