Victimology and Crime Trends

Crime and Criminology

• Robert Pickton was found guilty in December 2007 on six counts of second-degree murder.
• The murders that Pickton was convicted for, were women who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Defining Crime (Sutherland and Cressey)

• Criminal behavior violates criminal law.
• An action is only considered a crime if it is prohibited by criminal law.
• Laws are a set of specific rules regarding human conduct enforced by state-administered punishment.
• Conflict theorists believe crime is a disconnect between the rich and poor.
• The definition of crime is a function of social authority beliefs, morality and direction.
• Crime is a social phenomenon applied uniformly to everyone in society.
• Crime occurs when societal norms or standards that apply to behavior are violated and the act is punished.
• Crimes are determined by deviant behaviors that violate social norms, but not all deviations are criminal.

Classifying Deviance (Hagen's Theory)

• Hagen's theory involves evaluation of social harm, agreement about the norm, and severity of societal response.
• Common Grouping 1 includes murder, rape, robbery and arson.
• Common Grouping 2 includes pornography, prostitution and drugs.
• Common Grouping 3 includes alcoholism and sexual fetishes.
• Common Grouping 4 includes body piercing, tattoos and cross-dressing.
• Consensus crime occurs where society agrees that certain actions are wrong and should be severely punished.

Types of Crime and Deviance

• Consensus crimes include murder, rape, robbery and arson
• Conflict crimes include pornography, prostitution and drugs
• Social deviations include alcoholism, sexual fetishes
• Social diversions include body piercing, tattoos and cross-dressing.

What Defines a Crime?

• Classical Criminology principles:
  • All behavior is rationally determined.
  • Crime violates the social contract with others.
  • Society must aim to provide the greatest good for the greatest number.
• R. vs. Sharpe, 2001 balanced society's interest in regulating child pornography with the right to freedom of expression.
  • Sharpe didn't take the pictures that he drew.
  • Freedom of expression doesn't override the rights of children not to be violated.
  • Sharpe was charged with possession and intent to distribute 517 photographs of little boys.

Criminology vs. Criminal Justice

• Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, origins, and extent of crime.
• Criminology looks at the sociology of law, crime control, and penology.
• Criminal justice studies the agencies of social control and correction.
• Deviance studies acts that depart from social norms.

Perspectives in Criminology

• Classical/Choice Perspective: situational forces (Beccaria).
• Biological / Psychological: internal and external forces (compete and lombroso).
• Process Perspective: Socialization forces (Quetelet and Durkheim)

Current Perspectives in Criminology

• Structural Perspective: Ecological forces (Chicago School).
• Conflict Perspective: Political and economic forces (Marx).
• Integrated Perspective: Multiple forces.

Europe in the Middle Ages (Prior to 1700 CE)

• Deviance was attributed to supernatural forces.
• Power rested with the church and aristocracy, who defined unwanted behaviors as deviant.
• Deviant acts were labeled as witchcraft or demon possession.
• Response to crime depended on the perpetrator's status.
• Punishment was often harsh for common folk, while the wealthy could often avoid punishment.

Classical Criminology (1750 to 1900) and Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794)

• Focused on crimes and punishments.
• Utilitarianism is the belief that people have free will.
• Crime pays better than non-criminal behavior.
• Fear of punishment deters crime.
• The punishment should fit the crime.

Positivism (began 1850)

• Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
  • He was the father of sociology.
  • He promoted positivism.
• Positivism says that behavior is controlled by internal and external forces.
  • Science helps to study human behavior.
  • It was influenced by Charles Darwin.
  • External factors: political climate, war, famine.
• Internal factors: brain's structure and mental capabilities.

Cesare Lombroso

• He was the Father of Criminology (1835-1909)
• Criminal anthropology studied the “born criminal.”
• Inherited criminal traits cause crime.
• Atavistic anomalies are physical traits similar to those of our savage ancestors.
• Degenerate families contributes to criminal heredity.

Phrenology

• Positivists believed that the shape of the skull was related to criminality
• This belief lead to the quasi-scientific study of phrenology

Social Criminology

• L.A.J. Quetelet (1796-1874):
  • Used social statistics to study crime-related factors like age, sex, climate and poverty.
• Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
  • Crime is natural and inevitable.
  • Some crime is beneficial to society.
  • Crime results from the mismatch between individual and societal norms (anomie).

