Understanding Crime and the Crime Problem - Essay Example

What constitutes crime and how does criminology help us to understand crime and the ‘crime problem Defining Crime 1. General Perspectives Crime denotes any breach of rules or laws that are punishable by some governing authority using mechanisms such as legal systems. Certain crimes may also carry fewer repercussions such as cautions or warnings and they might also be unenforced. Different human societies have different methods of defining what constitutes crime. These distinctions are often markedly different when seen under the context of localities such as state, regional, national or international. Although by definition all crimes tend to breach the law but not all breaches of law are termed as crimes. For instance, breaches of civil law such as a breach of contract may only be termed as an offence or as an infraction. The severity of such breaches of law is lower and hence they carry lower punishment. Crime is generally regarded as offence against the state by modern societies. This is different from torts that are seen as offences against private parties that give rise to civil cause of action (Burgess & Akers, 1966). As society expands, informal relationships and their sanctions are inadequate to establish and sustain a desired social order. In these circumstances, the government or the state has to impose more formalised and rigid approaches to social control. The agents of the state are entrusted to compel the masses to conform to agreed rules and laws using institutional and legal frameworks and machinery. These mechanisms may choose to punish or reform the non-conformant sections of society. 1.2. Sociological Perspectives The normative approach to sociology tends to view crime as various forms of deviant behaviour that tend to violate prevailing norms and cultural standards used to define normal human behaviour in society. Crime is a complex phenomenon that is influenced by a number of factors including political, economic, social and psychological conditions at any point in time. Furthermore, any changes in these conditions will induce changes in the definition of criminal acts. Hence, the definition of crime and its form as well as legal, law enforcement and other penal responses made by society evolve as crime evolves (Dantzker & Hunter, 2000). The sociological approach to crime tries to consider the complex realities that influence criminal behaviour and the complex responses made by society in the wake of criminal behaviour. The structural realities used to define and deal with crime tend to remain fluid and may cause contention in society. There is a social tendency to criminalise or decriminalise certain kinds of behaviour as cultural changes and political changes emerge (Fox, 1981). Consequently, these changes have a direct bearing on the statistical crime rate, the allocation of resources to deal with criminal behaviour and general public opinion on criminal behaviour. In a similar manner, any changes in the collection techniques or calculation techniques for crime data tend to alter public perception of crime. Generally, these changes influence public perception of the extent of a “crime problem” above anything else. These adjustments to crime statistics along with people’s everyday experiences tend to influence public perception on the extent to which law or other social engineering mechanisms should be used by the state to encourage conformance to social norms. Therefore, the scientific study of crime and criminal behaviour is critical to public perception on crime. This method of looking at crime is better known as criminology and is discussed below in detail. 2. Criminology The scientific study of the nature, causes, extent and control of criminal behaviour on an individual and in the social perspective is better known as criminology. Criminology requires an interdisciplinary approach within the domain of behavioural sciences using knowledge gathered from sociology, psychology, anthropology and law (Jones, 2006). The bulk of research in criminology is diverted to understanding the incidence, forms, causes and consequences of criminal behaviour along with social attitudes and governmental behaviour towards crime. The distribution and causes of crime are studied using quantitative methods that are comparable to other kinds of scientific investigations. 2.1. Definition of Crime as per Criminology Any act that violates the basic values and beliefs of a social order is considered as a crime. Within a social order, these basic values and beliefs are enforced on society through laws that the society itself agrees upon (Matsueda, 1982). There are two major methods of classifying laws: Natural laws: These laws are based upon certain core values that are shared by many cultures. The basic contention behind these laws is to protect people (from acts such as rape, murder, assault etc.) and property (from acts such as robbery, theft, larceny etc.) against harm while providing a common law system. Statutes: These represent rules and laws that are enacted by legislatures in response to contemporary cultural mores. Although these laws are enacted but some of them may be controversial such as laws decrying the use of marijuana and gambling. Certain criminological schools of thought contend that a large number of relationships between the state and the citizen are non-consensual and that criminal law does not always represent the aspirations of the masses. Instead, criminal law is devised in order to better serve the interests of the ruling elite. In contrast, the more right wing criminologist thinkers contend that there is a consensual contract between the citizen and the state and that criminal laws are meant to protect the social order alone. Hence, the definitions of crime may differ from one place to the other depending on the local cultural norms and mores. However, crime can be classified more broadly into the categories of blue-collar crime, organised crime, public order crime, state corporate crime, corporate crime, political crime, state crime and white-collar crime. However, modern thinking in criminology especially criminological theory is shifting away from liberal pluralism, postmodernism and culturalism towards the use of universal terms such as “harm” in place of “crime” (Neuman & Wiegand, 2000). This shift represents a move from the legal methods to more criminological methods of research and debate (Hillyard et al., 2004). Based on these arguments, the definition of crime that is usable for the purposes of this text becomes (Maxfield, 1995): "...any act committed in violation of a law that prohibits it and authorizes punishment for its commission." 