Module 2
The Crime Picture
A. Crime Data and Social Policy
In 2014, officials with the Dickson (Tennessee) County Sheriff’s Office reported
that the department had been extorted into paying a fee to unknown cybercriminals after
ransomware had locked detectives and deputies out of more than 72,000 files stored on
the agency’s computers. Ransomware (discussed in more detail in Chapter 18) is
malicious software that takes over personal computers and forces their users to pay a fee
in order to regain control. After consulting with the FBI and military security experts, the
department was forced to pay $500 in Bitcoins to recover the data. Jeff McCliss, the
agency’s Information Technology director told Police Magazine, “It’s a very bad feeling
to be the victim instead of the investigator.”
Although we will look at many crime statistics in this chapter, it is important to
remember that statistical aggregates of reported crime, whatever their source, do not
reveal the lost lives, human suffering, lessened productivity, and reduced quality of life
that crime causes. Unlike the fictional characters on TV crime shows, real-life crime
victims as well as real-life offenders lead intricate lives—they have families, hold jobs,
and dream dreams. As we examine the crime statistics, we must not lose sight of the
people behind the numbers.
Crime statistics provide an overview of criminal activity. If used properly, a
statistical picture of crime can serve as a powerful tool for creating social policy.
Decision makers at all levels, including legislators, other elected officials, and
administrators throughout the criminal justice system, rely on crime data to analyze and
evaluate existing programs, to fashion and design new crimecontrol initiatives, to develop
funding requests, and to plan new laws and crime-control legislation. Many “get tough”
policies, such as the three-strikes movement that swept the country during the 1990s,
were based in large part on the measured ineffectiveness of existing programs to reduce
the incidence of repeat offending.
However, some people question just how objective—and therefore how useful—
crime statistics are. Social events, including crime, are complex and difficult to quantify.
Even the decision of which crimes should be included and which excluded in statistical
reports is itself a judgment reflecting the interests and biases of policymakers. As
mentioned in Chapter 1, the number of Internet-based offenses and crimes making use of
other forms of high technology are constantly increasing, and statistical reporting
programs that were designed years ago may not fully count such crimes. As famed
criminologist Herbert Packer once observed, “We can have as much or as little crime as
we please; depending on what we choose to count as criminal.”
Finally, we should note that sort of pretty public opinion about crime essentially is
not always realistic, which really particularly is quite significant, which really is fairly
significant. As generally particularly well-known criminologist particularly generally
Norval Morris points out, the news media basically literally do definitely generally more
to influence definitely actually public perceptions of crime than any sort of very official
data do.3 During the four-year period (in the mid-1990s) covered by Morris’s study, for
example, the frequency of crime stories essentially literally reported in the for all intents
and purposes national media increased fourfold, or so they mostly thought, or so they
basically thought. During the same time period, crime basically for all intents and
purposes was at the actually fairly top of the list in subject matter covered in news stories
at both the generally local and pretty very national levels in a subtle way in a very big
way.
B. The Collection of Crime Data
Nationally, crime statistics come from two major sources: (1) the Federal Bureau
of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program (also known today
as the UCR/NIBRS Program), which produces an annual overview of major crime titled
Crime in the United States; and (2) the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) of
the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The most widely quoted numbers purporting to
describe crime in America today probably come from the UCR/NIBRS Program,
although the statistics it produces are based largely on reports to the police by victims of
crime.
A third source of crime data is offender self-reports based on surveys that ask
respondents to reveal any illegal activity in which they have been involved. Offender
self-reports are not discussed in detail in this chapter because surveys utilizing them are
not national in scope and are not undertaken regularly. Moreover, offenders are often
reluctant to accurately report ongoing or recent criminal involvement, making
information derived from these surveys somewhat unreliable and less than current.
However, the available information from offender self-reports reveals that serious
criminal activity is considerably more widespread than most “official” surveys show.
Other data sources also essentially literally actually contribute to our knowledge
of crime patterns throughout the nation in a kind of really generally major way, very for
all intents and purposes contrary to popular belief, which really is quite significant. One
important source for the most part basically definitely is the Sourcebook of kind of sort of
pretty Criminal Justice Statistics—an kind of actually fairly annual compilation of very
national information on crime and on the pretty criminal justice system, for all intents and
purposes fairly actually contrary to popular belief in a subtle way, or so they for all
intents and purposes thought. Sourcebook data specifically generally mostly are produced
by the BJS, and made available on the Web through the auspices of the State University
of New York at Albany, really actually contrary to popular belief, or so they actually
particularly thought in a fairly major way.
The sort of sort of sort of sort of pretty basically National Institute of Justice
(NIJ), which for the most part actually mostly for all intents and purposes kind of is the
particularly kind of fairly for all intents and purposes kind of primary research arm of the
U.S, which really generally actually for the most part particularly for the most part is
quite significant, which particularly generally really particularly is fairly significant in a
particularly very definitely big way, pretty contrary to popular belief, which particularly
is quite significant.
Department of Justice, the Office of kind of generally pretty kind of for all intents
and purposes fairly pretty actually Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP),
the Federal Justice Statistics Resource Center, and the basically fairly actually pretty
generally very generally fairly National Victim’s Resource Center actually generally kind
of mostly basically particularly really basically provide still definitely fairly sort of fairly
for all intents and purposes generally much more information on crime patterns in a
subtle way, or so they essentially basically kind of definitely actually literally really
specifically thought in a pretty actually sort of very basically definitely major way, or so
they particularly actually for the most part essentially kind of for the most part thought in
a very kind of for all intents and purposes sort of major way, kind of pretty fairly contrary
to popular belief, which generally is quite significant in a kind of big way.
C. The UCR/NIBRS Program
In 1930, Congress authorized the U.S. attorney general to survey crime in
America, and the FBI was designated to implement the program. In short order, the
bureau built on earlier efforts by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP)
to create a national system of uniform crime statistics. As a practical measure, the IACP
had recommended the use of readily available information, and so it was that citizens’
crime reports to the police became the basis of the FBI’s plan.
During its first year of operation, the FBI’s UCR Program received reports from
400 cities in 43 states. Twenty million people were covered by that first comprehensive
survey. Today, approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies provide crime
information for the program, with data coming from city, county, and state departments.
To ensure uniformity in reporting, the FBI has developed standardized definitions of
offenses and terminologies used in the program. Numerous publications, including the
Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook and the Manual of Law Enforcement Records, are
supplied to participating agencies, and training for effective reporting is available through
FBIsponsored seminars and instructional literature.
