1. Crime and Its Consequences
Chapter 2
Crime and Its Consequences

2. A Legal Definition
A legal definition of crime is used in criminal justice in the United States.

3. A Legal Definition
Some behaviors prohibited by criminal law should not be. Overcriminalization arises in victimless crimes:
Gambling
Prostitution involving consenting adults
Homosexual acts between consenting adults
Use of some illegal drugs, such as marijuana

4. A Legal Definition
For some behaviors prohibited by criminal law, the law is not routinely enforced. Nonenforcement is common for:
White-collar crimes
Government crimes
Victimless crimes
Minor crimes
Nonenforcement causes disrespect for the law.

5. undercriminalization
A Legal Definition
Behaviors that some people think should be prohibited by criminal law are not. This is undercriminalization.
undercriminalization
The failure to prohibit some behaviors that arguably should be prohibited.

6. Elements of Crime
Technically and ideally, a crime has not been committed unless the following elements are present:
Causation
Concurrence
Punishment
Harm
Legality
Actus reus
Mens rea

7. The external consequence required to make an
A Legal Definition
For crime to occur, there must be harm, either physical or verbal.
Thinking about committing a crime is not a crime.
A verbal threat to strike another person is a crime.
harm
The external consequence required to make an
action a crime.

8. Legality Legality has two aspects: The harm must be legally forbidden
A criminal law must not be ex post facto.

9. Actus Reus
Actus reus requires actual criminal conduct, or criminal negligence:
If parents fail to provide food, clothing, and shelter for their children, they are committing a crime.

10. Mens rea refers to the mental aspect of crime.
Criminal conduct usually refers to intentional action or inaction.
Sometimes, negligence or reckless action can be criminal.

11. mens rea negligence Criminal intent; a guilty state of mind.
The failure to take reasonable precautions to prevent harm.

12. Mens Rea – Legal Defenses
In the United States, an offender is not considered responsible or is considered less resp. if he or she:
Acted under duress
Was underage
Was insane
Acted in self-defense or defense of a third party
Was entrapped
Acted out of necessity

13. Causation
In order for a crime to be a legal crime, there must be a causal relationship between the legally forbidden harm and the actus reus. The criminal act must lead directly to the harm without a long delay.

14. Concurrence
There must be concurrence between the actus reus and the mens rea; the criminal conduct and the criminal intent must occur together.

15. Punishment
For a behavior to be considered a crime, there must be a statutory provision for punishment or at least the threat of punishment.

16. Degrees or Categories of Crime
Crimes can be distinguished by degree or severity of the offense by being divided into:
Felonies—severe crimes
Misdemeanors—less severe crimes

17. Degrees or Categories of Crime
Another way of distinguishing crime is between:
Mala prohibita
Mala in se
Trespassing
Gambling
Prostitution
Rape
Murder

18. mala in se mala prohibita
“Wrong in themselves.” A description applied to crimes that are characterized by universality and timelessness.
mala prohibita
Offenses that are illegal because laws define them as such. They lack universality and timelessness.

19. The Measurement of Crime
What Americans know about crime is, by and large, based on statistics supplied by government agencies.

20. Crime Statistics
Statistics about crime and delinquency are probably the most unreliable and most difficult of all social statistics.
Behavior may be wrongly labeled.
Crimes go undetected.
Crimes are sometimes not reported to police.
Crimes may be inaccurately recorded by police.
Statistics do not include the dark figure of crime.

21. The number of crimes not officially recorded by the police.
dark figure of crime
The number of crimes not officially recorded by the police.

22. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
One of the primary sources of crime statistics in the United States is the uniform crime reports.
Today more than 17,000 city, county, and state law enforcement agencies (representing 95 percent of the U.S. population) are active in the program.

23. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
The UCR includes two major indexes:
Offenses known to the police
Statistics about persons arrested

24. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
Offenses known to the police include eight index crimes.
Only about 35% of crimes, on average, are reported to the police.

25. eight index crimes Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter Forcible rape
The Part I offenses in the
FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports.
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter
Forcible rape
Robbery
Aggravated assault
Burglary
Larceny-theft
Motor vehicle theft
Arson

26. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
The other major crime index in the UCR is based on arrest statistics, provided for the eight index crimes as well as 21 other crimes and status offenses.
status offenses
An act that is illegal for a juvenile but would not be a crime if committed by an adult.

27. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)
The UCR also includes statistics on crime index offenses cleared by the police, which is a rough index of police performance in solving crimes.
Murder – 70% Burglary – 15%
Rape – 50% Larceny – 20%
Robbery – 25% MVT – 15%
Agg. Assault – 60% Arson – 15%
20% of all Index crimes

28. National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
The NIBRS is the result of a joint task force of the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI aimed at improving the quality of information contained in the UCR.
The NIBRS contains more data on more crimes than the UCR.

29. National Crime Victimization Surveys (NCVS)
The other major source of crime statistics in the U.S. is the National Crime Victimization Surveys.
For nearly all offenses, the NCVS shows more crimes being committed than the UCR, because of victims’ failure to report crimes or failure by police to report crimes to the FBI.

30. national crime victimization surveys
A source of crime statistics based on interviews in which respondents are asked whether they have been victims of any of the FBI’s index offenses (except murder and nonnegligent manslaughter and arson) or other crimes during the past six months. If they have, they are asked to provide information about the experience.

31. Self-Report Crimes
Self-report crime surveys ask selected subjects (often high school students) whether they have committed crimes.
Examples:
The National Youth Survey
The National Institute on Drug Abuse effort to ascertain levels of smoking, drinking and drug use among high school students

32. Who the Victims Are
Victimization is not spread evenly through the U.S. population. The most likely victims of violent crime are
Younger (age 12-24)
Never married, divorced, or separated
Poor
Minority
Urban residents
Men
Living in the West or Midwest

33. Who the Victims Are
The majority of men (55%) were victimized by strangers.
The majority of women (68%) were victimized by someone they knew.