Test Flashcards
Learn
The rules, habits, and customs a society uses to enforce conformity to its norms.
Social Control
The violation of the laws of a society by a person or a group of people who are subject to the laws of that society.
Crime
The administering of punishment or reward in accordance with morals that a given society considers to be correct.
Justice
A social institution that has the mission of controlling crime by detecting, detaining, adjudication, and punishing and/or rehabilitating people who break the law.
Criminal Justice
When law enforcement detains and holds a criminal suspect or suspects.
Arrest
The idea that the must look beyond the obvious to evaluate how our social location influences how we perceive society.
Sociological Imagination
The suspension of all or part of a sentence subject to certain conditions and supervision in the community.
Probation
To administer a legal process of judging and to pronounce a judgment.
Adjudication
The conditional release of a prison inmate who has served part of a sentence and who remains under the court’s control.
Parole
A model proposed by legal scholar Herbert L. Packer to describe the public’s expectation of a just and fair criminal justice system.
Due Process Model
A model proposed by legal scholar Herbert L. Packer to describe the public’s expectation of an efficient criminal justice system.
Crime Control Model
The power of a criminal justice official to make decisions on issues within legal guidelines.
Discretion
Small-scale, personal offenses such as single-victim homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, and vandalism.
Street Crime
Governmental policy aimed at reducing the sale and use of illegal drugs.
War on Drugs
Offenses committed by a corporation’s officers who pursue illegal activity in the corporation’s name.
Corporate Crime
A nonviolent criminal offense committed during the course of business for financial gain.
White-Collar Crime
A form of theft in which an offender takes possessions that do not belong to him or her with the intent of keeping them.
Larceny
Any willful or malicious burning or attempt to burn a dwelling, public building, motor vehicle, aircraft, or personal property of another.
Arson
Breaking into and entering a structure or vehicle with intent to commit a felony or a theft.
Burglary
The taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.
Robbery
A minor criminal offense punishable by a fine and/or jail time for up to one year.
Misdemeanor
An offense punishable by a sentence of more than a year in state or federal prison and sometimes by death.
Felony
Sexual contact that is committed without the other party’s consent or whit a party who is not capable of giving consent.
Sexual Assault
Sexual activity, usually sexual intercourse, that is forced on another person without his or her consent, usually under threat of harm. Also, sexual activity conducted with a person who is incapable of valid consent.
Rape
The murder of a series of victims during three or more separate events over an extended period of time.
Serial Murder
The murder of three or more people in a single incident.
Mass Murder
The use or threat of violence against a state or other political entity in order to coerce.
Terrorism
Behavior that are deemed undesirable because they offend community standards rather than directly harm people or property.
Victimless Crime
A term describing crime that is unreported and never quantified.
Dark Figure of Crime
An annual publication by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that uses data from all participating law enforcement agencies in the United States to summarize the incidence and rate of reported crimes.
Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
The number of crime index offenses divided by the population of an area, usually given as a rate of crimes per 100,000 people.
Crime Rate
When more than one criminal offense is committed in a given incident, but only the offense that is highest on the hierarchy list is reported to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.
Hierarchy Rule
A crime-reporting system in which each separate offense in a crime is described, including data describing the offender(s), victim(s), and property.
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
A survey that is the primary source of information on criminal victimization in the United States and attempts to measure that extent of crime by interviewing crime victims.
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
Research in which individuals are asked about criminal offenses they have committed, even those they have never been arrested for or charged with.
Self-Report Study
“(A) person that has suffered direct physical, emotional, or pecuniary harm as a result of the commission of a crime.”
Victim
A situation in which a crime victim plays an active role in initiating a crime or escalating it.
Victim Precipitation
An account given by the victim, the victim’s family, or others affected by the offense that expresses the effects of the offense, including economic losses, the extent of physical or psychological injuries, and major life changes.
Victim-Impact Statement
In the context of criminal justice, the government cannot punish any individual without strict adherence to clear, fair, and defined rules, laws, and procedures.
Rule of Law
An ancient code instituted by Hammurabi, a ruler of Babylonia, dealing with criminal and civil matters.
Code of Hammurabi
“Great Charter”; a guarantee of liberties signed by King John of England in 1215 that influenced many modern legal and constitutional principles.
Magna Carta
An order to have a prisoner/detainee brought before the court to determine if it is legal to hold the prisoner/detainee.
Habeas Corpus
Laws that are based on customs and general principles and that may be used as precedent or for matters not addressed by statute.
Common Law
The type of law that is enacted by legislatures, as opposed to common law.
Statutory Law
A prior legal decision used as a basis for deciding a later, similar case.
Precedent
The doctrine under which courts adhere to legal precedent.
Stare Decisis
The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantee fundamental rights and privileges to citizens.
Bill or Rights
A law enacted by a legislature.
Statute
A code of laws that deals with crimes and the punishments for them.
Penal Code
The published decisions of courts that create new interpretations of the law and can be cited as precedent.
Case Law
The law specifying the prosecution by the government of a person or people for an act that has been classified as a criminal offense.
Criminal Law
An area of the law that deals with civil acts that cause harm and injury, including libel, slander, assault, trespass, and negligence.
Tort Law
Prosecution of a defendant in the same jurisdiction for an offense for which the defendant has already been prosecuted and convicted or acquitted.
Double Jeopardy
The burden of proof in a civil trial, which requires that more than 50 percent of the evidence be in the plaintiff’s favor.
Preponderance of the evidence
The highest level of proof required to win a case; necessary in criminal cases to procure a guilty verdict.
Beyond a reasonable doubt
Law that describes which behaviors have been defined as criminal offense.
Substantive Law
An offense composed of acts necessary to commit another offense.
Inchoate Offense
“Guilty deed”; the physical action of a criminal offense.
Actus Reus
“Guilty mind”; intent or knowledge to break the law.
Mens Rea
The coexistence of actus reus and mens rea
Concurrence
“Body of the crime”; the criminal offense.
Corpus Delicti
Additional conditions that define a given criminal offense.
Attendant Circumstance
In most jurisdictions, a minor civil offense that is not serious enough to warrant curtailing an offender’s freedom.
Infraction
Responsibility for a criminal offense without intention to break the law.
Strict Liability
A defense in which the defendant must provide evidence that excuses the legal consequences of an act that the defendant has been proven to have committed.
Affirmative Defense
A defense that involves the defendant(s) claiming not to have been at the scene of a criminal offense when it was committed.
Alibi
A defense that attempts to give physical or psychological reasons that a defendant cannot comprehend his or her criminal actions, their harms(s), or their punishment.
Insanity Defense
In legal terminology, the state of a child who has not yet reached a specific age; almost all states end infancy at age 18.
Infancy
Sexual activity conducted with a person who is younger than a specified age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental handicap, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception.
Statutory Rape
The use of extreme means by law enforcement to pressure someone to break the law.
Entrapment