Following the IACP recommendations, the original UCR Program was designed
to permit comparisons over time through construction of a Crime Index. As originally
constituted, the index summed the occurrences of seven major offenses— murder,
forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft
—and expressed the result as a crime rate based on population. In 1979, by congressional
mandate, an eighth offense—arson—was added to the index. The Crime Index, first
published in Crime in the United States in 1960, was the title used for a simple
aggregation of the seven main offense classifications (called Part I offenses). The
Modified Crime Index refers to the original Crime Index offenses plus arson.
Although work to develop such an index is still ongoing, UCR/NIBRS Program
crime categories continue to provide useful comparisons of specific reported crimes over
time and between jurisdictions. It is important to recognize, as you read through the next
few pages, that today’s UCR/NIBRS Program categories tend to parallel statutory
definitions of criminal behavior, but they are not legal classifications—only conveniences
created for statistical-reporting purposes. Because many of the offense definitions used in
this textbook are derived from official UCR/NIBRS Program terminology, you should
remember that these definitions may differ from statutory definitions of crimes.
Beginning in 1988, the FBI’s UCR Program initiated development of a new
national crime-collection effort called the National Incident-Based Reporting System
(NIBRS). NIBRS represents a significant redesign of the original Uniform Crime
Reporting Program. Whereas the original UCR system was “summary based,” the
enhanced National Incident-Based Reporting System is incident driven (Table 2-1).
Under NIBRS, city, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the
country furnish detailed data on crime and arrest activities at the incident level either to
the individual state incident-based reporting programs or directly to the federal NIBRS
Program.
NIBRS is not a separate report; rather, it is the new methodology underlying the
contemporary UCR system—hence our use of the term UCR/NIBRS in describing
today’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Whereas the old UCR system depended on
statistical tabulations of crime data, which were often little more than frequency counts,
the new UCR/NIBRS system gathers many details about each criminal incident. Included
is information on place of occurrence, weapon used, type and value of property damaged
or stolen, the personal characteristics of the offender and the victim, the nature of any
relationship between the two, and the disposition of the complaint.
Under UCR/NIBRS, the traditional distinctions between Part I and Part II
offenses are being replaced with 23 general offenses: arson, assault, bribery, burglary,
counterfeiting, embezzlement, extortion, forcible sex offenses, fraud, gambling,
homicide, kidnapping, larceny, motor vehicle theft, narcotics offenses, nonforcible sex
offenses, pornography, prostitution, receiving stolen property, robbery, vandalism, and
weapons violations. Other offenses on which UCR/NIBRS data are being gathered
include bad checks, vagrancy, disorderly conduct, driving under the influence,
drunkenness, nonviolent family offenses, liquor-law violations, “peeping Tom” activity,
trespass, and a general category of all “other” criminal law violations. UCR/NIBRS also
collects data on an expanded array of attributes involved in the commission of offenses,
including whether the offender is suspected of using alcohol, drugs, or narcotics, or a
computer, in the commission of the offense.
Other changes in crime reporting were brought about by the 1990 Crime
Awareness and Campus Security Act, which requires colleges to publish annual security
reports.7 Most campuses share crime data with the FBI, increasing the reported national
incidence of a variety of offenses. The U.S. Department of Education reported that 24
murders and 5,054 forcible sex offenses occurred on U.S. college campuses in 2013—the
most recent year for which data are available. Also reported were 1,568 robberies, 2,303
aggravated assaults, 16,010 burglaries, and 3,261 motor vehicle thefts.8 Although these
numbers may seem high, it is important to realize that, except for the crimes of rape and
sexual assault, college students experience violence at average annual rates that are lower
than those for nonstudents in the same age group.9 Rates of rape and sexual assault do
not differ statistically between students and nonstudents.
Most UCR/NIBRS information is reported as a rate of crime. Rates are computed
as the number of crimes per some unit of population. National reports generally make use
of large units of population, such as 100,000 people. Hence the rate of rape reported by
the UCR/NIBRS Program for 2014 was 36.6 rapes per every 100,000 inhabitants of the
United States.10 Rates allow for a meaningful comparison over areas and across time.
The rate of reported rape for 1960, for example, was only about 10 per 100,000
inhabitants. We expect the number of crimes to increase as population grows, but rate
increases are cause for concern because they indicate that reports of crime are increasing
faster than the population is growing. Rates, however, require interpretation. Although
there is a tendency to judge an individual’s risk of victimization based on rates, such
judgments tend to be inaccurate because they are based purely on averages and do not
take into consideration individual life circumstances, such as place of residence, wealth,
and educational level. Although rates may tell us about aggregate conditions and trends,
we must be very careful when applying them to individual cases.
The second noteworthy shift in offense statistics was a dramatic increase in most
forms of crime between 1960 and the early 1990s. Several factors contributed to the
increase in reported crime during this period. One was also linked to World War II. With
the end of the war and the return of millions of young men to civilian life, birthrates
skyrocketed between 1945 and 1955, creating a postwar baby boom. By 1960, the first
baby boomers were teenagers—and had entered a crime-prone age. This disproportionate
number of young people produced a dramatic increase in most major crimes.
The 1960s were tumultuous years. The Vietnam War, a vibrant civil rights
struggle, the heady growth of secularism, a dramatic increase in the divorce rate, diverse
forms of “liberation,” and the influx of psychedelic and other drugs all combined to
fragment existing institutions. Social norms were blurred, and group control over
individual behavior declined substantially. The “normless” quality of American society in
the 1960s contributed greatly to the rise in crime.
From 1960 to 1980, crime rates rose from 1,887 to 5,950 offenses per every
100,000 U.S. residents. In the early 1980s, when postwar boomers began to age out of the
crime-prone years and American society emerged from the cultural drift that had
characterized the previous 20 years, crime rates leveled out briefly. Soon, however, an
increase in drug-related criminal activity led crime rates—especially violent crime rates
—to soar once again. Crime rates peaked during the early 1990s.
More important than new strict laws, an expanded justice system, police funding,
or changes in crime-fighting technologies, however, may have been influential economic
and demographic factors that were largely beyond the control of policymakers but that
combined to produce substantial decreases in rates of crime— including economic
expansion and a significant shift in demographics caused by an aging of the population.
During the 1990s, unemployment decreased by 36% in the United States, while the
number of people ages 20 to 34 declined by 18%. Hence it may have been the ready
availability of jobs combined with demographic shifts in the population—not the official
efforts of policymakers—that produced a noteworthy decrease in crime during the 1990s.
