Criminology Test 1

Front 1

crime

Back 1

= violation of legal code

Front 2

• Deviance

Back 2

= violation of social norms

Front 3

relationship between crime and deviance

Back 3

• All crime is deviant, not all deviance is crime

Front 4

• Edwin Southerland’s definition of Criminology

Back 4

o Criminology is the study of law making, law breaking, and the social reaction to law breaking

Front 5

o Study of Law Making? what is the common conception?

Back 5

- Why specific laws come into being
- Theory that laws against drugs are not against the drug but against the category of users of the drug
- Common conception – Consensus Model of Laws

Front 6

consensus model of laws. which part of criminology def. is this

Back 6

-o Study of Law Making
-• Universal consensus that life has value
• Everyone agrees murder is bad, stealing is bad
• But the majority of laws are not consensus, they are the outcome of group conflicts
o Group conflict is a dynamic process in which individual groups fight for their own interests and the stronger and more organized group wins

Front 7

o Study of Law Breaking

Back 7

 2 components
• Documentation of different types of crime and trends
• Explanations for what you documented, the trends

Front 8

o Social Response to Law Breaking

Back 8

 Criminal justice system = society’s formalized response to law breaking

Front 9

• Criminology

Back 9

scientific study of crime; establishing relationships between broad social variables, disproving theories

Front 10

o Variables

Back 10

= factors that change; criminologists explain variances

Front 11

o Theories

Back 11

o Theories = systematic explanation about how two or more variables relate to one another; way to guide your thinking
 Positive correlation – one goes up, other goes up
 Negative correlation – one goes down, other goes up
 Zero correlation – no relationship
 All theories must have a built in way of disproving itself; if you can’t disprove it, it’s not a theory

Front 12

sources of data in criminology

Back 12

UCR
o National Crime Victimization Survey
• Monitoring the Future Study
• National Institute of Drug Abuse

Front 13

• Two main sources of data in criminology; Advantages and disadvantages

Back 13

o UCR – official statistics
 Mainly offenders, offenses
o National Crime Victimization Survey
 Looks at victims rather than offenses

• Advantages – they are generalizable
• Disadvantage – don’t get much detail

Front 14

• Monitoring the Future Study

Back 14

o Middle schoolers and high schoolers
o Sample bias – sample does not match target population of interest
 MFS doesn’t include kids not in school

Front 15

• National Institute of Drug Abuse

Back 15

o Households; but the sample bias is that not everyone lives in a house

Front 16

UCR - who started it and what year

Back 16

• J. Edgar Hoover started campaign for UCR in 1924, 6 years later it was in place
o Added elite professionalism to the FBI
o Head of FBI for 50 years

Front 17

• Index crimes

Back 17

– serious crimes, part 1 offenses
-homicide, robbery, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, auto theft, arson

Front 18

o Violent crimes

Back 18

o Violent crimes – crimes against persons
 Homicide (except justifiable homicide)
 Robbery
• Definition: the taking or attempting to take something by force or threat of force and/or by putting the victim in fear
• Personally held up
 Rape
 Aggravated Assault
• Definition: unlawful attack by one person on another

Front 19

Robbery

Back 19

• Definition: the taking or attempting to take something by force or threat of force and/or by putting the victim in fear
• Personally held up

Front 20

 Aggravated Assault

Back 20

• Definition: unlawful attack by one person on another

Front 21

o Property crimes

Back 21

 Burglary
• Definition: the unlawful entering of a structure with the intention to commit a felony or a theft therein
 Larceny theft – simple theft
 Auto theft
 Arson – not included; difficult to measure

Front 22

 Burglary

Back 22

• Definition: the unlawful entering of a structure with the intention to commit a felony or a theft therein

Front 23

majority of arrests

Back 23

o Drugs make up most arrests because since the 1980’s there has been a different social attitude towards drugs and are more arrests now rather than more users
o Larceny/theft also large, DUI – social definition of DUI have changed
o Public drunkenness was higher years ago, change in social definition
o Fraud – more opportunities now

Front 24

what do you look at for fraud crime trends

Back 24

• When looking at the crime trends over the years look at the social conditions and opportunities for fraud

