Chapter Five

Key Terms:

1.  Conspiracy:  Agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or to carry out a legal act in an illegal manner.

2.  White-collar crimes:  Crimes of fraud, crimes against publice administration, and regulatory offenses that are usually carried out during the course of a legitimate occupation.

3.  Crimes of fraud:  Embezzlement, extortion, forgery, and fraud.

4.  Crimes against public administration:  Attempts to impede government processes through bribery, obstruction of justice, official misconduct, or perjury.

5.  Regulatory offenses:  Attempts to circumvent regulations designed to ensure fairness and safety in the conduct of business, include administrative, environmental, labor, and manufacturing voilations as well as unfair trade practices.

6.  Embezzlement:  The purposeful misappropration of property entrusted to one's care, custody, or control to which one is not entitled.

7.  Extortion:  Purposely obtaining property from another person without consent through wrongful use of force or fear or under the guise of official authority.

8.  Forgery:  Falsely making or altering an official document with the intent to defraud.

9.  Fraud:  Purposely obtaining the property of another person through deception.

10.  Bribery:  Voluntary giving or receiving anything of value with the intent of influencing the action of a public official.

11.  Obstruction of justice:  Intentionally preventing a public servant from lawfully perorming an official function.

12.  Official misconduct:  The unauthorized exercise of an official function by a public official with intent to benefit or injure another.

13.  Perjury:  Making a false statement under oath in an official proceeding.

14.  Corporate crimes:  Dangerous or unjust actions in the conduct of business prompted by the desire for profits.  Sames as regulatory offenses.

15.  Computer crimes:  Crimes in which computers are used as the instrument of the offense, and crimes in which computer are the object of the offense.

16.  Identity fraud:  Manufacture and use of false identification and credit cards based on personal information stolen without the victim's knowledge.

17.  Organized crime:  A continuing enterprise that rationally works to profit from illicit activities that are often in great public demand.  its continuing existence is maintained through the use of force, threats, monopoly control, and/or the corruption of public officials.

18.  Racketeering:  An ongoing criminal enterprise that is maintained through a pattern of criminal activity.

19.  Money Laudering:  A methof of "washing" illegally obtained money (e.g. from drugs or gamboing proceeds) by making it appearas if the money were earned legally as part of a legitimate business.

20.  Crime Syndicate:  A system of loosely structured relationshhpis among groups and individuals involved in organiized crime.

21.  Transnational Crime:  Organized crime that takes place across two or more countries.

22.  Terrorism:  Offenses designed to intimidate or coerce a government or civilians in furtherance of political or social objectives.

23.  Hate crimes:  Offenses motivated by prejudice, usually aginst a particular race, religion, or sexual orientation.

Questions for review and Discussion:

1.  What characteristics are common to all types of sophisticated crimes?

      It would be the sophisticated economic and political crimes.

2.  What factors must be present for conspiracy to be establised?  When tow or more persons agree to commit a crime or to carry out a legal act in an illegal manner.  Then it is essentiallly preparation or planning to commit a crime.

3.  What are the three main types of white-collar crimes? Crimes of fraud, crimes against public administation and regulatory offenses.  Give an example of each.  Crimes of fraud have money as their object and include embezzlement extortion, forgery and fraud.  Crimes against public administration attempt to impede government process.  These include bribery, obstruction of justice, official misconduct, and perjury.  Regulatory offenses are biolations that circumvent measures designed to protect public health, safety or welfare in business, industry, and government.

4.  Why is there reason to believe that white-collar crime will increase in the future?  It would be the employment trends.

5.  In what kinds of crimes are computers the instrument? Theft of embezzlement, fraud or larceny.   In what kinds are computers the object?  When the intention is to cause damage to computer hardware or software.

6.  What is organized crime? It is a continuing criminal enterprise that rationally works to profit from illicit activities that are often in great public demand.

7.  Give examples of each of the three basic types of organized crime.  Provision of illicit services, provision of illicit goods, and infiltration of legitimate business. 

8.  What connection, of any, is there between organized crime and ethnicity?  A crime syndicate that is a system of loosely structured relationships functioning primarily because each participant is interested in furthering his owm welfare.

