Crime in America

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Crime in America

• PSCI 2481

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Definitions

• Crime
• Behaviors for which society provides formally
  sanctioned punishment.
• Distinctions among types of crime
• Felony vs. Misdemeanor
• Violent vs. Property
• Victim vs. Victimless
• Blue-Collar vs. White Collar

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How much crime exists? Who keeps track of crime?

• In 1929, the International Chiefs of Police
  Association (IACP) recommended that the Federal
  Bureau of Investigation (FBI) define and maintain
  a national system for gathering crime statistics.

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How much crime exists? Who keeps track of crime?

• In 1930, the FBI created the Uniform Crime Report
  (UCR) system.
• The FBI set up coding rules and tallied the
  statistics reported to it. Local police
  departments were responsible for the actual
  collection of crime data.
• Data collected
• Crime reports taken
• Arrests made
• Cases cleared

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The FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) (An
Official Typology of Crime)

• PART I (The INDEX)
• Violent Crimes
• 1. Homicide
• 2. Rape
• 3. Robbery
• 4. Assault (Aggravated)
• Property Crimes
• 5. Burglary
• 6. Larceny
• 7. Motor Vehicle Theft
• 8. Arson (added in 1978)

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UCR II

• PART II
• Petty Larceny
• Simple Assault
• Vandalism
• Drug Abuse
• Sex Offenses
• Fraud
• Drunkenness
• Disturbing the Peace
• Gambling
• Status Offenses
• Prostitution

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Problems with the UCR

• Its focus is on reported crime. (Why is this a
  problem?)
• The original reports provided no details. All
  crimes were lumped together in a single number.
• It provides no additional information about the
  crime.
• It requires both the local police and citizens to
  cooperate in providing accurate information.

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Problems with the UCR

• Its open to abuse. Agencies responsible for
  reducing crime have an incentive to misreport
  crime.
• It is sensitive to reform in the wrong
  direction. (Better reporting increases the
  reported crime rate.)
• Its biased toward blue collar crime.
• The base for evaluating crime is questionable.
  (NYC auto thefts the crime rate is high if
  were calculating thefts per car or low if were
  reporting thefts per person)

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Does the UCR measure the effectiveness of the
criminal justice system?

• As the number of police increase, what impact do
  we expect theyll have on crime?
• If we put more police out on the streets to
  fight crime, we expect fewer crimes to occur.
• What do we observe?
• As the number of police increase, the number
  of reported crimes increase.

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Alternative Measures of Crime The National
Crime Victimization Survey

• In 1966, the Presidents Commission on Law
  Enforcement and the Administration of Justice
  sponsored surveys of crime victims.
• In 1968, Congress enacted the Omnibus Crime
  Control and Safe Streets Act that created the
  National Criminal Justice Information and
  Statistical Service (NCJISS).

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Alternative Measures of Crime The National
Crime Victimization Survey

• In 1972, NCJISS established the National Crime
  Survey (NCS) to be conducted every 6 months by
  the US Census Bureau. NCS was a survey of 60,000
  households and 39,000 businesses designed to
  measure crime, reported and UN-reported.
• Today the NCS is known as the National Crime
  Victimization Survey (NCVS). The Census Bureau
  conducts interviews with about 134,000 persons
  age 12 and older in 77,200 households twice each
  year about their victimizations from crime.

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Crime What do we do about it?

• Most crime control policies are nonsense.
• Both liberals and conservatives are guilty of
  peddling nonsense about crime and crime control.
• Most crime control policies are based on faith
  rather than the facts.
• -- Samuel Walker

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Philosophical Differences

• Conservatives

• Liberals

• Society survives if/because individuals are
  self-restrained.
• Governments role is to ensure self-restraint and
  deal with the lack of it.
• People are restrained or not as part of basic
  nature.

• Society structures individual actions
• Discrimination, poverty. Lack of opportunity lead
  to anti-social actions
• People can be re-shaped.

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Policy Recommendations

• Conservative

• Liberal

• General
• Punishment (emphasis on certainty and severity)
• Specific
• Mandatory Prison Sentences
• Death Penalty
• Eliminate Miranda, Plea Bargaining, Insanity
  Defense, Exclusion Rule

• General
• Rehabilitation, Social Change
• Specific
• Emphasize Probation and Parole
• Indeterminate Sentencing
• Education

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