Focus Points

Barlow Chapters 1 & 2

Ninth Edition

Chapter 1: Crime and Criminality

Media distortion of crime
• Despite the fact that crime surrounds us, it is often misunderstood
• If the media were the sole source of information about crime & criminals, the picture would be
highly distorted
• Violent crimes are much more often publicized than property crimes, but the real frequency of
these phenomena is the reverse: The vast majority of crimes are property offenses
• The reality of crime reported by the press is one of exceptionally violent, exceptionally greedy,
or exceptionally corrupt people picking on exceptionally vulnerable victims

Uncovering the “True” Store of Crime

• Criminologist try to uncover the “true” story of crime. But the truth is socially constructed
• When we speak of “crime” or “criminals,” our images and ideas are influenced by the people
and institutions that regulate human behavior, and by those who sell images to us
• Criminology is, nevertheless, interested in seeking out the facts about crime
• Most victims are poor, most criminals are not punished for their crimes, the most common
place where women and children are assaulted is the home
• 4 million woman & 3 million children are abused by family members in the US each year
• Gang violence and drug use are widespread
• American jails and prisons are full of young males, half of them African American from city
neighborhoods which joblessness, overcrowding, and physical deterioration are common place
• The costs of corporate and governmental crime far exceed those of traditional street crimes
such as robbery, burglary, and auto theft combined
• White collar criminals are less likely than other to be arrested and prosecuted and if convicted,
less likely to go to jail or prison
• The challenge of understanding crime demands the ability to suspend final judgement until we
can base our conclusions on valid and reliable information

Box 1.1 Some Facts about “Street” Crime (Only a few will be listed)
• Crime is committed disproportionately by males
• Crime is committed disproportionately by 15 to 25yrs old
• Crime is committed disproportionately by people living in large cities
• Crime is committed disproportionately by those who live in areas of high residential mobility
• “Street” Crime is a term that identifies common crimes such as burglary, assaults, drug
possession and sales, robbery, rape, and many less serious offenses involving theft or
destruction of property
• It excludes corporate. Crime, state crime, tax evasion, embezzlement, and a variety of other
offenses committed in the connection to work
What is Criminology?
• The study of lawmaking, lawbreaking, and the reactions to crime

Box 1.2 Some Major Subject Areas in Criminology (Only a few will be listed)
• Age and Crime
• Alcohol, Drugs, and Crime
• Biology and Crime
• Crime and the Media
• Economic Class and Crime

Lawmaking
• Criminology includes the study of lawmaking
• Generally focuses on the various political, economic, and cultural factors that help shape laws and
criminal justice policies
• Why has there been a historic lack of effective laws protecting woman and children from abuse in
the home?
• The criminological study of lawmaking, sometimes called the sociology of law, has shown that law
and policy reflect the interests of those in power

Lawbreaking
• The second major part of the definition of criminology
• Criminologists might study the causes and correlates of juvenile delinquency, drug & alcohol use,
violent crime, property crime, hate crime, violence against women, or literally dozens of other types
of crime
• Also focus on what specific things draw people toward or away from crime, such as family
relationships, peers, neighborhood, social class, gender, race, and employment status
• Scholar Elijah Anderson “The inclination to violence stems from circumstances of life among ghetto
poor – the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, the stigma of race, the fallout from rampant drug use
and drug trafficking, and the resulting alienation and lack of hope for the future

Reactions to Crime
• The third major area of inquiry within criminology
• Includes the study of the state’s reaction – the police, courts, and correctional institutions
• Analysis of various other criminal justices policies and practices, i.e. capital punishment
• Public’s reaction to crime and the fear of crime