Front 25

• Rate

Back 25

o Murder in US = 14,500/312,000,000 = .00004647 = 4.7 murders/100k people  was double that in 1993
o NO – 100; BR – 30

Front 26

• Clearance rate

Back 26

= percentage of offenses cleared by arrest
o Arrest type x/crime type x times 100
o Police report card
o Murder 65%
o Higher for violent crimes, lower property
o Robbery is violent crime with property component so has lower clearance rate

Front 27

reporting bias

Back 27

difference between crimes known to police and crimes committed

Front 28

Primacy rule - what bias

Back 28

– multiple crimes committed in sequence, only most serious crime is recorded

reporting bias

Front 29

• Benign neglect

Back 29

 8. Are we measuring criminal behavior or police response to criminal behavior?
• Benign neglect – lesser crime is underestimated because it isn’t reported
• Control for this is to calculate based on murder rates
• Reason for NCVS – city’s crime rate doubled because they had one police officer and hired one more

Front 30

• UCR limitations

Back 30

o Crimes known to the police
o Reporting bias – difference between crimes known to police and crimes committed
-- 1. Greater for less serious crimes
 2. Primacy rule – multiple crimes committed in sequence, only most serious crime is recorded
 3. UCR doesn’t distinguish between completed and uncompleted acts of crime
 4. Police reporting accuracy varies
 5. Changes in reporting practices
 6. Crime categories are broad - $1 pencil vs $10k diamond
 7. White collar crime is most expensive but is included in all other categories
 8. Are we measuring criminal behavior or police response to criminal behavior?
--• Benign neglect – lesser crime is underestimated because it isn’t reported
• Control for this is to calculate based on murder rates
• Reason for NCVS – city’s crime rate doubled because they had one police officer and hired one more

Front 31

• Crime process steps

Back 31

o 1. Crime occurs
o 2. Perception of Activity – somebody sees it
o 3. Defined as crime
o 4. Crime is reported
o 5. Redefinition of the Crime
o 6. Recorded

Front 32

• Gender - % of arrests categories

Back 32

o Murder - % of males = 88%
o Forcible rape – males = 98.8%
o Larceny/theft = 56%
 Shoplifting – woman consumer caregiver role
o More women committing crime than ever before? No, there are more women now

Front 33

• Age of crime

Back 33

o 15-24, especially 15-20

Front 34

• Social class categories with higher crime

Back 34

o Low income, abandoned housing, urban, central urban, south

Front 35

• UCR is changing to

Back 35

NIBRS (National Incident Based Reporting System)
o UCR is summarized
o NIBRS organized by each incident = row; column = traits, characteristics

Front 36

National Crime Victimization Survey

Back 36

o 1973
o Estimate of under reporting
o Sample population – households
o Measures serious crimes, except murder because murder victims are dead

Front 37

Limitations of NCVS

Back 37

o Some crimes are missing because they are victimless crimes – drugs, prostitution; or are murder or some don’t know they have been victimized – forgery, fraud
o Unreliable witnesses
o Telescoping of events
 Further back you ask someone of an event, the greater tendency they will push it closer towards the date of the survey
 Crime 1998, say 2000; 1980 say 1985; 1953 say 1960
o Age heaping
 Events are heaped on 0 years (1990) or 5 years (1990)
o Doesn’t include businesses

Front 38

o Telescoping of events

Back 38

limitation of ncvs

 Further back you ask someone of an event, the greater tendency they will push it closer towards the date of the survey
 Crime 1998, say 2000; 1980 say 1985; 1953 say 1960

Front 39

o Age heaping

Back 39

 Events are heaped on 0 years (1990) or 5 years (1990)

limitation of NCVS

Front 40

o More likely victims

Back 40

o Men, Young, black (3 times whites), single
o Prototypical victim – unemployed, single, black, male, poor living in central city
o Because of *lifestyle adaptations* – structure of situation; men take more risks
o Low income houses more likely to be burglarized
 Structure = low income higher crime rate, closer geographic relation to offenders and victims
o Young black male, young white male, young black female, drop young white female

Front 41

what does NCVS - percentages

Back 41

o Tells why people report crime – 1st monetary gain of reporting, then seriousness

o 81% of motor vehicle theft reported
o Least likely larceny/theft – 29%
o Burglary – 53%
o Assault – 58%
o Robbery – 60%
o Rape – 48%
 3 types: stranger (60%), acquaintance, married