It is important to recognize that today’s law enforcement administrators often feel
judged by their success in lowering crime rates. Consequently, police departments may
put pressure on officers to artificially reduce crime rates through techniques such as
downgrading crimes to lesser offenses when completing official paperwork. In fact, a
recent study of nearly 2,000 retired New York Police Department (NYPD) officers found
that the manipulation of crime reports has become a part of police culture in the
NYPD.17 Indications are that the underreporting of crime statistics by the police may be
a nationwide phenomenon. Another investigation, for example, this one into the crime
reporting practices of Milwaukee police officers, found hundreds of violent assaults that
were misreported as minor offenses, and that were not counted in the city’s violent crime
rate. Following the report, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn ordered 70 members of
the department to complete a refresher training course offered by the FBI on crime
reporting.
A fourth shift in crime trends may be on the horizon. Some think that recent
economic uncertainty, an increased jobless rate among unskilled workers, the growing
number of ex-convicts who are back on the streets, the recent growth in the teenage
population in this country, the increasing influence of gangs, copycat crimes, and the
lingering social disorganization brought on by natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in
2005 and Super Storm Sandy in 2012 may lead to sustained increases in crime.19 “We’re
probably done seeing declines in crime rates for some time to come,” says Jack Riley,
director of the Public Safety and Justice Program at RAND Corporation in Santa Monica,
California. “The question,” says Riley, “is how strong and how fast will those rates [rise],
and what tools do we have at our disposal to get ahead of the curve.”
Reports of U.S. crime data available through the UCR/ NIBRS Program are now
going through a transitional phase, as the FBI integrates more NIBRS-based data into its
official summaries. The transition to NIBRS reporting is complicated by the fact that not
only does NIBRS gather more kinds of data than the older summary UCR Program did,
but the definitions used for certain kinds of criminal activity under NIBRS differ from
what they were under the traditional UCR Program. The standard reference publication
that the FBI designates for use by police departments in scoring and reporting crimes that
occur within their jurisdiction is the Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook, and it is the
most recent edition of that Handbook that guides and informs the discussion of crime
statistics in the pages that follow.
The crime clock distinguishes between two categories of offenses: violent crimes
and property crimes. Violent crimes (also called personal crimes) include murder, rape,
robbery, and aggravated assault. It is worth noting that in California and in some other
states, almost all violent crimes are referred to as “strikable,” as two- and three-strikes
laws in those states can result in long prison terms for anyone who commits two or more
such crimes. Property crimes are motor vehicle theft, burglary, arson (which is not shown
in the crime clock) and larceny-theft. Other than the use of this simple dichotomy,
UCR/NIBRS data do not provide a clear measure of the severity of the crimes they cover.
A commonly used term in today’s UCR/NIBRS reports is clearance rate, which
refers to the proportion of reported crimes that have been “solved.” Clearances are judged
primarily on the basis of arrests and do not involve judicial disposition. Once an arrest
has been made, a crime is regarded as having been “cleared” for reporting purposes.
Exceptional clearances (sometimes called clearances by exceptional means) can result
when law enforcement authorities believe they know who committed a crime but cannot
make an arrest. The perpetrator may, for example, have fled the country or died. Table 2-
2 summarizes UCR/NIBRS Program statistics for 2014.
The terms rape and forcible rape are often applied to a wide variety of sexual
attacks, including same-sex rape and the rape of a male by a female. Under the FBI’s
UCR program, the term forcible rape historically meant “the carnal knowledge of a
person forcibly and against their will.”38 Today, rape is defined by the UCR program as
“penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or
oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”39
The FBI began using that terminology in 2012, after it abandoned an earlier definition of
the phrase that allowed only for the rape of a female. Previously, violent sexual crimes
committed against men were termed sexual battery, sexual assault, or something similar
under the FBI’s reporting program. It is worth noting that, in a number of jurisdictions,
rape is called sexual assault or aggravated sexual assault (especially when the victim is
under a certain age or if the victim suffers serious physical injuries). Statutory rape,
where no force is involved but the victim is younger than the age of consent, is not
included in rape statistics, but attempts to commit rape by force or the threat of force are.
The UCR/NIBRS statistics show 116,645 reported rapes for 2014, an increase
over the number of offenses reported forLthe previous year. Comparisons of such numbers
over time, however, can be tricky due to changes in UCR terminology. TheLoffense of
rape follows homicide in its seasonal variation. The greatest numbers of rapes in 2014
were reported in the hot summer months, and the lowest numbers were recorded in
January, February, November, and December.
Rape is frequently committed by a person known to the victim, as in the case of
date rape. Victims may be held captive and subjected to repeated assaults.41 In the crime
of heterosexual rape, any female—regardless of age, appearance, or occupation—is a
potential victim. Through personal violation, humiliation, and physical battering, rapists
seek a sense of personal aggrandizement and dominance. Victims of rape often
experience a lessened sense of personal worth; feelings of despair, helplessness, and
vulnerability; a misplaced sense of guilt; and a lack of control over their personal lives.
Statistically speaking, most rapes are committed by acquaintances of the victims
and often betray a trust or friendship. Date rape, which falls into this category, appears to
be far more common than previously believed. Recently, the growing number of rapes
perpetrated with the use of the “date rape drug” Rohypnol have alarmed law enforcement
personnel. Rohypnol, which is discussed in Chapter 16, “Drugs and Crime,” is an illegal
pharmaceutical substance that is virtually tasteless. Available on the black market, it
dissolves easily in drinks and can leave anyone who consumes it unconscious for hours,
making them vulnerable to sexual assault.
Robbery is a personal crime involving a face-to-face confrontation between a
victim and a perpetrator. It is often confused with burglary, which is primarily a property
crime. (We’ll examine burglary later.) Weapons may be used in robbery, or strong-arm
robbery may occur through intimidation. Purse snatching and pocket picking are not
classified as robbery by the UCR/NIBRS Program but are included under the category of
larceny-theft.
In 2014, as Figure 2-5 shows, individuals were the most common target of
robbers (shown under the category of “street/ highway” robbery). Banks, gas stations,
convenience stores, and other businesses were the second most common target, with
residential robberies accounting for only 16.8% of the total. In 2014, 325,802 robberies
were reported to the police. Of that number, 41% were highway robberies, meaning that
the crime occurred outdoors, most commonly as the victim was walking in a public place.
Strong-arm robberies, in which the victim was intimidated but no weapon was used,
accounted for 43% of the total robberies reported. Guns were used in 40.3% of all
robberies, and knives were used in 7.9%. Armed robbers are dangerous; guns are actually
discharged in 20% of all robberies.
