Criminology and the criminal justice system

Criminology and the criminal justice system

Adler, freda :Mc-Graw Hill, New York, 2004

·         Wheel of Terorism :

1.       Illiccit drug trafficking

2.       Money loundering

Example: bribery, black-market activities, corruption, extortion, and embezzlement.

It appers that terorism has benefit greatly from this criminal activities.

3.       Infiltration of legal business

4.       Computer crime

5.       Illicit arms trafficking

6.       Trafficking in person

7.       Thelft (destruction ) cultural

·         Criminiology is the body of knowladge regarding crime as a social phenomenon.

·         Criminology is a politically sensitive dicipline.

·         The objective of criminology is the developmentof a body of general and verified principles and of other types of knowladge regarding this process of law, crime, and treatment or prevention.

·         A crime is any human conduct that violetes a criminal law and is subject to punishment

·         The concept of crime

·         Ahli-ahli sociological theories of criminal behavior :

1.       Gabriel tread

2.       Emile durkheim

·         Explanation of crime and criminal behavior

·         Three basic principles still appeal to psychologists who study crimminallty :

1.       The action and behavior of an adult are understood in terms of childhood development

2.       Behavior and unconcius motives are intertwined, and their interaction must be unraveled if we are understand criminallity

3.       Criminlitty is essential a representation of psychological conflict.

·         The ingredients of crime :

1.       The act requirement

An act requires the interaction of mind and body, if only the mind is active and the body does not move, we dont have an act.

2.       The legality requirement

Thus we have the ancient proposition that only conduct that has been made criminal by law before an act is commited can be a crime.

3.       The harm requirement

4.       The causation requirement

Holds that a crime is not complete unless the actor’s conduct necesserily caused the harm without interference by somebody else and that it is the proximate cause of the act.

5.       The mens rea requirement

Mens rea = guilty mind

Strict liability is an excseption to thr mens rea.

The fact that the actor makes an innocent mistake and proceeds in good faith does not affect criminal liability.

6.       The concurrence requirement

The criminal act must be accompained by an equally criminal mind.

7.       The punishment requirement

The last ingredient needed to constitute a crime

·         The act is fundamental ingredient

·         Typologies of crime:

1.        Violent crime

2.       Crimes againts property

3.       White-collar and corporate crime

4.       Drug, alcohol, and sex-related crime

·         Measuring crime :

1.       Methods of collecting data

Ø  Primary data : the fact and observations researchers gather for the purpose of particular study.

Ø  Secondary data : those they find in government sources or data that were preveriously collected for a different investigation.

2.       Ethic and the researcher

Researcher are required to inform their subject about the nature orf the study and to obtain written and informed aggreementto participate.

·         The process of bringing crime to the attention of police :

1.       Act or situation

2.       Preception

3.       Definition

4.       Reporting

5.       Redefination

6.       Recording

·         Measuring characteristic of crime :

1.       Crime trends

One of the most important characteristic of any crime is how often it is commited.

2.       Location and time of crimical acts

Statistic on the characteristics of crime are important not only to criminologist who seek to know how to prevent it.

Most crimes are commited an large urban areas rather than in small cities, suburbs, or rural areas.

3.       Severity of crime

Legislation sets a standard of severity by the punishments it attaches to various crimes.

4.       Age and crime

Crime decrease with age, the researcher add, even emong people who commit request offense. Thus differences in crime rates found among young people of various group, such as males and females or lower class and middle class, will be maintained throughout the life cycle.

5.       Gender and crime

Males commit more offenses than female

Gender differences in crime may be narrowing, they demonstrate rthat pattern and cause of male and female delinquent activity are becoming more like.

Women traditionality have had such low crime rates, the scientific community and the mass media had generelly ignored the subject of female criminality.

6.       Social class and crime

Disagree that whether social class is related to crime.

7.       Race and crime

·         A criminologycal approach to the criminal justice system : procces and decision : the stage of the criminal justice system:

1.       Entry into the system

Three kinds:

Ø  Decisions victims : begins when a crime becomes known to the police.

Ø  Decisions by the police : once information about a possible crime has come to the attention of the police.

Ø  Legal criteria

2.       Prosecution and pretrial service

3.       Adjudication decisions

4.       Sentencing  decisions

5.       Corrrection decisions

6.       Diversion out of the system

·         Theory2 :

ü  Strain theory

1.       Merton’s theory of anomie

2.       Modes of adaptation

3.       Tests of merton’s theory

4.       General strain theory

ü  Cultural devience theories

1.       The nature of cultural devience

2.       Social disorganization theory

3.       Differential association theory

4.       Culture conflict theory