Fear of Crime
• Many Americans fear crime
• Woman are almost three times more likely than men to feel unsafe in their own neighborhoods at
night
• African Americans are more fearful than whites, and that fear tends to go up as income goes down
• Elderly women are most afraid yet least often victimized, and young men are least afraid, yet most
often victimized
• Researchers discovered that actual criminal victimization is less important as a cause of fear that the
physical and social environments in which people live
• i.e. unkempt lots, graffiti, homeless people, drunks, and trash – may raise levels of fear among both
residents & visitors by affecting people’s perceptions of the risk of being victimized
 • There is evidence that television news broadcasts have a strong impact on people’s fear of crime,
perhaps regardless of their victimization experiences or local crime rates
What is Crime?
• Crime is a human act that violates the criminal law
• Two important components:
o 1st crime involves behavior: Someone has to perform an act
o 2nd According to that law, a number of specific criteria must normally be met for an act to be
considered a crime and the perpetrator a criminal
§ First, there must be conduct, or actus reus (mere thoughts, no matter how terrible,
are not crimes)
§ Second, the conduct must constitute a social harm injurious to the state or “the
people”
§ Third, the conduct must be prohibited by law
§ Fourth, the conduct must be performed voluntarily
§ Fifth, the conduct usually must be performed intentionally - criminal intent
expressed in the concept of mens rea, meaning guilty mind (unintentional acts of
negligence or omission may qualify as crimes in some cases)
§ Sixth, the harm must be causally related to the conduct: that is, the act must
produce the harm
§ Seventh, the conduct must be punishable by law (the punishment must be specified
in advance of the conduct)
• Scholar Sutherland argued that crime should be defined not only in terms of traditional criminal law,
but also in terms of regulatory law, i.e., restraint of trade, antitrust, and unfair labor practices, rules
and regulations
• Sutherland who coined the term white-collar crime, argued that criminologists who study only
robbery, burglary, and theft are biased because they neglect the crimes of the m ore powerful
members of society
• Remain argues that when we are in the workplace, under medical care, and even simply breathing
outside air, we are at risk of unnecessary harm that dwarfs that which is caused by traditional street
crimes. Reiman believes that the legal definition of crime does not encompass all – or even the most
– socially injurious acts
• Schwendingers argued that the definition of crime does not have to be associated with law. They
propose that criminologists can and should study this such as imperialism, racism, sexism, and other
violations of human rights
• Labeling perspective – argues that crimes are distinguished from other acts precisely because they
have been defined as crimes by people whose reactions matter
• When labeled as crime, behavior is transformed into criminal behavior, and the actor may be
transformed into a criminal. This transformation is called criminalization
• The opposite process, when the label criminal is removed from an action, event, or person is called
decriminalization
• Crime is a label that is attached to behavior and events by those who create and administer the
criminal law

Victims of Crime
• Historically the word victim did not even appear in many statute books, nor were individuals thought
of as victims. “The State” or “The People” were the victimized by any crime
• This is why criminal cases are usually titled “ The People” of “the State of _______” versus a
defendant
 • For years, victims have been “twice victimized“, first by the criminal, and then by the very system to
which they have turned for help
• Today, all fifty states and the DC have compensation programs, and judges in most states are
permitted to include some form of restitution in their sentencing options
• Many jurisdictions have also established formal organizations such as victims’ advocate offices, to
specifically help victims of variety of crimes

Social Control and Law

• In any social group, efforts are made to ensure that members behave predictably and in accordance
with the expectations of others. These efforts are the heart of social control, and their success is
thought to be indispensable to orderly group life
• Social control may be informal or formal: facial expressions, gestures, gossip, or ostracism. It may
consist largely of unwritten rules passed on by word of mouth or by example, or it may take the form
of written rules backed by force
• Law is a type of formal social control, characterized by 1- explicit rules of conduct 2- planned use of
sanctions to support the rules, and 3- designated officials to interpret and enforce the rules, and
often to make them

