Chapter 2 Crime and Its Consequences

A Legal Definition
A legal definition of crime is used in criminal justice in the United States.

A Legal Definition
Some behaviors prohibited by criminal law should not be. Overcriminalization arises in victimless crimes:
Gambling Prostitution involving consenting adults Homosexual acts between consenting adults Use of some illegal drugs, such as marijuana

A Legal Definition
For some behaviors prohibited by criminal law, the law is not routinely enforced. Nonenforcement is common for:
White-collar crimes Government crimes Victimless crimes Minor crimes
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Nonenforcement causes disrespect for the law.

A Legal Definition
Behaviors that some people think should be prohibited by criminal law are not. This is undercriminalization.
undercriminalization
The failure to prohibit some behaviors that arguably should be prohibited.

Elements of Crime
Technically and ideally, a crime has not been committed unless the following elements are present:
Harm Legality Actus reus Mens rea Causation Concurrence Punishment

A Legal Definition
For crime to occur, there must be harm, either physical or verbal.
Thinking about committing a crime is not a crime. A verbal threat to strike another person is a crime.

harm
The external consequence required to make an action a crime.
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Legality
Legality has two aspects:
The harm must be legally forbidden A criminal law must not be ex post facto.

Actus Reus
Actus reus requires actual criminal conduct, or criminal negligence:
If parents fail to provide food, clothing, and shelter for their children, they are committing a crime.

Mens Rea
Mens rea refers to the mental aspect of crime.
Criminal conduct usually refers to intentional action or inaction. Sometimes, negligence or reckless action can be criminal.

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mens rea
Criminal intent; a guilty state of mind.

negligence
The failure to take reasonable precautions to prevent harm.

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Mens Rea Legal Defenses

In the United States, an offender is not considered responsible or is considered less resp. if he or she:

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Acted under duress Was underage Was insane Acted in self-defense or defense of a third party Was entrapped Acted out of necessity

Causation
In order for a crime to be a legal crime, there must be a causal relationship between the legally forbidden harm and the actus reus. The criminal act must lead directly to the harm without a long delay.

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Concurrence
There must be concurrence between the actus reus and the mens rea; the criminal conduct and the criminal intent must occur together.

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Punishment
For a behavior to be considered a crime, there must be a statutory provision for punishment or at least the threat of punishment.

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Degrees or Categories of Crime

Crimes can be distinguished by degree or severity of the offense by being divided into:

Feloniessevere crimes Misdemeanorsless severe crimes

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Degrees or Categories of Crime

Another way of distinguishing crime is between:
Mala in se
Rape Murder

Mala prohibita
Trespassing Gambling Prostitution

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mala in se
Wrong in themselves. A description applied to crimes that are characterized by universality and timelessness.

mala prohibita
Offenses that are illegal because laws define them as such. They lack universality and timelessness.

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The Measurement of Crime

What Americans know about crime is, by and large, based on statistics supplied by government agencies.

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Crime Statistics
Statistics about crime and delinquency are probably the most unreliable and most difficult of all social statistics.
Behavior may be wrongly labeled. Crimes go undetected. Crimes are sometimes not reported to police. Crimes may be inaccurately recorded by police. Statistics do not include the dark figure of crime.
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dark figure of crime

The number of crimes not officially recorded by the police.

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Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

One of the primary sources of crime statistics in the United States is the uniform crime reports.
Today more than 17,000 city, county, and state law enforcement agencies (representing 95 percent of the U.S. population) are active in the program.

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Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

The UCR includes two major indexes:
Offenses known to the police Statistics about persons arrested

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Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

Offenses known to the police include eight index crimes. Only about 35% of crimes, on average, are reported to the police.
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eight index crimes

The Part I offenses in the FBIs Uniform Crime Reports.

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Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter Forcible rape Larceny-theft Robbery Motor vehicle theft Aggravated assault Arson Burglary

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

The other major crime index in the UCR is based on arrest statistics, provided for the eight index crimes as well as 21 other crimes and status offenses.
status offenses
An act that is illegal for a juvenile but would not be a crime if committed by an adult.
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Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

The UCR also includes statistics on crime index offenses cleared by the police, which is a rough index of police performance in solving crimes.
Murder 70% Rape 50% Robbery 25% Agg. Assault 60% 27 20% of all Index crimes Burglary 15% Larceny 20% MVT 15% Arson 15%

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

The NIBRS is the result of a joint task force of the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI aimed at improving the quality of information contained in the UCR. The NIBRS contains more data on more crimes than the UCR.
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National Crime Victimization Surveys (NCVS)

The other major source of crime statistics in the U.S. is the National Crime Victimization Surveys. For nearly all offenses, the NCVS shows more crimes being committed than the UCR, because of victims failure to report crimes or failure by police to report crimes to the FBI.
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national crime victimization surveys

A source of crime statistics based on interviews in which respondents are asked whether they have been victims of any of the FBIs index offenses (except murder and nonnegligent manslaughter and arson) or other crimes during the past six months. If they have, they are asked to provide information about the experience.

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Self-Report Crimes
Self-report crime surveys ask selected subjects (often high school students) whether they have committed crimes.
Examples: The National Youth Survey The National Institute on Drug Abuse effort to ascertain levels of smoking, drinking and drug use among high school students
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Who the Victims Are

Victimization is not spread evenly through the U.S. population. The most likely victims of violent crime are
Younger (age 12-24) Never married, divorced, or separated Poor Minority Urban residents Men Living in the West or Midwest

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Who the Victims Are

The majority of men (55%) were victimized by strangers. The majority of women (68%) were victimized by someone they knew.

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