Chapter Two: Crime and Crime Causation

The Dark Figure of Crime: The actual number of crimes committed, We don’t know the actual number

  • Lots of crimes are committed but never reported

  • The estimate is 19-20 million

  • Actual statistics is 9-10 million

Why do people commit crime?

  • Poverty/money/desperation

  • its fun

  • opportunity

  • Revenge

  • Mental Illness

  • Drugs

  • Environment/sub-groups (gangs)

Crime Typologies

How to define crime?

Visible crime: Street or “ordinary” crime. (murder, theft, assault)

  • If you close your eyes, and think of crime, this is what you think of

Violent Crime - murder, rape, robbery (violence associated with stealing stuff)

  • Crimes that result in death or bodily harm

  • Often viewed as most serious

  • Don’t happen as frequency as people think

  • Victim/offender relationship likely known. (people often know the offender)

Property Crime - Getting some monetary benefit

  • Crimes that threaten or impact the property of another (wide range)

    • Theft (taking laptop), embezzlement, burglary (breaking and entering)

  • Victim/offender relationship is likely not known

Public-Order Crime

  • Crimes that threated the well-being and safety of society

  • Public Drunkenness, vandalism, disorderly conduct

  • Happening the most

  • Sometimes these are viewed as deviant behavior

Occupational Crime - crimes at work/against employer (legal business)

Crimes committed in the context of legal business or profession

  • White collar crimes, shrewd, misunderstood, not serious?

    • Even though it is not shown, it is still very serious

    • “Crime in the streets vs crime in the suites”

  • Enron:

    • Accounting fraud, banking fraud, insider trading, and corruption

    • Vicarious liability: Allows a business to be held criminally responsible (no person will be, but the business is)

    • Insider Trading: Individuals in “the know” of the company have info before the general public knows. But they cannot act on that info before the public does.

      • Investors lost $74 Billion dollars

        • 401(k): Former employees received roughly $3,100 in settlement

  • Ponzi Schemes and Bernie Madoff

    • Ponzi Schemes: “Give me 5,000 dollars and I will double your money in 6 months” The Primary investor simply takes all the money

Organized Crime - Illegal Businesses

Crimes committed in the framework of continuing an enterprise that makes a profit from illicit activities

Typically, profit is centered around providing goods and “services”

Range from legitimate business fronts to illuminate businesses revolving around drugs, guns, sex, rackets (illegal scheme), illegal disposal of toxic waste

Minimum risk and maximum reward … often difficult to prosecute

  • The bosses often are not arrested, but the foot solders are

RICO Statue helped

  • If prosecutors prove bosses knew about the scheme, they can be changed the same as the foot solders

Transnational Crime

Why (partially) was the FBI founded?

  • Jurisdictional issues. Crossing international/state boarders

Crime that spread across national borders… or across US boarders

  • Globalization has impacted crime significantly

    • International trade,, computerized crimes, international transactions

Differential between translational and international crime

  • Albanese notes difference between smuggling, theft, fraud, etc (transnational) and terrorism, human rights violations, genocide (international)

Typically, organized crime groups are involved in transnational crime (complexity)

  • How to investigate human trafficking

Requires a multi-faceted response

  • INTERPOL, FBI, EUROPOL, → fusion centers

Political Crime (terrorism)

Define it:

  • Criminal acts carried out either by the government or against a government that are driven by ideological purposes (an act intended to cause injury to a state or government)

    • The Use or threatened use of violence, directed against victims selected for their symbolic or representative value, as a means of instilling anxiety in, transmitting one or more messages to, and thereby manipulating the perceptions and behaviors of a wider target audience

Victimless Crime

Involve a willing and private exchange of goods or services that are in demand but illegal

  • Since both parties are consenting there is an illusion that no one is harmed

  • Examples:

    • buying drugs, sex trading, gambling, tax issues, dealing in alcohol, etc.

Even when it feels like there is not a victim, society is the primary victim

War on Drugs

  • Declared during the Nixon and Regan Administrations

So… How much Crime is there Really?

Is crime going up or down?

  • Crime is decreasing, even though it feels like it is increasing

    • Due to the 24 hour news cycle

  • Crime is analyzed in a rate, that way we could compare Erie and NYC

    • number of crimes divided by population of city

Dark Figure of Crime - all of crime that happens that does not get reported

Violent crime and property crime peaks in 1991/1992

How Do we Know This?

  • Crime reporting:

    • the UCR and the NCVS

  • The Uniform crime reports

    • Official clearing house of crime data is the US

    • Compiled by the FBI → roughly all 18,000 LE agencies report crime, reported to them, to the FBI annually

    • Effort began by J.E Hoover to highlight scientific and professional FBI → UCR began in 1930

      • Increase FBI professionalism

  • Crime categories and NIBRS

    • Would only report the most important crime

    • UCR broke crime into two categories (part 1 and Part 2) … generally discontinued in 200-4 but still unofficially

  • NIBRS

    • A methodological change to the UCR that began in 1988 … still not fully implemented

National Crime Victimation Survey

NCVS - first implemented annually in 1972

  • added data to get a better understanding of the dark figure of crime

A self-report victimization survey

  • Sent to heads of households requesting victimization data from previous 12 months

  • Hope is to: Identify more crimes that are under-reported or not reported

Not sent to homeless people, incarcerated, retirement care

Prevents domestic abuse from being reported

Does not include: Murder, kidnapping, and “victimless” crimes

Also, utilizes a hierarchical structure

Crime Victimization

Victimization is a relatively new area of study

  • Why? Since society is the primary victim, the individual victim was not truly concidered

Aspects include:

  • who is the victim? What is there relation to the suspect, demographics,

  • What is the impact of the crime?

