Unit 1: Types of Law

Rule of law → everyone is treated equally under the law

Rule of man

Large Group 1/10/25

Criminal Law

Nature & Purpose of Law

• A rule of conduct, generally found enacted in the form of a statue, that proscribes or mandates certain forms of behavior

• Black’s Law Dictionary → widley sited

  • Henry Campell Black → first and most widley used Law Dictionary

• Statutory Law → written or codifed law

  • “law on the books”

  • as enacted by a government body or agency to make laws

• Case Law → the body of the judicial precendent

  • legal reasoning and past interpretations of statutory law

  • judge made law

Basics

• These crimes not only offend victims, but disrupt the peaceful order of society

  • Ex: Murder, Rape, Robbery, Assult

  • Part I Offense, UCR (Uniform Crime Report)

Civil Law

Types of Law

• Govern relationships between people, nusinesses, and other organizations and agencies

  • Relationships are between “parties”

    • Separate from criminal law

• Contracts, divorces, child support and custody, wills, property, libel, etc.

Administrative Law

Types of Law

• Regulations that governments create to control industries, businesses, and individuals

  • generally a breack of admin law is not a crime

• Settlements are most common

• Tax laws, health codes, pollution and waste disposal, vehicle registration, building codes, etc

Statutory Law

Types of Law

• Laws on books:written: codeified

  • Acts of Legislatures

  • PENAL LAW

    • Substantive Criminal Law

    • Procedural Law

Penal Code

• The written, organized, and compiled form of the criminal laws of a jurisdiction

  • USC ( United States Codes)

  • Nebraska State Law

  • Omaha Municipal Code

Case Law

Types of Law

• Judicial Decisions or “the law of precedent”

  • PRECEDENT

Precedent

• ensures previous judicial decisions are authoritativley considered in future cases

Large Group 1/17/25 - Crime Picture

Crime Data & Social Policy

Overview of criminal activity

• If used properly, it can be a useful tool in deterimining social policy

• Decision makers at all levels use data to implement and evaluate criminal justice programs

• Many “get tough” policies stem from data suggesting existing programs were ineffectice

• Crime is very complex and hard to quantify

  • arguments regarding many things including which crimes to include and which ones to exclude

  • public opinion about crime is not always realistic

The Collection of Crime Data

• Crime statistics come from two major sources:

  • The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report(UCR)

    • Sometimes reffered to as the UCR/NIBRS program

    • Release an annual overview of major crime called Crime in the United States

  • National Crime Victimization Survey(NCVS)

    • Created by the Bereau of Justice Statistics(BJS)

UCR Program

Development of the UCR Program

• 1930: Congress authorized the US attorney general to survey crime in America

• FBI was tasked to implement the program

• They built off of earlier efforts by the International Associations of Chiefs of Police (IACP)

• Today, 18,000 law enforcment agencies provide crime information

• Data comes from city, country, university, college, tribal, and state departments

• Hierarchy Rule = The only crime counted into statistics is the most severe crime even if multiple crimes were committed

NIBRS Revamp

• National Incident-Based Reporting System

  • 1988- UCR revamp with development of NIBRS

• Now, more agencies are able to furnish enhanced data on more crimes

• Not a new program or list, but simply an enhanced version of the previous UCR program

• Under the UCR/NIBRS program, the original Part I, and Part II offences are bing replaced with specifics

Part I Offenses

• Broken into two categories: violent crime and property crime

• Aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder, and robbery are classified as violent while arson, burglary, larveny-theft, and moter vehicle theft are classified as property crimes

• Part I offenses are collectivley reffered to as Index Crimes

Part II Offenses

• The following categoies are tracked:

• simple assault, curfew offenses and loitering, embezzlement, forgery and counterfiting, disorderly conduct, driving under the influence, drug offenses, fraud, gambling, liquor offenses, offenses against the family, prostitution, etc.

