Admin Of Justice Ch. 2

Front 1

The Value of Data

Back 1

Data are valuable and can be used to
• Shape public policy
• Analyze and evaluate existing programs
• Create new programs
• Plan new laws
• Develop funding requests

Front 2

Sources of Data

Back 2

• Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
• National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
• Offender self-reports
• Other regular publications
o Example: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics

Front 3

Uniform Crime Reports

Back 3

• Established by the FBI in 1930.
• Approximately 16,000 police agencies voluntarily provide data.
• Only crimes known to the police are included.
• Most information reported as rates of crime.
• The UCR contains the Crime Index.
• Uses the hierarchy rule.

Front 4

UCR: Crime Index

Back 4

• Part I Offenses
o Violent Crime: murder, rape, robbery, assault
o Property Crime: burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson

Front 5

UCR: Crime Rates

Back 5

• Crime rate = # of crimes / 100,000 population
• Rates allow for comparison across areas and times

Front 6

UCR: Clearance Rates

Back 6

• Clearance rate = # of crimes solved / # of crimes committed
• Clearances are based on arrests, not judicial dispositions

Front 7

Murder

Back 7

…the unlawful killing of a human being by another.
Includes:
• All willful and unlawful homicides
• Non-negligent manslaughter
Excludes:
• Suicides
• Deaths caused by accidents or negligence
• Attempted murders

Front 8

Data on Murder

Back 8

• Least likely Part I offense to occur
• High clearance rate
• Rates peak during warmer months
• Most common in southern states
• People age 20–24 are most at risk
• Most perpetrators are age 20–24
• Weapon most often used: firearms
• Most often, victim and offender were “acquaintances”
• Unborn Victims of Violence Act (2004)

Front 9

Murder: Multiple Killings

Back 9

• Spree—two or more people, killed on more than one occasion, over an extended period of time.
• Mass—three or more people, killed in a single event, by an offender who typically does not seek concealment of the crime.
• Serial—several victims killed in three or more separate events and over time.

Front 10

Forcible Rape

Back 10

…the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.
Includes:
 Assault or attempt to commit rape by force or threat of force
Excludes:
• Assault if victim is male
• Statutory rape (without force)
• Same-sex rapes
• Other sex offenses

Front 11

Forcible Rape: One of the Most Underreported Violent Crimes

Back 11

Many victims do NOT report because they:
• Think the police won’t be able to catch the suspect.
• Believe that the police will be unsympathetic.
• Want to avoid the embarrassment of publicity.
• Fear reprisal by the rapist.
• Fear additional “victimization” by court proceedings.
• Want to keep family/friends from knowing.

Front 12

Forcible Rape

Back 12

• Most rapes are committed by acquaintances of the victim, as in the case of date rape.
• Most rapists appear to be motivated by the need to feel powerful.
• Use of the “date rape drug” Rohypnol is rising.

Front 13

Robbery

Back 13

…the unlawful taking or attempted taking of property that is in the immediate possession of another by force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.
Excludes:
• Pick pocketing
• Purse snatching

Front 14

Robbery 2005 Data)

Back 14

Characteristics of targets:
• Most are individuals
• Banks, gas stations, convenience stores, and other businesses
• Residential
Characteristics of robbers:
• 89% are male
• 43.8% are under age 25
• 58% are minorities

Front 15

Robbery (2005 Data)

Back 15

Characteristics of robberies:
• Highway (44.1%)
• Strong arm (39.7%)
• Gun involved (42%)
• Knife involved (7.1%)
• Gun discharged (20%)
Robbery rates in 2005 (per 100,000):
• Large cities–379
• Rural areas–16.2

Front 16

Aggravated Assault

Back 16

…unlawful inflicting of serious injury upon the person of another.
Includes:
• Attempted assaults, especially when a deadly weapon is used.
• The possible use of a gun, knife, or other weapon that could result in serious injury.
Excludes:
• Simple assaults

Front 17

Aggravated Assault (2005 Data)

Back 17

• 55% clearance rate
• Summer months highest number reported
• February, November, and December lowest number reported
• Most were committed with:
o Blunt object (35.9%)
o Hands and feet (25%)
o Guns (21%) Knives (18.2%)

Front 18

Burglary

Back 18

…unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft.
Types of burglaries:
• Forcible entry
• Unlawful entry without force
• Attempted forcible entry

Front 19

Burglary (2005 Data)

Back 19

2.1 million reported burglaries:
• 60.7% forcible entries
• 33% unlawful entries without force
• 6.3% are attempted forcible entries
• $3.7 billion in losses (average: $1,725)
• victim home 10% of the time
• most during the day
• The clearance rate was only 12.7%.