Origins and Development of Criminal Law

• Much of what we know about the origins and development of criminal law has come through the
efforts of legal historians and cultural anthropologists
• Primitive Law – the system of rules and obligations in preliterate and semiliterate societies,
represents the foundation on which modern legal systems were built. Primitive law contains three
important features:
1. Acts that inured or wronged others were considered “private wrongs” that is, injuries to
particular individual rather the group or tribe as a whole.
2. The injured party or family typically took personal action against the wrong does, a kind of
self-help justice
3. This self-help justice usually amounted to retaliation in kind. Blood feuds were not
uncommon under this system of primitive justices
• The rise of chieftains and kings and the centralization of political authority set the stage for the
emergence the civil state. The handling of disputes slowly oved out of the hands of family and into
the hands of sovereign and state
• The earliest known code of written law dates back to the twenty first century BC. This is the code of
Ur-Nammu, the Sumerian king who founded the Third Dynasty of Ur. Dates back to 1750 BC
• Early penal law was primarily the law of torts (or wrong doing)
• The Twelve Tables treated theft, assault, and violent robbery as delicta (private wrongs) along with
trespass, libel, and slander
• The contents of these early codes suggest three observations:
1. Some laws articulate long established customs and traditions and can be thought of as
formal restatements of existing mores
2. Some laws reflect efforts to regulate and coordinate increasing complex social relations and
activities
3. Some laws articulate prevailing moral standards and show close ties to religion

Mala Prohibita and Mala in Se

• In the minds of some people, law is based on moral beliefs and criminal codes are a sort of catalog of
sins
 • As primitive societies became more complex, law and justice were identified as concepts that
regulated the moral aspects of social conduct
• Greece & Rome fused morality with law. In some languages the word “crime” means not only an act
that is illegal but also one that is evil or sinful
• The connection between law and morality became less clear, and people categorized crimes as mala
prohibita, meaning bad or evil because they are forbidden, or mala in se, meaning bad or evil in
themselves.
• Mala prohibita crimes include drug offenses, traffic violations, and embezzlement; examples of mala
in se crimes include incest, murder, arson, and robbery

Interest and the Development of Law

• Interest are simply the things people value, and different people sometimes value different things
• According to Pound, law helps to adjust and harmonize conflicting individual and group interest
• The functionalist theory of sociological jurisprudence offered by Pound has been attacked for its
emphasis on compromise and harmony and for its suggestion that there will be consensus where
important social interest are concerned
• Some scholars believe a conflict perspective better reflects the real workings of societal institutions:
o Society is characterized by diversity, conflict, coercion, and change, rather than by
consensus and stability
o Though law may control interests, it is in the first place created by interests
o Law incorporates the interests of specific person and groups; it is seldom the product of the
whole society
o Law is made by men, representing special interests, who have the power to translate their
interest into public policy
• Historically, those low in status or power have been labeled criminals most often and punished most
severely for their crimes
• Women and poor people still find it hard to protect their interest through law
• Gender bias exists not only in law, but also in official data-gathering processes by the state and in
formal social control institutions, such as the police and courts. i.e. until very recently, few states
considered it criminal for a man to rape his wife

Anglo-American Criminal Law

• Criminal law in the US draws mainly from Greek, Mosaic, and Roman law via English law. The
common law of England can be traced to the region of Henry II (1154 – 1189)
• The rules embodied in American criminal law come from four sources
1. Federal and state constitutions
2. Decisions by courts (common law or case law), including decisions of precedent and
Supreme Court rulings
3. Administrative regulations, those policy decisions employed by agencies on the federal
state, and local levels as they carry out their legal duties
4. Statutory enactments by legislatures
• Substantive Law – spells out the nature of criminal acts and the punishments associated with them
• Procedural rules – govern the way lawbreaking and lawbreakers are handled by the criminal justice
system

Crime and Public Policy

• Public policy impinges on all aspects of the crime scene. Its impact begins with official decisions
about what and who to identify as criminal, and continues through all phases of the criminal process
 • Many ideas, and assumptions about crime held by people in power help compromise the ideological
underpinnings of policy and shape the positions taken on specific issues
• The same ideology is not , of course, share by everyone, or even by all those who work in the
criminal justice system
• Policies change as time passes. Different assumptions and beliefs about criminal matters have
achieved prominence at different times
• Samuel Walker claims that both liberals and conservatives are guilty of “peddling nonsense” about
crime. Most people, Walker notes, based their ideas about crime and justice on “faith” rather than
facts