    • Two cars get stolen. One victim is an hourly worker with bad car insurance. The other is a salary victim who has paid days off with good car insurance.

    • The first victim would lose their job, while the second one’s life isn’t affected

    • Should their sentences be the same? NO, because the impact of the crime was different

  • What happens to victims in the CJ system

Who is victimized

Some aspects/traits of livelihoods impact the potential to be victimized

  • Prior victimization, age, gender, race, marital status, income, lifestyle

    • Younger people, men, single, are victimized more often

Crime Causation Theories: 3 aspects

  • Willing criminal (wants to commit crime)

  • Lack of guardianship (guard dog, ADT security)

  • Suitable Target (paying no attention at all, listening to music)

Victim offender relation

  • Primarily known to victim, especially in sex crimes and domestic violence

Role of Victims

In CJ System (primary victim is society)

Victims often don’t report crimes due to being blamed for the crime

  • Victimization can be difficult and traumatic

    • Relive the event, might be cast in unflattering light, blamed, humiliated, or feel shame

Victim Impact Statement allows the court to understand how the crime impacts them

Investigation can last

  • Answer questions multiple times

People respond differently to trauma

  • Responses can seem Weird

How much does Crime Cost?

  • What are the costs of crime?

    • Economic costs like:

      • Loss of property, loss of productivity, medical expenses, loss of $ to business, loss of tax revenue, loss of property value, loss of income

    • Reduction of crime → increase in $$

    • Psychological and emotional costs

      • Pain, trauma, demised quality of life

    • Cost of operating CJ System

      • Three branches cost a ton of money

      • Corrections make up the most

    • Ties into fear of crime

      • Are people more or less afraid of crime? Does their fear match actual crime data?

  • Total Cost to society??

    • $3,000,000,000,000

Why do people commit crime?

Lots of reasons (economic, revenge, way of life)

The Classical School

Cesare Beccaria and an Essay on crimes and punishment from 1764 and the Hedonistic Calculus (thanks Jeremy Bentham)

  1. Crime is a rational behavior; most people have the potential to commit crime

  2. People choose to commit crime after weighting the pros and cons

  3. Fear of Punishment deters most people (establishes deterrence theory)

  4. The Punishment should fit the crime

  5. CJ system should be predictable

    1. Punishment should have a point, it should be swift, certain and severe, but not overt (associate punishment with crime)

Neo-Classical School

  • Basically no one has true free will → Society impacts us and our decisions

    • Mitigating circumstances

  • Agrees with the other parts of the classical school

Positive school and Biology

First attempt to interject science in criminology

  1. Human behavior is controlled by physical, mental, and social factors (not free will)

  2. Criminals are different from non-criminals

  3. Science can be used to discover causes of crime

Cesare Lombroso and criminal throwbacks

  1. People are born criminals

  2. They are primitive and have primitive traits (big jaw bone, big brow, long arms, high cheekbones, female, etc.)

    1. Racist? Eugenics? YES

  3. Traits are acquired through heredity or through alcoholism, epilepsy and syphilis

Lombroso came to these conclusions after studying photos of incarcerating individuals

Today, Biological criminology is the study of how our environment affects us

  • ADHD, impoverished environment, low-income school leads to the kid being seen as a troublemaker

sociological Explanations

Positive school and Biology

  • Crime is somehow innate

Sociological approach

  • Crime is caused/impacted by external social factors

    • Race, age, gender, income (SES) education, location, family life, housing, etc.

    • Not that any characteristics make you more “Criminal” but they might increase the odds

      • Risk factors or less protective factors increase the change of criminality

  • Intersectionality and impact on each development

    • Different characteristics will bounce off of each other and either increase or decrease the risk

Social Structure Theories

Social Structure Theory

  • Crime is related to social class

    • Wealth, power, income gaps

      • These inequalities impact potential to commit crime

    • Emile Durkheim and Anomie

      • Basically rules, norms, and guidelines have broken down and crime then follows

        • Strains increase the likelihood of Crime… especially when those strains are seen as unjust

      • Societal rules have broken down… no guidance or…

    • Robert Merton and Strain: No legitimate way to achieve their desired goals

      • Anger is manifested at failure to achieve which leads to crime

      • Think American Dream and/or keeping up with the Joneses

        • Can we all achieve it?

        • The two interact and can lead to crime

    • More Contemporary

      • GST: General Strain Theory from Robert Agnew

      • General strain beyond economics - positive stimuli, emotional responses, negative stimuli

Social Process Theories

Social Structure… might make sense for some

  • But why would those who “achieved” the American deam commit crime

  • Also, social structure might focus too much on disadvantaged (the poor)

Three types:

  1. Learning Theories

    1. Sutherland’s differential Association: Basically, crime is a learned behavior that is learned via interactions with people, especially criminal aspects. It is part of everyday life. learning how to commit crime

    2. You would acquire values of criminal element, you might look up to those involved, peer pressure

  2. Control Theories

    1. Why people don’t commit crime.

    2. Hirschi/Gottfredson: All people in society could commit crime but what stops them?

    3. Social ties like family, church, social groups friends, that focus on conventional lifestyle

  3. Labeling Theories

    1. people who commit crimes are labeled “a criminal, felon, deviant” they are more likely to take up that role

    2. Kids that are labeled “troublemaker” live up to that role

    3. Police, courts, corrections label people (felon)

Critical Theories

Critical Criminology - people in power will try to stay in power and use the CJ system to do so

Basically: Who designed our CJ system

Who makes the roles

What might their intentions be

Who is it power? How might they want to do that?

IS the CJ system the tool to maintain control?