9.  What are some major types of international crime?  It would be conspiracy, racketeering ans extortion.

10.  How is transnational drug smuggling carried out? By recruiting with someone who may work for airlines.

11. What is the distinction between terrorism and hate crimes?  A terrorism crime is offenses designed to intimidate or coerce a government or civillain in furtherance of political or social objectives where as hate crimes is offenses motivated by prejudice, usually against a particular race, religion or sexual orientation.

Chapter Four:

Keyterms:

1.      National Violence Against Women- Interviews a national sample of 16,000 men and women regarding the circumstances of crime against women.

2.     Intimate partner violence- Physical assaults between current or former spouses, boyfriends, or girlfriends.

3.      Crime profiling- Analysis of criminal incidents to isolate the precise characteristics of offenders, victims, and situations in order to understand and prevent crime.

4.     Offender profiles- examination of offender backgrounds to look for common patterns.

5.      Victim profiles- Examination of a large number of similar criminal incidents to find patterns in the types of persons who are victimized under certain circumstances.

6.     Crime scene profiles- Examination of the circumstances surrounding criminal incidents in a search for patterns associated with criminal offending.

Questions for Review

1.      Where does information about the nature of criminal incidents come from? The nature of criminal incidents comes from Crime Profiling which involves analyzing any criminal incidents to characterize the offenders, victims, and situation.

2.     How does age affect rates of offending and victimization in the United States? With age, the younger kids tend to get victimize more because they are weaker and they will more likely not to report the incidents than the older people. Offenders, 46 percent are under the age of 25.

3.     

How does gender affect rates of offending and victimization? 82 percent are men and 24 percent are women who make up the arrest of offenders in the United States. Hence, men are more likely to commit very serious crime than women.

4.     What does research show about offenders and their victims in instances of violent crime? Research shows that Offenders tend to victimize people that are in the same race and ethnicity.

5.      How common or rare is intimate partner violence in the United States, and who are the victims? Intimate partner violence is a growing problem usually victimizes the women. Approximately 1 million violent crimes are committed yearly.

6.     How do male and female offenders differ in their crimes? Female-female violence occurs in about 75 percent and male-male violence occurs 70 percent of the time. Females are more likely to victimize people they know with 60 percent, and only 44 percent of males knew their victims.

7.      How do rates of offending and victimization vary by race and ethnicity? 70 percent of all crimes are white and 27 percent are black. Offenders are more likely to victimize people that are in the same race and ethnicity as they are; for example, Hispanic people are more likely to attack other Hispanic people because of their environment, including the people they are with or gangs.

8.     How common or rare is race-based crime in the United States, and who are the victims? Race-based crime is very common in the United States, most victims are the people that are in their same race or sometimes mistaken to be in the same race.

9.     What is the influence of income on the risk of victimization? The people with higher in income are less likely to be victimized and lower income people tend to be victimized much more because of the neighbor they live in.

10.    What kinds of profiling can help in the prevention of crime? Crime profiling such as behavioral profiling which focuses on characterizing offenders and victims and crime scene profiling help assess the physical and condition of the situation.

Chapter Three: Defining and Measuring Crime

Keyterms:


1. Crimes against persons: violent crimes involving the use of physical force. 
2. Crimes against property: crimes in which property is taken unlawfully and misused.
3.Crimes against public order: acts that disrupt the peace in a civil society.
4.Criminal homicide: murder or manslaughter.
5. Murder: all intentional killings, as well as deaths that occur in the course of dangerous felonies.
6. Manslaughter: a mitigated murder: cause a death recklessly or intentionally under extenuating circumstances.
7. Negligence: failure to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk.
8. Gross negligence: failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk when such failure is a gross deviation from the standard of care a reasonable person would observe. 
9. Rape: sexual intercourse without effective consent 
10. Sexual assault: forced sex, whether vaginal, anal, or oral.
11. Statutory rape: nonforcible sexual intercourse with a minor.
12. Simple assault: a thrust against another person with the intention of injuring that person.
13. Aggravated assault: a thrust against another person with the intention to cause serious bodily harm or death.
14.  Robbery: theft from a person using threats or force.
15.  Burglary: unlawful entry into a building in order to commit a crime while inside.
16.  Larceny: taking property of another person with the intent of depriving the owner.
17.  Arson: burning property of another without the lawful consent of the owner.
18.  Uniform Crime Reports: an annual compilation by the FBI of all crimes reported to the police in the United States.
19.  Crime rates: the number of crimes committed divided by the population at risk. This proved an indication of the risk of victimization per capita.
20.  Personal risk: an individual’s risk of being a victim of crime; determined through calculation of crime rates in relation to population.
21.  National Crime Victimization Survey: a representative sample of the U.S. population is surveyed annually to determine the extent of victimization and the extent to which these incidents were reported to the police.
22.  National Incident-Based Reporting System: data collection program designed to gather information on victims, perpetrators, and circumstances of crime.
23.  National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: self-report study investigating the extent of delinquency among young people.