2.2. Data Sources Used in Criminological Research Currently there are various kinds of data available to social scientists in order to measure crime. Typically, there are four different approaches used in order to measure crime quantitatively which are: observation; victimisation reports; survey of offenders; using already obtained data. Observation is perhaps the simplest and crudest method to measure crime, but it omits a large number of criminal acts that are not always observable. For example, shoplifting is a common criminal act that is not generally observed by the police or reported by other people. Furthermore, criminal acts such as drug use, sale and possession as well as other similar acts cannot be observed satisfactorily (Kempf, 1990). Another method for measuring crime is to use crime reports issued by law enforcement agencies. However, it must be kept in mind that these crime reports rely on reported crimes and may share problems similar to observation of crime. Most crime reports are not tallies of all crimes committed in a jurisdiction and instead count only certain crimes that are more serious in nature. While it is inconvenient to list all crimes in a crime report, there is also the problem of varying definitions of crime in different localities (Maxfield, 1995). However, this does not indicate that crime reports from law enforcement agencies are not reflective of crime. Instead, the focus of crime reports is crime in localities alone so it cannot be expected to represent individual criminal acts very well. In contrast, another method to measure crime is to use surveys delivered to victims that are better known as victimisation surveys. Surveys pose several advantages in comparison to other measurement techniques such as (Maxfield, 1995): providing information that is not available to law enforcement authorities; finding out crimes that have been reported but not registered by law enforcement agencies; providing date on offenders and victims as well as incidents. Surveys can represent individual criminal acts and incidents nearly flawlessly, but surveys cannot account for crimes on the level of a locality accurately. Therefore, surveys are generally used to study individual factors responsible for criminal acts and behaviour. On the other hand, surveys for offenders are used similar to victimisation surveys but have different uses altogether. These surveys try to measure how many crimes an offender has committed individually or in a group. Such measurements are particularly useful for victimless crimes such as prostitution, delinquency crimes, and public order crimes as well as for rarely reported crimes such as shoplifting. However, there are chances of running into dishonest reporting and exaggeration in these surveys. Even so, it must be borne in mind that offender surveys allow social scientists to dig out crime data that would have otherwise never have been reported (Maxfield, 1995). The crime measurement methods presented above possess their own advantages and disadvantages so it is often advisable to combine these methods to get a more reflective picture of crime in society. 2.3. Measurement Challenges Data measurement for criminological purposes has its own brand of difficulties. A large number of variables are often at play when police records a crime or makes an arrest. For instance, when two strangers scuffle there will be a greater chance that it would be reported to the police when compared to the scuffle between two people who know each other. Similarly, the victim might choose not to press charges or go for an arrest. Arrest practices tend to vary with the degree of urbanisation such that smaller districts tend to have higher arrest rates per capita while larger districts have lower arrest rates per capita. This may occur because law enforcement agencies have greater workloads to deal with in larger urban settings when compared to smaller towns or rural settlements (Rihoux, 2006). Another kind of measurement challenge arises in historical trending of crime data because laws tend to vary with time as mentioned before. This issue poses horizontal challenges for measuring crime statistics when different localities are compared such as cities, counties and states because laws tend to vary between these localities. For instance, marijuana possession is criminal in certain nations and states while it is non-criminal in certain states and nations. Also within these localities, the extent of persecution varies as marijuana possession may carry fines in certain localities while it may carry prison sentences in other localities. This may also pose challenges in crime data measurement. When compared to other kinds of research studies, it is vital to use a critical approach to statistics and measurements. 3. Conclusion Criminology is essential to the specialised study of crime and criminal behaviour that affects society. Research and studies over crime tend to demarcate the reasons behind crime, the social and governmental response to crime and try to formulate appropriate responses to crime using social and legal frameworks and mechanisms. The quantitative approach to criminology helps social scientists to measure and quantify the extent to which crime affects society using multiple methods that rely on law enforcement and individual sources. Although there are certain problems in data measurement for dealing with crime but they can be resolved using standard procedures in use with research in other fields. 4. Bibliography Burgess, R. & Akers, R., 1966. A Differential Association-Reinforcement Theory of Criminal Behavior. Social Problems, 14(2), pp.128-47. Dantzker, M.L. & Hunter, R.D., 2000. Research Methods For Criminology and Criminal Justice: A Primer. London: Butterworth-Heinemann. Fox, J.A., 1981. Methods In Quantitative Criminology. New York: Academic Press. Hillyard, P., Pantazis, C., Tombs, S. & Gordon, D., 2004. Beyond Criminology: Taking Harm Seriously. London: Pluto. Jones, S., 2006. Criminology. New York: Oxford University Press. Kempf, K., 1990. Measurement Issues in Criminology. New York: Springer. Matsueda, R., 1982. Testing Control Theory and Differential Association: A Causal Modeling Approach. American Sociological Review, 47(4), pp.489-504. Maxfield, M.G., 1995. Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology. 1st ed. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Neuman, L.W. & Wiegand, B., 2000. Criminal Justice Research Methods. New York: Allyn and Bacon. Rihoux, 2006. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Related Systematic Comparative Methods: Recent Advances and Remaining Challenges for Social Science Research. International Sociology, 21(5), pp.679-706. Read More