By: Brandon Motley and Keely
Holloway
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Social Definition-is a behavior that violates the
norms of society-or, more simply, antisocial
behavior.
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Legal Definition- an intentional violation of the
criminal law or penal code, committed without
defense or excuse and penalized by the state.
Non-enforcement: the failure to routinely
enforce prohibitions against certain behaviors.
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First, norms vary from group to group within a
single society. There is no uniform definition of
antisocial behavior.
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Second, Norms are always subjected to
interpretations.
Third, Norms change from time to time and
place to place.
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First, behaviors is prohibited by the criminal
law arguably should not be, this is known as
overcriminalization.
Second, a legal definition of crime is that for
some behaviors prohibited by criminal law is
not routinely enforced. Nonenforement is
common for many white- collar and
government crimes.
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Third, legal definition of crime is the problem
of under- criminalization.
*Under-criminalization: the failure to prohibit
some behaviors that arguably should be
prohibited.
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Technically and ideally, a crime has not been
committed unless all seven of the following
elements are present
1. Harm
2. Legality
3. Actus Reus
4. Mens rea
5. Causation
6. Concurrence
7. Punishment
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Harm: the external consequence required to
make an action a crime.
Legality: the requirement (1) that a harm just
be legally forbidden for the behavior to be ac
rime and (2) that the law must not be
retroactive.
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Ex Post facto law: a law that (1) declares
criminal an act that was not illegal when it was
committed, (2) increases the punishment for a
crime after it is committed, or (3) alters the
rules of evidence in a particular case after the
crime is committed.
Negligence: the failure to take reasonable
precautions to prevent harm.
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Duress: force or coercion as an excuse for
committing a crime.
Juvenile Delinquency: a special category of
offense created for young offenders, usually
those between 7 and 18 years of age.
Insanity: mental or psychological impairment
or retardation as a defense against a criminal
charge.
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Actus Reus: criminal conduct- specifically,
intentional or criminally, negligent (reckless)
action or inaction that causes harm.
Mens Rea: criminal intent; a guilty state of
mind.
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Causation: causal relationship between the
legally forbidden harm and the actus reus. In
other words, the criminial act must lead
directly to the harm without a long delay.
Concurrence: The criminal conduct and the
criminal intent must occur together.
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Punishment: for a behavior to be considered a
crime, there must be a statutory provision for
punishment or at least the threat of
punishment. Without the threat of punishment,
a law is unenforceable and is therefore not a
criminal law.
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Legal defenses or legal excuses for criminal
responsibility in the United States are these:
1.
Acted under duress-
2.
Was underage-
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3. was insane4. acted in self-defense or in defense of a third
party-
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5. was entrapped-
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6. acted out of necessity-
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Entrapment: a legal defense against criminal
responsibility when a person, who was not
already predisposed to it, is induced into
committing a crime by a law enforcement
officer or by his or her agent.
Necessity Defense: a legal defense against
criminal responsibility used when a crime has
been committed to prevent a more serious
crime.
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Mala in se: wrong in themselves; a description
applied to crimes that are characterized by
universality and timelessness.
Mala prohibita: offenses that are illegal because
laws define them as such; they lack
universality and timelessness.
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Dark Figure of crime: the number of crimes not
officially recorded by the police.
Crime index: an estimate of crimes committed.
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The difficulty in relying on crime statistics to
measure the prevalence of crime is that
“statistics about crime and delinquency are
probably the most unreliable and most difficult
of all social statistics”
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In other words, “it is impossible to determine
with accuracy the amount of crime (or
delinquency) in any given jurisdiction at any
particular time.”
1. Among the reasons why crime and delinquency
statistics are unreliable are the following:
A.
Some behaviors are labeled crime by one
observer but not by another
B. A large proportion of crimes are undetected
C. Not all crimes are reported to the police
D. Not all crimes that are reported are officially
recorded by the police
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Two major sources of crime statistics in the
United States are: The uniform crime reports
(UCR) and the national crime victimization
surveys (NCV) compiled by the Bureau of
Justice Statistics
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Offenses known to the police: A crime index,
reported in the FBI’s uniform crime reports,
composed of crimes that are both reported to
and recorded by the police.
Crime Rate: a measure of the incidence of
crime expressed as the number of crimes per
unit of population or some other base.
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Uniform Crime Reports: a collection of crime
statistics and other law enforcement
information gathered under a voluntary
national program administered by the FBI.
The uniform crime reports included two major
indexes: (1) offenses known to the police,
discussed earlier, and (2) statistics about
persons arrested.
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Eight Index Crimes: The part 1 offenses in the
FBI’s uniform crime reports. They are (1)
murder and non-negligent manslaughter, (2)
forcible rape, (3) robbery, (4) aggravated
assault, (5) burglary, (6) larceny/theft, (7)
motor vehicle theft, and (8) arson, which was
added in 1979.
- NCVS: a source of crime statistics based on
interviews in which respondents are asked
whether they have been victims of any of the
FBI’s index offenses (except murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, and arson) or other
crimes during the past 6 months. If they have,
they are asked to provide information about
the experience.
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Generally, the national crime victimization
surveys produce different results from the
FBI’s uniform crime reports. For nearly all
offenses, the NCVS show more crimes being
committed than the UCR do. This
underestimation by the UCR may result from
victims’ failure to report crimes to the police or
from failure by the police to report to the FBI
all the crimes they know about. The UCR count
more of some kinds of offenses (such as
assault) and count them differently.
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Describe the principal finding of the national
crime victimization surveys.
- the national crime victimization surveys
(NCVS) produce different results from the
FBI’s uniform crime reports. (UCR)
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Status offense: an act that is illegal for a
juvenile but would not be a crime if committed
by an adult.