Front 42

o Measure of seriousness of crime

Back 42

o Violence/Value
o Vulnerability of victim – Age and Relationship
 Age – elderly, very young more serious
 Relationship – strangers more serious

Front 43

o US Crime trends

Back 43

o Murder – Low early 60’s; high 70’s – early 90’s
o 1992-2000 = Great American Crime Decline
o Low now as ever
o Huge rise in 60’s decline in 70’s, leveled off because at that time baby boomers were at crime prone ages
 Baby boom 1947-1962
 Increase in police
 UCR form easier to fill out
 Lots of social change
 Age curve sharper in industrialized societies, US became more industrialized – changing character of the family, no longer productive economic unit – *discontinuity* between youth and adulthood

Front 44

o Arrest rate of black homicide vs white. robbery?

Back 44

6 to 1
o Robbery 7 to 1
o 55% of arrestees for homicide are black but 12% of the nation is black

Front 45

o Man Child in Harlem

Back 45

o Claude Brown
Race and Crime

*o Describes a what but not a why

Front 46

o Claude Brown

Back 46

o Man child = 13 to 18 black male – paradox/contradiction because they are a lot more knowledgeable than he was at that age but a lot more likely to commit murder
o Article has Individual and General view
indiv- name brand madness
general -
----Major institutions that once held the community together are gone
 Loss of black Muslim organization – message – only one thing suitable for a man to do, get a job and support family
 Fagins are gone – Charles Dickens character pickpocket that took young men under his wing – message – violence is for fools  nonviolent guys replaced by violent guys
 Violence is afterthought; kill for glory
 “Doing time” was now a right of passage

Front 47

o The Declining Significance of Race

Back 47

o William Julius Wilson
o Strength is telling the history
o 3 stages of black/white relations
-race and crime
**social isolation

Front 48

o William Julius Wilson

Back 48

soc isolatio
Time Magazine most influential people
The Declining Significance of Race
Strength history
o 3 stages of black/white relat
o Ea. stage charct by 2 things:
 Political arrangement – distribution of power
 System of production – economy; which controls distribution of wealth
o 1st Stage: Plantation Economy and Racial Caste Oppression
o 2nd Stage: Industrial Expansion and Racial Caste Oppression
 Post Civil War
 Labor market scrambled horizontally and vertically – new categories and new layers of roles within categories
 Complex division of labor
 Height of fear of immigration from all races
 Period of racial antagonism and conflict
o 3rd Stage: Progressive Transition from Racial Inequality to Class Inequality
 Two things forever changed black lives
 Civil Rights Movement
• Get rid of legal barriers from stage 2
 Government/public sector grew tremendously at this time
• Blacks took jobs in public sector, but not all were qualified; anyone below m

Front 49

o 1st Stage: Plantation Economy and Racial Caste Oppression

Back 49

 Before Civil War and Industrial period
 Labor market was split; whites had better jobs
 Paternalistic race relations – father/child – white dominance/black subservience
 Not a lot of physical distance but a lot of social distance
 Clearly symbolized rituals of racial etiquette
 Very little conflict or violence; stable, brutal, clearly laid out

Front 50

o 2nd Stage: Industrial Expansion and Racial Caste Oppression

Back 50

 Post Civil War
 Labor market scrambled horizontally and vertically – new categories and new layers of roles within categories
 Complex division of labor
• Blacks and whites compete; whites organize into unions, win, get best jobs
• Start to see greater restrictions in black lives Jim Crowe Laws, KKK 2.0
 Height of fear of immigration from all races
 Period of racial antagonism and conflict

Front 51

o 3rd Stage: Progressive Transition from Racial Inequality to Class Inequality

Back 51

 Two things forever changed black lives
 Civil Rights Movement
• Get rid of legal barriers from stage 2
 Government/public sector grew tremendously at this time
• Blacks took jobs in public sector, but not all were qualified; anyone below middle class was left without job
 All blacks were living in inner cities, but everyone moved out to suburbs, even prominent blacks, left very poor blacks in inner cities with no jobs and no good black role models
 Bifurcation (splitting) of black community
 City with more concentrated poverty will have higher crime rate, not necessarily equal poverty, spread out poverty lower crime rate **social isolation – poor blacks live in different world
 They become the underclass
 Some blacks escaped, class is more important than race