Order with Justice: The Crime Control Model

• According to Packer, the ideology underlying the crime control model emphasizes repression of
criminal behavior as the most important function of the criminal process
• The crime control model pays the most attention to the capacity of the criminal justice system to
catch, prosecute, convict, and dispose of a high proportion of criminal offenders
• Crime control model places a premium on speed and finality. Speed is enhanced when cases can be
processed informally and when procedure is uniform or standardized. Finality is secure when the
occasions for challenge are minimized.
• To ensure that challenges are kept to a minimum, those who work in the criminal justice presume
that the apprehended are in fact guilty
• Packer likens the crime control model to a conveyer belt, down which flows an endless stream of
cases processed by workers who perform routine tasks

Justice with Order: The Due Process Model

• Packer visualize the due process model as an obstacle course: “each of its successive stages is
designed to present formidable obstacles. To carrying the accused any further along in the process”
• This model emphasizes ensuring that facts about the accused are subjected to formal scrutiny; that
the accused is afforded an impartial hearing under adversary procedures; that coercive and
stigmatizing powers are not abused by those in an official positions to exercise them; that the
presumption of innocence is maintained until guilt is legally proven; that all defendants are given
equal protection under the law, including the chance to defend themselves adequately; and that
suspects and convicted offenders are accorded the kind of treatment that supports their dignity and
autonomy as human beings. The emphasis, then, is on justice first

U.S. Crime. Policy: Due Process or Crime Control?

• American public policy on crime appears to be dominated by the ideology and practices of the crime
control model
• There have been increasing efforts to unite and coordinate crime control at the federal, state, and
local levels
• Important congressional support for the crime control model came in 1968 when congress passed
the Omnibus Crime control and Safe Street Act. Under title 1 of the act, Congress established the
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA)
• The LEAA program was scrapped in 1980 and the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979
established as its successor agency the Office of Justice Assistance, Research and Statistics (OJARS)
• Most of the federal money goes to police agencies. Recent state expenditures mirror the federal
outlays on crime control. Nearly every state spends more than half of its criminal justice funds on
policing
 • This funding policy give rise to a “structural imbalance” in the criminal justice system, reducing the
capacity of nonpolice agencies to handle violators and thereby undermining the crime control
capacity of the system as a whole
• Because current crime policies show little evidence of changing focus, people have no incentive to
alter their long-help stereotypes
• Criminal stereotyping at work is found in the practice of racial profiling. This term describes a
practice in which a person’s race or ethnicity strongly influences police decisions to stop, search, or
make an arrest
• The relative lack of attention authorities give to white-collar, state, and corporate crimes is hard to
justify because its negative impact on society is arguably greater than that resulting from street
crimes
• Reiman believes that the criminal justice system has failed to reduce crime and to protect society
precisely because that failure benefits those who are wealthy and powerful

Chapter 2: Crime Data and The Methods of Criminology

Types of Crime Measurement
• There are three major sources of crime data in the U.S.
• Information on crimes submitted by police agencies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI)
• Information on crime victimization gathered through interviews with citizens
• Information on crime and delinquency supplied through interview with citizens who admit
their own criminality

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

• The most widely used nation a data source on official crimes and criminals is the FBI’s Uniform
Crime Report (UCR)
• The UCR is compiled by the FBI based on police department (PD) monthly reports of crime
• Part I -Index offenses
• Criminal Homicide |Rape |Robbery | Aggravated Assault | Burglary | Larceny | Motor
Vehicle Theft | Arson
• Part II offenses contain a range of crimes that vary significantly in their frequency and seriousness
• 21 crimes are defined as Part II offenses ranging from simple assault, forgery, and vandalism to
gambling, prostitutions, vagrancy, drunk driving, and drug abuse
• The UCR report, titled Crime in the United States, contains a wealth of data, including:
• Aggregate statistics on the overall crime rate, and trends over the last few years
• The relative frequency of index offenses, trends over the last few years, and , for some, the
relationship between the offender and victim
• Statistics on the race, gender, and age of victims and offenders
• Data on the amount and type of crime in various cities, counties, and states
• Data on the police clearance rate: the % of reported crimes. That result in an arrest
• Data on law enforcement personnel, including those on college campuses