NIBRS Transition

• NIBRS implemented to improve the overall qualtiy of crime data collected by law enforcement, captures details on each single crime incident- as well as on seperate offenses within the same incidnet- including information on victims, known offenders, relationships between victims and offenders, arrestees, and property involved in the crimes

• NIBRS Components:

What are issues with NIBRS?

• There are crimes that were never reported to the police or were never caught

• The Dark Figure of Crime → term employed by criminologists and sociologists to describe the amount of unreported or undiscovered crime

National Crime Victimization Survey

• Based upon victim self reports and not on police reports

• First conducted in 1972

• Early data changed the way that criminologists and others thought about crime

• Conducted by the Bureau of Justic Statistics

• Published annually: Criminal Victimization & Crime and the Nation’s Households

Large Group 1/24/25 - Elements of a Crime

What is the criteria for a crime to have been committed?

Actus Reus

• Latin for „Guilty Act“

• An act in violation of the law

• Generally, someone must commit a voluntary act before he/she is subject to criminal santions

• Exceptions:

  • Robinson v California (1962)

    • elliminated the ability to prosecute people for an offense of „status“

      • drug user

      • homeless person

      • theif

      • murderer

    • Cannot be arrested for being one of the above

  • Inchoate Offenses

    • An offense not yet completed

      • also, an offense that consists of an action or conduct that is a step toward the intended commissions of a crime

        • Conspiracy to committ…

Mens Rea

• Latin for „Guilty Mind“

• The state of mind that accompanies a criminal act

• The extent in which a person can be held criminally responsible depends on the nature of their mental state

• Exceptions:

  • Strict Liability Offenses

    • special category of crime that does not require Mens Rea

    • These offenses make it a crime to simply do something wrong without intention of violating the law

      • traffic violations

      • parking violations

      • other minor offenses

      • statutory rape

• Four types:

  • Purposful → is an act that is undertaken to achieve some goal

  • Knowing → behavior is undertaken with awarness. A person wo acts purposefully, always acts knowingly, but a person can act in knowing way, without criminal intent

  • Reckless → behavior is activity that increases the risk of harm

  • Negligent → behavior refers to a situation where the person should have known better, and the act, or faliure to act, endangers others

Concurrence

• The concurrence of an unlawful act and a culpable mental state

• Concurrence requires that the criminal act and mental state occur together

Actus Reus + Mens Rea occuring concurrently = crime

Motive

• Motive is not the same thing as Mens Rea

• A motive refers to a person‘s reason for committing a crime

• It is not an essential feature of crime

Battery → is a specific common la misdemeanor, although the term is used more generally to refer to any unlawful offensive physical contact with another person, and may be a misdemeanor or a felony, depeneding on the circumstances

Laws of Omission → an omission to act can only be criminal when the law imposes a duty to act. Falure or omission to act is only criminal in three situations. 1) when there is a statute that creates a legal duty to act, 2) when there is a contract that creates a legal duty to act, 3) when there is a special relationship between the parties that creates a legal duty to act

One voluntary act is enough to fulfill the coluntary act requirment. This if a coluntary act is followwed by an involontary once, the court may still impose criminal liability depending on the circumstances

Large Group 1/31/25 - Crime Typologies

• a classification of crimes along a particular dimension, such as legal category, offender, motivation, victim behavior, or chaaracterisitcs of individual offenders

• attempts to simplify crimes by indentifying homogenous groups of crime behaviors

Categories of Crime Typology

• One of the simplest ways that law enforcement tries to accomplish this:

  • violent crime

  • property crime

• Crime Typology also tries to highlight crimes that are of special importance or social relevence

Gun Crime

• 2nd Amendment concerns

• Annually, 1 million serious offenses involve use of a handgun

• In a typical year, 10,000 murders are committed with a firearm

• Nearly 20% of state prison inmates were armed at the time of their crime

Drug Crime

• Sudden Fall - 96 men, including 75 SDSU students were arrested in a JTF operation

• „This operation shows how accessible and pervasive illegal drugs continue to be on our college campuses and how common it is for students to be selling to other students“

