Crime and Its Consequences

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Chapter 2
Crime and Its Consequences
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CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
After completing this chapter, you should be able
to

• Distinguish between a social definition and a
  legal definition of crime, and summarize the
  problems with each.
• List the technical and ideal elements of a crime.
• Identify some of the legal defenses or legal
  excuses for criminal responsibility.
• Explain why crime and delinquency statistics are
  unreliable.

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• Identify the two major sources of crime
  statistics in the United States.
• Describe the principal finding of the national
  crime victimization surveys.
• Summarize the general finding of self-report
  crime surveys.
• Identify the costs of crime.
• Describe the extent of fear of crime in the
  United States and the characteristics of people
  most likely to fear crime.
• List the characteristics of people who are the
  most likely and the least likely to be victims of
  crime.

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2.1 Definitions of Crime

• An appropriate definition of crime remains a
  critical unresolved issue in criminal justice.

• Many dangerous and harmful behaviors are not
  crimes.
• Many less dangerous or harmful behaviors are
  crimes.

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Social Definitions

• A typical social definition of crime is behavior
  that violates the norms of society. Unfortunately

• Norms vary from group to group.
• Norms are subject to interpretation.
• Norms change from time to time and place to place.

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norms
Any standard or rule regarding what human beings
should or should not think, say, or do under
given circumstances.
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JUSTICE ISSUE

• A factory owner kept fire exits locked, in
  violation of safety standards and despite
  repeated warnings by safety inspectors the
  workers were killed in a fire when they were
  trapped in the locked building.
• Do you think the owner committed murder? Why or
  why not?

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A Legal Definition
A legal definition of crime is used in criminal
justice in the United States.
A legal definition of crime is less ambiguous
than a social definition.
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legal definition
According to a typical legal definition, crime is
an intentional violation of the criminal law or
penal code, committed without defense or excuse
and penalized by the state.
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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

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overcriminalization
The prohibition by criminal law of some behaviors
that arguably should not be prohibited.
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JUSTICE ISSUE
Do you think victimless crimes are truly
victimless?
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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
• Blue laws that require stores to be closed on
  Sunday
• Nonenforcement causes disrespect for the law.

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nonenforcement
The failure to routinely enforce prohibitions
against certain behaviors.
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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.
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Elements of Crime
Technically and ideally, a crime has not been
committed unless the following elements are
present

• Causation
• Concurrence
• Punishment

• Harm
• Legality
• Actus reus
• Mens rea

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JUSTICE ISSUE
Do you think the government has a legal
responsibility to feed all the hungry, guarantee
adequate housing for all who are homeless, and
provide medical care to everyone? Should it be a
crime for the government not to do any of these
things?
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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.

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ex post facto
A law that (1) declares criminal an act that was
not illegal when it was committed, (2) increases
the punishment for a crime after it is committed,
or (3) alters the rules of evidence in a
particular case after the crime is committed.
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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.

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actus reus
Criminal conductspecifically, intentional or
criminally negligent (reckless) action or
inaction that causes harm.
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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
In the United States, an offender is not
considered responsible if he or she

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

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Mens Rea
If a person did not want to commit a crime, but
was forced to do so against his will, he
committed the crime under duress.
duress
Force or coercion as an excuse for committing a
crime.
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Mens Rea
Generally, a child under age 7 is not responsible
for criminal acts.
In most states, youth under age 18 are not
considered entirely responsible for their
criminal acts they have committed juvenile
delinquency.
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JUSTICE ISSUE
At what age should children who commit crimes be
considered adults for legal purposes?
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Mens Rea
Insanity is a legal term that rests on the
assumption that someone who is insane at the time
of a crime lacks the capacity to form mens rea.
insanity
Mental or psychological impairment or retardation
as a defense against a criminal charge.
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MYTH
FACT
The availability of an insanity defense allows
dangerous offenders to escape conviction and go
free.
First, defendants found not guilty by reason of
insanity rarely go free. Generally, they are
confined to a mental institution until they are
deemed by the committing court or some other
judicial body to be sane or no longer dangerous.
continued
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continued
FACT
Second, there are about 300 insanity pleas per
year in the entire United States. That number
represents approximately 0.1 of all felony
complaints in a year.
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Mens Rea
Generally, people are relieved of criminal
responsibility if they use only the amount of
force reasonably necessary in self-defense or
defense of a third party.
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Mens Rea
People are generally considered not responsible
or less responsible for their crimes if they
committed the crime through entrapment.
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entrapment
A legal defense against criminal responsibility
when a law enforcement officer or his or her
agent has induced someone to commit a crime who
was not already predisposed to committing it.
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Mens Rea
A necessity defense can be used when an act was
committed with mens rea but under specific
extenuating circumstances.
necessity defense
A legal defense against criminal responsibility
that is used when a crime has been committed to
prevent a greater or more serious crime.
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CRITICAL THINKING
Why doesnt the law recognize economic necessity
as a defense or an excuse for criminal
responsibility? Do you think it should?
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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 prohibita
Mala in se

• Trespassing
• Gambling
• Prostitution

• Rape
• Murder

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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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2.2 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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Crime Statistics

• Any record of crimes can be considered at most a
  crime index.