Front 20

Larceny–theft

Back 20

…unlawful taking or attempted taking, carrying, leading, or riding away of property from the possession of another.
Motor vehicles thefts are excluded.

Front 21

Larceny–theft 2

Back 21

Includes (in declining order of frequency):
Theft from motor vehicles
• Shoplifting
• Theft from buildings
• Theft of motor vehicle parts and accessories
• Bicycle thefts
• Theft from coin-operated machines
• Purse snatching
• Pocket picking

Front 22

Larceny–theft 3

Back 22

• Great variance in types and value of items stolen.
• Is the most frequently reported crime (yetstill greatly underreported).
• In 2005, there were 6,776,807 larcenies nationwide, with the total value of property stolen around $5.2 billion.
• The average value of items reported stolen in 2005 was $764.

Front 23

Motor Vehicle Theft

Back 23

…the theft or attempted theft of a motor vehicle.
A “motor vehicle” is a self-propelled vehicle that runs on land and not on rails.
Includes: automobiles, motorcycles, motor scooters, trucks, buses, snowmobiles
Excludes: trains, airplanes, bulldozers, most farm equipment, ships, boats, spacecraft

Front 24

Characteristics of Motor Vehicle Theft (2005 Data)

Back 24

Over 1.2 million reported:
• High report rate
• 13.1% clearance rate
o Clearance rates are higher in rural areas
• $7.6 billion in losses (average: $6,173)
• Typical offender: young male
o 52% under 25
o 82.4% male

Front 25

Carjacking

Back 25

Carjacking...the taking of a motor vehicle directly from the owner by force.
• Legally, carjacking is a type of robbery, not a motor vehicle theft.
• It accounts for just over 1% of all car thefts.

Front 26

Arson

Back 26

…the burning or attempted burning of property, with or without the intent to defraud.
…does not include fires of unknown or suspicious origins.
…became a Part I offense in 1979.

Front 27

Arson 2

Back 27

Most common type of arson is the burning of structures, followed by the burning of vehicles.
• Low clearance rate—17.9%
• $1 billion in losses (average: $14,910)

Front 28

Part II Offenses

Back 28

Part II offenses are less serious than Part I offenses and include many social order offenses, such as:
• Simple assault
• Driving under the influence
• Prostitution
• Vandalism
• Receiving stolen property
• Fraud
• Embezzlement

Front 29

NIBRS: The New UCR

Back 29

National Incident Based Reporting System
Incident driven, rather than summary based
• FBI started this program in 1989.
• Goals: to enhance and improve crime data collection, analysis, and publication.

Front 30

NIBRS

Back 30

National Incident Based Reporting System
• Includes nature of the disposition of the complaint
• Replaces the old Part I and Part II offenses with 22 general offenses.

Front 31

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

Back 31

• Began operation in 1972
• Based on victim self-reports from people 12 years of age or older
• Uses data collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics
• Work with a sample of more than 134,000 people from 77,200 households
• Designed to measure the “dark figure” of crime

Front 32

NCVS

Back 32

Includes data on:
• Robbery
• Assault
• Burglary
• Personal and household larceny
• Motor vehicle theft
• Rape

Front 33

Crime Typology

Back 33

A classification of crimes along a particular dimension, such as legal categories, offender motivation, victim behavior, or the characteristics of individual offenders.

Front 34

Special Categories of Crime

Back 34

• Crime against women
• Crime against the elderly
• Hate crime
• Corporate and white-collar crime
• Organized crime
• Gun crime
• Drug crime
• High-technology and computer crime
• Terrorism

Front 35

Women and Crime

Back 35

Compared to men, women are:
• Less likely to be victimized in every major personal crime other than rape.
• More likely than men to be injured as a result of crime.
• More likely to make lifestyle modifications because of threat of crime.

Front 36

Elderly Crime Victims

Back 36

The elderly generally experience the lowest rate of victimization—both violent and property—of any age group.

Front 37

Hate Crimes

Back 37

Hate crimes are crimes in which the defendant’s conduct was motivated by hatred, bias, or prejudice, based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation of another individual or group of individuals.
• Hate crimes are also called biased crimes.
• Most hate crimes consist of intimidation, although they may also include vandalism, simple and aggravated assault, and murder.

