Lecture 1, Part 1 PDF

SPEAKER 0 Greetings all. This week we are going to begin discussing crime and crime causation. We will conclude this lecture next week. Today we are going to be talking about what is crime. How is it that certain behaviors are codified criminal activity? Then we'll move into a discussion regarding...

SPEAKER 0 Greetings all. This week we are going to begin discussing crime and crime causation. We will conclude this lecture next week. Today we are going to be talking about what is crime. How is it that certain behaviors are codified criminal activity? Then we'll move into a discussion regarding how much crime is committed annually. And finally, conclude with a discussion on the public's perception of annual crime trends. So what exactly is crime? Well, according to Cole and colleagues, the crime is a specific act of commission or omission in violation of the law for which a punishment is prescribed. Public opinion shapes law vis a vis voting, meaning we vote for politicians and politicians. Vote on bills and bills that are adopted, then become laws Sometimes we might actually get to vote on a specific law. This is something we're going to talk about in a moment, but largely from a criminal justice or criminological point of view. When we think about crime, we can think about it falling under under one of two different categories. The first is the legal category, right? I've labeled this kind of the natural default setting. Y is um x criminal behavior criminal because there's a law that says that behavior is illegal. We can also think about it more sociologically, which requires quite a bit more awareness, meaning digging a little bit deeper and trying to understand why certain behaviors are deemed criminal, while other behaviors that might be equally as harmful, um, are not considered criminal. And ultimately, what we come down to, whether we think about this from a legal perspective or a more sociological perspective, is that crime is a social construction, meaning behaviors in and of themselves are not criminal. A group of people have decided that certain behaviors should be criminal. And as I said, uh, moments ago, you know, they're voted on by politicians and sometimes by the public to determine whether or not they are legal or illegal. Some scholars claim that no act is criminal in and of itself. For example, Sykes and Mazza in 1956 put forth their neutralization theory, and in talking about their theory, they commented that even intentionally taking someone's life is not inherently criminal in and of itself, and they provide some reasons for their suggesting that for one, people can kill in self-defense. Uh, they also noted that um, soldiers are sent to war, uh, oftentimes with the express intent of killing another human. They also note police officers are authorized to take the life of citizens. So the act of killing someone in and of itself, according to them. And I'm not professing this to be my my perspective, but is not criminal in and of itself. And that's where this idea of social construction comes in. We also need to understand that crime is a dynamic concept. What do I mean by this? Well, essentially, once a crime, not always a crime. Meaning there have been certain behaviors that were either legal and then, um, deemed illegal or illegal and then deemed illegal or even illegal. Deemed illegal. Deemed illegal. And here I'm talking about things such as, uh, alcohol consumption. So prior to prohibition, alcohol consumption was perfectly legal. Prohibition comes along, alcohol consumption is illegal. Then 21st amendment comes along, um, some 33 years later and repeals the 18th amendment. And alcohol consumption is once again legal. Uh, we can also look at gambling. We can also look at prostitution. And some more modern day examples would be marijuana. Going back to this, uh, you know, idea of dynamic and social construction. Um, in 1349, in England, there was a law passed the ordinance of laborers that outlawed, um, unemployment. And given the time, uh, the Black Plague had just recently swept through the continent, wiping out a vast majority of individuals, and wealthy land owners needed their land to be tended. And so, in a way, to deal with a reduced labor force, they made it illegal to be unemployed. In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Act, um, made certain drugs, including cocaine and heroin, um, illegal. So prior to this act, those drugs were legal and often used medicinally, as you can see in some of these ads, uh, for toothache pains as well as others and famously, um, Coca Cola, um, original original formulation included actual coca from, uh, coca plants, some more modern, uh, examples of the dynamic nature of crime. This is coming from Opa-locka, Florida, where there is a city ordinance that outlaws the sagging of one's pants. Um, which is obviously, um, a little. Bit ridiculous, at least from my perspective. But it is nonetheless in law. Here's an example out of Oklahoma where, um, Republican proposed banning hoodies in public. Um, the law did not pass. Um, but it is an example of how this concept of crime is continually changing. It's