Front 52

 Bifurcation

Back 52

(splitting) of black community
stage 3 - WJW

Front 53

o It’s always been about race, still is

Back 53

o Doug Massey
o Geographic segregation of blacks leads to segregation from opportunities

Front 54

o Doug Massey

Back 54

o Doug Massey
o It’s always been about race, still is
o Geographic segregation of blacks leads to segregation from opportunities
o Also talks about poverty concentration leading to social isolation
o North is more segregated than south; south is segregated in finer units; north has fewer regulations on how blacks and whites behave
o Segregation maintained in several ways:
 Outright threats and intimidation
 More subtle residential steering
 Bank redlining – circle drawn in area, no mortgages within(out)
 White flight – whites leave at certain level of blacks
o Strength is mountains of data

Front 55

Doug Massey cont.

Back 55

o Why is segregation a problem?
 Concentrating race concentrates racial problems leads to social isolation
 Even blacks in suburbs have higher poverty and crime
 Economic components of social isolation
• Disengaged from economy, no access to jobs; not what you know, who you know
• Richard Grannoveter
o weak tie strong tie
o Hoods = lots of strong ties
• Lower end neighborhoods worse off in economic downturn because low end jobs are the first to go
 Cultural dimension of social isolation
• Divergent evolution – 2 identical groups are separated and grow apart
• Young men – manhood identity used to be in your job, they don’t have that, seek manhood in violence/jail time
• Young women – seek adulthood via childbearing
• Inverted mainstream pressures – fail in school
 Political dimension

Front 56

weak tie strong tie person

Back 56

• Richard Grannoveter

Front 57

economic components of social isolation

Back 57

doug massey-segregation

• Disengaged from economy, no access to jobs; not what you know, who you know
weak ties
o Hoods = lots of strong ties
• Lower end neighborhoods worse off in economic downturn because low end jobs are the first to go

Front 58

cultural dimension of social isolation

Back 58

doug massey-segregation

• *Divergent evolution – 2 identical groups are separated and grow apart
• Young men – manhood identity used to be in your job, they don’t have that, seek manhood in violence/jail time
• Young women – seek adulthood via childbearing
• Inverted mainstream pressures – fail in school

Front 59

political dimension of social isolation

Back 59

doug massey-segregation

• SI creates zones of political weakness; political power is in coalition politics; don’t have that

Front 60

o Same punch line as Wilson and Massey but says you have to look at the city and how it has changed

Back 60

o Jack Kasarda

Front 61

o Jack Kasarda

Back 61

o Same punch line as Wilson and Massey but says you have to look at the city and how it has changed
o Cities were work/residence enclaves
o Population deconcentration – moving to the suburbs
o Industrial drift – low skilled jobs moved to suburbs while low skilled employees were in inner cities = spatial mismatch

Front 62

all three guys together

Back 62

wjw, massey, kasarda

o School of thought that ties all three of these guys together = geographic mobility = social mobility
o Wilson
 People are trapped in the inner city; they are isolated, can’t move around
o Massey
 They can’t move to my neighborhood because I don’t want them there
o Kasarda
 They’re there because that’s where I put Section 8 housing and I anchored them there

Front 63

hispanic population

Back 63

• 2000 – Hispanic pop 35 mil, 2006 45 mil, today 50 mil
• Increase in population – fertility not immigration
• Largest US minority – 15%

Front 64

• Fastest growing Hispanic growth states

Back 64

• Fastest growing Hispanic growth states are in the south – 308%

Front 65

• Economic components of ethnicity

Back 65

o Median incomes (personal, not household)
 Whites 30k
 Blacks 22k
 Hispanic 20k
o Education – no high school degree at age 25 or holder
 Blacks – 20%
 Whites – 11%
 Latinos – 40% (mostly foreign)
o Age standardized murder rate
 Whites – 4.3/100k
 Blacks – 33/100k
 Latinos – 12/100k
o Hispanics beneath blacks socioeconomically but have lower crime rate