Crime Rate
• It is conventionally computed by dividing the number of crimes known to police in a jurisdiction by
the population of the jurisdiction. The result is multiplied by 100,000 to avoid fractions
• i.e. Delaware – Population 843,524 | Violent Crimes 5,332 | Rate 632.11 | times by 100,000 |Crime
Rate of 632
Modifications to the UCR: The National Incident – Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
• The FBI initiated a more comprehensive and detailed report system (NIBRS)
• Under NIBRS, individual police records on each official criminal incident and related arrest – rather
than monthly summaries – will make up a database that can be used by criminal justice practitioners,
policy makers and researchers to answer a wide variety of questions
• An immediate advantage of NIBRS is that all offenses within a given crime incident can now be
recorded, as opposed to only the most serious offense

Drawbacks of the UCR

• Most white collar, corporate, and stat crimes are excluded, as are federal crimes
• Multiple-offense situations, as when a robbery also involves an assault or weapons offense, only the
most serious offense is record
• Many crimes are not reported to the police |there is routine underreporting of crime by the police|
some areas and populations are overpoliced
• It only provides information on those crimes that come to the attention of the police
• Fewer than half of all serious crimes are reported to the police
• Crimes resulting in high losses or injuries that require medical attention tend to be reported more
often than other crimes
• Murders are reported most often, but motor vehicle theft heads the list at around 83%
• Assaults involving strangers are no more likely to be reported than incidents involving people who
know each other
• Assaults by strangers are more likely to be reported than assaults by acquaintances or family
members

Underreporting by the Police

• A complainant may call the police to report a crime, but the police decide whether or not the
incident will be treated as a crime. This is called the founding decision
• The police have considerable discretion in deciding whether or not to treat the compliant as a crime
• This means that a rise (or decrease) in published crime rates may reflect changes in police founding
decisions rather than changes in the amount of crime rates
• Underrecording of crime by police is related to the type of crime involved and the people victimized
by it. Fights among lower-class or minority individuals and domestic assaults involving female victims
are examples of underrecorded crimes

The National Crime Victimization Report (NCVS)

• The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which runs the survey, interviews more that 130,000 individuals
ages twelve and above from about 75,000 different households in the U.S.
• Conducted over the telephone or in face to face interview with respondents. These questions
identify whether the respondent recalls being personally involved in a crime during the previous year

Limitations of Victimization Surveys

• Findings are based only on recall, and people’s memories are often flawed
• Respondents may intentionally deceive interviewers
• Overestimate the proportion of crimes involving black suspects
o This is less likely to result from victims intentionally lying about a suspects race than from
the fact that some victims hold stereotypical images of criminals
 o In one interesting study of this issue, white & black subjects were asked to describe a picture
they had been shown of a white man holding. Razor during an argument with a black man; a
majority of the white subjects recalled that the black man had been holding the razor
• Risks and burdens of crime victimization are not borne equally. Those most likely to be victimized by
violent crime are males, the young, African Americans, and Hispanics, and people from low – income
household
• Provides virtually no information on crimes that victimize society rather than individual, i.e. drug
offenses, treason & espionage, or environmental crimes

Self-Report Surveys
• Criminologists at the Behavioral Research Institute of the Univ. of Colorado interviewed a
representative sample of American youth about their delinquent activity. The study was called the
National Youth Survey (NYS)
• The subjects of the NYS were asked whether they had committed any of an extensive list of
delinquent and criminal activities during the year preceding the survey
• The NYS produced a wealth of information about delinquency and crime
• i.e. a small group of “chronic delinquents” is responsible for a disproportionate amount of all types
of self-reported delinquency

Shortcomings of Self Report Surveys

• Although self-reported studies now tap more serious crimes, they have largely neglected white-collar
crimes, especially corporate crimes
• Some respondents may conceal past criminal activities and others may exaggerate them
• Some youths think it “cool” to report doing things that in fact they have nerve done

Methods of Criminal Research

• The major forms of criminological research include: Surveys | Field Research | Case Studies|
Comparative and Historical Research | Experiments | Content Analysis