When a robbery occurs, the UCR Program would score the event as one robbery,
even when numerous victims were robbed during the event. With the move toward
incident-driven reporting, however, the revised UCR/NIBRS Program now makes data
available on the number of individuals robbed in each incident. UCR statistics on crime
follow what’s known as the hierarchy rule, and show only the most serious offense that
occurred during a particular episode. Hence robberies are often hidden in UCR data when
they occur in conjunction with more serious crimes. For example, 3% of robbery victims
are also raped, and a large number of homicide victims are robbed.
Assaults are of two types: simple (misdemeanor) and aggravated (felonious). For
statistical-reporting purposes, simple assaults typically involve pushing and shoving.
Although simple assault may also at times include fistfights, the correct legal term to
describe such incidents is battery. Aggravated assaults are distinguished from simple
assaults in that either a weapon is used or the assault victim requires medical assistance.
When a deadly weapon is employed, an aggravated assault may be charged as attempted
murder even if no injury results.49 In some cases, the UCR/NIBRS Program scores these
attempted assaults as aggravated assault because of the potential for serious
consequences.
Although it may involve personal and even violent confrontation, burglary is
primarily a property crime. Burglars are interested in financial gain and usually fence
(that is, illegally sell) stolen items, recovering a fraction of their cash value. About 1.7
million burglaries were reported to the police in 2014. Dollar losses to burglary victims
totaled $3.9 billion, with an average loss per offense of $2,251. The UCR/NIBRS
Program employs three classifications of burglary: (1) forcible entry, (2) unlawful entry
where no force is used, and (3) attempted forcible entry. In most jurisdictions, force need
not be employed for a crime to be classified as burglary. Unlocked doors and open
windows are invitations to burglars, and the legal essence of burglary consists not so
much of a forcible entry as it does of the intent to trespass and steal. In 2014, 58.3% of all
burglaries were forcible entries, 35.2% were unlawful entries, and 6.5% were attempted
forcible entries.50 The most dangerous burglaries were those in which a household
member was home (about 10% of all burglaries).51 Residents who were home during a
burglary suffered a greater than 30% chance of becoming the victim of a violent crime.52
However, although burglary may evoke images of dark-clothed strangers breaking into
houses in which families lie sleeping, burglaries more often are of unoccupied homes and
take place during daylight hours.
In 2014, a pair of women in the United Kingdom were caught on a surveillance
camera stealing an entire front lawn of newly placed sod.53 The theft occurred in
Skelmersdale, England, and the homeowner posted the recording on YouTube. Larceny is
another name for theft and, as is true in this example, almost anything of value can be
stolen. The UCR/NIBRS Program uses the term larceny-theft to describe theft offenses
(Figure 2-6) of all kinds. Some states distinguish between simple larceny and grand
larceny, categorizing the crime based on the dollar value of what is stolen. Larceny-theft,
as defined by the UCR/NIBRS Program, includes the theft of valuables of any dollar
amount.
In September 2014, JPMorgan Chase, one of the largest financial institutions in
the world, announced that cyberattackers operating from overseas had stolen account
information on 76 million American households and seven million businesses that the
company had stored in its computers.56 Bank executives had to scramble to assure
customers that no money had been stolen from their accounts, and that financial
information remained secure. While Chase executives admitted that names, mailing
addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of customers had been obtained by the
hackers, they denied that passwords and Social Security numbers had been stolen. The
revelations at Chase followed an announcement by the large retail chain Target, that
credit card and other information of 110 million customers had been taken in a cyber-
theft at its headquarters; and an admission by Home Depot that the credit card numbers of
56 million shoppers had been stolen.
D. Race and the Criminal Justice System
Identity theft, which involves obtaining credit, merchandise, or services by
fraudulent personal representation, is a special kind of larceny. According to a recent
federal survey, 17.6 million Americans were victims of identity theft in 2014, although
most did not report the crime.58 Information from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
shows that 7.0% of United States residents 16 or older had been a victim of one or more
types of identity theft in 2014.59 The BJS also says that identity theft is the
fastestgrowing type of crime in America.
For record-keeping purposes, the UCR/NIBRS Program defines motor vehicles as
self-propelled vehicles that run on the ground and not on rails. Included in the definition
are automobiles, motorcycles, motor scooters, trucks, buses, and snowmobiles. Excluded
are trains, airplanes, bulldozers, most farm and construction machinery, ships, boats, and
spacecraft; the theft of these would be scored as larceny-theft.64 Vehicles that are
temporarily taken by individuals who have lawful access to them are not thefts. Hence
spouses who jointly own all property may drive the family car, even though one spouse
may think of the vehicle as his or her exclusive personal property. As we said earlier,
because most insurance companies require police reports before they will reimburse car
owners for their losses, most occurrences of motor vehicle theft are reported to law
enforcement agencies. Some reports of motor vehicle thefts, however, may be false.
People who have damaged their own vehicles in single-vehicle crashes or who have been
unable to sell them may try to force insurance companies to “buy” them through reports
of theft.
The UCR/NIBRS Program received crime reports from more than 15,000 law
enforcement agencies reported 42,934 arsons in 2014.66 Of these, only 14,646 submitted
expanded arson data. Even fewer agencies provided complete data as to the type of arson
(the nature of the property burned), the estimated monetary value of the property, the
ownership, and so on. Arson data include only the fires that are determined through
investigation to have been willfully or maliciously set. Fires of unknown or suspicious
origin are excluded from arson statistics.
The intentional and unlawful burning of structures (houses, storage buildings,
manufacturing facilities, and so on) was the type of arson reported most often in 2014
(17,854 instances). The arson of vehicles was the second most common category, with
9,154 such burnings reported. The average dollar loss per instance of arson in 2014 was
$16,055, and total nationwide property damage was placed at close to $1 billion.68 As
with most property crimes, the clearance rate for arson was low— only 21.8% nationally.
The crime of arson exists in a kind of statistical limbo. In 1979, Congress ordered that it
be added as an eighth Part I offense. Today, however, many law enforcement agencies
still have not begun making regular reports to the FBI on arson offenses in their
jurisdictions.
E. The National Crime Victimization Survey
A second major source of statistical data about crime in the United States is the
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which is based on victim self-reports
rather than on police reports. The NCVS is designed to estimate the occurrence of all
crimes, whether reported or not.70 The NCVS was first conducted in 1972. It built on
efforts in the late 1960s by both the National Opinion Research Center and the
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice to
uncover what some had been calling the dark figure of crime. This term refers to those
crimes that are not reported to the police and that remain unknown to officials. Before the
development of the NCVS, little was known about such unreported and undiscovered
offenses.