dynamic in nature. In 2012, um, Colorado and Washington state became the first two states to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. Prior to that, a few states had legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, but no states had, um, legalized it for recreational purposes. And on November 6th, 2018, 18, registered voters in the state of Michigan had the opportunity to vote on State Proposal 18. One legislative initiative coalition to regulate marijuana like alcohol. So as I mentioned a few moments ago, sometimes we the people actually get to vote on the laws. It's not just politicians proposing bills and then voting on those bills. And this is an example of that. And as you can see here, just shy of 56% of the voters who voted in 2018 favored legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes. And so, just like that, a behavior that was illegal, in which people had criminal records for engaging in, became legal. And as you can imagine, with such a a change or a swing in the pendulum, a lot of other collateral concerns come, come with that. Such as how do we deal with people who have criminal convictions for marijuana possession? What happens to those convictions? Do they get expunged? What about people who might be serving time in jail or prison? What happens to them? And I think we're still kind of parsing out how to deal with that in a in a fair manner. In addition to those issues, a new industry was born. Right now we have dispensaries and drive around town. You see billboards for various, you know, marijuana shops and not just the flour, but the edibles and the oils. And there's a whole new industry that was born out of this legalizing marijuana. And so, again, I raised the question, what is crime? Right. Here we have an example of crime changing, you know, from literally one day to the next out. Yeah, it was voted on and the tallies were concluded on November 6th, 2018. The law didn't take effect then, but essentially we went from marijuana being completely illegal in the state of Michigan for recreational purposes to being completely legal in the state of Michigan for recreational purposes. And so what is crime? What does crime actually represent? As of August 19th, 2024, this is what the landscape of marijuana laws across the United States look like. So states that are identified as green, um, have passed laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use, um, as well as medicinal use. States um identified as blue, have legalized marijuana for medicinal use only, and then states that are depicted in red have no laws Legalizing marijuana use. And so if we look across the United States, you can see that 24 states have legalized marijuana for recreational and medicinal use, 14 states have legalized marijuana for medical use only, and then 12 states, um, in 12 states, marijuana remains, uh, illegal, meaning not allowed to legally use it for medicinal, uh, or recreational purposes. And as you can imagine, this map has changed considerably since 2012, when, again, Colorado and Washington state became the first two states to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes. So it's 2000. And since 2016, I've been keeping track of this on a regular basis. And this gives you an idea of what it looked like in 2016, which is depicted on the left compared to 2024, when you can see that there are considerably more states in 2024 that have legalized it for recreational and or medicinal purposes. Now, the DEA, which is the Drug Enforcement Agency, lists marijuana as a schedule one drug. So schedule one drugs are substances or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of schedule one drugs are heroin, LSD, and marijuana, to name a few. So despite the fact that, um, many states have have identified that marijuana has a medicinal purpose. Uh, federally speaking, the government has said, um, there is no there is no medicinal purpose or medicinal use for marijuana. And so, again, we're going to compare, uh, state law in 2024 to federal law in 2024. And this presents an interesting contradiction, right. Because on one hand, we have 24 states that have legalized it recreationally, another 14 states that have legalized, um, it for medicinal purposes. Yet the federal government, um, maintains that, uh, marijuana is illegal. Okay. So how do we make sense of this contradiction? Well, it is quite the conundrum. Okay What does the simultaneous legal and illegal designation indicate about the actual behavior of using marijuana? Okay, as these two babies are having their exchange indicate, it's a confusing, confusing situation, right? Um, it doesn't make sense to say that, um, if you live in Michigan, uh, smoking marijuana is legal. But if you live in Texas, it's not. If something is truly illegal or harmful. It would make sense that it would be, um, designated criminal. Um, across the board. Okay. And there's been quite a bit of, um, discussion about this recently. So much so that in April of this year, the um DEA indicated that they are going to reschedule, uh, marijuana as a schedule three drug. So it's not going to be, uh, completely, completely legal, but