Questions for Review and Discussion:


1. Recklessness is defined as conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk. Negligence is the failure to be aware of substantial and unjustifiable risk.


2. The circumstance in which intentional killings is punished as manslaughter rather than as murder is when drunk drivers kill someone because they caused death recklessly. 


3. Simple assault is distinguished form aggravated assault by the nature of the offender’s intent. With simple assault, the person’s intentions are to just to injure them, while aggravated assault the person’s intentions are to cause serious harm or death to them.


4. The difference between larceny and robbery is that with robbery, you are threatening the person or forcing them while larceny, you are depriving the owner.


5. The Uniform Crime Report presents an incomplete picture of true extent of crime because it only collects information on offenses known to the police because not all crimes are reported.


6. The advantage that the National Crime Victimization has over the UCR is that it asks that people to report the crimes anonymously, it includes information about each crime victim’s age, sex, race. Victimization surveys also provide a more complete picture of the risk posed by crime than do UCR data, because they count both reported crimes and those not reported to police.


7. The most common types of crime are: rape, robbery, aggravated assault, household burglary, larceny from the person, household larceny, and motor vehicle theft.


8. The reasons people give for not reporting crimes to the police are because some victims may fear embarrassment, public disclosure, or interrogation by the police. They may know the offender and may not want to inform the police of his or her identity, or a victim may feel that what was stolen was is not worth the effort to get the police involved.


9. The offenders and are more likely to be young because crimes involve force and or stealth and the younger generation are strong and agile. The victims are more likely to be young because they stay out late at night more than the older generations do.

Chapter Two: The Nature and Causes of Crime.

Keyterms:

1.     Norms – social expectations about what constitutes appropriate behavior under different circumstances

2.     Deviance – violation of a social norm

3.     Mala in se – acts considered evil in themselves (assault)

4.     Mala prohibita – acts considered undesirable although not inherently evil (drug use)

5.     Offenses against morality – acts considered undesirable (adultery)

6.     Political crimes – acts viewed as a threat to the government (espionage)

7.     Regulatory offenses – activities of a business or corporation that are viewed as a threat to public health, safety, or welfare

8.     Overcriminalization – blurring the distinction between crime and merely inappropriate or offensive behaviors

9.     Legalization – legislative decision to remove a prohibited behavior from the criminal law

10.  Classical school – a perspective in criminalizing that sees crime as resulting from the conscious exercise of an individual’s free will

11.  Positivism – the perspective in criminology that sees human behavior as determined by internal and external influences, such as biological, psychological, and/or social factors

12.  Ethical view – the perspective that sees crime as a moral failure in decision making

13.  Structural/conflict view – the perspective that sees the criminal law as reflecting the will of those in power, and behaviors that threaten the interests of the powerful are punished most severely

14.  Biological determinism – positivists who see the roots of criminal behavior in biological attributes

15.  Psychoanalytic theory – Freudian theory that sees behavior as resulting from the interaction of the three components of the personality: id, ego, and superego

16.  Cognitive theory – view that behavior results from habits of thought and interpretations of reality

17.  Differential association – theory that a person becomes criminal or delinquent when he or she associates more with people who condone violation of the law than with people who do not

18.  Blocked opportunity – theory that crime results from lack of access to legitimate means for achieving goals

19.  Criminal subcultures – different forms of deviance that result when youths cease to adhere to middle-class standards and become part of the adult criminal, conflict, or retreatist subculture

20.  Labeling theory – view that adjudicating a juvenile as a delinquent encourages future delinquency through a negative public identity or changed self-image

21.  Social bond – individual’s attachment to society, including attachments to others, commitment to conventional activities, involvement in those activities, and belief in widely shared moral values

22.  Rational choice theories – theories that examine how circumstances affect criminal thinking to explain why offenders commit crimes in some situations but not in others

23.  Routine activities theory – the theory that sees criminal events as the result of a combination of a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian to intervene

24.  Gun control – regulation of gun manufacturers, buyers, and sellers in an effort to minimize gun-related crimes

Questions For Review and Dicussion:

1.     Deviance is defined as a violation of the social norm. The difference between criminal and deviant behavior is that criminal behavior is lawfully unacceptable to society and deviant is unaccepted because it is inappropriate.

