Chapter 1
Use the information located on the Department of Justice (DOJ) website (http://www.usdoj.gov/ (Links to an external site.) ) to answer the following questions:
What are some of the law enforcement agencies included within the DOJ?
What is the mission statement of the DOJ and these individual law enforcement agencies?
How does the DOJ contribute to the criminal justice system?
Chapter 2
Compare and contrast the UCR and NCVS. How does each method collect their data?? Is the data of these measures reliable? Explain the strengths and weakness of each method.
Chapter 3
Compare and contrast general deterrence with specific deterrence.
Chapter 4
What is a criminal act? What is a criminal state of mind? When are individuals criminally liable for their actions?
(Chapter 2)
The primary sources of crime data routinely used to measure the nature and extent of crime are surveys and official records collected, compiled, and analyzed by government agencies such as the federal government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Criminal justice data analysts use these techniques to measure the nature and extent of criminal behavior and the personality, attitudes, and background of criminal offenders. What are these sources of crime data, how are they collected, and how valid are their findings?
The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation collects the most important crime record data from local law enforcement agencies and publishes it yearly in the bureau’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). The UCR include crimes reported to local law enforcement departments and the number of arrests made by police agencies. The FBI receives and compiles records from more than 17,000 police departments serving a majority of the U.S. population. Its major unit of analysis involves Part I crimes: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, arson, and motor vehicle theft.
Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
The official crime data collected by the FBI from local police departments.
Part I crimes
Those crimes used by the FBI to gauge fluctuations in the overall volume and rate of crime. The offenses included are the violent crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault and the property crimes of burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
The FBI tallies and annually publishes the number of reported offenses by city, county, standard metropolitan statistical area, and geographical divisions of the United States. In addition to these statistics, the UCR shows the number and characteristics (age, race, and gender) of individuals who have been arrested for these and all other crimes, except traffic violations; these other crimes are referred to as Part II crimes.
Part II crimes
All other crimes reported to the FBI; these are less serious crimes and misdemeanors, excluding traffic violations.
COMPILING THE UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS The methods used to compile the UCR are quite complex. Each month, law enforcement agencies report the number of Part I crimes known to them. These data are collected from records of all crime complaints that victims, officers who discovered the infractions, or other sources reported to these agencies.
Whenever criminal complaints are revealed through investigation to be unfounded or false, they are eliminated from the actual count. However, the number of actual offenses known is reported to the FBI whether or not anyone is arrested for the crime, the stolen property is recovered, or prosecution ensues.
The UCR uses three methods to express crime data. First, the number of crimes reported to the police and arrests made is expressed as raw figures (e.g., “An estimated 14,827 persons were murdered nationwide in 2012”). Second, crime rates per 100,000 people are computed. That is, when the UCR indicates that the murder rate was 4.8 in 2012, it means that almost 5 people in every 100,000 were murdered between January 1 and December 31, 2012. This is the equation used:
The FBI’s Crime Clock is widely used. What are its limitations?
WEB APP 2.1
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports can be found in full here: http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats.
Third, the FBI computes changes in the rate of crime over time. This might be expressed as “The number of murders decreased 5.7 percent between 2015 and 2016.” The FBI also computes a so-called crime clock, which depicts the number of serious offenses committed every second.
CLEARANCE RATES In addition, each month law enforcement agencies report how many crimes were cleared. Crimes are cleared in two ways: (1) when at least one person is arrested, charged, and turned over to the court for prosecution; or (2) by exceptional means, when some element beyond police control precludes the physical arrest of an offender (e.g., the offender leaves the country). Data on the number of clearances involving the arrest of only juvenile offenders, data on the value of property stolen and recovered in connection with Part I offenses, and detailed information pertaining to criminal homicide are also reported.
cleared
An offense is cleared by arrest or solved when at least one person is arrested or charged with the commission of the offense and is turned over to the court for prosecution.
Traditionally, slightly more than 20 percent of all reported Part I crimes are cleared by arrest each year. Not surprisingly, as Figure 2.1 shows, serious crimes such as murder and aggravated assault are cleared at much higher rates than less serious property crimes such as larceny and theft. The following factors contribute to this difference in clearance rate:
FIGURE 2.1 Percent of Crimes Cleared by Arrest or Exceptional Means, 2014
The media give more attention to serious violent crimes, and as a result, local and state police departments are more likely to devote time and spend more resources in their investigations.
There is more likely to be a prior association between victims of violent/serious crimes and their attackers, a fact that aids police investigations.
Even if they did not know one another beforehand, violent crime victims and offenders interact, which facilitates identification.
