This week we looked at crime statistics, based on the traditional FBI uniform crime reporting (UCR), and the new National incident-based reporting system(NIBR) of the UCR, and National crime victimization survey (NCVS). The UCR collects data on crime reported to law enforcement agencies around the nation based on seven major offense categories, murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. All percentages on based on a per 100,000 person ratio, for instance murder is reported as 5.7 per 100,00 with a 60.7 clearance rate.
The NIBR is much more detailed data based on each individual incident, such as victim and offender information and all crimes committed in each instance gets recorded, unlike the previous UCR system. The NCVS is nationwide surveys taken to ask people about crimes they have had committed against them whether reported or not, this sytem is not totally reliable though because the information is impossible to prove, and many people might make up stories to impress the interviewers. The NCVS does often turn up a much higher crime picture than the UCR because the UCR is based only on crimes cleared, which means an arrest was made, or the agency knows who is responsible but an arrest is not possible, such as the offender being killed by the police, or a murder-suicide. The overall clearance rates for crimes in America is pretty low, so there is a lot of crimes out there being commited that we don't know who commited them.
We also covered a recent addition to UCR data, the "hate crime", agencies report when a crime was committed based on racial, religious, or sexual hate. Surprisingly, organized hate groups such as the KKK actually make up a small percentage of these crimes, it seems to be mostly random, especially after 9/11 when middle eastern people were targeted, and also Indian (India) people were a lot of times mistaken as Muslim, and became victims of hate crimes. We then reviewed the crime statistics over the last thirty years, including the peak of the crime waves in the mid nineties and the sharp decline since then. Although these numbers may be a little misleading, as one expert said in the text, it's like falling off of a very high peak, to a smaller, still high peak, below. So in other words, it's not that crime has fallen to a low level, it's just a lot lower than it was when it was extremely high.
Students from Guilford College in NC protest the attack of three Palestinian students.
You must take these numbers with a grain of salt, they are in no way an accurate representation of what's really going on, the extent to which we may not even have any way of understanding. So many crimes go unreported for one reason or another, which is why we have the NCVS, but yet there is also no way of proving that information is correct either, it's based soley on what someone tells the interviewer.
We then look at age and crime, also race. Trends show that the older we get the less likely we are to be involved in crime. Young blacks males up to 25 years old have the highest rate of involvement, and also victimization. Race as far as the statistics show, seems to be more among African-Americans. This was also the topic of our class discussion this week, however like I stated previously, the stats are based solely on clearance rates, and there are a lot of crimes being committed that never get cleared so it's impossible for anyone to have an accurate number of race involvement in all crimes. Why does it matter anyway, does it serve us any purpose to have this break down of information, if we truly want to all be American's then why do we need to be segregated into categories by the color of our skin? Just the term African-American, or Mexican-American alone should be offensive, I mean for those who were born American citizens just like the rest of us. People refer to me as an "American", not as German-American, or Irish-American or what have you. My great Grandmother was a Cherokee, but nobody calls me a Native-American. Anyway enough with the rant, we're getting off topic here.
Also understand that a clearance only means an arrest, so if an African-American is arrested for a crime but later found not guilty, it still is a mark against his race for that crime, or any race.
I would like to share with you the clearance rates for all crimes known to police under the 2006 UCR, so you can see what I'm talking about, I will give you the total number,then the clearance rate.
- Murder 17,034 60.7%
- Forcible Rape 92,455 40.9%
- Robbery 447,403 25.2%
- Aggravated Assault 860,853 54%
- Burglary 2,183,746 12.6%
- Larceny(includes all petty theft) 6,607,013 17.4%
- Motor vehicle theft 1,192,809 12.6%
- Arson 69,055 18%
Also understand the difference between a robbery and a burglary. A robbery is the taking of something from someone with the use of force,or threat of use of force. A burglary is the unlawful entry of a structure with the intent to commit a theft or felony, and includes forced entry, non-forced entry and attempted forced entry. So you see, someone can break into an establishment and commit a felony and it's still a burglary, whether or not they steal anything.
Also on the same token, someone can enter an establishment, but if there is no proof of intent to commit a felony or theft, it's not a burglary. That pretty much made up the basis for all the studies this week, crime rates and different race,age and social factors involved.
For the assignment we used the UCR website to do research on burglary rates between Denver and Tampa, and we compared the rates for 2007, 2000, and 2002.
Intro to Corrections I
We started out this week by looking at the early responses to crime, before the corrections system was developed. These were often very violent and brutal practices, involving beatings,torture and mutilation. The punishments were sought to fit the crime, liars had their tongues ripped out, thieves had there fingers or hand cut off, adulterers had an 'A' had branded to their forehead. Banishing was also popular, as we discussed last week with the English convict ships to Australia. The brutal corporal punishments were also used in colonial America, as well as whipping posts and stocks and pillories for minor offenses, this is wear an offender would be locked into a wooden device and ridiculed in the center of town.
William Penn, the governor of Pennsylvania was unhappy with the brutal treatment of criminals in those days. The Quakers, who had settled Pennsylvania were the victims of religious persecution themselves and they decided to abolish capital punishment for all crimes except murder and they developed the idea of the first prison system in America as an alternative way of dealing with criminals. Inmates were kept in individual cells and were not allowed to communicate with any other inmates, in fear of moral contamination among themselves. They were even moved about the prison with masks over their faces in case inmates met up after being released, they did not want them to recognize each other. Prisoners were put to work during the day making handicrafts in their cells, and nights were for bible studies and penance on their crimes. The objectives were hard labor,solitary confinement, and religious study.
The first Pennsylvania prison was opened in 1826, the Eastern State Penitentiary just outside Philadelphia. The first idea of a prison was opened in 1790 when a wing of the Walnut Street Jail into housing for sentenced offenders, this was also in Philadelphia.
In 1817 New York opened a prison in Auburn which was originally designed around the Pennsylvania model of corrections,but in 1823 they began making changes and came up with their own system. They kept inmates separate at night, but allowed them to congregate during the day to work in factories to improve the goods that could be sold to help cover the costs of the facility.
Beginning in 1870 and lasting until 1910 the system entered into the "reformatory era" in which the emphasis began to shift from punishment to reforming prisoners through education and other programs so they could have a future back in society and be deterred from future criminal ways. We then learned about all the changes that have led to the system currently in place today and reviewed the importance of each of the sentencing goals, punishment,deterrence,incapacitation,rehabilitation and restitution.
In the class discussion we talked about which of these goals we felt were most important, and for the assignment we wrote a report on Phrenology, the study of the brain and certain physical features that some criminals have that are believed to be from way back in the evolution of humans, which may indicate they are not as developed mentally as the rest of us in today's sociecty.
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