Karl Marx (1919-1883)

• The mode of production determines all social relationships.
• Crime is an expression of economic and power relations.
• Those in power define crime.
• Crime results from inequality between owners (bourgeoise) and workers (proletariat).
• Crime is therefore caused by poverty.
• The Jukes family (dirt poor), illustrates that criminal activity can be seen as hereditary but didn't look at alternatives such as poverty

Consensus, Conflict and Interactionism Views

• Consensus View:
  • Crime is defined by law.
  • Agreement exists on outlawed behavior.
  • Laws apply equally to all citizens.
  • People agree on what is repugnant.
  • The law is fair and impartial. Laws apply equally to all citizens.
  • Consensus viewpoint predominates in North American criminology.
• Conflict View:
  • The law is a tool of the ruling class.
  • Crime is politically defined.
  • "Real crimes" are not outlawed.
  • The law is used to control the underclass.
  • Focus should be on the crimes of the rich like environmental crime, dangerous treatment of workers and consumer fraud crimes.
• Interactionist View:
  • Moral entrepreneurs define crimes.
  • Crimes are illegal because society defines them that way.
  • Criminal labels are life-transforming events.

Basic Assumptions of Laws

• Laws are constantly changing.
• Laws result from interaction among individuals and groups.
• Moral entrepreneurs try to get their values enacted in law.
• Being labeled deviant can promote further deviance.
• The main focus is over the process of deviance and changing definitions

Early Legal Codes

• Preliterate Societies
  • Custom and tradition
  • Folkways and mores
  • Expectations of individual behavior based on community standards.
• Code of Hammurabi
  • Developed in Sumer about 2000 BCE (present day Iraq).
  • Adopted by Hammurabi (Babylonian king, 1792-1750 BCE).
  • Punishment was physical retaliation (lex talionis).
  • Severity was partly based on the status of the offender.
• The Dark Ages
  • Followed the fall of Rome and loss of early codes.
  • Superstition dominated thinking.
  • Introduction was wergild: fine or monetary compensation.
  • Trial by ordeal or combat.
  • Use of oath-helpers: character witnesses.
• Norman Conquest
  • William the Conqueror (1066-1087 CE):
  • Initiated replacement of local tribunals with itinerant royal administrators (traveling justices).
  • Citizens reported offences under oath.
  • Stare decisis: decisions were based on past practice.
• The Common Law
  • Applied throughout the land.
  • Circuit judges shared decisions (oral tradition), later written cases were added.
  • Became a fixed body of legal rules or case law.
  • Common law is judge-made law or case law (burglary, arson, and murder).
• New Common Law Crimes Can sometimes be traced to a specific incidence in Rex v. Scofield (1794)
  • Criminal attempts are called inchoate crimes and defined in section 24 of the criminal code of Canada

Classification of Law

• Civil Law
  • All law except criminal law.
• Contract Law
  • Laws of personal agreements.
• Tort Law
  • Individual victim seeks compensation for personal harm.
  • Private wrong doing may result in financial compensation.

Criminal law

• Public offence which may result in fines or imprisonment.
• The government initiates action.
• Fines go to the state.
• Guilt is "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Classifications of Criminal law

• Summary Offences which are a minor offence include loitering, and has a six-month limitation on prosecution.
  • Maximum fine of $2,000
  • Maximum sentence of six months
• Indictable Offences Which are serious offences like murder has no limit on prosecution.
  • Preliminary hearing may allow for a jury trial
  • Higher Penalties (Two Years or More)

Classifications of Law

• Mala in se
  • Bad in and of themselves
  • Consensus crimes reflect widespread agreement such as murder
• Mala in prohibitum
  • Bad because banned
  • Conflict crimes reflects community standards like obscenity

Functions of Criminal Law

• Providing social control
• Discouraging revenge
• Expressing public opinion and morality
  • Including decriminalization of homosexuality (1969) and vagrancy
• Deterring criminal behavior
  • General and specific deterrence
• Maintaining the social order

The Legal Definition of Crime

• Actus reus is the actual behavior
• Mens rea is the criminal intent, which includes general and specific intent, and transferred and constructive intent.
• Strict liability which does not require intent such as exceeding the speed limit.

The Uniform Crime Report (UCR)

• The UCR is collected by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) since 1962.
  • Aggregate (summary) data is collected monthly from all police forces in Canada.
• Each month police agencies report incidents of crimes known to them to the CCJS.
  • Counts can include reported and founded crimes.
• Revised in 1984 as the UCR2 to collect information about each crime.
• It is a more detailed report on accused and victim characteristics.
• The use of incident-based data allows for a more specific sense of how and why offenses occur

Crime Funnel

• The number of crimes punished by the CJS is lower than those committed or reported
• Violent crimes more likely to be solved with more ppolice resources and witnesses

Self-Report Surveys

• Interviews that are done with those arrested or in Jail
• Telephoned at home
• Mailed or online surveys: People Report Their Criminal Activities Anonymously
• Problems included within the survey: inaccuracy (Lying, Forgetting, Bragging)
• Emphasis is put on minor offences (Drug And Alcohol Use)
• The problem is that the most deviant are the least likely to respond.

