Week 2 Candice S. Brooks Instructor: Dr. Nwokoji 4007676 American Public University System CMRJ531 June 16, 2013 The profession of criminal profiling/ offender profiling is defined as a series of investigative techniques used to assess the characteristics of an unknown criminal offender (Devery, 2010). Criminal profiling is based upon the premise that a criminal’s personality and mannerisms actually dictate their daily behaviour as well as their criminal actions. After crime scene evidence is evaluated, the criminal profiler pieces together the information that is known from past criminal acts to include personality traits and behaviours of other criminals who have committed similar acts. The profiler can actually construct a profile by using a description of the characteristics in the suspect. These practices often lead to locating suspects, yet they are still often scrutinized in the media and cause a great deal of controversy.
DD121 An Introduction to the Social Sciences Richard Curtis TMA01: What forms of evidence have been used by social scientists in studies of crime? Essay Plan: Introduction: • What is crime? Act punishable by law/Evil or injurious act • Difference between – Social Scientific understanding & Individual understanding • Social scientific approach is just one way of looking at crime – most are based on an individual approach • What essay is about Main body: • Increase in recorded crime 1930 – 2000 • Were all crimes reported? Domestic violence/easier to report technology? • Quantitative evidence – recorded crime levels over time • Qualitative evidence – Interviews, observations & surveys • Increased reporting of crime (Maguire 1997) • Offenders as % population by gender & age • Area where we live – (Social Trends, 2002, pp.154-5).
First I would like to start by giving a brief definition of what or better said – how, criminology differs from victimology. Criminology is more concerned with the origin of crime along the extent and nature of crime. Criminology places an emphasis on studying the offender, the crimes, and the motives behind the crime. It is also the study of how the public and criminal justice system responds to the offender. Victimology plays a very important role in criminology and is used to determine what the victim’s behavior has to do with their risk of being victimized.
In this essay we will assess the usefulness of these functionalist theories, and look at how it helps us explain crime. One functionalist who tried to explain crime is Merton and his strain theory, the strain theory argues that people engage in the deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means. Merton explanation combines 2 elements; structural factors- society’s unequal opportunity structure, cultural factors- strong emphasis to achieve goals and weak emphasis on using legit means. Merton uses the strain theory to explain some patterns of crime in society, he argues a person’s positioning in society affects the way they adapt or respond to the strain to anomie. Merton gives 5 different types of adaption; Conformity- the individual accepts socially acceptable goal and achieves it through legitimate means, Innovation- Individual accepts the role of success and wealth but uses illegitimate means to achieve them, Ritualism- Individual give up on legitimate goals but still follow strictly to the rules, Retreatism- Individuals reject legitimate goals and means of achieving them e.g drug addicts, the final type is Rebellion- Individuals reject existing goals and means but replace them with new one in desire to bring about revolutionary change.
Theories on Crime Comparison Carl Boone AJS/542 July 25th 2013 Jeffrey Begley Theories on Crime Comparison To understand crime and the elements that help compare and contrast motives, influences, and patterns of criminal behavior; theories are developed under models of thought. This process is called criminology and it is the study of crime and criminal behavior with some focus on lawmaking as well (McShane, Williams, 2010). Criminology has continued to be one of the cornerstones of our judicial system. The scientific research that goes into understanding individuals and societies, along with the variables involved, help the criminal justice system better understand issues that relate to crime. Criminology was first born in the eighteenth century and although it was not initially concerned with the aspect of understanding crime and criminal behavior, “it gained its association with criminology through its focus on lawmaking” (McShane & Williams 2010, ch.2, p. 15).
Personal Criminological Theory Taniqua S. Shepperson AJS542 Criminological Theory March 31, 2013 Angela Dudley Personal Criminological Theory Introduction Understanding the reasoning’s behind why a person commits a crime, violent or simple, requires an in-depth understanding of both the criminal justice system and theories associated with crime. The criminological theory offers many reasons for criminal behavior. These reasons vary from society to mental issues. These reasons, or theories, offer researched data that assists law makers in defining how crimes are punished and prevented. Some of those theories include: Social learning, rational choice, and labeling theory.
Another example of how statistics from the police and statistics from victim surveys are different is because not all victims report crime to the police for many reasons and therefore create what’s called “the dark figure” (The number of crimes that go un-reported, we have no idea how big or small this number is). One last example of how they differ is that the victims are left to classify the crimes that they have been fallen victim to, which means that the classification may be wrong changing the statistics, whereas the recorded crimes get classified by the police. The advantages for using victim surveys to studying patterns of crime are: able to triangulate the accuracy of official statistics; may be more valid, as official procedures don’t have to be followed and victims have their own say; victims more likely to respond due to no fear of reprisal; can estimate the overall levels of crime, as unreported crimes are included; they have a high rate of comparability. These reasons allow us to see all of the advantages for helping to decide how useful victim surveys are in understanding patterns of crime. The disadvantages for using victim surveys to studying patterns of crime are: Not all
Different sociologists have presented different theories and concepts to explain what drives a person to commit a crime, and research and statistics give us an idea of the type of crimes committed and the places that they’re most likely to occur. However, these statistics can prove to be misleading as not all crime is reported to or recorded by the police. This can be referred to as the ‘hidden figure’, and it differentiates between the official crime rate and the real rate. Despite this, they do prove to be worthwhile in the fact that they display trends and patterns of crime. Sociologists use three different methods to measure crime; each method provides us with particular information and as in all systems of data collecting, there are strengths and weaknesses to the method.
This theory not only centers on routine activities, but also the appearance, location, and vulnerability of the individual, (Kramer, 2013). There are three elements that interact in the lifestyle theory; the presence of motivated offenders, the availability of suitable targets, and whether there is an adequate guardian present, (Kramer). In the lifestyle theory individuals that live high-risk are usually involved with drinking, taking drugs, leaving the house late nights, and getting involved in crimes themselves, (Victimization Theories, 2014). In 1958, Marvin Eugene Wolfgang, publish his first work of data analysis he studied titled Patterns in Criminal Homicide. The book contained the first study of comprehensive data on 588 homicides in Philadelphia dating January 1, 1948 through December 31, 1952.
Sometimes, crime happens suddenly because criminals don’t think before they act and this kind of crimes are usually called “unplanned crimes”. What we need to know here is planned or unplanned, both kinds of crimes are choices and these choices are made by the effects of the causes of crime. People have been trying to explain the causes of crime since the first known crime. Crime is usually considered as a bad behavior in the big majority of the societies. When we look through history, we can see the ancient Babylon Laws of Hammurabi as the first written source created to control the bad behaviors.