Serious violent crimes often produce physical evidence (blood, body fluids, fingerprints) that can be used to identify suspects.
VALIDITY OF THE UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS Despite continued reliance on the UCR, its accuracy has been suspect. The three main areas of concern are reporting practices, law enforcement practices, and methodological problems.
Reporting practices. Many victims do not report incidents to police; therefore, these crimes do not become part of the UCR. The reasons for not reporting vary. Some victims do not trust the police or do not have confidence in their ability to solve crimes. Others do not have property insurance and therefore believe reporting theft is useless. In other cases, victims fear reprisals from an offender’s friends or family or, in the case of family violence, from their spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend.30 According to surveys of crime victims, less than 40 percent of all criminal incidents are reported to the police. Some of these victims justify nonreporting by stating that the incident was “a private matter,” that “nothing could be done,” or that the victimization was “not important enough.” Changes in reporting can shape the crime trends reported in the UCR. When Eric Baumer and Janet Lauritsen examined data over several years, their findings showed that shifts in victim reporting can account for about half of the total yearly change in the official UCR crime rate.31
Law enforcement practices. The way police departments record and report criminal and delinquent activity also affects the validity of UCR statistics. Some police departments define crimes loosely—reporting a trespass as a burglary or an assault on a woman as an attempted rape—whereas others pay strict attention to FBI guidelines. These reporting practices may help explain interjurisdictional differences in crime.32 Arson is seriously underreported because many fire departments do not report to the FBI and because those that do file such reports define many fires that may well have been set by arsonists as “accidental” or “spontaneous.”33
Some local police departments make systematic errors in UCR reporting. They may count an arrest only after a formal booking procedure, even though the UCR requires arrests to be counted if the suspect is released without a formal charge. One survey of arrests found an error rate of about 10 percent in every Part I offense category.34 More serious allegations claim that in some cases, police officials may deliberately alter reported crimes to improve their department’s public image. Police administrators interested in lowering the crime rate may falsify crime reports by classifying a burglary as a nonreportable trespass.35 See the Evidence-Based Justice feature for more on this issue.
Ironically, boosting police efficiency and professionalism may actually help increase crime rates: as people develop confidence in the police, they may be more motivated to report crime.36 Higher crime rates may occur as departments adopt more sophisticated computer technology and hire better-educated, better-trained employees.37
(Chapter 3)
General Deterrence
If crime is a matter of choice, it follows that it can be controlled by convincing criminals that breaking the law is a bad or dangerous choice to make. If people believe that they are certain to be apprehended by the police, quickly tried, and severely penalized, they are more likely to dismiss any thought of breaking the law.20 In other words, people will not choose crime if they fear legal punishment. The harsher the punishment, the more certain its application, and the speedier the judgment, the more effective it will be. This principle is referred to as general deterrence. If the justice system could be made more effective, those who care little for the rights of others would be deterred by fear of the law’s sanctioning power.21
general deterrence
A crime control policy that depends on the fear of criminal penalties.
People who fear punishment will be deterred from committing certain crimes.22 Even the most committed offenders, such as gang members, will forgo criminal activities if they fear legal punishments.23 The prevailing wisdom is that the certainty of being punished is a greater deterrent to crime than its severity. If police can be more proactive, cracking down on crime, potential criminals will become wary and may choose not to commit crimes.
Although certainty of punishment has some influence on crime, little hard evidence is yet available that fear of the law alone can be a general deterrent to crime.24 Even the harshest punishment, the death penalty, appears to have very little effect on the murder rate.25 The certainty of being punished may influence a few offenders, but has little effect on others.26 This discrepancy could be explained by a person’s morals; perceived certainty of punishment seems to affect only those with high morals.27
What factors inhibit the deterrent power of the criminal law? One is the lack of efficiency of the justice system. About 20 percent of serious reported crimes result in an arrest. Relatively few criminals are eventually tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison. Chronic offenders and career criminals may believe that the risk of apprehension and imprisonment is limited and conclude that the certainty of punishment—a key element in deterrence—is minimal. Even if they do fear punishment, their anxiety may be neutralized by the belief that a crime gives them a significant chance for large profit. For example, active burglars report that the fear of capture and punishment is usually neutralized by the hope of making a big score; greed overcomes fear.28
Several states have replaced the electric chair with a gurney on which lethal injection is administered. Shown here is the death chamber at the state prison in Jackson, Georgia. The yellow door goes to the holding cell, the two chrome encircled holes go to the control room behind the glass to the left, and the right windows allow a view from the witness room.