Crime index offenses cleared: the number of
offenses for which at least one person has been
arrested, charged with the commission of the
offense, and turned over to the court for
prosecution.
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Generally, the national crime victimization
surveys produce different results from the
FBI’s uniform crime reports. For nearly all
offenses, the NCVS show more crimes being
committed than the UCR do.
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This underestimation by the UCR may result
from victims’ failure to report crimes to the
police or from failure by the police to report to
the FBI all the crimes they know about. The
UCR count more of some kinds of offenses
(such as assault) and count them differently.
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For example, the UCR count each report of a
domestic assault at the same address
separately; the NCVS count the repeated
assaults as one victimization. The UCR count
crimes reported by people and businesses that
the NCVS don’t reach.
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Unlike the UCR, the NCVS rely on random
samplings of victims and their memoires of
things that may have happened months ago,
both of which are subject to some degree of
error. Other problems with the NCVS are
interviewers who may be biased or who may
cheat, and respondents who may lie or
exaggerate, or may respond without
understanding the questions.
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Self- report crime surveys ask selected subjects
whether they have committed crimes. Selfreport crime surveys, like all crime measures,
are indexes of crime; they are not accurate
measures of the true amount of crime. To date,
most self- report crime surveys conducted in
the United States have been administered to
schoolchildren, especially high school students.
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Some examples of such nationwide self-report
crime survey efforts are the National Youth
Survey, begun in 1975, and the effort to
ascertain and gauge fluctuations in the levels of
smoking, drinking, and illicit drug use among
secondary school students, begun by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse in 1975.
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Earlier self- report crime surveys of adults
interestingly enough found an enormous
amount of hidden crime in the United States.
Those self- report crime surveys indicated that
more than 90% of all Americans had committed
crimes for which they could have been found
guilty and imprisoned.
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This is not to say that all Americans are
murderers, thieves, or rapists, for they are not,
but only that crime serious enough to warrant
an individual’s imprisonment is more
widespread among the U.S population that
many people might think or imagine. The most
commonly reported offenses in self- report
surveys are larceny, indecency, and tax
evasion.
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One lesson that can be learned from the
aforementioned survey findings is that
people’s criminality is better described as a
continuum, that is, as having committed more
crime or less crime, rather than simply being
described as criminal or noncriminal. In
society, there are probably few angels, that is,
people who have never committed a crime.
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Self-Report crime surveys show that the
amount of hidden crime in the United States is
enormous. Nearly more than 90% of all
Americans have committed crimes for which
they could have been imprisoned.
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When all costs are totaled, it is estimated that
crime costs about $450 billion annually (in the
mid 1990’s)
According to the data from the NCVS, in 2007
the total economic loss to victims of crime in
the United States was $18.4 billion.
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Ton compensate for the deficiencies of the
NCVS, a 1996 study was sponsored by the
National Institute of Justice. In addition to the
more standard cost estimates in the NCVS, the
admittedly dated study estimated long term
costs as well as the intangible costs of pain,
suffering, and reduced quality of life.
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Furthermore, although the study included only
“street crimes” and “domestic crime,” it
expanded on the crime categories and
information included in the NCVS by (1)
including crimes committed against people
under the age of 12, (2) using better
information on domestic violence and sexual
assault (3) more fully accounting for repeat
victimizations and (4) including child abuse
and drunk driving.
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The study estimated that the annual tangible
cost of personal and property crime-included
medical costs, lost earnings, and public
program costs related to victim assistancewere $105 billion, or more than $400 per U.S.
Resident. When the Tangible cost of pain,
suffering, and reduced quality of life were
added, the annual cost increased to an
estimated $450 billion, or about $1,800 per
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Violent Crime (including drunk driving and
arson) accounted for $426 billion of the total,
while property crime accounted for the
remaining $24 billion. The study found that
violence against children accounted for more
than 20% of all tangible costs and more than
35% of all costs (including pain, suffering, and
reduced quality of life).
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Overall, crime in the U.S. has raised over the
past decade. The costs of crime rises gradually
each and everyday and raises due to the crime
rate rising. Also, overall, the pain, suffering,
and reduced quality of life tangible costs makes
up about 90% of the costs of crime in the
United States of America.
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There are many characteristics of people that
fear crime daily. In general, those more likely
to fear crime are females. Its normal for this,
due to where a female isn’t use to having to
protect herself constantly mostly because there
is usually a man around who can protect them.
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Those who fear crime more than others are
listed as this: non-whites, people 18 to 20 years
old, Westerners, high school graduates,
Democrats, and people whose family income is
less than $20,000.
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Those whose income is less than $20,000 often
fear of crime more due to the fact they may live
in down homes or in rough neighborhoods.
Most that makes this low are not able to afford
expensive homes and have to worry about the
crime rates around town.
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46% worry about their homes being
burglarized due to them not being home. This
is fairly common, where when they aren’t
home, it is easier for anyone to just break in
and steal anything they like. All it takes is a
bust through the glass and they can get what
they need while family is at work.
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43% worry about having their car stolen or
broken into because its gotten a lot easier now
to just break into a car and steal anything.
Nowadays, a lot of people have learned the
tricks of the trade to hot wire vehicles when
people are away from the car. This is bad, but it
is has caused a high percentage to worry of
being burglarized.
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37% worry about walking alone at night within
a mile of where they live. This is common with
females who worry and have the fear of being
rape late at night when their by there self. It
happens so much anymore, especially in rough
neighborhoods or around towns that have
people who make incomes less than $20,000 a
year.
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According to data form the 2005 and 2007
NCVS, the most likely victims of personal
violent crimes are multiracial. Young(12-24
years old)