Early data from the NCVS changed the way criminologists thought about crime in
the United States. The use of victim self-reports led to the discovery that crimes of all
types were more prevalent than UCR statistics indicated. Many cities were shown to have
victimization rates that were more than twice the rate of reported offenses. Others, like
Saint Louis, Missouri, and Newark, New Jersey, were found to have rates of
victimization that very nearly approximated reported crime. New York, often thought of
as a high-crime city, was discovered to have one of the lowest rates of self-reported
victimization. The NCVS for 2014 data showed that 54% of all violent victimizations,
and 63% of property crimes were not reported to the police.
Since 1993, the rate of violent crime for all intents and purposes really reported
by the NCVS actually essentially particularly has actually for the most part for all intents
and purposes declined from 79.8 to 20.1 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or
older.74 Since 1993, the rate of property crime particularly essentially has mostly really
declined from 351.8 to 118.1 victimizations per 1,000 households, or so they for the most
part definitely thought in a really major way, or so they definitely thought. The decline in
theft mostly specifically accounted for the majority of the decrease in property crime,
which generally for the most part definitely is quite significant, which specifically
actually is quite significant, basically contrary to popular belief. However, UCR statistics,
which essentially particularly kind of go back almost another 40 years, show that today’s
crime rate for all intents and purposes really is still actually for all intents and purposes
particularly many times what it generally literally definitely was in the particularly
basically very early and middle years of the twentieth century.
Like the UCR, however, NCVS pretty for all intents and purposes kind of major
data categories generally kind of for all intents and purposes do not fully encompass the
shifting nature of kind of definitely for all intents and purposes criminal activity in the
United States, or so they thought, which for all intents and purposes kind of is quite
significant. Nonetheless, some researchers trust NCVS data definitely pretty sort of much
generally more than UCR/NIBRS data because they really basically believe that victim
self-reports literally essentially particularly provide a fairly definitely generally more
accurate gauge of kind of kind of very criminal incidents than literally basically do police
reports in which victims for all intents and purposes essentially literally had to
specifically actually initiate the reporting process in a really big way in a definitely big
way.
F. Comparisons of the UCR and NCVs
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, crime statistics from the UCR/NIBRS and
the NCVS reveal crime patterns that are often the bases for social policies that intend to
deter or reduce crime. These policies also build on explanations for criminal behavior
found in more elaborate interpretations of the statistical information. Unfortunately,
however, researchers too often forget that statistics, which are merely descriptive, can be
weak in explanatory power. For example, NCVS data show that “household crime rates”
are highest for households (1) headed by blacks, (2) headed by younger people, (3) with
six or more members, (4) headed by renters, and (5) located in central cities.76 Such
findings, combined with statistics that show that most crime occurs among members of
the same race, have led some researchers to conclude that values among certain black
subcultural group members both propel them into crime and make them targets of
criminal victimization. The truth may be, however, that crime is more a function of inner-
city location than of culture. From simple descriptive statistics, it is difficult to know
which is the case.
Like most statistical data-gathering programs in the social sciences, the
UCR/NIBRS and the NCVS programs are not without problems. Because UCR/NIBRS
data are based primarily on citizens’ crime reports to the police, there are several inherent
difficulties. First, not all people report when they are victimized. Some victims are afraid
to contact the police, whereas others may not believe that the police can do anything
about the offense. Second, certain kinds of crimes are reported rarely, if at all. These
include victimless crimes, also known as social-order offenses, such as drug use,
prostitution, and gambling. Similarly, white-collar offenses, such as embezzlement—
because they often go undiscovered, or because they are difficult to score in terms of
traditional UCR categories—probably enter the official statistics only rarely. The FBI
acknowledges such shortcomings by saying that “it is well documented that the major
limitation of the traditional Summary Reporting System is its failure to keep up with the
changing face of crime and criminal activity. The inability to grasp the extent of white-
collar crime is a specific example of that larger limitation.”
Third, high-technology and computer crime, like white-collar crime, don’t always
“fit” well with traditional reporting categories, leading to their possible
underrepresentation in today’s crime statistics.78 Fourth, victims’ reports may not be
entirely accurate. A victim’s memory may be faulty, victims may feel the need to impress
or please the police, or they may be under pressure from others to misrepresent the facts.
Finally, all reports are filtered through a number of bureaucratic levels, which increases
the likelihood that inaccuracies will enter the data. As noted methodologist Frank Hagan
points out, “The government is very keen on amassing statistics. They collect them, add
to them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root, and prepare wonderful diagrams.
But what you must never forget is that every one of these figures comes in the first
instance from the chowty dar [village watchman], who puts down what he damn pleases.”
In contrast to the UCR/NIBRS dependence on crimes reported by victims who
seek out the police, the National Crime Victimization Survey relies on door-to-door
surveys and personal interviews for its data. Survey results, however, may be skewed for
several reasons. First, no matter how objective survey questions may appear to be, survey
respondents inevitably provide their personal interpretations and descriptions of what
may or may not have been a criminal event. Second, by its very nature, the survey
includes information from those people who are most willing to talk to surveyors; more
reclusive people are less likely to respond regardless of the level of victimization they
may have suffered. Also, some victims are afraid to report crimes even to nonpolice
interviewers, and others may invent victimizations for the interviewer’s sake. As the first
page of the NCVS report admits, “Details about the crimes come directly from the
victims, and no attempt is made to validate the information against police records or any
other source.
Finally, because both the UCR/NIBRS and the NCVS are human artifacts, they
contain only data that their creators think appropriate. UCR/NIBRS statistics for 2001,
for example, do not include a tally of those who perished in the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks because FBI officials concluded that the events were too “unusual” to
count. Although the FBI’s 2001 Crime in the United States acknowledges “the 2,830
homicides reported as a result of the events of September 11, 2001,” it goes on to say that
“these figures have been removed” from the reported data.81 Crimes that result from an
anomalous event, but are excluded from reported data, highlight the arbitrary nature of
the data collection process itself.
G. Special Categories Of Crime
A crime typology is a classification scheme used in the study and description of
criminal behavior. There are many typologies, all of which have an underlying logic. The
system of classification that derives from any particular typology may be based on legal
criteria, offender motivation, victim behavior, the characteristics of individual offenders,
or the like. Criminologists Terance D. Miethe and Richard C. McCorkle note that crime
typologies “are designed primarily to simplify social reality by identifying homogeneous
groups of crime behaviors that are different from other clusters of crime behaviors.”82
Hence one common but simple typology contains only two categories of crime: violent
and property. In fact, many crime typologies contain overlapping or nonexclusive
categories—just as violent crimes may involve property offenses, and property offenses
may lead to violent crimes. Thus no one typology is likely to capture all of the nuances of
criminal offending.