Victim Surveys

• In The United States Since 1966, and Canada Since 1988
• It is mainly done through telephone interviews
• The Canadian Urban Victimization Survey (CUVS) gives the victim’s perspective
• The General Social Survey (GSS) surveys the crimes
• The Violence Against Women Survey (VAWS) identifies violence against women

Problems with Victim Surveys

• Overreporting such as loss reported as theft
• Telescoping such as identifying past victimization as a recent victimization
• Under-reporting such as for getting, embarrassment and fear

Crime Patterns

• Age, with youth consistently related to higher crime rates
• Desistance which is to get out of aging, crime increases with old age
• Chronic offending is related to early onset criminal specialties such as child molestation

Justice Policy

• "Broken windows approach" involves getting in touch on minor offences (e.g. panhandling).
• It may encourage reporting of crime but may reduce overall criminal behavior

Lecture 4: Victims and Victimization

• Victimology is the scientific study of victims of crime

General Social Survey

• About 20 percent of Canadians were victimized in the previous year, a decline in recent years from 25 percent.
• 6.4 million incidents were reported from the survey, 5.6 million not being reported.

Common Cost of Crimes

• In Canada: $1500/person cost in 2004, $46 billion for pain and suffering in loss wages and health for individuals
• Across Canada: 10 billion spent on police, the court system, and corrections.
• In Australia: $1600/person = $32 billion
• In the U.S: $4100/person = $1 trillion

Problems of Crime Victims

• Loss of Property, Productivity and Potential
• Physical Injury
• Stress and Anxiety (PTSD, Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Homelessness)
• Re-Victimization by the Justice System

Cycle of Violence

• It is said that any abuse during Childhood is related to drug Problems and Crime in Adulthood with males being more likely to use violence if they were abused they witnessed spousal abuse
• Females also show behavioral and adjustment problems if they were exposed to family violence

Nature of Victimization ( Sources of Information)

• Canadian Urban Victimization, Social Survey (2009), International Crime Victims Survey

Theory of Victimization, victim precipitation Theory

• Active: Victim Provokes Offender through actions, Taunts and Threats - Issues like what If this relate in property crime, active Precipitation and Sexual Assault
• Passive: With Characteristics threatened and Targetted Offenders - Opportunistic Criminals - Predatory Offenders - More Power Less Risk and Target the victims

Lifestyle Theories

• Equivalent Group: where victims are offenders - Half of homicide victims over 12 had a criminal record - Related to more participation in self-reported crime

• Female offenders - 8 percent have a history of physical and or sexual violence

• Proximal Hypothesis: Risk of Victimization depends that the Crime in Neighbourhoods not Personal Lifestyle

• Natural Crime Zones: More Affluent people tend not to reside in these areas

Routine Activities Theory

• Cohen and Felson (1979)
• Motivation To Commit Crime Is Constant - Violence , distribution of predatory crimes intersection depends among Suitable targets and Capable guardians - No Police Presence is a Routine Activity

Is the routine activity approach valid

• Affluence allows people to go out more
• Research about victims
• Measurable to do with violence

Caring for the Victim

• Victim statements victim, offender and victimization - Personal reaction sent to prison and hearing for parole hearings.
• Programs is offender reconciliation policy - Alternatives measured like retribution to Canadian Statements

Self Protection

• Target Hardening
• Increasing Guardianship
• May have unintended consequences

Choice Theory

• Crime is a rational
• Detected can be deterred with fearful to some
• A Classical View
• Classical Theory Cesare Beccaria

Society

• Provides the greatest good for the greatest number

Social Contract:

• Giving Some Freedom a protection with Laws

Rational choice

• Is Micro Vision for an individual to commit a specific crime.

Routine Activities

• is Marco Vision on how society influence Opportunities to commit violent crime
• Has Crime prevention and Deterrence in community

Theories of the Crime Triangle

• Results that some people have an intention of hurting people with Interaction Certainty
• Effects will be communicated and needs will be considered to the crime triangle

Specific Deterrence

• Objective is to discourage the offenders

Specific Theories: Cesare Lombroso

• Early Theories is Evolutionary of the Crime
• Criminalities is explained by individual differences and have traits with Special Factors

Explore crime reporting, victimization trends, and theories like 'broken windows' and victim precipitation. Understand challenges in victimology, including re-victimization and the cycle of violence. Analyze survey data and address issues like under-reporting and telescoping.