they are going to certainly downgrade the severity of, um, the drug. And now it's acknowledging that there is, um, medical purpose or medical use for, for the substance. But it's interesting if you're confused by this phenomenon, how something can be, you know, illegal in one state and legal in another, or illegal at the state level and illegal at the federal level. You're not alone. Um, and literally my six year old then six year old son, um, recognized a similar contradiction in state laws in 2020, when we were in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. Um, in December of that year, we went down to Florida. Um, to get away from the cold. And things were a little bit freer down there than here in Michigan. And, uh, the first night we were in Florida, he asked us what we were having for dinner, and we told him we were going to a restaurant. And he looked at us very confusingly and said, we can't go to a restaurant restaurant on open. And my wife and I said to him, well, they're open here in Florida. And he said, well, that doesn't make sense because they're closed in Michigan. How is that? So imagine having that conversation with a six year old. And it's very similar to this conversation about marijuana being illegal in one state, legal and another legal in one state, illegal at the federal level, and so on. When thinking about crime from a sociological perspective, we can define it in one of two ways. You can define it as Mallah and SE or Mal prohibited Okay. Now, Mallah and say, um. Crimes are those that are unlawful by virtue of a statute meaning a criminal law, and are considered inherently evil. Now, prohibitive, on the other hand, are crimes that are only unlawful by virtue of statute. Meaning there's a law that says there these behaviors are illegal, but these behaviors are not inherently evil, like those that fall under the category of mama and say. So for mama, prohibit her. There is a consensus that these behaviors are bad and therefore should be illegal. Now these are the behaviors that are most likely to change over time in terms of whether or not they're perceived to be criminal or not. It doesn't mean that they all change, but if a behavior is likely to go from, you know, legal to illegal, back to legal or illegal to legal, um, it's most likely that it's going to be a matter of prohibit a crime, uh, because, again, these are not behaviors that are considered to be inherently evil. And so what are some things that fall underneath this classification, um, sociological classification of crime? We would think of things such as drug use, drug trafficking, prostitution, public intoxication, um, unregulated gambling and underage drinking. Right? All clearly, um, codified illegal. Although depending on the state that you live in, for example, you know, the use of marijuana may or may not be, uh Criminal. Um. But let's just assume that we're in a state that it is. Um, yes. While it's legal, it's harmful to society. Um, these behaviors aren't considered inherently evil. Okay. Um, certainly they induce a social harm, um, by engaging in them. Uh, and it deemed significant enough to codify, uh, them as a crime. But people who engage in these behaviors, there's nothing inherently evil about them. Conversely, malice and say crimes are behaviors that are considered inherently bad by most, perhaps not all, of society, but by most. Okay. Thus they're they are deemed criminal. And these are not likely to change over time. Right, Marla? And say behaviors are there. Criminality is likely to be static, meaning it's not going to change over time. It's not dynamic. Like Mallo, prohibitive behaviors that might ebb and flow and say crimes are very, very unlikely to change over time. And so here we're talking about some inherently, um, evil behaviors, right? Rape, murder, assault, robbery. Um, these behaviors inflict significant harm on someone else, um, and therefore are deemed, um, criminal. We can also think about defining crime in a legal way. Right. So here the focus is similarly centered on how serious IT behavior is perceived to be. But the language that we use to differentiate them, uh, is going to be different. So as an example, we can think about things uh, crimes as being misdemeanors okay. And these are offenses for which the punishment is less than a year in jail. Okay. And that's because these are considered to be less serious crimes. Yes. These crimes inflict a social harm. Yes. Society has deemed that individuals who engage in these behaviors need to be punished. Right. But the punishment, um, is less severe than, say, for felony crimes, which are punished by a year or more in prison. Okay, so these are considered much more serious, the most serious forms of crime and garner significant attention. So people who are convicted of misdemeanors typically spend time in jail if they are institutionalized, and many of them are not many or probation, um, or diverted in some other way. Um, people who are convicted of felonies who are institutionalized spend their time in prison generally. Okay. Um, we can also think about crime. Um, visibility. Right. Um, so we can classify crimes based