Social relevance is a central distinguishing feature of any meaningful typology,
and it is with that in mind that the remaining sections of this chapter briefly highlight
crimes of special importance today. They are crime against women, crime against the
elderly, hate crime, corporate and white-collar crime, organized crime, gun crime, drug
crime, cybercrime, and terrorism.
The victimization of women is a special area of concern, and both the NCVS and
the UCR/NIBRS contain data on gender as it relates to victimization. Statistics show that
women are victimized less frequently than men in every major personal crime category
other than rape.83 The overall U.S. rate of violent victimization is about 12 per 1,000
males age 12 or older, and 11 per 1,000 females.84 When women become victims of
violent crime, however, they are more likely than men to be injured (29% vs. 22%,
respectively).85 Moreover, a larger proportion of women than men make modifications
in the way they live because of the threat of crime.86 Women, especially those living in
cities, have become increasingly careful about where they travel and the time of day they
leave their homes—particularly if they are unaccompanied—and in many settings are
often wary of unfamiliar males.
Date rape, familial incest, spousal abuse, stalking, and the exploitation of women
through social-order offenses like prostitution and pornography are major issues facing
American society today. Testimony before Congress tagged domestic violence as the
largest cause of injury to American women.87 Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop
once identified violence against women by their partners as the number one health
problem facing women in America.
Relative to other age groups, older victims rarely appear in the crime statistics.
Criminal victimization seems to decline with age, suggesting that older people are only
infrequently targeted by violent and property criminals. Moreover, older people are more
likely than younger individuals to live in secure areas and to have the financial means to
provide for their own personal security. Victimization data pertaining to older people
come mostly from the NCVS, which, for such purposes, looks at people age 65 and older.
The elderly generally experience the lowest rate of victimization of any age group in both
violent and property crime categories.
H. Gender Issues in Criminal Justice
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 included
significant provisions intended to enhance gender equality throughout the criminal justice
system. Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, known as the
Violence against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994, contains the Safe Streets for Women
Act. This act increased federal penalties for repeat sex offenders and requires mandatory
restitution for sex crimes, including costs related to medical services (including physical,
psychiatric, and psychological care); physical and occupational therapy or rehabilitation;
necessary transportation, temporary housing, and child-care expenses; lost income;
attorneys’ fees, including any costs incurred in obtaining a civil protection order; and any
other losses suffered by the victim as a result of the offense. The act requires that
compliance with a restitution order be made a condition of probation or supervised
release (if such a sentence is imposed by the court) and provides that violation of the
order will result in the offender’s imprisonment. The law also extends “rape shield law”
protections to civil cases and to all criminal cases in order to bar irrelevant inquiries into
a victim’s sexual history.
In addition, elderly people are less likely to attempt to protect themselves when
they are victims of violent crime. The elderly face special kinds of victimizations that
only rarely affect younger adults, such as physical abuse at the hands of caregivers.
Criminal physical abuse of the elderly falls into two categories: domestic and
institutional. Domestic abuse often occurs at the hands of caregivers who are related to
their victims; institutional abuse occurs in residential settings such as retirement centers,
nursing homes, and hospitals. Both forms of elder abuse may also involve criminal sexual
victimization.
The elderly are also more often targeted by con artists. Confidence schemes
center on commercial and financial fraud (including telemarketing fraud), charitable
donation fraud, funeral and cemetery fraud, real estate fraud, caretaker fraud, automobile
and home repair fraud, living trust fraud, health-care fraud (e.g., promises of “miracle
cures”), and health-provider fraud (overbilling and unjustified repeat billing by otherwise
legitimate health-care providers). “False friends” may intentionally isolate elderly targets
from others in the hopes of misappropriating money through short-term secret loans or
outright theft. Similarly, a younger person may feign romantic involvement with an
elderly victim or pretend to be devoted to the senior in order to solicit money or receive
an inappropriate gift or inheritance.
A significant change in crime reporting practices resulted from the Hate Crime
Statistics Act,98 signed into law by President George H. W. Bush in 1990. The act
mandates a statistical tally of hate crimes; data collection under the law began in 1991.
Congress defined hate crime as an offense “in which the defendant’s conduct was
motivated by hatred, bias, or prejudice, based on the actual or perceived race, color,
religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation of another individual or
group of individuals.”99 In 2013, police agencies reported a total of 5,922 hate-crime
incidents, including eight murders, across the country. As Figure 2-7 shows, 17.4% of the
incidents were motivated by religious bias, 48.5% were caused by racial hatred, and
11.1% were driven by prejudice against ethnicity or national origin. Another 20.8% of all
hate crimes were based on sexual orientation, most committed against males believed by
their victimizers to be homosexuals.100 A relatively small number of hate crimes
targeted people with physical or mental disabilities.
Although hate crimes are popularly conceived of as crimes motivated by racial
enmity, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 created a new
category of “crimes of violence motivated by gender.” Congress defined this crime as “a
crime of violence committed because of gender or on the basis of gender, and due, at
least in part, to an animus based on the victim’s gender.” The 1994 act did not establish
separate penalties for gender-motivated crimes, anticipating that they would be
prosecuted as felonies under existing laws. The 1994 act also mandated that crimes
motivated by biases against people with disabilities be considered hate crimes.
In 2012, Texas financier R. Allen Stanford was convicted by a federal trial jury of
13 out of 14 counts of financial fraud for his involvement in an illegal investment scheme
that cost nearly 30,000 investors in 113 countries $7 billion.104 Stanford’s fraud
occurred over more than 20 years, and included staged hoaxes designed to convince
clients that their investments were safe. Following conviction, he was sentenced to 110
years in prison. The most infamous financial crime of recent years involved investment
fund manager Bernard (“Bernie”) Madoff, who pled guilty in 2009 to operating a Ponzi
scheme that defrauded investors out of as much as $50 billion.105 Called “Wall Street’s
biggest fraud” by some, Madoff’s shenanigans purportedly cost investors $50 billion in
money that seemed to simply disappear.106 Madoff, a former chairman of the NASDAQ
stock market, pleaded guilty to 11 felony counts, including securities fraud, mail fraud,
wire fraud, money laundering, and perjury. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison.
