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CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Criminal Behavior

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CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

  • Intentional behavior that violates a criminal code, intentional in that it did not occur accidentally or without justification or excuse
  • Vastly complex
  • No all-encompassing psychological explanation for crime

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THE STUDY OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR

  • Should we restrict ourselves to a legal definition and study only those individuals who have been convicted of behaviors legally defined as crime?
  • Should we include individuals who indulge in antisocial behaviors but have not been detected by the criminal justice system?
  • Should we include persons predisposed to be criminal?

THEORIES OF CRIME

  • Provide a general explanation of crime that encompasses and systematically connects many different social, economic and psychological variables to criminal behavior
  • Supported by well-executed research

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TWO THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CRIME

  • Classical Theory
  • Free will
  • Decision to violate law is choice

  • Positivist Theory
  • Determinism
  • Criminal behavior is result of social, psychological, biological influences

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THREE PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN NATURE

Perspective Assumption
Conformity Humans want to do right thing
Nonconformist Humans undisciplined
Learning Humans neutral

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PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN NATURE
CONFORMITY PERSPECTIVE

  • Humans basically good and want to live up to their potential, influenced by society’s attitudes and values
  • Strain theory
  • Crime occurs when there is perceived discrepancy between materialistic values and goals and available means to reach goals

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PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN NATURE
NONCOMFORMIST PERSPECTIVE

  • Humans unruly and undisciplined, need rules and regulations to keep them in check
  • Social control theory
  • Crime occurs when one’s ties to standards are weak or nonexistent

PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN NATURE
LEARNING PERSPECTIVE

  • Humans learn all behavior and beliefs from the environment
  • Social learning theory
  • Rotter, Bandura
  • Differential association
  • Sutherland

CRIMINOLOGY

Psychology

Sociology

Psychiatry

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SOCIOLOGICAL CRIMINOLOGY

  • Examines relationships of demographic and group variables to crime
  • Focuses on groups and society as a whole and how they influence criminal activity
  • Racial disparity
  • Unemployment
  • Poverty

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PSYCHOLOGICAL CRIMINOLOGY

  • The science of the behavior and mental processes of the person who commits a crime
  • Focuses on how individual criminal behavior is acquired, evoked, maintained and modified
  • Offender personality
  • Offender behavior

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PSYCHOLOGICAL CRIMINOLOGY
DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE

Protective Factors

Risk Factors

Dispositions or Traits

Trajectory of Criminal Behavior

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PSYCHIATRIC CRIMINOLOGY

  • Traditionally followed psychoanalytic tradition
  • Contemporary is more diverse and research based
  • Education differences
  • MD or DO as opposed to Ph.D. Psy.D. or Ed.D

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MEASURING CRIME

  • Official police reports
  • UCR
  • NIBRS
  • Self-report studies
  • ADAM
  • MFS
  • NHSDA
  • Victimization studies
  • NCVS

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MEASURING CRIME
UNIFORM CRIME REPORTING SYSTEM (UCR)

  • Compiled by the FBI
  • Most cited source of U.S. crime statistics
  • Federal agencies do not report
  • Part I and Part II crimes

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UNIFORM CRIME REPORTING
COMMON PART I CRIMES

  • Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter
  • Forcible rape
  • Robbery
  • Aggravated assault
  • Burglary
  • Larceny-theft
  • Arson

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UNIFORM CRIME REPORTING
COMMON PART II CRIMES

  • Simple assaults
  • Forgery and counterfeiting
  • Fraud
  • Embezzlement
  • Stolen Property
  • Offenses against the family and children
  • Sex offenses
  • Drug abuse violations
  • Gambling
  • Vandalism

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MEASURING CRIME
UCR PROBLEMS

  • Hierarchy rule
  • Reliance on agencies to report crime
  • Dark figure
  • Missing information

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MEASURING CRIME
NATIONAL INCIDENT-BASED REPORTING SYSTEM (NIBRS)

  • All federal law enforcement agencies must collect and report data on two categories
  • Group A offenses
  • Group B offenses

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MEASURING CRIME
NIBRS

  • Group A offenses
  • The crime is viewed along with detailed data about aspects of the crime

  • Group B offenses
  • Information about the arrestee and circumstances of the arrest

HATE CRIMES

  • The FBI definition
  • A criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender’s bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin

HATE CRIME LEGISLATION

1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act

1994 Violent Crime Control and

Law Enforcement Act

1996 Church Arson Prevention Act

2009 Matthew Shepard Act

MEASURING CRIME
SELF-REPORT STUDIES

  • Interviews or questionnaires
  • Most individuals admit to violating criminal law
  • Large dark figure
  • Majority of self-reported crime is minor

MEASURING CRIME
DRUG ABUSE SELF-REPORT SURVEYS

Survey Data Collection
NHSDA Computer interviews of individuals over age 12
MFS Survey of U.S. high schoolers
ADAM Urinalysis

MEASURING CRIME
VICTIMIZATION SURVEYS

  • Extent to which individuals are victim of various crimes
  • Victims able to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of offenders

MEASURING CRIME
NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMIZATION SURVEY (NCVS)

  • Households interviewed every six months for three years
  • Designed to supplement the UCR
  • Provides detail about crime and victim
  • Relationship patterns
  • Intimate partner violence (IPV)
  • Homeless not represented

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JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

  • Status offenses
  • Behavior not against the criminal code but forbidden to juveniles because of age
  • Data Imperfect
  • Nature and extent unknown
  • Behavior may be regarded as “rite of passage” that stops with maturity

ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR

  • Habitual actions that violate personal rights, laws, and/or widely held social norms
  • Legal delinquency and criminal behavior
  • Actions that violate standards of society but undetected by law enforcement

FOCUS OF THE TEXT

  • The persistent and repetitive offender
  • Detected or undetected
  • The individual who has frequently committed serious crimes or antisocial acts over an extended period of time
  • The one-time serious offender

CHAPTER 1
KEY CONCEPTS

  • Antisocial behavior
  • Classical theory
  • Clearance rate
  • Cognitions
  • Conformity perspective
  • Criminal profiling
  • Criminology
  • Dark figure
  • Developmental approach
  • Differential association theory
  • Dispositions
  • Hate Crime Statistics Act
  • Hierarchy rule

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CHAPTER 1
KEY CONCEPTS

  • Index crimes
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Just-world hypothesis
  • Learning perspective
  • National Crime Victimization Survey

  • National Incident-Based Reporting System
  • Nonconformist perspective
  • Nonindex crimes
  • Part I crime
  • Part II crime

CHAPTER 1
KEY CONCEPTS

  • Positivist theory
  • Psychiatric criminology
  • Psychological criminology
  • Social control theory
  • Social learning theory
  • Sociological criminology
  • Status offenses
  • Strain theory
  • Theory verification
  • Traits
  • Uniform Crime Reporting