Crime and
Violence
1
The Nature of Crime
• Definition of the term crime
»Crime is any act or omission of
an act for which the state can
apply sanctions
2
• Surveys show that most people Americans consistently
rank crime among the most serious social problems.
• Fear of crime is itself a social problem, because it limits
the things people do and they places they go.
• Forty-percent (40) of U.S. adults say they are afraid to
walk alone at night in their own neighborhood
3
Crime and Violence
• The murder rate in the USA is five times higher than
it is in Canada, ten times higher than in most
European nations, and sixteen times higher than it is
in Japan.
• Almost fifty murders occur every day in the United
States; three are children who die at the hand of
family members
4
• Nearly half of murder victim knew their killers; a third of
murdered women are killed by husbands or boyfriends
• There are 200 million guns in the United States, more
than enough to arm every person over the age of
thirteen in the country
5
Police Discretion
• The definition of criminality changes according to what
the police believe criminal behavior to be.
• Discretion is a powerful weapon at the disposal of police
officers.
• Studies have shown inconsistencies in targeting different
groups within the same police department
• Police bias affects how the police treat youth
from the lower-class differently than youth from
the middle-class
» Small departments are less likely to
formally apply the law in minor
situations
» Large departments are more likely to
apply the law in minor situations
6
Problems of Accuracy
• Sources and factors in determining the
validity of crime data from police reports
»Not all crimes are reported or
known to the police
»Police department policies on
policing and the reporting of
crime impact the validity of the
data
7
• Major sources of data on crime
»UCR – Uniform Crime Report
major source of official statistics
on crime
»Self report studies
»Victimization reports
8
Uniform Crime Report
•
The most widely used source of criminal
statistics
•
It gives information on seven index crimes four
crimes of violence Personal Violent Crime:
1.
2.
3.
4.
murder,
robbery,
rape,
aggravated assault
9
•
Three Property Crimes
1.
2.
3.
burglary,
larceny,
and auto theft.
•
A crime rate is estimated from this report, that is
the number of crimes committed per 100,000
population
Crime against property accounts for 88 percent of
all serious offences
•
10
12-5
Percent Distribution1
Motor
Vehicle
Theft
9.9%
Forcible Rape
0.8%
Robbery
3.6%
Aggravated
Assault
7.8%
Murder
0.1%
Burglary
18.1%
Larceny-Theft
59.4%
1Due
to rounding, percentages do not add up to 100.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports - 2002
11
12-4
Crime Clock, 2002
one
CRIME INDEX OFFENSE
every 2.7 seconds
one
PROPERTY CRIME
one
every 3 seconds
VIOLENT CRIME
every 22.1 seconds
one
MURDER
every 32.4 minutes
one
FORCIBLE RAPE
every 5.5 minutes
one
ROBBERY
every 1.2 minutes
one
AGGRAVATED ASSAULT
every 35.3 seconds
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports - 2002
one
BURGLARY
every 14.5 seconds
one
LARCENY-THEFT
every 4.5 seconds
one
MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT
every 25.3 seconds
12
National Crime
Victimization Survey
• In the 1970s the federal government began conducting a
yearly crime survey
• Of the two, the NCVS is generally considered more
accurate
• Sample surveys of Americans indicate that crimes
reported to the police account for about 33 percent of
actual offences
13
Violent Personal Crimes
• When weapons are involved, guns account for about 70
percent of murder
• Two-thirds of murder victims die as a result of shootings
• the level of deadly violence in the United States remains
higher than in any other urban industrial nation
• For black men in the United States, the chances of living
beyond age 40 are worse than in the poorest nations of
the world mainly because of the toll taken by violence
14
12-2
Firearm Injury Death Rates among Young
Men
in Selected Countries, 1992 to 1995
54.0
12.2
11.5
11.1
8.8
8.4
7.9
4.6
3.7
2.1
1.5
0.8
0
10
20
Source: National Center for Health Statistics, Health United States 1996-1997 and
Injury Chartbook, 1997, p.32.
30
40
50
60
15
Copyright © 2001 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Offenders and Victims
• Criminologists agree that there are four variables- age,
gender, and geographic location, and socioeconomic
status
• Worldwide, men commit more crime than women
• In the USA , 4 times as many men as women are
arrested, and there are about 16 times more men than
women in prison.
• The crime rate for women has, however, been growing
faster than the rate for men.
16
• Crime is predominantly a youthful activity.
• Teenagers and young adults have the highest
crime rates.
• In the USA, the likelihood of arrest peaks in the
19- to- 21-year old age group and slowly declines
after that
• Most murderers are young, between the ages of
17 and 34
17
• Crime is lower in the suburbs than in the cities and lower
still in the rural areas
• Property crime, regardless of the type, occurred more
often to those living in rented property
• Households living in rented property had almost twice
the rate of motor vehicle theft than those in owned
property
• Although African Americans make up about 12 percent
of the population of the USA, they account for about 30
percent of all those arrested
18
• Over two-thirds of the men and nine-tenths of the
women in prison are from the poverty class or the
working class
• Official statistics show that poor people are more likely
to be arrested and sent to prison than those form middle
19
Victims
• Crime victims in the USA are more often men than
women and younger people rather than elderly
individuals.