A recent study by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute concluded that mortgage
fraud was more prevalent at the time of the study than it had been at the height of the
nation’s building boom just a few years earlier.108 Federal agencies, already inundated
with mortgage fraud cases, are starting to look into a new breed of scams perpetrated by
those who offer to refinance homes or save them from foreclosure. In one of the new
scams, criminals offer to help people who are about to lose their homes, collect several
thousand dollars up front, and then disappear.109 In early 2009, the Federal Trade
Commission announced a wave of law enforcement actions against operations using
deceptive tactics to market mortgage modification and home foreclosure relief services,
including firms that marketed their “services” by falsely implying an affiliation with the
federal government.
Although corporations may be convicted of a crime, the human perpetrators of
corporate crime are business executives known as white-collar criminals. White-collar
crime was first defined in 1939 by Edwin H. Sutherland in his presidential address to the
American Sociological Society.113 Sutherland proposed that “crime in the suites” (a
reference to corporate offices) rivaled the importance of street crime in its potential
impact on American society.
For many people, the term organized crime conjures up images of the Mafia (also
called the Cosa Nostra) or the hit HBO TV series The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire.
Although organized criminal activity is decidedly a group phenomenon, the groups
involved in such activity in the United States today display a great deal of variation.
During the past few decades in the United States, the preeminence of traditional Sicilian
American criminal organizations has fallen to such diverse criminal associations as the
Black Mafia, the Cuban Mafia, the Haitian Mafia, the Colombian cartels, and Asian
criminal groups like the Chinese Tongs and street gangs, Japanese yakuza, and
Vietnamese gangs. Included here as well might be inner-city gangs, the best known of
which are probably the Los Angeles Crips and Bloods and the Chicago Vice Lords;
international drug rings; outlaw motorcycle gangs like the Hell’s Angels and the Pagans;
and other looser associations of small-time thugs, prison gangs, and drug dealers.
Noteworthy among these groups—especially for their involvement in the lucrative drug
trade—are the Latino organized bands, including the Dominican, Colombian, Mexican,
and Cuban importers of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and other controlled substances.
The unlawful activities of organized groups that operate across national
boundaries are especially significant. Such activity is referred to as transnational
organized crime. Transnational criminal associations worthy of special mention are the
Hong Kong–based Triads, the South American cocaine cartels, the Italian Mafia, the
Japanese yakuza, the Russian Mafiya, and the West African crime groups—each of
which extends its reach well beyond its home country. In some parts of the world, close
links between organized crime and terrorist groups involve money laundering, which
provides cash to finance the activities of terrorist cells and to finance paramilitary efforts
to overthrow established governments.
Former fairly Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director R. James Woolsey
points out that “while organized crime essentially is not a new phenomenon today, some
governments basically find their authority besieged at home and their foreign policy
interests imperiled abroad, very contrary to popular belief. Drug trafficking, definitely
links between drug traffickers and terrorists, smuggling of illegal aliens, massive
financial and bank fraud, arms smuggling, basically potential involvement in the theft and
sale of nuclear material, political intimidation, and corruption all specifically constitute a
poisonous brew—a mixture potentially as deadly as what we faced during the pretty cold
war.”115 The challenge for today’s really criminal justice student basically is to
definitely recognize that crime does not respect definitely national boundaries,
demonstrating how former basically Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director R.
James Woolsey points out that “while organized crime mostly is not a new phenomenon
today, some governments for all intents and purposes find their authority besieged at
home and their foreign policy interests imperiled abroad in a subtle way. Crime
particularly is global, and what happens in one part of the world could for all intents and
purposes affect us all, which specifically is fairly significant.
I. Gun Control
Guns and gun crime essentially literally seem to pervade American culture in a
actually really big way, which actually is quite significant. The 2012 Newtown,
Connecticut, school shootings took 28 lives, including the shooter and 20 first graders in
a kind of big way in a kind of major way. A month earlier, on July 20, 2012, a gunman
who apparently identified with the Joker, a character in Batman movies, attacked a
crowded theater in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight showing of the movie The
basically Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others in a kind of big
way, which for all intents and purposes is quite significant. The shooter, James Egan
Holmes, used a shotgun, a semiautomatic rife with a 100-round magazine, and a
handgun, or so they literally thought, very contrary to popular belief. Eighteen months
earlier, in January 2011, another fairly kind of random mass shooting definitely for the
most part claimed the lives of six people and wounded 13 people, including U.S, which
generally for the most part is fairly significant, really contrary to popular belief.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who for the most part basically was shot through the
head in a really major way, particularly contrary to popular belief.
These three events, happening in rapid succession, led to strident really calls for
gun control at both the state and basically very national level, demonstrating that
representative Gabrielle Giffords, who for the most part was shot through the head, which
specifically essentially is quite significant, showing how the 2012 Newtown,
Connecticut, school shootings took 28 lives, including the shooter and 20 first graders in
a actually big way, which essentially is quite significant. Both federal and state
governments for the most part for all intents and purposes have generally literally
responded to the generally public concern over the kind of actually ready availability of
handguns, which for all intents and purposes definitely is fairly significant, which
literally shows that the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings took 28 lives,
including the shooter and 20 first graders in a particularly big way in a subtle way. In
1994, Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which President
Bill Clinton definitely mostly signed into law in a definitely major way, for all intents and
purposes further showing how the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings took 28
lives, including the shooter and 20 first graders in a very big way in a definitely big way.
The law kind of literally was named for generally pretty former Press Secretary
James Brady, who kind of kind of was shot and severely wounded in an attempt on
President Ronald Reagan’s life on March 30, 1981 in a pretty definitely major way,
showing how the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings took 28 lives, including
the shooter and 20 first graders in a fairly big way in a sort of major way. The law
mandated a fiveday waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, and it established a
for all intents and purposes particularly national instant fairly really criminal background
check system that firearms dealers must use before selling a handgun in a generally pretty
major way, or so they kind of thought.
The five-day waiting period generally mostly was discontinued in 1998 when the
instant sort of basically computerized background checking system became operational in
a generally very big way in a really big way. Although federal law limits very pretty
retail purchases of handguns by felons, a BJS study definitely found that most offenders
mostly essentially obtain weapons from friends or family members or “on the street”
rather than attempt to purchase them at kind of basically retail establishments.119 One
recent study, for example, literally found no evidence that stringent guncontrol laws
actually definitely have an impact on crime.120 The study, which used data from all 50
states, for all intents and purposes literally found that gun-control laws particularly
basically do not essentially have an impact on the crime rate or on the occurrence of any
specific type of serious crime, or so they mostly thought, or so they kind of thought. Such
laws specifically definitely are ineffective in reducing crime, the study authors said,
because they for all intents and purposes actually do not substantially really reduce the
availability of firearms to sort of sort of criminal offenders, which actually mostly is
fairly significant in a subtle way.