on their visibility. Um, so sometimes called street crime or ordinary crime. Um, these crimes are, I say, um, more visible than other forms of crime that we'll talk about in a moment. Um, and within this category, uh, we're talking about violent crime, property crime and public order crimes. Okay, so these are the crimes that are relatively easy to see and count, right? Um, if someone is assaulted, um, that's usually, um, easily countable. They can, uh, report to the police. The police can take, uh, down details of the crime. There is a record of it saying with property crime, if someone burgled a house, uh, the victim can call the police. The police can take a report. There are details surrounding, um, the the events. Um, violent crime is most serious and punished accordingly. So as we move from violent to public order, we're moving from most serious to least serious. Uh, property crime is certainly serious, but usually punished less harshly than violent crime. And then, uh, public order crimes such as public drunkenness, uh, in some jurisdictions, um, aggressive panhandling and vandalism, disorderly conduct. These are often considered relatively minor offenses. Yes. Still punishable. Um, but the severity of punishment is commensurate with the social harm conducted, generally speaking. And so it's not the punishment is not as serious as that for violent or property crime. Less visible crimes are sometimes more difficult to detect, and count. Okay. So here we're talking about occupational or white collar crime. Organized crime which usually involves a network and cuts across state or national borders. So here we might be talking about human trafficking or drug cartels moving and, um, illicit narcotics to different, uh, countries. Um, there's victimless crime, right? So these are individuals that are willing to exchange, um, illegal goods or services for, um, for money. We have, uh, political crimes. These are criminal acts by or against the government. So we can think about Angela Davis, who is pictured here, who was the leader of the Communist Party in the 1960s and a close affiliate with the Black Panther Party, who was convicted of political crimes. We in the 21st century, uh, we're often hearing about cyber crimes. So these are crimes involving the use of computers. And there are a whole host of of ways that, uh, savvy individuals with computer skills can hack into or trick people into giving them, uh, you know, pertinent information that allows them to access accounts. Uh, but these types of crimes, um, in terms of visibility, are less visible than ordinary crime, right? Uh, particularly when we talk about white collar crime or cyber crime, oftentimes it's been going on for a long, long time before it's figured out. Um, and it's too late. And so each of these is much more difficult to understand in terms of the amount that occurs, because they're usually not operating in the open, like, like ordinary crimes. And as a result, visible crimes generate the most concern among society. And this is where a lot of see, you know, criminal justice resources are devoted. There are two primary sources of information regarding the nature and extent of street crime in the US. Okay. This is the, uh, the UCR. Um, here's, uh, was an annual report produced by the, um, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now it's been, um, replaced by, uh, a different mechanism of accounting for crime. And then, uh, which is the Crime Data Reporter, which is an online, uh, platform, which is really quite fascinating, um, to explore and play around with, you can get, um, information on all types of crimes, uh, over time, for one particular year, for a particular jurisdiction, for the entire country. It allows the user to really, um, manipulate the data in a way that can tell them what they want. Want to know? You can focus on specific crime types. You can focus on global categories such as violent or property, or you can drill down, you know, burglary and, um, vandalism, etc. but then there's also the National Crime Victimization Survey, which is a panel survey of respondents that answers questions every six months about their experiences with crime. And panelists are surveyed for three years, so a total of six times. And so the UCR, as well as the crime the Crime Data Explorer data are offenses reported to police. Okay. So these are instances in which a crime occurred. And there was a report to police and then municipal, um, police agencies, uh, report those figures up to the FBI. The National Crime Victimization Survey, on the other hand, is a survey of crime victims. Right. So it's a different, um, way of accounting for criminality. And we're going to talk about, um, here momentarily, what these two sources of data, um, reveal about crime in the United States over time. Oftentimes the burning question is how much crime, uh, occurs annually. It's really hard to estimate the nature and extent of crime. Um, as I mentioned, uh, a moment ago, you know, the UCR focuses on reported crimes, and the ncvs focuses on, um, victims, self-identified as, as victims. And so each of those have some, uh, some limitations. Right? Uh, not