Front 66

• Mexican immigration - push pull individual

Back 66

o Push factors
 War, Mexican economy
o Pull factors to come to US
 Economy
 Reverse pull factor is political – laws against Hispanics
o Individual factors
 Better schools
 Need more money to build a house, buy car, etc
 More complicated than “I want a better life”

Front 67

• History of hispanic immigration

Back 67

o nativism 1920’s – scared of immigration
 1924 – Border Patrol formed
 1929 – Great Depression, didn’t need Mexicans, rounded up and sent them back
 1941 – End of Depression because of war, huge economic boom, Americans didn’t have to work in fields anymore, needed Mexicans
o 1950’s – Red scare, Rise in McCarthyism
o 1960’s
 America is doing well, everyone fat and happy; but young people started to question our contradictions and looked at Immigration Policy
 1965 Immigration Act
Still tons of illegal immigration, but most was circular
o 1980’s
 Rise of Conservatism
 1986 – passed IRCA (Immigration Reform and Control Act)
• Militarized border patrol
o 1990’s
 More coming in, tighten border even more
 El Paso – Operation Blockade
 San Diego – Operation Gatekeeper
new entry = new destinations

Front 68

 Latino Paradox

Back 68

• Heightened immigration but lowered crime rate
o Rob Sampson
 Said Latinos caused decrease in crime
 Actually, they were Part of the reason, but not responsible
• Whites – 75% of population, 26.7% of decline; murdered 4.5/100k
• Latinos - 12.5% of population, 13% decline; 8.5/100k
• Blacks – 10% population, 59% decline; 14/100k

Front 69

• KEY FACTOR of latino paradox

Back 69

– communication between immigrants and native born Latinos
o Linguistic Isolation

Front 70

religious ecology of latino crime

Back 70

• High Catholic Presence in new destinations drops crime rate
• Protestants with Literal interpretations of Bible rises crime rate
• Two types of religious capital
o Bonding – hard to penetrate
 Personal relationship with God
 Protestants
 Immigrants more isolated
 Higher crime rate in new areas
o Bridging
 Catholics
 Surrogate to traditional community
 Lower crime rate in new areas

Front 71

• The Demonic Perspective

Back 71

1st
o Cause and cure of criminal behavior in supernatural
o Succumb to evil in two ways
 Temptation – choice
 Possession – no choice
o Crime is not contractual; it’s a crime against God therefore a crime against everything not specific victim; didn’t differentiate different types of crime
 Trial by ordeal (torture)
o System of logic = **Appeal to Authority
*o Crime is concerned with actors

Front 72

• The Classical Perspective

Back 72

o Cesare Beccaria
o Deviance as Rational Hedonism
o Humans maximize pleasure minimize pain
o 1st modern perspective
o Choice
o Crime = utilitarian calculus
 Don’t put crime in special category – robbing a bank is the same as buying a burger
o Europe changes from feudal to industrial – Tradition no longer regulates behavior
o Crime is rational, punishment rational
 Crime to achieve 6 units pleasure, punishment will be 7 units pain
o Crime is concerned with the act, not actors
o System of logic = deductive reasoning
 Deducting an individual truth from a basic premise
 Think way to solution, no experiments or tests
o Our Criminal justice system has its roots in this, system of deterrence
o Everyone has same cognitive functions, don’t

Front 73

deductive reasoning

Back 73

 Deducting an individual truth from a basic premise
 Think way to solution, no experiments or tests
o Our Criminal justice system has its roots in this, system of deterrence
o Everyone has same cognitive functions, don’t have to prove


-classical perspective

Front 74

• The Pathological Perspective

Back 74

late 1800’s
o Medical outlook, crime is a sickness
o Crime is not chosen
o Cesare Lambroso – 3 main theories (determinism, positivism, organismic infection)
 Some are born primitive physical anomalies

Front 75

 Determinism

Back 75

• Crime caused by other things
• A causes B
• Natural causes, Charles Darwin, survival of the fittest
• Social Darwinism

Front 76

 Idea of Positivism

Back 76

• Crime can only be determined by science
• Controlled observation
• Little facts lead to broader conclusion = inductive reasoning

Front 77

 Organismic Infection

Back 77

• Society is organism, crime is diseased part of organism
• XYY chromosomal issue
o Richard Speck
 Murderer but didn’t have extra chromosome
• Medical basis for pathological behavior; insanity plea
• ADD