2.     Thoughts and deeds enter the definition of crime because thoughts alone do not pose a threat to society unless they are turned into actions do they pose a threat on society.

3.     The three types of mala prohibita offenses are crimes without victims, political offenses, and regulatory offenses.  These offenses differ from mala in se offenses because mala prohibita offenses are voluntarily, go against unjust government, and they violate the public’s well being and mala in se offenses against others.

4.     Some examples of over criminalization of behavior are prohibition, gambling, and marijuana.

5.     The four main views which crime is explained are classical, positivistic, ethical, and structural.

6.     Some arguments for biological and psychological determinism is that biological abnormalities and losing of the id help investigators solve crimes and reasons why.  Some arguments against biological and psychological determinism is that if people are able to think of a crime or act and do the deed then there is more than a biological and psychological reason to the crime.  There are also social theories that can explain crime.

7.     Differential Association is when a person becomes criminal or delinquent when they associate with people who condone violation of the law.  Blocked opportunity is when a person has a lack of access to legitimate means for achieving goals.  Labeling is when juveniles encourage future delinquencies through negative public views and changed self image.  Social bonding is when an individual attaches to a society or activities, or widely shared moral values.

8.     Rational-choice account for criminal behavior through routine activities by having a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian to intervene.  Gender-based theories account for criminal behavior when it deals with male and female work positions, economic opportunities, and social class.

9.     Guns, alcohol, and drugs are concerns in the battle against crime because they are the leading causes of violence and all are illegal unless you are able to obtain certain guns, alcohol, and drugs legally.

Chapter One

       Majority of the human race lacks personal experience with serious crimes. Since serious crimes are relatively rare, most people’s experience with crime is largely petty thefts and burglary. There is competition for viewers, listeners, and readers among these sources, so media outlets tend to spotlight extreme and dramatic cases in order to generate public interest. A Gallup poll on crime shows how a single event shapes public perceptions. Stories featured on network news have been shown to disproportionately focus on violent crimes, something that is attributed to competition for viewers and the public’s interest in crime news. Having this exposure so violent crimes through the news results in public demand for solutions.

          Politicians are elected officials who must appear responsive to the public’s wishes, and media images of crime thus shape their action as well. Crime is portrayed in terms of dramatic incidents that heighten the public’s desire to “fix” the problem, politicians are often quick to oblige. Cases of sensational crimes have led to the passage of laws that are often named after specific crime victims.  Politicians often shape crime news to match their political ideology. If crime is portrayed as part of a larger social problem, solutions require major investments to change.

          Crime and other life events explains the chances of an individual being hurt in an accident, being stuck my lightening, and those dying of cancer. On That’s a Fact, the top thirteen deaths are: heart disease, cancer, stroke, lung disease, all accidents, diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer’s disease, pneumonia and flu, kidney disease, blood poisoning, suicide, liver disease, and hypertension. The ranking of various causes of deaths have shifted generally downward as public health has improved. The decrease in rates of death from heart disease, cancer, pneumonia and flu, and liver disease are largely due to changes in the lifestyle, exercise habits, and diet of the U.S. citizens over the last two decades.

          Effects of fear did a Gallop poll asking, “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” People replied with international problems, racial problems, high cost of living, unemployment, or too much government control. Then in 2006 the same question was asked again and Middle East/Iraq war, immigration/illegal aliens, health care, political corruption and failed leadership, energy prices, the economy in general, terrorism, and poverty and unemployment was what people replied with. The public’s general concerns about crime result in apprehension and fear. A Gallup poll found that half of Americans described the nation’s crime problem as either “extremely” or “very” serious. Every time a Gallup conducts a poll, crime has been the number one or two local concern every time.