21st Century Criminology - Term Paper Example

 Introduction The problem of crime is uppermost in the minds of most people nowadays. Many of them feel that government is not up to the job of crime prevention. Criminals always seem to stay one step ahead of the police. There have been various efforts to reduce crime, especially heinous crimes, by improving the entire criminal justice system, from initial reporting of a crime, apprehension, detention, trial, incarceration, and rehabilitation of criminals. There is a new emphasis on enlightened administration, so criminals can be rehabilitated. Various theories offered by experts and sociologists on motivations of criminals see the criminals as victims of exclusion and discrimination from society, as reasons of deviance from social norms. This paper examines the discipline of criminology, as an offshoot of modern society, more so in developed countries with large urban populations. The reporting of crimes is an integral part of the science of criminology, from detecting the trends in types of crimes, the validation of crime reports, and how statistics provide a guide in public policy formulation. Discussion The word “criminology” was first coined by an Italian law professor back in 1885, and was subsequently adopted by other people interested in the phenomenon of crimes until it became a distinct field of study. A crime that was committed (a criminal event) is essentially a social event, because it involves a lot of people, from the perpetrator to the victim to society as a whole. Criminology is concerned with all the aspects related to crimes, such as the time, place, opportunity, and situational context in which these occur. Criminologists are interested or concerned with the incidence of certain kinds of crimes, with an end view to prevention. Gathering information about crime statistics is really a time-consuming endeavor, because of several factors, such as the rarity of a particular crime to be committed when being observed by researchers, criminal behavior is usually secretive in its nature, research methods like direct observation are virtually impossible, and finally, the data that was gathered are mere statistical numbers but do not give insights into human behavior. Crime statistics are helpful in many ways, but these present a limited picture of the social situation that precipitated the criminal events. The study of a crime phenomenon through criminology is essentially by the use of statistics (figures, numbers, charts, and graphs) which suffers from the limitations of reporting; only crimes reported by citizens get entered into the database; but many crimes are not reported to the police (Sacco & Kennedy, 2011, p. 93). Police reports are better than other data sources, like the courts or the correctional agencies (ibid.), but these reports are not really perfect. Firstly, a police officer may decide not to report a certain crime as something worth entering in their books, maybe that officer thinks there is no hard evidence, the likely end result will be no further action (NFA) taken. This considers only those crimes which got reported to the police in the first place. Approximately two-thirds of all criminal events are not reported for various reasons (ibid.), such as delays in answering emergency calls and the caller just hung up, or for the calls that got through, the police will not treat it as serious and simply dismiss it as not worth recording. This suspicion was somewhat confirmed by a comparative study made between the two cities of Calgary and Edmonton in the 1990s (ibid. p. 95); to a certain extent, the differences in their crime rates was attributable to the way the police handled or processed information reported to them, and to their record-keeping practices. Edmonton had a higher crime rate because the police were more meticulous in their record keeping while Calgary had a lower rate because of a “leakage” in crime information; some police disregarded or ignored the crimes reported. Inaccurate reporting of crimes can be due to simple laxity in procedures or just plain laziness in how police officers treat citizen reports reaching their precincts. In a way, it partly explains why the citizens of a certain locality may instinctively feel there is a prevalence of crime in their area, but crime statistics indicate the rate is low. New sociological ideas with regards to the crimes being committed gave rise to the so-called “routine activities theory” pertaining to crime incidence. This theory states that a range of factors in time and place would often produce criminal opportunities, that in turn produce criminal events (Miller, 2009, p. 281). Previous thinking in criminology was that biological, social, economic, and peer pressure factors are what motivate a criminal; the routine activities theory focuses instead on factors which facilitate the commission of a crime, in this case, that criminal events occur because of the opportunities being presented, like increase in the number of suitable or easy targets, a decline in “controllers” (police patrols, private guards in an establishment, vigilance of citizens, etc.), and changes in routine activities of society. This theory has validity, because most crimes being reported are “volume crimes” (non-serious crimes such as petty theft, pickpocketing, bag snatching, etc.) while index crimes (serious crimes like murder, homicide, burglary, sexual assault, etc.) form only a small proportion of total crimes. The evidence of its validity is the “broken window theory” which states a broken window in a building is an invitation to further crime; vandals will break more windows because they think nobody cares or is watching the said building, burglars are encouraged to go inside, and eventually, squatters will move in too. There is the general impression portrayed by a broken window of social decay, disarray, and disorder; anti-social behavior from people is prevented if a broken window is repaired immediately (Samaha, 2005, p. 100). The implications of this routine activities theory is to reduce the opportunities for crimes to be committed, through a combination of deterrent factors, such as fixing broken windows, changing the characteristic design of places to inhibit crimes (better street lighting), increasing the number of guardians (neighborhood watchers, building supervisors, police foot patrols, etc.) can drastically reduce the number of volume crimes, which in turn reduces the overall crime rates. If people are more aware of the factors that facilitate crimes and become more security conscious, a drop in crime incidence can be expected in line with the security hypothesis (Farrell et al., 2011, p. 148); criminals often do not push through with their plans if opportunities do not exist. There is a link between signs of disorder (broken windows) to a rise in serious crimes; if windows are repaired, crime rates will drop. Control of any disorderly behavior prevents more serious crimes (Kelling & Coles, 1997, p. 70). The security hypothesis states if people change routines and become security conscious, there is less opportunity for crime. Conclusion “Figures can lie, and liars can figure” can be used to describe how crime statistics can be manipulated to suit certain purposes (Mosher, Miethe, & Phillips, 2010, p. 8) as the police exercises a lot of discretion in how to categorize and report a crime, or whether to include it in their reports or not to show a good accomplishment in crime prevention and solution. A politician can do the same method to gain favor with voters to show he is tough on crime. There is pressure to present a good report on crime because fear of crime is a potent political force. References Farrell, G., Andromachi, T., Mailley, J. & Tilley, N. (2011). The crime drop and the security hypothesis. Journal of Research on Crime and Delinquency, 48(2), 147-75. Kelling, G. L. & Coles, C. M. (1997). Fixing broken windows: Restoring order and reducing crime in our communities. New York, NY, USA: Simon & Schuster. Miller, J. M. (2009). 21st century criminology: A reference handbook. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications Limited. Mosher, C. J., Miethe, T. D., & Phillips, D. M. (2010). The mismeasure of crime. Introduction. In Bradley R. E. Wright and Ralph B. McNeal, Jr. (Eds.), Boundaries: Readings in deviance, crime, and criminal justice. Boston, MA, USA: Pearson Custom Publishing. Sacco, V. F. & Kennedy, L. W. (2011). The criminal event: An introduction to criminology in Canada. (5th ed.). Toronto, Canada: Nelson Education Limited. Read More