Chapter 3 Defining and Measuring Crime

Learning Objective 1 Discuss the primary goals of civil law and criminal law and explain how these goals are realized

Learning Objective 1 Civil Law Criminal Law Civil court is concerned with responsibility The burden of proof is preponderance of the evidence The remedy for violations of civil law is compensation Criminal Law Criminal court is concerned with guilt The burden of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt The remedy for violations is some form of punishment

Learning Objective 1 Felonies Misdemeanors More serious or atrocious than misdemeanors Punishable by death or imprisonment in a penitentiary for a period of a year or longer Misdemeanors Less serious crimes Punishable by a fine and or incarceration in a local jail for up to one year

Learning Objective 2 Explain the differences between crimes mala in se and mala prohibita

Learning Objective 2 Mala in Se Mala Prohibita Acts that are inherently wrong, regardless of whether they are prohibited by law Examples include murder, rape, and theft Mala Prohibita Acts that are made illegal by criminal statute and are not necessarily wrong in and of themselves Examples include speeding and loitering

Learning Objective 3 Identify the publication in which the FBI reports crime data and list the three ways in which the data are reported

Discussion Questions What is the UCR most commonly used for? What types of crimes are the most prevalent?

Video: Violent Crime

Learning Objective 3 The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) Produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Includes data collected from 17,500 policing agencies each year, including: Number of arrests. Number of crimes reported. Number of officers.

Learning Objective 4 Distinguish between Part I and Part II offenses as defined by the Uniform Crime Report

Learning Objective 4 Part I Offenses: Part II Offenses: Violent Crimes Property Crimes Part II Offenses: Includes all crimes that do not fall into the category of Part I offenses. Measured only by arrest data. Occur five times more often than Part I offenses.

Learning Objective 5 Describe some of the shortcomings of UCR as a crime measuring tool

Learning Objective 5 Criticisms of the UCR include: Discretionary Distortions Crime unreported by citizens Crime underreported by police Clearance Distortions Variations in the law NIBRS

Learning Objective 6 Distinguish between the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and self-reported surveys

Learning Objective 6 Victim Surveys are a method of gathering crime where citizens are surveyed directly regarding their criminal victimizations. Victim surveys attempt to uncover the dark figure of crime. Self-report surveys ask respondents to tell about their criminal activities. Reliability is an issue. Self-report surveys are also an attempt to measure the dark figure of crime.

Learning Objective 7 Identify the three factors most often used by criminologists to explain increases and declines in the nation’s crime rate

Learning Objective 7 The “usual suspects” of crime fluctuation: Imprisonment Youth populations The economy

Learning Objective 8 Explain why issues of race and ethnicity tend to be overstated when it comes to trends

Discussion Questions How has the diversification of prison guards effected the prison population? What demographic were prison officers most typically from?

Video: Nightline: Corrections

Learning Objective 8 Crime, Race and Poverty: In general, poor people and minorities commit more crimes and are more often the victims of crimes, than wealthier people and whites

Learning Objective 9 Discuss the prevailing explanation for the rising number of women incarcerated in the United States

Learning Objective 9 Women and Crime: Crime is a predominantly male activity, however female offending rates are steadily increasing Explanations include Adler’s “liberation hypothesis” and the “get-tough” on crime movement