Laws week one.

Crime

Act committed or omission of duty, injurious to public welfare, for which punishment is prescribed by law, imposed ihn judicial proceeding usually brought in the name of the state.

Critiques of the concept of crime

• No ontological reality

• Problem lies in the consistency in determining what is a crime and what isnt.

• "Is it only wrong because of the law?" Who decides what is wrong. Why do attitudes towards a certain act change?

• Influenced by wealth/hegemonic entities (govs, public attitudes, media,) may not be motivated by the best interests of people

• An act is determined a crime based on its context. You can punch people for sport vs randomly punching homeless people.

 

Crime emerges from ….

An Interaction between society’s need to develop the concept ‘crime’ (the line) and the need to identify specific events as crimes (crossing the line)

and lastly, the need to administer consequences for identified actions, to protect the status quo.

Crime is..

context dependent, influenced by hegemonic entities. thus important to assess as much by what is excluded as what is included from these definitions.

Example of crimes differing

punching a homeless man vs punching someone at the afl.

Consistency of crime. Is it always consistent?

Is theft consistently a crime? Not really. Wage theft isnt explicitly criminal.

Criminal law helps define…

“an international violation of the criminal law committed without excuse and penalised by the state.” (tappan, 1947)

act/omission which may result in prosecution/punishment in a criminal court

What does ‘criminal law’ exclude?

moral dimension, social context, inconsistency of why some conduct is defined as crim and some not (e.g. theft)

if you rely only on this definition, a weird conundrum presents itself.

‘if there were no criminal law there would be no crime’

Crime as a social construction

Varies over time and space. defining crime in terms of violating criminal law means there is nothing given about crime.

crime is a product of culturally bounded social interaction between people living in complex social groups

Crime as a violation of human rights

By talking of deviance and not crime, it broadens the focus and allows the concept to escape legality, creating its own frame of reference. (examples include civil and administrative matters, economic activities, racism.)

however, It is still not value frtee as it substitutes one set of definitions for another.

crime as a violation of human rights extends to…

state crimes such as genocide, mass political killings, state terrorism, torture, rendition, disappearances.

Crime in terms of religion

Where police enforce religious norms and criminality is defined according to religious rule.

however it still doesnt escape the issue of context and hudgement, and the variation of religious interpretation.

Criticisms of defining crime in terms of religion

glaring issue of context and judgement peersists, for religious interpretation varies within and between religions.

Criminology is,,,

• a mixture of sociology, psychology, geography, ethnography, anthropology, polsci….

• a boundless ‘discipline’ as it lacks clarity on boundaries.

• The study of the making of laws, breaking of laws, and societys reaction to the breaking of laws.

Garlands definition of criminology is…

the product of two separate streams of work.

• governmental project (empirical study of justice administration)

• lombrosian project (phrenological study of criminals and non criminals, causes of crime.

Dramatic fallacy

overrepresentation of unusual, dramatic crime in media. (homicide is only 0.026% of recorded crime. 1:740 ratio of homicide to assaults.)

The media tends to hype crime and make it seem exciting, gaining profit from the stories they publish.

Cops and courts fallacy.

Over-estimating importance of police/courts/prisons in prevention of crime.

door locks and lights are actually greater at offering protection!

“doubling the number of police in a metropolis is like putting two drops in a bucket instead of one.”

Not me fallacy

The illusion that we could never commit a crime, denying ever illegal act we have ever committed or contemplated.

offending is better represented on a J curve where majority conform, a small number deviate slightly, and a minority deviate substantially.

innocence of youth fallacy

The belief that being young means being innocent. When crime is televised and portrayed as fictional, it often highlights middle-age offenders. When in fact, the peak age of offending is 19 for boys and 17 for girls.

Ingenuity fallacy

The notion that criminals are clever - "a professional burglar". Many crimes are perceived to require skill, however they are actually unskilled.

summarising the fallacies

1.fallacies stem from a form of manichean opposition between absolute good vs absolute evil. conversely, there are more grey areas in real life.

2. overstating individual responsibility in offending and the potential for judicial systems to prevent offending.

Trend in crime

all types of crime, rape robbery and murder have been declining, except for cybercrime.

cybercrime

is on the rise! scams, crypto, etc.

theory of crime.

Theory- system of ideas intended to explain something. a set of principles on which the practice of an activity is based on.

said theory provides principles upon which the practice of criminal justice activity and prevention strategies should be based on.

Theory based policy and practice

to base policy and practical interventions on sound theory and evidence to ensure beneficience and least harm