IEJS > Survey of CJ > Chapter 4Survey of Criminal JusticeChapter FourCrimeMany people see the law as a well-established body of rules and regulations that never really changes. This is incorrect. Laws change frequently due to social and political pressures of the day. Defining Crime The term crime can be defined as any act or omission prohibited by law. Most states distinguish between various types of crimes. The most common division is between misdemeanors and felonies. A misdemeanor is a minor crime that the state punished by confinement for less than a year, usually in a local jail. A felony is a serious crime that the state punishes by death or incarceration for more than one year, usually in a state prison. It is important to distinguish a crime from a tort. A crime is a wrong against the whole of society, while a tort is a wrong against an individual. The same act can be both a crime and a tort. The most famous example of this is probably the O. J. Simpson case. Simpson’s alleged killing of Nicole Simpson resulted in both criminal charges being brought against him and civil suits brought against him by the victim’s family. In our federal system of government, it is possible for a person to commit crimes against the State and crimes against the United States. When an act violates the laws of both the state and federal governments, then the constitutional issue of jurisdiction comes into play. Jurisdiction refers to the geographic or subject matter of a courts authority. The constitution limits congress to enacting laws about subjects falling within its specific powers. The states maintain law-making authority not specifically delegated to congress. Thus, most of the criminal laws are made and enforced on the state level. Counting crime in the United States has been problematic, largely because of our federal system where localities have their own law enforcement. The best data that we have comes from two primary sources: the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) conducted by the U.S. Justice Department. The Uniform Crime Reports The UCR began in the 1930s when congress authorized the attorney general to survey crime in America. The FBI was chosen to implement the program. To ensure uniformity in reporting, the FBI established standardized definitions of offenses and terms used in the program. These definitions of crime are often used in general treatments of criminal justice topics, such as textbooks. The UCR program divides crimes into two parts. Part I is a list of eight crimes considered by the FBI to be most serious and prevalent. Part I offenses are also called index crimes because they are used in the computation of the Crime Index discussed below. The Part I crimes are as follows:
One of the key features of the UCR is the Crime Index, which is the sum of Part I crimes for a given year. The Crime Index permits comparisons over time. Another important feature is the crime rate. The crime rate is the number of Part I offenses that occurred in a given areas for every 100,000 who live in the area. The UCR also figures crime rates for specific crimes. This is what is meant by terms such as murder rate. There are some problems with the UCR. A critical issue is that the FBI gets UCR data from county sheriffs’ and municipal police departments on a strictly voluntary basis, unless these agencies are forced to participate by state law. Some law enforcement administrators do not participate in the UCR program. Most often, this is due to a shortage of human and technological resources within small departments. Very few law enforcement administrators fail to participate because they view the UCR has having no merit. Another problem with the UCR is that it details crimes known to the police. This means that any crimes that occur and do not get reported to the police are not represented in the UCR. For this reason, the UCR rates will always be lower than the actual rates of offending. Trends may also change when police, responding to political pressure, alter their reporting practices to make it seem as if crime rates are on the decline. The Part I offenses are often further divided into two categories: violent crime and property crime. Violent crimes are crimes directly against persons, such as murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crimes usually involve the illegal taking or damaging of someone else’s property, such as burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. One of the most often criticized aspects of the UCR program is the Hierarchy Rule. The hierarchy rule establishes a way of counting crimes such that only the most serious offense is recorded in an incident where more than one crime has occurred. Another important aspect of the UCR is the clearance rate. Clearance rate refers to the proportion of reported crimes that have been solved. Note that this mean an arrest was made, not that the defendant was convicted in a court of law. Once an arrest has been made, the incident is regarded as “cleared” for UCR purposes. UCR Offense Definitions Murder is defined by the UCR as the unlawful killing of one human being by another. This is a generic term that may include first degree murder, second degree murder, manslaughter, and related offenses. Murder is the smallest numerical category of the Part I offenses. The murder rates do not include attempted murders or deaths from accidents or suicides. For recent years, the murder rate has ranged between 5 and 6 murders per 100,000 persons in the country. This rate is much higher than most other industrialized countries. Rape is a generic term that has been applied to a wide variety of sexual attacks. The legal definition of rape, however, specifies that the victim must be female, there has to be intercourse achieved through force, and that the victim did not consent. The UCR follows this legal definition with its forcible rape category. Statutory rape, which is usually defined as consensual intercourse with a minor, is not included. Forcible rape is regarded as the most underreported index crime. It is estimated that only one in four such attacks comes to the attention of police. Robbery is a violent crime and involves a face-to-face confrontation between victim and perpetrator. Note that there is a clear distinction between a robbery and a burglary. To have a robbery, there must be some use of force or threat of force against the victim. Burglaries and purse snatchings are different in that they do not involve a violent confrontation with the perpetrator. Assaults are generally considered to be of two types: Aggravated and simple. An assault can generally be defined as an unlawful attack by one person upon another person. (Under the Common Law, assault was merely the attempt; the successful inflicting of bodily injury on another person was known as a battery). Aggravated assaults are more serious than simple assaults and involved either a weapon or the victim’s need for medical attention. If a deadly weapon is involved, the charge may be upgraded to attempted murder, even if there is no injury to the victim. Burglary is the unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or a theft therein. Burglary, like property crimes in general, has an abysmally low clearance rate. According the UCR, the clearance rate for burglaries was only 13%. Larceny is synonymous with theft. The UCR program uses the term larceny-theft to describe these kinds of offenses. Most states distinguish between larceny and grand larceny. Grand larceny is usually defined as a theft where the stolen goods had a value established by state statute, such as $200 or $500. The UCR makes no such dollar amount distinction. Motor vehicle theft is the theft or attempted theft of a self-propelled road vehicle that does not run on rails. The stealing of planes, boats, and machinery are regarded as larcenies for UCR purposes. The annual cost of motor vehicle theft to victims is nearly $8 Billion. Arson was added to the list of index crimes in 1979, long after the creation of the index. For this reason, arson statistics are not as useful in determining long-term crime trends as are the other index crimes. Arson is defined as the burning or attempted burning of property, with or without the intent to defraud. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) The NCVS is an ongoing survey of households that consists of interviews with approximately 100,000 persons twice each year. The primary purpose of the NCVS is to uncover the dark figure of crime—crime that is not reported to law enforcement and remains unknown. Participants are asked about their victimization from crime. Analyses of the NCVS data have consistently shown the following:
Debunking Crime Myths One of the biggest myths in criminal justice is that crime is always increasing. UCR data from the 1990s suggests a period of significant decline in crime rates across the spectrum of crimes. Several different arguments have developed to explain why crime has decreased over this time period. Some analysts attribute the decline in crime to a strong economy. This occurred because a robust economy offered legitimate jobs to those who would make a living through illegitimate means, such as selling drugs. Others attribute the decrease to changing demographics. The primary characteristic has been the age distribution in the United States. In 1980, more than 20 million people were between 15 and 19 years old. By 1990, that population group had dropped to 17.5 million. Over all, the number of youth in the general population has dropped. It is a well documented fact that older people do not commit as many crimes as younger people. Some experts predict another crime wave that will peak around 2010 when youths are once again a large proportion of the population of the United States. A less positive explanation is police manipulation of crime data, also called “cooking the books.” The most common example of this is downgrading serious offenses to less serious offenses for reporting purposes. For example, an aggravated assault might become a simple assault, or a burglary might become a trespass. Cooking the books may account for some of the decrease, but NCVS data, which is not subject to police manipulation, suggest that the crime drop is real. Another popular explanation for the crime drop has been a decline in the crack cocaine market. Many believe that turf wars between crack dealing interests led to high levels of violent crime. Police efforts at getting crack and weapons off the streets have paid off. National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a well-received attempt to correct some of the deficiencies in the UCR. Where the traditional UCR system was summary based, the new NIBRS system is incident based. This means that detailed information about each incident is recorded. The goal of the NIBRS system is to enhance the quality and quantity of criminal justice data. Information is gathered on the personal characteristics of the victim and offender. Incident-based reporting systems involve comprehensive data collection at the incident level on various aspects of reported criminal incidents. The information collected can contain information about the incident location, offenses, offenders, victims, and arrestees. An important advantage of NIBRS over the UCR is that NIBRS records and counts all offenses, not just the most serious offense as with the hierarchy rule used with the UCR. NIBRS provides more categories of offenses than does the UCR. Crimes reported in NIBRS are divided into two categories: Group A offenses, which consist of 22 serious offenses, and Group B offenses, which consist of 11 lesser offenses. Group A offenses include
Group B offenses, those for which only arrests data are reported, include
Group B also includes a generic “all other offenses” category. The transition from summary data collection to incident-based data is not complete at the national level. The FBI began accepting crime data in the NIBRS format in 1989, expecting national compliance by 1999. As of 2001, only 21 state reporting programs were compliant. Although participation in the NIBRS program grows steadily, data are still not pervasive enough to make broad generalizations about crime in the United States. Poor coverage remains the biggest problem with NIBRS. There have been, however, several studies that demonstrate the value of NIBRS data. This growing number of research reports provides support for the argument that NIBRS is worth the effort and expense involved in its full implementation. Guns and Crime The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free States, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This constitutional guarantee coupled with long standing tradition serve to make our modern society well armed. In a typical year nearly 10,000 murders are committed in the United States, the majority with handguns. Another 1 million crimes are committed each year with handguns. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, approximately 203,300 prisoners serving a sentence in a state or federal prison in 1997 were armed when they committed the crime for which they were serving time. These statistics have fueled a hotly debated controversy: Should the government seek to control firearms through legislation? There are supporters on both sides of the issue. At least some legislation has slipped passed gun rights watchdog groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA). The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act 1994 provided for a 5 day waiting period before buyers could actually obtain a handgun. The law also provided for background checks of firearms buyers. This legislation seems to have had little effect on handgun violence, since offenders generally get weapons from friends, family, or “on the street.” The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 banned the manufacture of 19 military style assault rifles, including those with high capacity magazines (more than 10 rounds). Again, gun rights critics claimed that this law amounted to nothing more than unconstitutional gun grabbing by the government. Those against the legislation have their position supported in part by a BJS study that found that only about 2% of inmates carried or possessed military style firearms during the offense for which they were incarcerated. Not all the legal victories have gone in favor of the anti-gun side. The most notable victory for the pro-gun side was when the Supreme Court struck down the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1990, which forbade any individual from “knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that he or she knows . . . is a school zone.” The court’s rationale was that the law exceeded the proper authority of the U.S. congress, and relegated the control of such matters to the individual States, U.S. v. Lopez (1995). References and Further Reading FBI. Uniform Crime Reports. Available: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm BJS. Crime and Victim Statistics. Available: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm Harlow, C. W. (2001). Firearm Use by Offenders. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Available: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf JRSA. IBR Resource Center. Available: http://www.jrsa.org/ibrrc/index.html United States v. Lopez (1995). Available: http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/u10287.html This page available at: |