Some Basis Issues in Research – Dependent and Independent Variables

• The first variable – the one being influenced is called the dependent variable
• The second variable – the one doing the influencing is called the independent variable
• i.e. criminologist has a hypothesized that concentrated poverty within a population is the cause for
higher rates of violent crime and sets out to study this relationship
o Primary independent variable is poverty
o Secondary dependent variable is homicide rate

Validity and Reliability

• Validity - refers to the extent to which the method captures what it is designed to measure
• Reliability – refers to the extent to which particular methods or instruments yield consistent results
when used repeatedly

Research Ethics
• Refers to basic principles that prescribe the appropriate ways to conduct research
• The American Society of Criminology has proposed a Code of Ethics for its members

Survey Research
 • Generally involves administering a questionnaire to a group of people in order to understand their
attitudes experiences, and behaviors
• The best surveys us representative random samples of relevant populations
• Randomness reduces bias and allows for generalizations beyond the individuals actually included in
the study
• Surveys are generally designed for quantitative analysis and entered into a statistical software to
identify relationships among the study’s variables
• In contrast, qualitative survey research analyzes the complete statements or verbal interactions of
survey subjects in an attempt to identify meanings and common patterns

Field Research
• In criminology, this form of research generally involves far-ranging interviews and discussions,
sometimes over many hours or days , during which subjects give detailed accounts off their criminal
activities and associated lifestyles
• Researchers often spend considerable time in the natural environments of their subjects, either as
participant observers doing many of the same things group members do, though not necessarily
committing crimes
• “I participated in nearly all the things they did. I ate where ate, I slept, I stayed with their families, I
traveled where they went, and in certain situations where I could not remain neutral, I fought with
them. The only this that I did not participate in where those activities that were illegal”
• As a general rule, surveys give the researcher more breadth, while ethnography give more depth
• One type of ethnography is called the life history, often referred to as biographical research
• Friendships, neighborhood traditions, and relationships with parents played important roles in the
development of delinquent careers

Case Studies
• Involve the detailed reconstruction of an event or process in order to develop or test theories or
ways of understanding crime
• This method is generally qualitative in design, but quantitative analyses can also be conducted
• A good case study research produces a precise and multidimensional analysis of how and why a
crime or event happened
• They also aimed to create or test new conceptual or theoretical ideas that shed light on why the
crime occurred and perhaps how similar crimes might be explained

Comparative and Historical Research

• Emile Durkheim observed that the is no know society without crime: “Its form changes, but
everywhere and always, there have been men who have behaved in such a way as to draw upon
themselves penal repression”
• In order to find out whether and how crime varies from place to place, or from time to time,
criminologists use comparative and historical research
• One clear benefit of this method is in its ability to test criminological theories. Do theories developed
in the Western world have applicability to crime in Zimbabwe or Iraq?
• Shelley also found that as societies advance, violent crime decreases and property crime increase,
and that those countries with lower overall crime rate in the modem period have successfully
defeated the cultural and normative change that often accompanies modernizations

Experiments
• When researchers which to establish whether one variable causes another, they will think first of
conducting an experiment
 • The experimental method is generally considered the ideal way to measure causation because the
experimenter can control the research process.
• A “true” or “classic” experiment requires one to show that independent variable X causes dependent
variable Y.
• Those subjects in the experimental group are exposed to manipulation of the independent variable
while those assigned to the control group are not
• Then researchers examine whether the groups experience change
• If there is a change in the experimental group and not in the control group, the case for causation is
stronger
• In truth, criminologists rarely conduct the classic experiment

Content Analysis
• One method criminologists have used to understand how newspapers, films, news shows and other
media create certain impressions of crime is through content analysis
• A careful and scientific examination of the substance and spirit of representations of crime in print,
audio , and /or video. Content analysis allows a researcher to understand how media agents “frame”
the problem of crime
• Dowler wanted to know if there were any significant differences between Canadian and U.S. local tv
coverage of crime
o After examining, coding, and interpreting the tv images, he concluded that the “sensational
stories, live stories, and stores that report firearms are more likely to appear in U.S. markets
o However, he notes that both countries in general support dominant popular culture
understandings of crime rather than those informed by academic research