• Teens experience the highest rates of violent crime
• The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports show that in 2003, 91%
of murder victims were age 18 or older. Of all murder
victims, 46% were 20 to 34 years old
• The elderly, persons age 65 or older, experienced less
violence and fewer property crimes than younger persons
between 1993-2002
20
• Property crime, not violence, provided the highest
percentage of crime against persons age 65 or older
• Males experienced higher victimization rates than females
for all types of violent crime except rape/sexual assault.
• Seventy-six percent murder victims are males
• Inner city residents are more likely to be victims of crime
than those who live in the suburbs, and rural populations
21
Figure 5-8 (p. 145)
Murder by Relationship1
Percent Distribution2 Volume by Known Relationship, 2003
1 Relationship is that of victim to offender
2 Due to rounding, the percentages may not add to 100.0
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform-Crime
Reports, 2004.
22
• Poor people in general, and members of minority groups
especially African-American or Hispanics are most likely
to be victims of violent crimes
• Most of the crime is an intra-racial phenomenon
23
Causes of Crime and
Violence
Biological Theories
• Cesar Lombroso believed that most criminals
were biologically different from normal
people
• easily identifiable physical traits such as sloping
foreheads, small brains, overdeveloped jaws,
and other apelike characteristics
• XYY Syndrome.
• no evidence that humans have a predisposition
to engage in criminal behavior.
24
Personality Theories
• Some psychologists and psychiatrists believe that
personality traits lie at the root of criminal behavior
• They conclude that many criminals often have a
sociopathic personality.
• Sociopathic personality is vague in its definition but it
refers to an inability to form close social relationships
combined with a lack of moral feelings or concern for
others
• the most common explanation is that it develops in early
childhood.
25
Sociological Theories
Conflict Approaches
Conflict theorist identify inequities of wealth, status, and
power as the underlying conditions that produce
criminal behavior
• Every study of crime based on official data shows that
blacks are overrepresented among those who are
arrested, convicted and imprisoned for street crimes.
26
• The National Household Survey of Substance and Drug
Abuse finds that roughly the same proportion of blacks
and whites - 12 to 13 percent - say that they use illegal
substances
• Yet 37 percent of those arrested for drug related crimes
such as trafficking or possession are black
• African Americans are three times more likely than
whites to be arrested but seven times more likely to end
up in jail
27
• Federal Prison sentences overall, are almost 50 percent
longer for African Americans than for whites
• More than 90 percent of those on death row are poor
28
Functionalist View Strain
Theory (Robert Merton)
Anomie - the feeling of being adrift that arises from the
disparity between goals and means
•
Crime, according to this concept, is produced by the
strain in societies that
1. tells people wealth is available to all but also
2. restricts some people's access to the means for
achieving wealth.
29
Interactionist Approaches:
Differential Association
Differential Association was developed by Edwin
Sutherland.
• criminal behavior is learned through interactions with
others the same as all other forms of socialization
• criminal behavior is a result of a leaning process that
occurs chiefly within small, intimate groups - family,
friends, neighborhood peer groups, and the like.
30
•
1.
2.
3.
•
Formation of deviant subcultures provides for a
social situation where not only techniques of
lawbreaking are learned but also the
motives,
drives, and
the rationalizations of criminals.
encounters vary in frequency, duration, priority, and
intensity
31
Prisons
• In less than 30 years, the inmate population of the USA
has increased almost fivefold.
• The USA incarcerates more people than any other nation
in the world; nearly 2 million as of 2001
• California has the largest prison population in the nation.
California spends $4 billion a year to operate the nation's
largest prison system
• It costs between $23,500 to $30,000 keep one inmate
incarcerated for one year
32
Retribution-Deterrence
• Retribution and deterrence have historically been the
primary focus of efforts to control crime
• The correctional system is still largely punitive
• Punishment serves to sustain the morale of those who
conform to society’s rules.
• Public’s desire for more retribution has helped restore
more punitive forms of correction
• Three strike laws have become popular but their
efficiency is questioned
33
Plea Bargaining
Plea Bargaining is a system whereby a defendant waives
his or her right to a trail and pleads guilty to a lesser
offense agreed upon in advance
• To clear court dockets, and improve conviction records,
90 percent of serious crimes are settled by plea
bargaining
• If 80 percent of cases were settle by plea bargaining
instead of the current 90 percent, the number of cases
brought to trial would double
34
• Prison population is unrepresentative of the general
population, being disproportionately racial and ethnic
minorities, the poor, and the uneducated
The Bail System
• Bail is the posting of money by the accused to
guarantee that he or she will be present at the time of
trial. The Constitution provides the right to bail in noncapital cases.
• The obvious result of the system, is that the poor remain
in jail and the wealthy are released.
35