Criminology/Module 2

Introduction to the nature & extent of Crime

2 components to crime:

Act itself
Criminal intent

2 types of criminal law:

Misdemeanor
Felony

Children/adolescents who commit crime: delinquents in juvenile courts

Several problems when looking at statistics on crime (no reporting, falsified reports).

Official drug use statistics are generated data produced by the gov't & agencies doing their usual work. Police data is the general source of crime stats gathered by nearly 20k universities, locations, and federal agencies. UCR program responsible for changes in data. Problems are though (despite it being very reliable) it records only the worst offense (so drug and murder charges, only murder is recorded). "Dark figures" of crime hid the reports as well.

2 criminal categories in the UCR are...

Part I Offenses/Index Crimes - Serious crimes, like murder and rape.
Part II Offenses/Non-Indexed Crimes - Less serious crimes, like DUIs and drug abuses. Other crimes are here too, like illegal gambling.

"Dark figure" crimes underestimate drug use.

Latest UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation

Released October 16, 2023:

The FBI's UCR (Uniform Crime Reporting) program compiles its own report on crime through volunteer reports by non-federal law enforcement agencies throughout the US. It lists criminal incidents. Each collection displays crime data based on numbers given by law enforcement, context, participation, and publication.

The 2022 data report shows crime in the US, NIBRS[/+ estimate] (2022), hate crime stats, and law enforcement killed and assaulted in the line of duty.

Definitions

Violent Crime - Consists of murder, manslaughter, rape, aggravated assault, and robery. Stats are shown in the slide. A decrease was seen in 2022 vs. 2021.
Property Crime - Burglary, breaking in, larceny, motor vehicle theft. Increase seen in 2022 vs. 2021.
Drug Offenses - Drug/narcotic offenses (except cocaine). Decrease was seen in 2021 to 2022.

ADAM & Correctional Statistics

ADAM (98-2003) was another report of satistics involving recent arrestees throughout the US. Interviewed about drug usage within 48hrs of their booking, alongside urine testing. So this is geared to drug usage, as opposed to UCR (which is more general). Collected for the following drugs:

Amphetamines
Barbiturates
Benzodiazepines (Valium)
Cocaine
Opiates
PCP
Methadone
Marijuana
Propoxyphene (Darvon)
Methaqualone (Quaaludes and other sedatives)

60-80% of arrested folks were using drugs, mainly cocaine (except robbery). Women are more likely to use drugs then man in every crime domain except for drug sales.

National Crime Victimization Survey

NCVS: Yearly collection of data done by the U.S. Census Bureau for the BJS (Buruea of Justice Statistics) which collects a nationally representative sample from 240k interviews on criminal victimization. Interviewed on frequency, characteristics, and consequences of criminal victimization. Info is done on non-fatal personal crimes and household property crimes (reported + not reported). The NCVS is the primary source of info on annual level/change on criminal victimization and the nature of its incidents.

NCVS does random selections on households to figure out victims of crime, reported/non-reported crime, and data that shows that number of crimes committed is much higher than reported. Though, is limited by faulty re-call and limitation in scope (does not measure workplace crimes, fo rexample).

Overall, NCVS data produces:

Victimization estimates - Total # of times the persons of the household were victims of crime.
Incident estimates - # of specific criminal actions that involve 1+ victims.
Prevalence estimates - # of % of unique people who were victims of crime/unique household members that experienced crime.

[shows 2023 Sept NCVS highlights].

Monitoring the Future (MTF)

Secondary data sources --> cohort research, experimental research, observational and interview research, meta-analysis (gathering data from previous studies), data mining (analyzing large data sets from multiple data sources using computational methods), and crime mapping (geographical representations of crime).

- Cohort research: Observe group of similar people over time.

Most experimental research is quasi-experimental.

Survey and Self-Report

Self-reported delinquency for youths. Done through 1-1 interviews, questionnaires, and anonymous questionnaires. Largest studies are MTF [Monitoring the Future Survey], done by the University of Michiga's Institute for Social Research (ISR).

[Shows 2023 MTF data]

National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA)

Self-report measure of drug use done in the US. Consists of in-person interviews and questions on recency/drug use, attitudes, problems seen through drug use, and treatment experiences.

Also includes demographics. Good tool for measure of drug prevalence and is a good tool of representing the entire US population.

Crime Trends

After the Civil War, the crime rate increased for 15 years, but reduced from 1880 to WWI. Great Depression caused a surge of crimes and homicide rates have been increasing ever since the 1970s.
Though since the 90s, UCR violent crimes + property crime rates have decreased.

Crime rates may increase due to youth growing older, but may die down because of the elderly population dying out or getting to a point where they can't really commit crimes. But due to the rapid increase of technology, we can't really make an accurate prediction of crime rate trends at this moment.

Most crimes take place in the summer (except murders and robberies, which take place in Dec. and Jan.). Curvilinear model for temperatures vs. crimes.
Some criminologists believe that easy access to guns is what causes the US crime problem, but other criminologists believe that a personal gun reduces crime.

Instrumental crime: Poorer folks do illegal things to get their goods and services

Expressive crime: Poorer folks commit crime out of anger, not necessity.

Age

Age is INVERSELY related to criminality. Peak age for property crime is 16, peak age for violent crime is about 18. Change in brain chemistry, where serotonin increases and dopamine decreases as you grow older, decreases desire for crime in adults.

Gender

Lombroso's masculinity hypothesis: Masculinity leads to crime.
Now what do we accept? Antisocial behavior --> hormonal influences. Male sex hormones, androgens, are the reason behind aggressive male behavior. Girls are "softer" in nature and programmed less for violence.
Liberal feminist theory: Female crime rates are linked to the increasing roles of women.

Skepticism about this remains

Race

Minority groups represent a large portion of criminal activity. But is it because of true racial differences or bias?
Research does support that there is racial bias in the justice system.
Divorce/separation/disease [risks] are more rampant in black communities.

Marvin Wolfgang, 1972 study: 9,945 boys in Philly, published results in Delinquency in a Birth Cohort:

1/3 of the boys had police contact
54% were repeat offenders
627 boys been arrested 5+ times.
6% responsible for 52% of all offenses ("The Chronic Six").

2 major factors come into play for recidivism: seriousness of the original offense and severity of the punishment. Chronic juvenile offenders have an 80% chance of becoming criminals throughout their adulthood. Many deficits in the early life of these chronic offenders.