all crime gets reported. We know that for various reasons. And we also know that people sometimes don't have the best memory. And so trying to recall what happened to them within a six month period, um, might not be as accurate as we want. Now, with that being said, um, you know, obviously both both sources of data are susceptible, um, to, to these various issues. They tend to tell the same or a similar story. What do I mean by that? Well, so this here on the, uh, the left hand side of your screen is, uh, data over time, from 1993 to 2013 that tracked UCR, um, reported crime. Sorry, 2012. And what we can see and the Purple line is property crime and the yellow line is violent crime. What we can see is from 93 to 2012, um The UCR indicated that reported crime was going down. Okay, now, if we compare that to what the UCR was, um, detailing at that time, we see a very similar story, right? In 93, uh, to 2012, the level of crime reported by victims, uh, indicated a downward trend. So while there is a significant difference in the magnitude of criminality, so we can look at, um, the, uh, the rates of crime, if you will, per 100,000, and we can see that, uh, assessed by the victimization data. Uh, it's it's almost twice as much reported by victims than reported to police. Um, which makes sense. We call this the dark figure of crime. However, the trends of each data source, uh, tell a very similar story. Right. And so that's what's important here that we have kind of this corroborating, um, information from two distinct data sets that say that suggest that crime, um, went down between 93 and 2012. And then if you play with the Crime Data Explorer, which I encourage you to do, so I think they have, um, you can do like a 15 year period there. And you can also see if they're just playing with the other day. You can also see that, um, violent crime has been going down over the past, uh, like since the mid 90s. I don't recall the exact dates, but it was, um, it tells a very similar story that that crime is, you know, over the long haul down. Yes, we have these minor blips where it might go up so you can see and like, um, it looks like 2009in the UCR and the yellow line, there's like a blip up, but then it goes back down. But the long haul trend and that's really what we're interested in. We're interested in um, long term trends. Not not necessarily the micro trends. Um, with regard to the public's perception about annual crime trends, this becomes pretty interesting. So imagine you're a politician and you see that a majority of Americans consistently report they're extremely or very concerned with crime in the United States. What are you going to do? Well, I would imagine because you're a politician and you want to either get elected or get reelected, you are going to talk about how you're going to get tough on crime, even if you don't think it's a real problem. Now, you might be like people can be very concerned about crime, even if they do not think crime is on the rise. And that's a fair point. But if we look at, um, this next, um Slide. We can see that not only are they concerned about crime. Right. So this what we're looking at here is overall, how would you describe the problem of crime in the United States. Extremely serious, very serious, moderately serious. And what we can see from 2001 to 2000 and of 2019, um, that more people starting right around 2004, um, began to think that it's a extremely or very serious issue. Right. So 2001 we dropped down. 2004 we start going back up and they converge somewhat in 2018 and then 2018, it's about 52% to 48%. Right. So perceived seriousness of crime among the public uh, is suggesting it's extremely or a very serious problem This next slide depicts a trend that asks respondents a different set of questions. The dark green trend lines show the percentage of people who indicated they believed more crime occurred in the current year than in the last year. The lighter green trend line asked the same question but in relation to their local area. Right. And so what can we tell from these two pieces of information? Well, a far greater share of respondents think crime is on the rise in the US compared to their local area. Right. So we can see here, um, and then in 2001. Right, we can kind of see, uh, a, a change in trends, if you will, from 72, you know, stable up and down. And then from early 90s, there was a distinct downward trend, um, for both in the US as well as in the respondents area. But then 2001, something happened and that trend changed dramatically. And what happened was nine over 11, the terrorist attacks across in New York, Washington, D.C.. Um, and so that really became the advent, uh, that's when the scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen was born and people were forced to consume news, uh, even without actively seeking it. So you're watching a football game and you see things scrolling across the bottle. Um, but the issue here is that crime has not been increasing. Right. So back to the point, um, despite the fact that nearly 78% of people in 2022 thought that there was more crime in that year than the previous year. That's