The purpose of this case study is to evaluate available data and attempt to determine the variables that contribute the most and address several conceptions and misconceptions about the leading causes of property crimes in the U.S. The questions that this study will answer include: 1. Are crime rates higher in urban than rural areas? 2. Does unemployment or education level contribute to property crime rates?
“It is a person’s environment that leads them into criminal and deviant behaviour.” This essay will firstly define deviance and crime in sociological terms. It will explore how deviance and crime are defined and who defines them as such. Considering the moral and legal aspects of deviance and crime. Secondly this essay will consider some of the many ideas and perspectives around the reason for and the continuation of crime and deviance in society. As a conclusion this essay will take into consideration whether the perspectives outlined are external or internal in their description of reasons for crime and deviance and try and determine the relevance of the arguments.
But why do we commit crime and why are the crime rates in certain places like Compton, East St. Louis or Detroit so high? The answer is the “Social Structure Theory”, which states that poverty, unemployment and bad social conditions cause criminal activities. The Social Structure Theory contains three schools of thought: social disorganization, strain, and cultural deviance theories.The school of social disorganization states that
In assessing the question “Are official statistics a reliable source of information about crime in Britain?” several factors will be considered: including how the statistics are collected, the divide between males and females in crime statistics, the over representation of ethnic minorities and any problems in looking at the true extent of crime using statistics as an indicator for this. In the United Kingdom statistics are produced by the Home Office, the first crime statistics were published in 1976, and contained crimes recorded by the police. Today these statistics are published annually. These statistics make up the British Crime Survey, which measures the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking people about crimes they have experienced in the last year. The British Crime Survey also includes crimes which are not reported to the police, therefore is an important alternative to police records and provides criminologists, the police, the courts, the media and anyone else who has an interest with the statistics, two different types of data: Firstly trends on crime over time chartered, Details are compiled from offenders who are eventually found guilty or cautioned; details gathered include sex and the age of the offender.
In it’s simplest definition, victimology is the study of the victim or victims of a particular offender (Wallace & Roberson 2011: 3). However, two other definitions expound deeper into victimology: (1) victimology is the study of crime victims and the psychological effects of being a victim (Def, Random House Dictionary, 2011), and (2) victimology is the study of the ways in which the behavior of crime victims may have or have not contributed to their victimization (Def, Merriam-Webster, 2011). The early works about victims were first written by criminologist, as early as the mid 1700’s. The term victimology was coined by Beniamin Mendelsohn in 1974 (Dussich, 2000). Several criminologist (Hentig, Mendelsohn and Ellenberger) examined victim-offender interactions and stressed reciprocal influences and role reversals.
Holmes & Holmes (2009, p290) stated “To appraise a crime without some knowledge of the victim is certainly remiss.” The victim constitutes half of the crime therefore victimology should be heavily looked at in order to connect them to the offender (Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, & Ressler, 1992).Victimology is important to an investigation process in that, it is not just learning about the victim’s personal history and personality, but it also why the victim was chosen (Petherick, 2010). Holmes and Holmes (2009,p 291) created a list of elements which should be important to victim profiling it includes: "Physical traits, marital status, personal lifestyle, occupation, education, personal demographics, medical history, psychosexual history, court history, and last activities." A victim’s lifestyle, preferences, family, relationships, and routines, can give investigators clues about potential suspects who had access to the victim (Brown & Davenport, 2012). Other concepts that should be considered when victim profiling are the method of approach, method of attack and risk assessment (Turvey, 1999). Con, surprise, and blitz are three methods of approach that an offender will use to capture his victim.
Assess the usefulness of official statistics to our understanding of social problems. Illustrate your response with sociological arguments and evidence. To assess the usefulness of official statistics to our understanding of social problems, I will first look at what official statistics are, I will then look at crime and suicide as two examples of social problems. I will look at how both Positivists and Interpretativists use these statistics and how useful each of these sociological approaches find them. Official statistics is the name given to the numbers of crimes reported to or unveiled by the police themselves, which lead to a conviction, caution or are dealt with in some formal way by the law.
Typology for crime uses defined characteristics, such as motivation, situation, behavior-both victim and offender-, and aspects unique to the offense. 2. What are the key issues to be considered in explaining patterns of homicide? * When trying to explain homicide, socio-demographics need to be examined. Using cultural norms, weapons availability, gang activity, geographic region, victim-offender relationship, as well as individual characteristics as considerations can give a much greater idea of statistics and causes.
Edwin H. Sutherland’s differential association theory is believed that an individual’s criminal behaviors were learned from their social and differential group organizations. Sutherland adopted the view that prevailing conception of crime as having multiple causes, including mental deficiency, broken homes, minority status, age, class, inadequate socialization, alcoholic parents and the like (Matsueda, 2000, p. 125). Sutherland stated that the differential theory has a set of nine propositions. These propositions introduce three concepts; the normative conflict, differential association, and differential group organization. These concept explain crime at levels of the society, the individual, and the group.
Definition of Key Concepts 2.1 Criminal Profiling ( Hard evidence profiling) According to Turvey 1999, the process of inferring distinctive personality characteristics of individuals responsible for committing criminal acts has been commonly referred to as ‘criminal profiling.’ These include biographic details of the perpetrator, crime-scene analysis, and so on. 2.2 Criminological Profiling (Soft evidence profiling) According to Joubert, Hesselink & Marais 2003, criminological profiling is the assessment of criminal behaviour which includes assessing the victims’ credibility, motives & causes of the crime, modi operandi, personal & family background, post offence behaviour & appearances. 2.3 Risk Assessment The assessment of risk involves predicting how likely it is that the individual will in the future commit crime, or reoffend. 3. Main Views The main purpose of the profile is to investigate a crime in order to successfully apprehend the perpetrator, provide investigators with relevant leads & strategies & to help gain insight into the offenders state of mind before, during & after the commission of the crime, whereas the main objective of prediction is to identify the risk factors that are involved in reoffending &