A majority of arrested criminals are also under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their arrest. Therefore, many offenders may be incapable of having the rational thought patterns upon which the concept of general deterrence rests. Relatively high rates of substance abuse may render even the harshest criminal penalties for violent crimes ineffective deterrents.
In sum, the theory of rational choice views criminals as calculating individuals who can be deterred from crime by the threat of punishment. Yet research has so far failed to turn up clear and convincing evidence that the threat of punishment or its implementation can deter would-be criminals.
Specific Deterrence
Even if the threat of punishment cannot deter would-be criminals, actual punishment at the hands of the justice system should be sufficient to convince arrested offenders never to repeat their criminal acts. If punishment were severe enough, a convicted criminal would never dare repeat his or her offense. What rational person would? This view is called specific deterrence. Prior to the twentieth century, specific deterrence was a motive for the extreme tortures and physical punishments commonly inflicted on convicted criminals. By breaking the convicts physically, legal authorities hoped to control their spirit and behavior.29 The more enlightened society in America today no longer uses such cruel and unusual punishments on its citizens. Instead, we rely on incarcerating criminals as the primary mode of punishment.
specific deterrence
Punishment severe enough to convince convicted offenders never to repeat their criminal activity.
The theory of specific deterrence relies on the belief that experience will shape criminal choices. It assumes that those who have been caught and punished soon learn that “crime just does not pay.” And there is evidence that people can learn from their mistakes; offenders who commit crime and suffer arrest will have a greater perception of risk than someone who has escaped detection.30 The less people perceive the benefits of crime, the more they may be willing to desist from a criminal career.
While there is in fact some evidence that an increased perception of punishment risk reduces reoffending, the specific deterrent effect appears to have limits. For example, the more seasoned, experienced offender is less likely to be influenced by a current arrest than the novice.31 The deterrent effect of an arrest becomes attenuated or, in some cases, lost altogether, as the number of arrests continue to mount.32 In fact, a history of prior arrests, convictions, and punishments is the best predictor of recidivism.33
As the extent of punishment increases, so too does the chance of recidivism.34 Many offenders who are arrested soon repeat their criminal acts.35 A majority of inmates repeat their criminal acts soon after returning to society, and most inmates have served time previously. Even people imprisoned in super-maximum-security prisons, receiving the harshest treatment possible (solitary confinement 23 hours a day), are as likely to repeat their crimes upon release as those serving time in traditional institutions.36
Why have these draconian punishments failed as a specific deterrent? There are several possible explanations:
Specific deterrence assumes a rational criminal, someone who learns from experience. Many offenders have impulsive personalities that interfere with their ability to learn from experience.
Being convicted and punished may expose people to more experienced offenders who encourage them to commit more crime and teach them criminal techniques.
A majority of criminal offenders have lifestyles marked by heavy substance abuse, lack of formal education, and disturbed home lives, which inhibit conventional behavior. Punishment does little to help an already troubled person readjust to society.
Punishment can produce a short-term specific deterrent effect, but because it also produces rage and anger, it fails to produce longer-term behavior change. People who are harshly treated may want to prove that they cannot be broken by the system.
The stigma of having been in prison labels people and helps lock offenders into a criminal career instead of convincing them to avoid one.
Criminals who are punished may also believe that the likelihood of getting caught twice for the same type of crime is remote: “Lightning never strikes twice in the same spot,” they may reason; no one is that unlucky.
Experiencing the harshest punishments may cause severe psychological problems, while reducing the opportunities for interaction with law-abiding people.
Punishment may produce defiance rather than deterrence. People who believe they have been unfairly punished and stigmatized may reoffend, especially if they do not feel ashamed about what they have done.
If money can be made from criminal activity, there will always be someone to take the place of the incarcerated offender. New criminals will be recruited and trained, offsetting any benefit that can be attributed to incarceration.
While these issues remain, economics rather than effectiveness may control the use of specific deterrence strategies. As crime rates decline, as they have for almost two decades, the public may demand low-cost alternatives to the “lock ’em up” policies that are the backbone of the specific deterrence concept. Even if expensive specific deterrent strategies such as mass incarceration actually proved effective, they are expensive to maintain, especially in an era of declining crime rates.
The basic components of all three crime control strategies based on choice theory are set out in Concept Summary 3.1.
CONCEPT SUMMARY 3.1
Rational Choice Strategies
General deterrence strategies
Fear of the consequences of crime will deter potential criminals.
The threat of punishment can convince rational criminals that crime does not pay.
Techniques include the death penalty, mandatory sentences, and aggressive policing.
Problems with these strategies are that criminals do not fear punishment, and the certainty of arrest and punishment is low.