not necessarily true. Again, crime has been on the steady decline since the mid 1990s. And so this graphic here shows a side by side of the percent of people who think crime is on the rise and the actual crime rates measured by the FBI's UCR report. And what do we see here? Well, since the early 2000, people have thought crime has been increasing, when in fact it's been on a steady decline. So while people have a better understanding of the nature and extent of crime in their local areas, remember a small, smaller percentage of people indicated an increase of crime in their local area when it comes to national level crime. Our understanding is highly skewed. Now, this is no fault of the individual per se, right? It's what we hear, it's what we see. And if we don't scratch the surface and investigate things more thoroughly, it can become our reality. Take for example, Chicago, Illinois. Okay. Chicago is comprised of 866 census tracks. Okay. But all the homicides in Chicago occur in about 8% of the city's census tracks, according to, um, Wesley Scoggin, who's a very prominent political scientist, uh, teaches at or at least taught at Northwestern University in Chicago. Um, so this means that homicides occur in roughly 69 of the 866 census tracks that comprise Chicago. Thought about differently? Homicides typically do not occur in 797 census tracks. So for almost everyone, Scoggins said, that means the crime they hear about in regard to Chicago, uh, is crime. Somewhere else. And he maintains that we can extrapolate that to, to, to the larger geographic area of the United States, that we know that crime is highly concentrated in certain areas. And so when we hear about crime, most often it's coming from those areas, but our brains aren't processing it that way. Okay. Um, and so this this is not what gets reported though, right? It's what gets reported is homicides are up in Chicago or a homicide happened, um, in Detroit. Right. Uh, which is technically true, but the story is much more, more nuanced than that. Um, we can look at perceptions of, uh, crime based on partizanship. And we can see over time how things have changed. And it's an interesting, you know, we can look to the late 80s, early to late 90s and see that there. SPEAKER 1 Was. SPEAKER 0 Quite a bit of consistency across political ideology in terms of, um, what was going on with crime, right? The lines aren't too far apart from one another. But again, around 2001, after the terrorist attacks, we start seeing things kind of unfold, if you will, where one group thinks there's more or less than the other group and there's not a lot of consistency, um, across those groups. So I'm going to end, um, with reiterating, you know, our misperceptions about crime. Again, as it turns out, our perceptions about crime are not so accurate, at least since the early 2000. And so this is a similar graph that I, uh, showed you earlier. But I put these distinct trend lines, um and to show you kind of how I come to this conclusion. Right. We know that crime has been going down since the mid 1990s, and we saw specifically a graph depicting that from 93 to 2012. Yet we see people, um, particularly with regard to the, uh, the perception of crime in the US, not necessarily the local area, although that too, in some instances think that crime is going up. Uh, the middle trend line is where nine over 11 happened. Okay. To kind of see that, that, um, abrupt change of direction and, and the, the trend lines for both people, um, assessing their own area as well as the United States. And again, I think I want to highlight Scoggins contention, um, that some of this is, um. Psychological, if you will, in the sense that, you know, when we hear about crime, we don't necessarily take in all of the nuanced information pertaining to it, and we just think that it's happening anywhere. But as we will see throughout the course of the semester, um, you know, crime is generally not a random phenomenon, right? It's patterned. We know, by and large, where crime is most likely to happen. Um, we might have even some ideas of why it happens and those locations. But when people hear crime, they don't hear all of the context surrounding it. They hear that word and it makes them think that they're unsafe. And in some instances, you might be depends on where you are and what you're doing. But generally speaking, as Cogan said, when people hear about crime, they're hearing about crime. That happens somewhere else, not in the location that they they reside. And so that's all I have for this part of the lecture. Next week, we will pick up, um. With this and conclude, and I hope everyone has a great week. SPEAKER 2 In my very living room right here. A woman whose husband is brilliant on Wall Street stood right here and said, I want you to put my husband's client out of business because what they do is they build prisons. They look at the failure rates of black boys in the fourth and fifth grades, and they determine how many prison cells they're going to need in the future. You know, I had heard that and I thought, oh, this couldn't be. No one is absolutely actually doing that. Well, I was wrong.