Front 38

Hate Crimes: 2005

Back 38

Police reported 7,163 hate crime incidents, including six murders.
Hate crimes were motivated by:
• Race—54.7%
• Religion—17%
• Sexual orientation—14.2%
• Ethnicity—13.2%

Front 39

Corporate and White-Collar Crime

Back 39

• A violation of a criminal statute by a corporate entity or by its executives, employees, or agents acting on behalf of and for the benefit of the corporation, partnership, or other form of business entity.
• The human perpetrators of corporate crime are called white-collar criminals.

Front 40

White-Collar Crime

Back 40

• Violations of the criminal law committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course or his or her occupation.
• Nonviolent crime for financial gain utilizing deception and committed by anyone who has special technical and professional knowledge of business and government, irrespective of the person’s occupation.

Front 41

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

Back 41

• Created tough provisions to deter and punish corporate and accounting fraud and corruption and to protect the interests of workers and shareholders.
• Mandates that CFOs personally vouch for the truth and accuracy of their companies’ financial statements.
• Increased federal penalties for obstructing justice and, specifically, for shredding or destroying documents that might aid in a criminal investigation of business practices.

Front 42

Organized Crime

Back 42

• The unlawful activities of members of a highly organized, disciplined association engaged in supplying illegal goods and services, including gambling, prostitution, loan-sharking, narcotics, and labor racketeering, and in other unlawful activities.
• Primarily a group activity.
• A lot of variation among different organized crime groups.
• Includes inner-city gangs.
• Some organized crime activity is transnational— operating across national boundaries.

Front 43

Gun Crime

Back 43

• Each year, approximately one million serious crimes involve the use of a handgun.
• In a typical year, there are 10,000 murders in the United States using firearms.

Front 44

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (1994)

Back 44

• Prior to purchasing a handgun, there will be a:
o five-day waiting period
o Instant criminal background check
• Licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers are required to:
o Check photo ID
o Submit purchaser’s application
o Acquire a unique identification number authorizing the purchase

Front 45

Brady Law Impact

Back 45

• Most offenders obtain weapons from a friend or family or “on the street.”
• Some applicants try to circumvent the Brady Law by using fake identification.
• Problems may lead to ballistic fingerprinting.

Front 46

Drug Crime

Back 46

• The rate of drug-related crime has Federa almost tripled since 1975.l drug prosecutions increased from 11,854 in 1984 to more than 30,000 in 2002.
• Studies link drug abuse to other serious crimes.

Front 47

High-Tech and Computer Crime

Back 47

Computer crime…any crime perpetrated through the use of computer technology. Also, any violation of a federal or state computer crime statute.
Also called cybercrime or information technology crime.

Front 48

High-Tech and Computer Crime

Back 48

1. Theft of services
2. Communications in furtherance of criminal conspiracies
3. Information piracy and forgery
4. The dissemination of offensive materials
5. Electronic money laundering an d tax evasion
6. Electronic vandalism and terrorism, including viruses, worms, and Trojan horses
7. Telemarketing fraud
8. Illegal interception of telecommunications
9. Electronic funds transfer fraud

Front 49

CAN-SPAM Act

Back 49

• About 80% of today’s email is spam.
• Effective starting 2004, the federal CAN-SPAM Act regulates the sending of mass emails. It requires that commercial email messages contain the following:
o A clear identification that the message is an advertisement
o An opt-out feature
o A valid physical address identifying the sender
• Some states have enacted similar laws.

Front 50

Phishing

Back 50

• New form of fraud that uses official-looking e-mail messages to elicit responses from victims.
o Directs people to fake websites
o Instructs people to validate or update account information
o Phishing schemes have targeted companies like PayPal, IBM, and eBay
• Fastest growing form of online fraud.

Front 51

The 2005 Computer Crime and Security Survey

Back 51

Found that 53% of large businesses, medical institutions, universities, and government agencies reported security-related breaches to their computer networks in 2004.

Front 52

Terrorism

Back 52

To assist in the developing protection of U.S. infrastructure, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 created the Department of Homeland Security and made its director a Cabinet member.

Front 53

Cyberterrorism

Back 53

…a form of terrorism that makes use of high technology, especially computers and the Internet, in the planning and carrying out of terrorist attacks.