Specific deterrence strategies
If punishment is severe enough, known criminals will never be tempted to repeat their offenses.
If crime is rational, then painful punishment should reduce its future allure.
Techniques include harsh prisons, long sentences, and stiff fines.
Problems include defiance, stigma, and irrational offenders who are not deterred by punishment.
(Chapter 4)
The Legal Definition of a Crime
Nearly all common-law crime contains both mental and physical elements. For example, in order to commit the crime of armed burglary, offenders must do the following things:
Willfully enter a dwelling
Be armed or arm themselves after entering the house, or commit an assault on a person who is lawfully in the house
Knowingly and intentionally commit the crime
To convict a person of the crime of armed burglary, the prosecution must prove that the accused: (a) illegally entered a dwelling house (and that they were not invited in by the owner), (b) that they were armed when they arrived at the scene, (c) that their intentions were to take the owners’ possessions, and that they did in fact do so.
In general, to fulfill the legal definition of a crime, all elements of the defining statute must be proved, including the following:
The accused engaged in the guilty act (actus reus).
actus reus
An illegal act, or failure to act when legally required.
The accused had the intent to commit the act (mens rea).
mens rea
A guilty mind: the intent to commit a criminal act.
Both the actus reus and the mens rea were concurrently present.
The defendant’s actions were the proximate cause of the resulting injury.
Actual harm was caused. Thoughts of committing an act do not alone constitute a crime.
Each of these elements is discussed in greater detail next.
ACTUS REUS The actus reus is the criminal act, such as taking someone’s money, burning a building, or shooting someone. The action must be voluntary for an act to be considered illegal. An accident or involuntary act would not be considered criminal. For example, if a person has a seizure while walking down the street, and as a result strikes another person in the face, he cannot be held criminally liable for assault. But if he knew beforehand that he could have a seizure and unreasonably put himself in a position where he was likely to harm others—for instance, by driving a car—he would be criminally liable for his behavior.
In addition, the failure or omission to act can be considered a crime on some occasions:
Failure to perform a legally required duty that is based on relationship or status. These relationships include parent and child and husband and wife. If a husband finds his wife unconscious because she took an overdose of sleeping pills, he is obligated to seek medical aid. If he fails to do so and she dies, he can be held responsible for her death. Parents are required to look after the welfare of their children; failure to provide adequate care can be a criminal offense.
Imposition by statute. Some states have passed laws that require a person who observes an automobile accident to stop and help the parties involved.
A contractual relationship. These relationships include lifeguard and swimmer, doctor and patient, and babysitter or au pair and child. Because lifeguards have been hired to ensure the safety of swimmers, they have a legal duty to come to the aid of drowning persons. If a lifeguard knows a swimmer is in danger and does nothing about it and the swimmer drowns, the lifeguard is legally responsible for the swimmer’s death.
The duty to act is a legal and not a moral duty. The obligation arises from the relationship between the parties or from explicit legal requirements. For example, a private citizen who sees a person drowning is under no legal obligation to save that person. Although it may be considered morally reprehensible, the private citizen could walk away and let the swimmer drown without facing legal sanctions.
MENS REA Under common law, for an act to constitute a crime, the actor must have criminal intent, or mens rea. To intend to commit a crime, the person must have clear knowledge of the consequences of his actions and must desire those consequences/outcomes to occur. A person who enters a store with a gun and shouts at the clerk to open the cash register is signaling his intent to commit a robbery. Criminal intent is implied if the results of an action, though originally unintended, are certain to occur. When Mohammed Atta and his terrorist band crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, they did not intend to kill any particular person in the buildings. Yet the law would hold that anyone would be substantially certain that people in the buildings would be killed in the blast; therefore, the terrorists had the criminal intent to commit the crime of first-degree murder.
Mens rea is legally present when a person’s reckless and/or negligent act produces social harm. Recklessness occurs when a person is or should be aware that his planned behavior is potentially harmful but goes ahead anyway, knowing his actions may expose someone to risk or suffering. Even though he may not desire to hurt the eventual victim, his act is considered intentional because he was willing to gamble with the safety of others rather than taking precautions to avoid injury. It would be considered reckless for a disgruntled student to set a fire in a dormitory supply closet to protest new restrictions on visitation rights. If some of her classmates were killed in the blaze, she might be charged with manslaughter even though she did not intend to cause injury. Her actions would be considered reckless because she went ahead with her plan despite the fact that she surely knew that a fire could spread and cause harm.
