Crime Criminology Essay

In the article “The Crime Bust” by Gordon Witkin, it is introduced that in 1994, after a 9 year soar in crime rates, they began falling (1). According to preliminary figures released by the FBI, all across the board, the amount of crime committals were declining at a drastic rate. (Witkin 1). To determine the source of this sudden decline, several factors were examined, such as the economy, dismissed as “Robbery and burglary fluctuate with economic conditions--but murders generally do not…” (Witkin, 1-2) Prevention and domestic abuse were also discredited since “Studies show that prevention programs don’t work, and others may or may not be effective…” and “...in 1996, there were only 447 fewer ‘domestics’ than in 1993, accounting for just 9 percent of the murder reduction.”

The data cited was collected by National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). This is a tool that the federal government utilizes annually by obtaining information through methodologies similar to a census. According to the BJS website, the NCVS is conducted annually from “a nationally representative sample of about 90,000 households, comprising nearly 160,000 persons, on the frequency,

Over the past few years, crime has been

The Criminal Justice system is one of the most important vessels within society due to its role in ensuring that society is abiding by its laws and holding those who transgress these laws to account. Despite its crucial role in society, it has also been under some scrutiny in regards to how effective it actually is, which results in arguments that it doesn’t properly fulfil its job as a carrier of justice. A focus on the criminal justice system is a subject of interest because it helps us understand the tension within society between individual rights and freedoms. (Schmalleger, F. and Koppel, T, 1999) Thus, this essay will be arguing that the criminal justice system is indeed broken.

Criminal behaviour has always been an interest for psychologists, for they could never quite come to a conclusion between nature and nurture. Research concerning this topic has been organized for many years and due to the never ending debate, is still being conducted. I have decided to read and write about this myself, for I was genuinely curious about the matter and wanted to be a part of the research, as I felt responsible to do so. I believe that in order to stop something, it must be discussed and scrutinized. What effects do genes have on criminal behaviour, why do peer pressure and habitat influence a person to commit crimes and are men really more violent than women?

Contrary to the common belief, crime has been on the decline for the past three decades. Yet, news and media have been covering crime more than ever, resulting in the public belief that crime is at an all time high. The sharp drop in crime since the early 1990s has left experts curious to discover the reasons for the decrease in crime. As I compare the article Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not by Steven D. Levitt and the article Evaluating Contemporary Crime Drop(s) in America, New York City, and Many Other Places by Eric P. Baumer and Kevin T. Wolff, I will briefly describe the articles, compare their agreements and disagreements, as well as discuss my personal preferences.

What impact has the social construction of crime had on fear of crime, our view of victims and offenders and resulting criminal justice policy? The media has been influential in shaping the way society thinks about certain issues, including crime. This essay argues that social construction has a negative impact on society’s view of the fear of crime, victims, and offenders. It’ll also study how social construction affects government policy.

The crime index is mainly made up of property crimes. The interpretation of UCR statistics and lastly demographic shift may cause an impact on crime rates. The UCR calculates

Assignment Nine Critical criminology is the idea that the media and the criminal justice system are the things that shape the publics view on crime. These sources influence our ideas of who commits crime and who is victimized by crime. These sources use their influence of crime to continue to control how the public sees crime and uses that to further their own agenda. Whereas, left realism is the idea that the depicted visions of crime are somewhat true. Some people are more likely to be victimized, however the media and criminal justice systems over exaggerate these crimes in order to instill higher levels of fear.

The emphasis of socioeconomic status in capital punishment cases plays a critical role in the evaluation of an inmate’s disposition and the biases that occur from the impacts of wealth. Economic standing impacts an individual to be drawn to or propelled from crime, dependent on the influence from the surrounding community. The initial socioeconomic influence on destitute areas provokes individuals to live a life of crime, which ultimately brings many crimes to be charged with capital punishment convictions. Occupational prestige and education stand amongst several other factors that account into the economic evaluation of death row inmates and the social impact left on an individual. In addition to the initial impact from socioeconomic upbringing, the decision-making in court can result in juror bias against the defendant.

There are three components that make up the criminal justice system – the police, courts, and correctional facilities – they all work together in order to protect individuals and their rights as a citizen of society to live without the fear of becoming the victim of a crime. Crime, simply put is when a person violates criminal law; the criminal justice system is society’s way of implementing social control. When all three components of the criminal justice work together, it functions almost perfectly. For a person to enter the criminal justice system, the process must begin with the law enforcement.

As defined in the book, Introduction to Criminal Justice, a prosecutor is “an appointed or elected member of the practicing bar who is responsible for bringing the state’s case against the accused,” whom protects the civil rights of the criminal defendant in the process of trial. Hence, a prosecutor is the most powerful person in the Criminal Justice system because of the rurality of a case settling in court. Thus, there are three types of prosecutors, whom shares the goal and the burden of protecting the civil rights bestowed in a nondiscriminatory manner. The first type of prosecutor is in the federal system, the United States attorneys whose main purpose is to carry out justice unbiasedly in federal court, and is appointed by the president. The second type, the attorney general is the chief legal officer who is also a prosecutor of each state, including the United States.

This is an increase of nearly 20’000 recorded crimes in just 3 years. Note that these are only the recorded figures. Many more crimes go unreported. This may be because of intimidation, blackmail or embarrassment among many reasons.

TERM PAPER TOPIC: CRIME FACTORS INTRODUCTION A crime is essentially an act forbidden by the law, and considered sufficiently grave to warrant providing penalties for its commission. It does not necessarily follow that such an act is either good or bad; punishment follows for the violation of the law and not necessarily for any moral contravention. Before 1968, most theories of crime were resulted from recommendations given by sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and criminologists.

Every day on the news there are all kinds of reports. Crime reports are a major part of today's events. Almost every day there are posts about crimes. The level of crime has risen immensely in every corner of the world. People have tried to understand the causes of crime, but if we look around the world we can see that many of the crimes are caused by people who abuse drugs and alcohol, people who think negatively towards others, and poverty.