Term
| National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) |
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Definition
NIBRS was created to address the many shortcomings of Uniform Crime Report. Each law enforcement agency is charged with reporting on each criminal
NIBRS uses 52 data elements to describe victims, offenders, arrest, and circumstances. If multiple crimes are committed in an act, each crime gets reported. There are more then 22 group A offenses |
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Used in criminological research to collect data by interacting with the subjects of the research in their natural settings to understand what experiences they may have had relating to the crime. The observation is used to see change over time, it is inexpensive, high on validity.
Problem: poses ethical questions, time consuming, no control, low on being reliable |
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Sampling is used to sample a smaller number of individuals taken from a population for the purpose of generalizing. There are two types probability and non probability. People have to be randomly selected.
Problem: People can lie on their behavior, fails to measure change over time |
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| Experimental Research Design |
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| Two groups: control and experimental. Experimental is exposed to the experiment and the control group is not exposed. The purpose is to find the cause and effect of a crime |
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Using offical crime reports like UCR and any data collected by government agencies. The data is used to reveal trends in crime and to determine increase or decrease of crime.
Problem: there is a dark figure to crime and much crime never gets reported |
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| Observing a group of people who share a like characteristic for extended period of time in order to explain an outcome. Can explain why experiences made individuals who they are , they may use records to look through long time periods |
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Surveys measure attitudes, beliefs, values, and behaviors. Some surveys may be used as telephone calls or interviews. Surveys are used to find the true dark figures of crime, the quick way to find the data that never gets reported.
Problem: It only studies one point in time, cant predict future outcomes. |
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| Positivist theory believes that an individual engages in crime because of being impaired psychically or psychologically. When an individual is exposed to great amounts of psychological trauma or crime, they will also engage in similar crime. An individual may suffer from criminogenic environmental influences |
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| Structural classification |
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| Contends that negative social forces in the environment such as communities or society pushes offenders in the directions of crime without little choice |
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| Theory that an individual is processed through crime, they gradually process criminal behavior. One learns and accepts definitions favorable to committing crimes while interacting in personal groups. People are socialized into law |
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| Different types of research |
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Definition
-Observational
-Survey
-Sampling
-Experimental
-Aggregate
-longitudinal |
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What are the ethics of research ?
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-voluntary
-never injure
-protect anonymity and confidentiality
-practice full disclosure
-ethics in reporting findings and analyzing |
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punishment is given by a judge in a sentence that is equal to the gravity of the social injury to the crime
-classical school advocated this so that the punishment could reflect the amount of social harm incurred
-punishment should be only what is necessary to restore social balance |
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-During the renaissance years
-englightment thinkers advocated the growth of skepticism and free thought. Enlightened thinkers rejected that the natural order was ordained by god. |
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| The idea of pleasure over pain, Suggested by Betham. Believed that the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Wanted to normalize fairness and justice for the poor and wealthy |
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| Trailed courts used during the middle ages. People were accused of being witches and demonic. The offenders were challenged by the courts to prove their innocence by walking on water, burning coal, they had to show that god would intervene on their behalf. If they could not complete the offense, they were put to death |
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| All philosophy and no science |
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All events including human action are determined by causes external to the will. Implies that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions
-positive school of thought |
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Theory created by charles darwin. The idea that species are derived by descent through the natural selection of those best adapted to survive in struggle of existence
-positive embraced darwinism because they believed what could be measured and tested |
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It examined the shape and size of the human skill as an indicator of tendencies to commit crime
-biological view with crime
-it attempted to link the features like bumps on a persons head to aspects of human personality |
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One of the three body types developed by sheldon
-type of somatotyping and criminals displayed body builds that made them more prone to criminal behavior
mesomorphs were muscular, aggressive, and more likely to engage in violent crime |
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| Operationalization is the process of strictly defining variables into measurable factors. The process defines fuzzy concepts and allows them to be measured, empirically and quantitatively. |
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| Part One crimes in UCR, 8 index crimes, murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, motor vechile theft, arson |
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A logical error that results when one attempts to make conclusions about individuals based on group data
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A research technique that relies on several methodologies to measure the same subject matter
-researchers argue its best measurement of any social phenomenon
-they may use it to get accuracy for total number of crimes each year |
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typically associated with people in higher social classes who abuse their high positions in society to commit crime. Money motivated. non-violent
ex: bankruptcy fraud, credit card fraud, embezzlement |
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| Used to explain group behavior, can be used with theories that examine poverty and explains larger social occurrences. Social structure theories is a macro level theory |
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attempt to explain crime on a smaller scale
examines individual group experiences and interactions
primarily biological and psychological
ex: social learning and social control theories
examines behavior on a case by case basis |
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