Studied by 63 people
What is criminology?
-An interdisciplinary science that gathers and analyzes data on crime and criminal behavior (Walsh & Ellis, 2007)
-Scientific approach to studying criminal behavior (Siegel, 2013)
-The scientific study of crime, especially why people commit crime (Tibbetts, 2012)
-criminology is NOT profiling… and WON’T make you a better criminal
common themes in criminology definitions:
Study or explanation of crime (theory) • Making sense of observations • Offering explanations
Scientific or empirical approach (methodology) • Use of the scientific method • Attempt to avoid subjectivity • Attempt to quantify explanatory ability • Allows for explanations to be tested
Theory
· Effort to explain or make sense of the world
· Explains the “why” of crime
· May or may not actually explain crime
· Simply proposed explanations
Methodology:
· Techniques used to explain the “whys” of crime
· Used to test theories
· Used to determine which theories are better at explaining crime
Scientific method
· Step-by-step process used to acquire knowledge about a phenomenon
· Used to determine the extent to which our theories are correct
· Also used to settle disputes over causes of crime
o Which theories are better? Which are worse?
is criminology a science?
• Scientific method is flawed in criminological research:
Some hypotheses aren’t even considered
Methodological rigor can be selective, findings suppressed
Some relevant findings are systematically excluded -Answer: Yes and No
is criminology interdisciplinary?
· Contributions from a series of fields:
o Sociology, economics, psychology, anthropology, biology
· Dominated by sociology
o Both theory and methodology
· Reluctance of many criminologists to integrate
o Many focus only on sociological explanations
o Openly reject/ignore other explanations
· Scientific progress is made through integration
o Different perspectives offer different solutions
o Combination allows for fuller understanding
· Allows for better theory
o More precisely identify the “whys” of crime
· Allows for better methodology
o Perform better tests
UCR History:
· Development of official statistics began in the 1920s
· Data collection instrument finalized in 1929
· Eventually developed into the Uniform Crime Report (UCR)
UCR popularity:
· Best-known and most cited statistics
· Data collected from police departments
o Initially submitted voluntarily
· More than 18,000 agencies report data
1. Florida had paper files on prisoners until 2021
UCR availability:
· Publicly available
o Available on the FBI webpage
UCR primary aims:
· Takes into account crime that has been brought to the attention of the police
· Reports a minimal amount of information
· Primarily a count or tally of crime in the US for a given year
UCR part I offenses:
• Illegal acts considered particularly serious • Includes 8 crimes o FBI ranks them in order of seriousness
Criminal homicide
Forcible rape
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Burglary
Larceny/theft
Motor vehicle theft
Arson
• Included in the overall count reported to police
o No arrest needs to be made
UCR part II offenses:
• Includes more other crimes that are not Part I offenses • Includes 21 specific crimes and "other” category
Other assaults (includes stalking)
Forgery & counterfeiting
Fraud
Embezzlement
Stolen property
Vandalism
Weapons
Prostitution & commercialized vice
Sex offenses
Drug abuse violations
Gambling
Offenses against the family & children
Driving under the influence
Liquor laws
Drunkenness
Disorderly conduct
Vagrancy
Suspicion
Curfew & loitering laws
Runaways (juveniles)
All other offenses
Part II reporting rule
Counted only if the case is closed
o Typically, if an arrest is made
UCR strengths:
· Nationwide statistics (generalizability)
· Collected and stored since 1930
· Easily accessible
· Includes homicide measures
UCR limitations:
· Emphasis on street crime
· Subject to political manipulation
· Lack of detail
· Inaccurate counts (indirect measure of crime)
“dark figure” of crime:
• Refers to unreported crime (up to 90%) • Due to the reliance of citizen reports • 3-step process:
Decide crime has been committed
Decide whether to report the crime to police
Officer must decide whether crime occurred, whether to report it, and how to classify it
Hierarchy rule:
· Refers to situations where more than one Type I offense has been committed
o Identify the offense highest on the hierarchy list and count only that offense
o Justifiable homicide, motor vehicle theft, arson are exceptions
§ Each occurrence would be counted
o Decreases overall counts of serious crimes
§ E.g., kidnapping, simple assault, and rape
NIBRS:
• To address these limitations, the FBI introduced the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) o Introduced in 1984 o Aimed at accomplishing 2 goals:
Enhance the quantity, quality, and timeliness of crime data
Improve the methodology used for compiling, auditing, and publishing crime data
NIBRS aim:
Aimed at directly addressing limitations of UCR
Benefits of NIBRS:
Eliminates the hierarchy rule
Includes much more information for each record crime incident
Includes a greater number of crime categories o 22 Group A offenses and 11 Group B offenses
limitations of NIBRS:
1. Still relies on public reporting of offenses
· FBI transitioning from UCR to NIBRS
o Transition taking place in 2020
o Aimed at increasing accuracy of crime counts
o More information about each crime
o Greater possibilities for analysis
NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)
o Shifted focus to victims and victimization
NCVS history:
· Began in 1972
· Originally called the National Crime Survey (NCS)
o Supervised by the law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA)
· Now supervised by the US Census Bureau
NCVS source of data:
· Data are gathered from victims rather than offenders
· Directly addresses the “Dark Figure” of crime
· Uses a nationally representative sample of households and businesses in the US
NCVS sampling procedure:
· Multistage cluster sample of households and business (rotating panel design)
o Select census tracts within states
o Select households/businesses within tracts
o Interview all eligible respondents (approx. 40,000)
§ Must be over the age of 12
§ 1st interview is in-person, subsequent interviews are over the phone
· Interviewed every 6 months
o Remain in the sample for up to 3 years
NCVS interview process:
· Questions-
o Respondents are asked a wide range of questions
o Asked about victimizations in the past 6 months:
§ Asked about a wide range of crimes
§ Additional information of the crime is gathered
NCVS strengths:
· Not subject to the “dark figure”
· Comparable with the UCR/NIBRS
· Collects more incident information than the UCR
· Collects information about crime victims
· Not subject to political manipulation
· Publicly available data
NCVS limitations:
· Only includes victims that are 12 and older
· Cannot collect information on homicide
· Difficult to collect data on white collar crime
· Specific geographic locations cannot be examined
· Presence of an interviewer affects responses
· “Series incidents” are an issue
o Incidents with no clear beginning or end (ongoing)
o Difficult to provide an accurate count-underestimation
self-report data:
· Typically consist of surveys
· Ask respondents about their attitudes and experiences
· Almost always involve sampling
· Often carried out by independent researchers
self-report data samples:
· Traditionally used samples of juveniles
o Famous study by Travis Hirschi (1969)
· Adult samples became popular over time
cross-sectional studies:
allows researchers to study a phenomenon or the relationship between variables at one point in time. Data is collected once for each case (e.g., individual, neighborhood, city, state) at a single point in time.
