Exam 1 Flashcards
The social distribution of crime
1) Property
2) Intra demographic
3) Male
4) passion
5) cities
6) age
7) race
8) repeat offenders
9) Socioeconomic status
Crime is a social construct
Behavior is value neutral but the meaning and definition of crime is defined by the situation and context (The society viewing it unfold)
Uniform crime report
- Police statistics: they record all known of crime and are sent to the FBI each year
- Only index one crimes: eight most serious
- Measures incidence and prevalence
Limitations:
1) unreported crime
2) political manipulation
3) definitions of crime changes
4) change in recording
Index offenses
Violent Crimes:
1)murder 2)rape 3)burglary 4)assault
property crimes:
5)burglary 6)arson 7)larceny 8)auto theft
National crime victimization survey
National survey samples US households door to door or by phone asking people if they have experienced crying within the last six months
- limited to 12 years and older
- helps to uncover the dark figure of crime
Limitations:
1) homeless is not included
2) Child abuse is not reported
3) victims are often not the best witnesses
Triangulation
Looking at a source of information and seeing what it has to say about a trend, then taking another independent source of information and seeing what it has to say about that same trend, then see if there is a connection between what was said about each trend
Self report survey
Surveys for offenders or possible offenders
- you see the gender race and Socioeconomic gaps shrink
- a lack of privacy reveals crime lower-level crimes are admitted to the most
- often given to juveniles college students and prisoners
Ecological fallacy
Occurs when group level statistics are applied at the individual level, or when independent level statistics are applied at the group level
- ex: what applies nationally may not apply in all parts of the nation
Crime prevalence
Measured in the uniform crime report
- the number of persons involved in a crime (number of persons arrested)
Crime incidence
Measured in the uniform crime report
- number of criminal events in time and place (abides by the hierarchy rule)
- incidence is usually “1”
Hierarchy Rule
When there is more than one law broken during one crime, they take the most serious in order to simplify
Ex: if someone were burglarized and murdered, the hierarchy would be murder
White collar crime
Edwin Sutherland
It is based on mutual trust
- corporations are not considered to be an individual
- these cannot be crimes and they are tried in civil court because you cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt
Theory
An explanation that predicts future events
- it tells us how and why things occur
- establishes a relationship between cause and effect
you ask yourself
1: is a testable (measure or observe)
2: does it violate the social distribution of crime
3: is it verifiable or falsifiable?
Enlightenment
Before, all explanations came from the church
- reason science and technology altogether could bring truth because we can test and challenge the churches ideas
~Humans alone can discover the truth
- René Descartes
- people assumed the cause of crime was due to demonic possession which they would cure by bloodletting and exorcism
René Descartes
“I think, therefore I am”
- brings about the enlightenment because it you are a separate entity from God
~ FREE WILL & Individualism
Classical criminology
Crime is a result of free will, therefore crime is a choice
- Jeremy Bentham
- Cesare Beccaria
- focuses on the crime
Jeremy Bentham
The principle of utility:
- pleasure pain principal
- we seek pleasure and we avoid pain
- Classical Criminology
- asentic: we deal with short-term pain in order to receive long-term pleasure (ex: college)
Cesare Beccaria
(Based off of Bentham)
- we need a legal system in which all laws are published and fixed (this way people can see whether or not they will seek pain)
- Classical Criminology
Need 3 things:
1) swiftness
2) certainty
3) severity
punishment requires three things (Cesar Beccaria)
Need 3 things:
1) SWIFTNESS: immediate punishment (need to know why they’re being punished)
2) CERTAINTY: all crimes get punished (so people know they won’t get away with it)
3) SEVERITY: punishment must fit the crime (it’ll cause more crime if it does not)
certainty is the most important
Positivist Criminology
Human behavior is caused at least in part by factors outside of our direct control
- biological & sociological
- shift the focus from the crime to the criminal
Ex: Cesare Lombroso (Prenology), Dugdale, twin studies, and adoptive studies
Cesare Lombroso
Practiced Phrenology (based off of Darwins idea that humans have a relation to their more primitive beings)
- The shape of the skull can provide insight into whether or not someone is more likely to be a criminal
~ individuals who display 6+ atavistic stigmata are more likely to be less evolved, and more likely to be criminal (tested on dead prisoners and asylum patients)
~ he was the first to attempt to measure crying
Confirmation bias
You’re only looking for evidence that supports your pre-existing bias
(Lombroso)
Selection bias
Occurs when only a specific group of people are selected
- ex: only incarcerated prisoners
(Lombroso)
Atavistic stigmata
Physical characteristics that suggested an individual to be primitive (atavistic)
- ex: abnormal skull sizes, large jaws, etc.
(Lombroso)
Political economy approach of crime
Recognizes that all things are interconnected
- ex: micro, meso, and macro levels
There are four spheres of influence:
1)Family 2)government 3)religion 4)economy
So many social reforms fail because only one of the four areas are being targeted (microlevel should be at macrolevel)
Freud’s personality theory
Bad things that happened in our childhoods affect our adult lives because there is an imbalance
- 3 parts of the personality:
1) ID: our basic desires
2) SUPEREGO: sense of morality
3) EGO: balance between the two
Crime occurs when there is an imbalance
- when the ID or the SUPEREGO is too strong or when the EGO is too weak
Social learning theory
behavior is learned
- ex: Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura
The Bobo doll experiment
- children are all shown different videos of a doll being hit by an adult
~ those who were not punished and those who received an award were more likely to beat the doll
Differential association
Edwin Sutherland
- crime is learned just like anything else in society
- the knowledge necessary to commit deviant acts are acquired through personal interaction
Tautology
Circular argument
Correlation
A relation
- does not mean it is a cause
Causation
A and B are connected; something caused something else
Disproportionately
More than we would’ve predicted based on the starting point (distorted)
Ex: if 100 students were surveyed (50 male and 50 female) and 10 got A’s, you would assume 5 males and 5 females, but if it were 9 females and 1 male, it would be disproportionate
Age crime occurred
Crime is more likely to be acted by unsupervised peer groups & young adults
- typically happens between the ages of 13 to 24 (they’re disproportionately arrested)
Twin studies
Studies have always had a small sample sizes and only look at males
- 1st Study: when 1 identical twin has a known criminal history, 77% of the other twins also has a criminal history
- 2nd Study: identical twins are more likely to have a similar criminal history rather than fraternal twins (lower coordinates rate)
Adoption studies
The objective was to isolate genetics from the environment
- it showed that children were more likely to commit crimes if both their adoptive & biological parent also had a criminal background, they were more likely to commit crimes if the biological parent was a criminal and the adoptive parent was not
- All minor offenses*