In contrast, criminal negligence, another form of mens rea, occurs when a person’s careless and inattentive actions cause harm. If a student who stayed up for three days studying for a test and then drove home fell asleep at the wheel, thereby causing a fatal accident, his behavior might be considered negligent because driving while in a drowsy state creates a condition that a reasonable person can assume will lead to injury. Negligence differs from recklessness and is considered less serious because the person did not knowingly gamble with another’s safety but simply failed to foresee possible dangers.
criminal negligence
Liability that can occur when a person’s careless and inattentive actions cause harm.
STRICT LIABILITY Certain statutory offenses exist in which mens rea is not essential. These offenses fall within a category known as a public safety or strict liability crime. A person can be held responsible for such a violation independent of the existence of intent to commit the offense. Strict liability criminal statutes generally include narcotics control laws, traffic laws, health and safety regulations, sanitation laws, and other regulatory statutes. A driver could not defend herself against a speeding ticket by claiming that she was unaware of how fast she was going and did not intend to speed, and a bartender could not claim that a juvenile to whom he sold liquor without checking an ID looked older than 21. No state of mind is generally required where a strict liability statute is violated.16
public safety or strict liability crime
A criminal violation—usually one that endangers the public welfare—that is defined by the act itself, irrespective of intent.
See the Reforming Criminal Justice box for further discussion regarding crimes without a mens rea requirement—and what some conservative lawmakers think should be done about it.
THE CONCURRENCE OF MENS REA AND ACTUS REUS The third element needed to prove that a crime was committed is the immediate relationship to or concurrence of the act with the criminal intent or result. The law requires that the offender’s conduct be the proximate cause of any injury resulting from the criminal act. If, for example, a man chases a victim into the street intending to assault him, and the victim is struck and killed by a car, the accused could be convicted of murder if the court felt that his actions made him responsible for the victim’s death. In other words, the victim would not have run into the street of his own accord and therefore would not have been killed. If, however, a victim dies from a completely unrelated illness after being assaulted, the court must determine whether the death was a probable consequence of the defendant’s illegal conduct or would have resulted even if the assault had not occurred.
RESULTING HARM Most criminal acts must also result in harm, and it is the nature of the harm that ultimately determines what crime the person committed. For example, if someone trips another with the intent of making that person fall down and be embarrassed in public, he has committed the crime of battery. If by some chance the victim dies from the fall, the harm that was caused elevates the crime to manslaughter, even if that was not the intended result. Or consider the crime of robbery. The actus reus is taking the property from the person or presence of another. In order to satisfy the harm requirement, the robber must acquire the victim’s possessions, an act referred to as asportation. The legal definition of robbery is satisfied when possession of the property is transferred, even for a brief moment, to the robber. If a robber removes a victim’s wallet from his pocket and immediately tosses it over a fence when he spies a police officer approaching, the robbery is complete because even the slightest change in possession of the property is sufficient to cause harm. Nor is the value of the property important: actual value is irrelevant so long as the property had some value to the victim.
Some crimes, however, do not require resulting harm. These are sometimes known as conduct crimes, or offenses that are completed simply by performing some act. Reckless driving is a good example. There is no requirement that harm occur to anyone (or anything) for reckless driving to occur.
IGNORANCE AND MISTAKE As a general rule, ignorance of the law is no excuse; the criminal law presumes people know what is and is not illegal. A mistake, however, might prevent someone from being convicted of a crime. How do we distinguish between ignorance and mistake? There are two common examples of ignorance: (1) a defendant does not know a law makes a particular action illegal and (2) a defendant who knows the act is illegal but is not sure whether the law applies in a particular circumstance. Ignorance of either variety almost never serves as a bar to criminal liability, but the latter form makes it easier for the defendant to argue that the crime was not intended (i.e., the mens rea component of the crime was not satisfied).
Mistake can also manifest in two forms: (1) a person knows a particular action is wrong but is not sure why, or (2) a person thinks what he or she is doing is legal but is not correct. The first of these is known as a mistake of law. The second is known as a mistake of fact. An example of mistake of law is this: Bob refuses to pay an auto mechanic because he thinks the mechanic overcharged him. The mechanic keeps Bob’s keys, but Bob goes home, grabs a second set of keys, returns to the mechanic’s shop, and takes his car. Bob knows this is probably not acceptable behavior, but he does not know a lien law permits the mechanic to keep the car until the customer pays. Alternatively, someone who accidentally leaves a store without paying for an item (assume, for example, it was on the bottom of the shopping cart and the clerk missed it, plus the customer forgot about it) commits a mistake of fact. Both examples also undermine the mens rea element of criminal liability.
Siegel, Larry, J. and John L. Worrall. Introduction to Criminal Justice. Available from: Yuzu Reader, (16th Edition). Cengage Limited, 2017.