• Probably the best index of crime is offenses
  known to the police.

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crime index
An estimate of crimes committed.
offenses known to the police
A crime index, reported in the FBIs uniform
crime reports, composed of crimes that are both
reported to and recorded by the police.
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Crime Rates

• When crime indices are compared, it is usually by
  crime rate.

• Crime rates are used because they are more
  comparable.
• Crime rates can change because of demographic
  changes or other factors.

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crime rate
A measure of the incidence of crime expressed as
the number of crimes per unit of population or
some other base.
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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
A collection of crime statistics and other law
enforcement information gathered under a
voluntary national program administered by the
FBI.
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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 includes eight index
crimes.
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eight index crimes

• The Part I offenses in the
• FBIs Uniform Crime Reports.
• Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter
• Forcible rape
• Robbery
• Aggravated assault
• Burglary

• Larceny-theft
• Motor vehicle theft
• Arson

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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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• What the media are usually referring to when they
  report that crime has increased or decreased
  from one year to the next is an increase or
  decrease in the aggregate rate of the eight index
  crimes (that is, the crime index total), not
  the rates of other crimes or the true amount of
  crime.

MYTH
FACT
When the media report that crime has increased
or decreased from one year to the next, they are
generally referring to increases or decreases in
the true amount of crime.
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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.
crime index offenses
The number of offenses for which at least one
person has been arrested, charged with the
commission of the offense, and turned over to the
court for prosecution.
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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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self-report crime surveys
Surveys in which subjects are asked whether they
have committed crimes.
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MYTH
FACT
Early self-report crime surveys of adults found
an enormous amount of hidden crime in the United
States. They found that more than 90 of all
Americans had committed crimes for which they
could have been imprisoned.
Criminal activity is concentrated among certain
groups of people.
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CRITICAL THINKING

• Of the various methods of measuring crime
  presented in this section, which one do you think
  is the most accurate? Why? Which one do you think
  is the least accurate? Why?
• Do you think there are ways to get more victims
  of crime to report criminal incidents? If so,
  what would you suggest?

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2.3 Costs of Crime
The 1998 total economic loss to victims of crime
in the U.S. was 17 billion.

• This includes
• Losses from property theft or damage
• Cash losses
• Medical expenses
• Income lost from work because of injuries
• Police and court-related activities

• This does not include
• The cost of the criminal justice process
• Increased insurance premiums
• Security devices
• Losses to business
• Corporate crime

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Costs of Crime

• When medical costs, lost earnings, and public
  program costs are added, the cost rises to 105
  billion.

• When intangible costs of pain, suffering, and
  reduced quality of life are added, the annual
  cost increases to 450 billion (1,800 per U.S.
  resident).

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CRITICAL THINKING
What would you estimate is the annual cost of
crimes that go unreported?
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2.4 Fear of Crime
Fear of crime can be the most burdensome and
lasting consequence of victimization. Fear of
crime is contagious.
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What People Fear

• 40 percent of Americans are fearful of a specific
  type of crime.
• 80 percent of Americans are fearful of crime in
  general.

There is a greater fear of being a crime victim
in general than of being the victim of a specific
crime.
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When and Where People Fear
Fear of violent crime is greatest at night when a
person is alone and away from home.
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• The people most fearful of crime are not
  necessarily members of groups with the highest
  rates of victimization. For example, the
  demographic group most afraid of crime, female
  senior citizens, is the least likely to be
  victimized.

MYTH
FACT
The people most fearful of crime are the people
most vulnerable to crime.
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CRITICAL THINKING
What steps could be taken, if any, to reduce
peoples overall fear of crime?
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2.5 Victims of Crime
In 1999, a total of 28.8 million crimes were
attempted or completed against U.S. residents
aged 12 or older. This includes

• 7.5 million personal crimes
• 21 million property crimes

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Victimization Trends
The 1999 NCVS data show both property and violent
crime rates decreasing, reaching their lowest
rate since 1973.
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Who the Victims Are
Victimization, like fear, 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
• Black
• Urban residents
• Men
• Living in the West or Midwest

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MYTH
FACT
Adults are more likely to be forcibly raped than
are children.
Girls younger than 18 are the victims of nearly
half the forcible rapes reported to police, even
though the younger the rape victim, the less
likely the crime is to be reported to the police.
Girls younger than 18 make up about 25 of the
U.S. female population.
continued
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continued
FACT
Girls younger than 12 are the victims in about
12 of forcible rapes reported to the police
girls 12 to 17 years of age are the victims of
about one-third of forcible rapes reported to the
police. The younger the victim, the more likely
the attacker is a relative and not a stranger.
More than 80 of forcible rapists are 18 years of
age or older.
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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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CRITICAL THINKING
Why do you think that certain types of people are
more likely to become crime victims than others?
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End of Chapter 2