In the article “ Americas Real Crime Element: Lead” by Kevin Drum published in Mother Jones magazine, the author gives possible reasons behind crime rates in the 1990’s. Drum introduces many theories, to later discredit them through evidence. Such evidence leads him to the real reason behind violent crimes. The evidence presented by Drum makes his argument credible to most, including parents of young children. Parents with young children have many fears.…
Low wage and low economic standing communities experience high rates of violent and nonviolent cri me, poverty, and substance abuse. These conditions directly correlate with economic deficiency and also come with extra policing. Police brutality occurs at higher rates against people of color, specifically black people of color, and in lower income communities. This puts low wage, black communities at the forefront of police…
Over the second half of this State and Local Government course we have been reading and discussing The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. The overarching theme of this book is incarceration, and its purpose is to change the way we think about the world and its systems. All of our class discussions on incarceration, and all it entails, led me to wonder what the connection between incarceration and crime is. In this paper I will be using multiple sources that have to do with crime and incarceration in order to find out how incarceration relates to crime rates, and if incarceration is the reason for crime decline. I will go over all the information I found on this topic, including my findings on incarceration, statistics and rates, as well as…
First academic field that brings insight for the present research is criminology, a division of sociology. It is the case for the “broken windows” model of policing first described in 1982 in an article by social scientists Wilson and Kelling. Supporters of “broken windows policing” argue that neighborhoods that fail to fix disorder (e.g., broken windows) or address other manifestations of disorder display a lack of informal social control, attitude that invites serious criminals into the neighborhood (Wilson & Kelling, 1982; Kelling & Coles, 1997). Disorder is not directly linked to criminality, but disorder allows fear among the residents, withdrawal, low informal social control and all of these leave place for delinquents to gain the neighborhood.…
08 Nov 2013 <http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=122773>. Anderson, G (2007) Biological Influences on Criminal Behavior. Boca Raton: CSC Press Barlow, H & Kauzlarich, D (2010) Explaining Crime, A Primer in Criminological Theory. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc Brill, E (1986)…
What comes to your mind when you read or hear “r-K Theory”….are you as puzzled as I was when I first read it? The article assigned, Cross-National Variation in Violent Crime Rates: Race, r-K Theory, and Income, clarified my confused thoughts about the theory overall. A proposal was presented by J.P. Rushton that demographic, environmental, and population variables correlate to racial differences. According to the article, the r-K theory defines a genetically correlated cluster of characteristics, “that evolved together to meet the trails of life: survival, growth, and reproduction” (Rushton & Whitney, 2002, pg. 502).…
Criminologists employ cross-sectional and longitude studies as observational studies during research. The two studies help criminology research to establish a comprehensive research methodology for comparisons of variables. Additionally, they create a coherent epistemology for deducing cause and effects. Mark Stafford observes that most criminology theories and research are causal. They attempt to establish the correlation between cause and effect.…
According to the UCR, in 2014 there were 134,641 cases of violent crime in suburban cities across the US, while there were only 83,036 cases of violent crime in nonsuburban cities. In order to make sense of this, it would be natural to assume that violent crime requires personal interactions. In a suburban settings, people have many opportunities to interact with other people, thus giving them many opportunities to engage in violent criminal behaviors. On the other hand, nonsuburban city populations, might not have the opportunities required to commit violent crime. For example, they might have limited contact with other people and have a smaller circle of known folks.…
Does abortion have any connection to the reduction in crime rate since the early 1990’s? The controversial issue of abortion is and always will be a sensitive subject for everyone, and a side will not be taken for or against abortion. However, the research behind this topic suggests that the legalization of abortion did not cause the crime rates to decrease.…
The field of criminology in the United States has always been engrossed in accurate and precise ways of both ascertaining trends in crime and how to circumvent it. At a glance, one could assume that there may not be a connection between the media, public, and crime. However, this supposition could not be any further from the truth. The media pursues high TV ratings by inflating numbers and distorting storylines concerning crime. This in turn persuades the public into believing the popular erroneous stereotypes that there is an upswing in crime that is directly associated with race, gender, and social class.…
For nearly 300 years, researchers have conducted crime surveys (Winfree and Abadinsky, 2010). During the 1960’s, a pilot study, referred to today as the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), was conducted by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. The results of this study were recommendations in which federal funding was programmed for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) to conduct the first few national victimization surveys during the years 1972, 1973, and 1974. The findings of these surveys were published in a report titled the National Crime Survey. This publication proved to be quite controversial when the findings showed the incidence rate of crime to be much greater that…
Beccaria wrote a book, On Crimes and Punishment, which was first published in 1764 (Brown, 2004). Brown (2004) explains of Beccaria’s book, “In his book, Beccaria noted, "For a punishment to attain its end, the evil which it inflicts has only to exceed the advantages derivable from the crime. " In other words, punishment should not be excessive; it should fit the crime” (p. 1). The criminal justice system of today was built off the foundation of Beccaria’s book, which outlined what the system should be like (Brown, 2004).…
Crime is increasing every day, everywhere and most definitely increasing in communities. Crime is a major problem in the United States, people are dying from crime, people from younger generations are committing crimes, and law enforcement officers are getting hurt while protecting our communities. There are hundreds of crimes committed a day, which means there are hundreds of victims of crimes a day, but there are many of ways to reduce that number. Imagine if there was a way to reduce the number of homicides, burglaries, forcible rapes, and in all the amount of crime all together. One of the ways is by using social media to enhance policing.…
In this essay I will reflect on the few assumptions and understandings I had about crime and see how they have changed. Upon arriving at De Montfort University to study Criminology and Criminal Justice, I had average knowledge about crime and punishment i.e. insight into biological and psychological perspectives of crime having studied A-level Law and Psychology beforehand. However I did expect to delve so deep into the history and other aspects of Criminology during this first semester. During A-level Law I have read many case studies of murder, manslaughter, GBH, rape etc. I found the main reasons behind committing these crimes were usually motives for revenge, loss of control, hate, rage, and biological inheritance of 'criminal genes ' such as Monoamine oxidase A which makes individuals more prone to exert violence.…
In relation to ecological theories, social disorganization originated in the 1930s from members of the Chicago school who were studying urban crime and delinquency. The theorists behind this development were Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, sociologist also affiliated to the Chicago school and to Institute of Research in Chicago (Shaw and McKay, 1942; 1969). Even though many criminal justice works attribute social disorganization to Shawn & McKay, the backgrounds of this theory are said to be the works of the professors Park and Burgess. In other words, the studies done by Park and Burgess, such as their urban ecology theory and its findings, directed Shawn and McKay’s research of juvenile delinquency. Their interest on previous studies, ecological theories, lead to the formation of the social disorganization theory.…