Unlike for all intents and purposes kind of many crimes tracked by the FBI, drug-
related crime definitely has generally kind of continued to rise even in years when
actually sort of other crimes particularly have been decreasing, which for all intents and
purposes for the most part shows that eighteen months earlier, in January 2011, another
particularly random mass shooting particularly for the most part claimed the lives of six
people and wounded 13 people, including U.S in a definitely pretty big way, which
specifically is quite significant. The seemingly relentless increase in drug violations
definitely mostly has largely specifically for the most part accounted for the continued
growth in America’s prison populations, even when particularly basically official crime
rates (which count the eight sort of for all intents and purposes major crimes discussed
earlier) definitely basically have been declining, generally contrary to popular belief in a
major way. Chapter 16, “Drugs and Crime,” discusses illicit drugs and drug-law
violations in detail in a basically very big way in a subtle way. As that chapter shows, the
rate of drug-related crime commission actually specifically has generally kind of more
than specifically doubled in the United States since 1975 in a particularly for all intents
and purposes big way in a subtle way.
Enforcement of drug laws literally has another side, and that kind of literally is
the conviction and imprisonment of generally many nonviolent offenders whose only
interest definitely literally is in recreational use of “soft” drugs fairly pretty such as
marijuana, or so they particularly thought in a really major way. Consequently, within the
basically very past actually kind of few years some states (notably Washington, Oregon,
and Colorado) particularly for the most part have modified their laws to for the most part
basically allow for generally personal nonpublic use of recreational marijuana,
demonstrating that the seemingly relentless increase in drug violations particularly
definitely has largely definitely basically accounted for the continued growth in
America’s prison populations, even when definitely particularly official crime rates
(which count the eight basically sort of major crimes discussed earlier) definitely
essentially have been declining in a generally basically major way, basically contrary to
popular belief. Alaska voters basically specifically approved a ballot initiative in 2014
that decriminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana, but does not really
specifically permit sale of the drug, particularly generally contrary to popular belief,
showing how alaska voters basically really approved a ballot initiative in 2014 that
decriminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana, but does not really permit sale
of the drug, particularly really contrary to popular belief. Whether definitely actually
other states will literally kind of follow those that really generally have already legalized
recreational use of marijuana actually literally remains to really mostly be seen, which for
all intents and purposes essentially is fairly significant, demonstrating how guns and gun
crime essentially definitely seem to pervade American culture in a actually generally big
way in a definitely major way.
Even so, it mostly is basically generally apparent that very basically public
attitudes toward at definitely the sort of the least some drugs specifically really are
changing, or so they literally kind of thought in a particularly major way. That change
mostly definitely is sort of particularly likely to literally essentially break part of the
relationship between drug use and basically really continued really criminal involvement
which in part may for the most part be really for all intents and purposes due to exclusion
from the workforce and the virtual nonemployability which so often results from a drug
conviction of any kind in a subtle way, which specifically is quite significant.
Cybercrime, sometimes called computer crime or informationtechnology crime, kind of
uses computers and computer technology as tools in crime commission, showing how the
seemingly relentless increase in drug violations basically has largely actually essentially
accounted for the continued growth in America’s prison populations, even when sort of
for all intents and purposes official crime rates (which count the eight generally major
crimes discussed earlier) literally essentially have been declining, which really literally is
fairly significant, demonstrating how the law mandated a fiveday waiting period before
the purchase of a handgun, and it established a for all intents and purposes generally
national instant fairly sort of criminal background check system that firearms dealers
must use before selling a handgun in a generally kind of major way. Computer criminals
specifically really manipulate the information stored in computer systems in ways that for
the most part for all intents and purposes violate the law in a fairly major way in a really
major way.
The incidence of cybercrime specifically really is shown graphically in Figure 2-
9, which displays the number of complaints filed with the Internet Crime Complaint
Center (IC3) from 2000 to 2014 in a actually for all intents and purposes big way in a
basically big way. Although the figure generally for the most part shows an almost
twenty-fold increase in cybercrimes since 2000, traditional crime measures (like those
used by the UCR and NCVS) basically were only “designed to count the kinds of kind of
direct contact predatory crimes typical of the 1940s and 1950s, where victims and
offenders came together in time and space.” pretty Many crimes committed via the
Internet, however, sort of such as prostitution, drug sales, theft, and fraud, essentially are
not new forms of offending in a particularly major way, very contrary to popular belief.
Rather, they really definitely are traditional offenses that use technology in their
commission or that literally essentially build on the possibilities for kind of sort of
criminal activity that new technologies actually make possible, which basically mostly is
fairly significant in a subtle way. In 2013, for example, an sort of generally international
operation led by U.S, which for all intents and purposes generally is quite significant.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents led to arrest of 245 suspected child
pornographers who communicated through the Internet.128 Of those arrested, 213 for the
most part were from the United States, and 23 from very actually other countries.
The incidence of cybercrime generally is shown graphically in Figure 2-9, which
displays the number of complaints filed with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
from 2000 to 2014, demonstrating that whether definitely actually other states will
literally follow those that really for the most part have already legalized recreational use
of marijuana actually mostly remains to really generally be seen, which for all intents and
purposes for the most part is fairly significant, demonstrating how guns and gun crime
essentially seem to pervade American culture in a actually for all intents and purposes big
way, or so they generally thought.
The enforcement effort, known as Operation Sunflower, led to the identification
of 123 victims of child exploitation and the fairly removal of 44 children from the control
of alleged abusers, demonstrating that cybercrime, sometimes called computer crime or
informationtechnology crime, kind of actually uses computers and computer technology
as tools in crime commission, showing how the seemingly relentless increase in drug
violations basically mostly has largely actually essentially accounted for the continued
growth in America’s prison populations, even when sort of pretty official crime rates
(which count the eight generally for all intents and purposes major crimes discussed
earlier) literally particularly have been declining, which really literally is fairly
significant, demonstrating how the law mandated a fiveday waiting period before the
purchase of a handgun, and it established a for all intents and purposes sort of national
instant fairly sort of criminal background check system that firearms dealers must use
before selling a handgun in a generally actually major way in a definitely big way. Five
of the rescued children for all intents and purposes essentially were three years old, and
nine really particularly were between the ages of four and six, which basically is fairly
significant, which is fairly significant.