• Drug crimes alone are themselves criminal…but more and more drugs are being linked to more sever criminial behavior

• Drug Crimes substantially increased between 1984 and 2002

  • 18% of referrals to US attorneys compared to 31%

Crimes against Women

• Victimization against women is a special area of concern

  • Both UCR/NIBRS and NCVS keep statistics relating to gender

• Statistics generally show that women are victimized less often than men in every category except rape

• when women become victims of violent crime, however, they are more likley than men to be injured

• a larger proportion of women make modifications in the way they live because of the treat of crime

• women, especially in cities, have become careful about where they travel, and time of day that they leave their homes

• Crimes:

  • Date rape

  • familial incest

  • spousal abuse

  • stalking

  • explotation of women through social-order offenses

  • prostituion

• 52% of surveyed women report that they were physically abused

• 18% of women say there were the victim of a complete or attepted rate

• 76% of women who had been raped or physically assulted since age 18 were assaulted by a parter/date

Crimes against the Elderly

• Relative to other age groups, older victims rarely appear in criminal statistics

• This suggests that victimization decreases with age

• Older people are more likley to live in a secure area and provide their own security

• The NCVS does survey people 65 and older and they are more likley than younger people to:

  • be victims of property crime

  • face offenders who are armed with guns

  • be victimized by strangers

  • be victimized in or neat their homes during daylight hours

  • report their victimization to the police

  • be physically injured

• Physical Abuse:

  • Physical & Institutional

• Finanfial & Con Artisits

• Crimes against the elderly is likley to change significantly in the coming years

Hate Crimes

• Criminal offense committed against a person,property, or society that is motivated, in part or in whole, by the offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/origin

• The majority of hate crimes include:

  • intimidaiton

  • vandilism

  • simple assault

  • aggravated assault

  • a few robberies and rapes

Small Group 2/19/25 - 4th Amendment Challenges

• 4th amendment → the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

• When can they search me?

  • require probable cause

• When can they search my vehicle?

  • require probable cause

• When can they search my home?

  • require a warrant except on special cases

Large Group 2/21/25 - Evidence-Based Policing

• The Broken Window Theory

  • idea of how our surroundings effect our behavior

• The Abandoned Car Experiment

  • The Bronx and Palo Alto car experiment(1969) was a social psychology study conducted by Zimbardo to explore the impact of the environment on human behavior, partivularly vandalism and crime

  • The Experiment

    • Two identical cars were abandoned in different locations:

      • The Bronx, NY

        • a low-income, high-crime area

        • low socioeconomic status

        • high property crime rate

      • Palo Alto, CA

        • a wealthy, low-crime area

  • End:

    • Bronx → the car in the Bronx was attacked within minuers of its abandonment

      • within 24 hours of its abandonment, everything of value has been stripped from the vehicle

      • car’s windoes were smashed in, parts torn, upholstery ripped, etc

    • Palo Alto → the vehicle sits idle for more than a week untill Zimbardo deliberatley smashed a window

      • soon after people joined in on the destruction

  • It is beleived that, in a neighborhood such as the Bronz where the history of abandoned property and theft and more precalent, candalism occurs much more quickly as the community generally seems apathetic. SImilar events can occur in any civilized community when pushed

• Broken WIndows Theory

  • Zimbardo - 1969

  • George Kelling & James Wilson - 1982

    • address the problems when they are small

    • repair the broken windoews within a short time, and the tendency is that candals are much less likley to break more windows or do furthur damage

Case Studies

• New York City

  • Mayor Giulliani hired William Bratton as police commissioner

    • Instituted an enforcement of “Quality of life” offenses

      • Subway fare evasion

      • public intoxication

      • public urination

      • Graffiti

      • “Squeegee Men” → people who try and clean cars when they stop at lights

      • Cabaret Law → places that host live music with alchol sales

    • Increase in Stop-and-Frisk

  • 2001 study of crime trends in NY City

    • rates of both petty and serious crime fell significantly

    • crime continued to decline for the following ten years

  • Other studies do not show a cause-and-effect relationship

  • May be part of a broader trend across the US

    • other cities experienced drops in crime

  • 39% drop in unemployment may play a part

• Albuquerque

  • American Westerners use roadways the same as Easterners use the Subway

    • Safe Streets Program

      • Saturation Patrols → if a location does not need all the officers, officers can be relocated to a location that requires more