longitudinal studies:
can be used to explore changes in the mean response over a period of time, on both a population level and a specific group, or subject level.
self-report data strengths:
· Direct source of crime data
· Not subject to political manipulation
· Highly versatile
self-report data limitations:
· Costly to carry out
o Typically, some sort of grant funding
· Time consuming (longitudinal studies in particular)
· Secondary data concerns
· Not collected on a regular basis
volume of crime:
· How much crime is there in the US?
o Depends on who/when/where you ask
crime rates:
· Importance of the use of “rates”
o “Standardizes” the statistic
o Allows us to compare across different populations
How to calculate a crime rate:
· (C/P) x 100,000
o C= raw number of crimes
o P= population
· Crime rates are typically calculated per 100,000 residents
EX of how to calculate crime rates:
o City A has 1,000 crimes and a population of 20,000
§ Rate 5,000/100,000 people
o City b has 2,000 crimes and a population of 100,000
§ Rate: 2,000/100,000
· City A has 1,000 crimes and a population of 20,000
o (1,000/20,000) = .05
o .05 x 100,000 = 5,000
o City A had fewer overall crimes, but a higher rate due to population differences
Geographic distribution of crime:
· Where does crime occur?
o Crime does cluster within specific regions of the country
o States in the West and the South have the highest crime rates (UCR data)
o States in the Northeast tend to be the safest
§ 17.9% of the population
§ 15.8% of all violent crime
§ 12.9% of all property crime
Distributions differ by community size-
o Rural areas tend to be safer than urban areas
o Suburban areas tend to fall in-between
Factors contributing to differences in crime rates:
o Anonymity
o Opportunity
Theoretical explanations for changes from 1920-1930:
o Prohibition- constitutional amendment banning alcohol sales and consumption
o The Great Depression
homicide as a ‘proxy’-
o Homicide rates tend to be a good indication of overall crime
§ Act as a “proxy” for all crime
o Possible to plot homicide rates since 1930 using the UCR
crime rates 1940s-1950s:
· Sharp decrease beginning in the early 1940s
o New economic policies (Roosevelt’s “New Deal”)
o Prohibition was repealed
o US entered World War II (1941-1945)
· Crime rates increased slightly when men returned in 1945
· Remained stable through the 1950s
crime rates 1960s-1970s:
· Began to increase dramatically in the early 1960s
· Dramatic increase between 1965 and 1975
o Overall crime more than doubled
o Greatest increase in overall crime
crime rates increasing during the 1960s-70s are because…
o “Baby boomers” entering adolescence/early adulthood
o Drug use and favorable attitudes toward drugs
o Social unrest during this time (1960s-1970s)
§ Women’s rights, Vietnam protests, Civil disobedience
crime rates in 1980s-1990s:
· Overall peak in violent crime was in 1980
o No period in the 1900s with higher crime
· Declined somewhat in the early 1980s and then rose again in the late 1980s and early 1990s
crime rates in 1990s-2000s:
· Dropped virtually every year since 1994
o Rates similar to those from about 40 years prior
crime rates in 1910s-1930s:
· Crime rates relatively low at the beginning of the 20th century
· Sharp increases between 1910 and 1920
o Due to industrialization in the US
o Resulted in population increases and rapid urbanization
· Another large increase between 1920 and 1930
o Largest increase in the early 1900s
Theoretical explanations for the crime drop in the 90s and early 2000s:
· No clear consensus on why crime rates dropped
· Wide range of explanations from experts:
o Incarceration practices
o Policing practices
o Demographic changes
o Abortion
which perspective assumes the law is implemented to maintain the power of the dominant group?
conflict
which is an example of active victim precipitation?
a person yells obscenities at someone while in the park
a criminologist states that the best criminology theory is one that explains criminal behavior in the simplest terms possible. What concept is this criminologist referring to?
parsimony
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
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
what is the primary role of the Office of juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)?
to educate others on how long-term exposure to violence affects children to find ways to address this problem
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
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.
which scenario demonstrates the concept of parens patriae?
a judge removes a child from an abusive home.
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 order
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