      • Sobriety Checkpoints

      • DWI Program

      • Safe-Ride Program → dial a number to get a free ride home

    • car accidents and injuries decreased

• Lowell,Massachusetts

  • Havard University and Suffolk University researchers identified 34 Crime “Hot spots”

    • in half of the spots, authorities cleared trash, fixed streetlights, enforced building codes, discouraged loitering, made more misdemeanor arrests, and expanded mental health services and aid for the homeless

    • in the other hald, no changes were made

  • the areas that recieved additional attention experienced a 20% reduction in calls to the police

  • the study concluded that cleaning up the physical enviornment was more effective thann misdemeanor arrests and that increasing social services had no effect

• Chicago

  • low income Chicago residents have beeen able to create over 800 community gardens and urban gardens out of burnt buildings and vacand lots

  • now, these neighborhoods have become go-to-food destinations

  • lowered temperatures in cities, increased socialization, reduced stress, and taught children about nature

• Netherlands

  • Researchers funded a series of controlled experiments to determine if the effect of existing visible disorder (such as litter or graffiti) increased other crim such as theft,littering, or other antisocial behavior

  • Researchers then secretly monitored the locations

  • as the situation deteriorated, it led to an increase in other antisocial behaviors

  • their observations supported the theory

  • the conclusion was published in the journal Science:

    • “One example of disorder, like graffiti or littering, can indeed encourage another, like stealing”

Small Group 1/25/25

Kansas City Police Experiment

• Saturation patrols - do they work?

• research questions:

  • would citizens notice changes in the level of police patrols and crime?

  • would different levels of visible police patrol affect recorded crime or the outcome of victim surveys?

  • would citizens fear of crime and attendant behavior change as a result of different patrol levels?

  • would their degree of satisfaction with police change?

    

  • upheld for 12 months

  • victim surveys, reported crime rates, arrest data, a survey of local business, attitudinal surveys, and trained observers who monitored police-citizen interactions were used to gather data

    • taken before the start of the experiment

• Take-aways

  • citizens did not notice a difference when the frequency of patrols was changed

  • increasing or decreasing the level of patrol had no significant effect on resident and commericail burglaries, auto thefts, larcenies involving auto accessories, robberies, or vandalism-crimes

  • the rate at which crimes were reported did not diffr significantly across the experimental beats

  • citizen reported fear of crime was not affected by different levels of patrol

  • citizen satisfaction with police did not vary

• Conclusion

  • routine preventive patrol in marked police cars has little value in preventing crime or making citizens feel safe and that resources normally allocated to these activites could saftely be allocated elsewhere

  • crime prevention was more highly dependent on the willingness of citizens to report suspicious and/or criminal behavior to Police

Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment

• established 120 areas that were high crime areas

  • in 60 of them, they placed foot patrols

    • from 10am-6pm they had 2 officers

    • from 6pm-2am they had 2 officers

    • from 2am-10am no foot patrol

  • in 60 of them, they changed nothing

• Results:

  • 23% reduction in crime in the foot patrol areas

  • vehicle crime also decreased

  • officers build connections with the community

  • Potential Issues:

    • man-power/ officer quantity

    • climate

    • walkability

Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment

• Cases used in this study were misdemeanor assault calss

• both the victim and offender needed to still be present when the police arrived, to be included in the study

• 51 officers participated in the study:

  • send the abuser away for eight hours, or

  • advice and mediation of disputes, or

  • make an arrest

• last for 17 months and included 330 cases

• found that arrest was the most effective

• found that offenders assigned to be arrested had lower rates of re-offending than offenders assigned to counseling or temporarily sen

Large Group 2/28/25 - 4th Amendment Challenges: Detainment and Stops

• What is a police “stop” → an officer stopping and asking for ID

  • an investigative stop occurs when a police officer briefly detains you because of a “reasonable suspicion”

  • a modest amount of suspicion is enough for a brief stop, but a vague hunch is not

  • rights in case of a stop:

    • the stop must be no longer and no more intrusive than necessary to confirm or allay the officer’s “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity

      • a stop of several minutes is acceptable (SC - 20min)

    • once the “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity underlying the stop has ended, the police cannot continue to detain you

  • how do I know if i can leave:

    • courts have held that, if a police officer takes and keeps your driver’s license or identification card, you have been “seized” under the Fourth Amendment

    • you may ask, “Am I free to leave?” If the answer is “no”, you are, at the least, detained

Probable cause can only exist where there are facts that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that a crime has occured

• Stop & identify

  • there are no laws in the US that require you to carry ID if you are not driving

  • Stop & Identify law → if an officer stops and asks for your ID

    • the officer may also search your person if they have reasonable suspicion

4th Amendment Scenarios

• Scenario #1 → plain clothes officer sees two men walk back and forth across a street and stare at a store window 24 times and then talk at the end of each run. They then meet with a 3rd man. He suspects that they are casing a job and approaches them, identifies himself as an officer, pats them down, and finds weapons on 2 of them

  • this stop was not only legal, it established much of the foundation

  • Terry v Ohio

    • officer is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outher clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which may be used to assault him

    • Terry stops

    • investigative stop - 5 minutes

• Scenario #2 → two officers observed 2 men waling away from one another in an alley near an area with a hugh drug traffic rate. They stopped the men and asked him to identify himself and explain what they were doing

  • this was not legal

  • Brown v Texas

    • there wasn’t a reasonable enough suspicion to suspect either of these guys. detaingin appelant to require him to identify himself consituted a seizure of his person subject to the requirment of the 4th amendment that the seizure be “reasonable”

    • high crime area does not equal reasonable suspicion

• Scenario #3 → a man is standing in a chicago neighborhood, known for heavy narcotic trafficking. He’s holding an opaque bag when he sees a police officers enter the area. He runs and when patted down, has a weapon and is placed under arrest

  • yes, the stop was legal becuase he took off running when he saw the police

  • Illinois v Wardlow

    • “Headlong flight” is the consummate act of evasion; it is not necessarily indictive of wrongdoing, but it is certainly suggestive of such

• Scenario #4 → police in miami recieve an anonymous tip that a black male in a plaid shirt waas standing near a bus stop carrying a gun. They find 3 black guys, one with a plaid shirt. They frisk the guy with a plaid shirt and find a gun without a license and under the age of 18

  • no, not legal - an anonymous tip was not enough to justify a stop

  • Florida v J.L.

    • it was based on a tip and not police observations

      • anonymous tip + police observations = legal

      • anonymous tip = illegal

      • a tip must include a form of reliabllity including some form of “predictive information” that gives the officers “means to test the informant’s knowledge or credibility”

• Scenario #5 → officers pull over driver for expired license plate and ask driver to exit car. One officer notices a large buldge under his jacket. They frisk him and find a loaded revolver and the driver is arrested and then indicted for carrying a concealed deadly weapon and for unlawfully carrying a firearm without a license

  • legal

  • Pennsylvania v Mims

  • once a cara has been lawfully detained for a traffic stop, the police can order you to get out without violating the 4th amendment

  • for legitimate concerns of police saftey

• Scenario #6 → in 1998, police began setting up vehicle checkpoints around the city to root out illegal drugs. Police would stop a set number of vehicles and conduct an open-view examination of the car or truck from the outside while the other officer would walk around with a narcotivs dog. stops lasted no more than 5 minutes

  • illegal → could only do checkpoints for illegal immigration and drunk driving

  • Indianapolis v Edmund