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The Electronic Encyclopedia (TM)
(C) 1988 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.
crime
In the broadest legal sense, a crime in most countries is an act
committed in violation of a law forbidding it and for which a court may
impose a variety of punishments including imprisonment, death, fine, or
removal from office. A fundamental categorization divides criminal acts
into two classes, mala in se and mala prohibita. Some offenses, such as
HOMICIDE, are considered to be "wrong in themselves" (mala in se) and
inherently evil. On the other hand, mala prohibita offenses, such as drug
abuse or gambling, are considered criminal because society seeks to
regulate these particular types of behavior. Such offenses often drift in
and out of the legal codes, their status determined by current public
opinion, custom, or religious standards. Ideally, the punishment for
crimes should be scaled according to the severity of the offenses. Murder,
for example, is widely considered an offense meriting the death
penalty--in which case it is called a capital offense--or life
imprisonment. Some harmful offenses, however, do not bring so serious a
punishment as others. White-collar offenses, despite the fact that they
often involve large sums of money and affect great numbers of people,
commonly bring shorter terms of imprisonment than such offenses as armed
robbery or burglary. The reason for this disparity is often the social
status of the offender: a bank president who has embezzled bank funds is
not usually viewed as a common criminal. Thus public attitudes and
socioeconomic status may affect the severity of punishment, just as
changing social attitudes affect the status of criminal acts. The French
sociologist Emile DURKHEIM considered crime to be an integral aspect of
society and a "normal" social phenomenon in the sense that it has existed
in all societies throughout history. Durkheim felt that mala prohibita
crimes function in society as a means of defining the limits of acceptable
behavior, serving as a vehicle for social change by extending and testing
those boundaries. Western society's present liberal attitudes toward
sexual behavior, for example, have emerged out of an era when certain
sexual acts were classified as criminal. Abortion provides another
pertinent example of a shift in the public perception of what constitutes
a crime. In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court (in ROE V. WADE) decriminalized
abortion, declaring it instead to be a right guaranteed women under the
Constitution. That decision would probably have been impossible 20 years
earlier, given the then-existing public attitudes toward abortion. Despite
the great qualitative difference between the many acts currently
classified as criminal, however, there is little doubt that the entire
area of crime is perceived as a unitary, largely undifferentiated
phenomenon by ordinary citizens, and that this perception affects the way
many people live. Surveys of U.S. public opinion reveal that the majority
of people feel that crime is increasing; they feel more and more uneasy on
the streets and have taken measures to protect their homes against crime.
In addition, "law and order" has become a potent theme in political
campaigns, and candidates who embrace it are more likely to be accepted by
voters.
CRIMINAL INTENT
Once it has been established that a person has committed a criminal
act, the law then questions the intent (MENS REA) of the actor, in effect
inquiring whether the offender intended to cause harm by committing the
act. The answer to this question helps to determine not only the question
of guilt or innocence but also the severity of the punishment, if any.
Mens rea has played a major role in the development of the insanity
defense (see INSANITY, LEGAL), which is derived from an 1843 English case
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in which a man named M'Naghten shot and killed a member of Parliament.
M'Naghten was tried and acquitted because the jury found him not guilty by
reason of insanity (NGRI). After a public protest, the judges of the
Queen's Bench (an appeals court) formulated a standard to determine mental
responsibility that became known as the M'Naghten Rule. It states that, in
order to acquit, "It must be clearly proved that, at the time of
committing the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of
reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of
the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know it was
wrong." The "right and wrong" test has become the basis for most legal
statutes dealing with intent. The insanity defense, however, has been
controversial because it seems to offer a legal loophole that permits the
obviously guilty to escape just punishment--as in the case of John W.
Hinckley, Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan but
was acquitted by a jury. Commitment to a mental institution is the most
common result of the NGRI verdict, and--despite the fact that competency
hearings that could result in release are required by law--persons so
committed often serve longer sentences than their counterparts in penal
institutions. Certain states, such as Michigan, have abolished the
insanity defense in favor of a plea of "guilty but insane," by which the
court recognizes the mental deficiencies of the accused, and the accused
accepts his or her legal responsibility for the act. Persons found to be
"guilty but insane" receive sentences that include treatment in a mental
hospital. If they are released as cured, the time during which they have
received treatment is counted as part of their total sentence, which they
must complete in prison.
CLASSIFICATION OF CRIME
The basic legal distinction between crimes is that separating
felonies from misdemeanors. In general, a FELONY is a serious offense
punishable by death or imprisonment in a state or federal facility. A
MISDEMEANOR is a less serious act that is punishable by a fine or
imprisonment for less than one year, usually in a jail. Another basic
categorization of crime is based on criminological theory and is commonly
used to detect patterns in the crime rate. This classification divides
crime broadly into two categories: crimes against the person and crimes
against property. Crimes against the person are predatory in nature: the
offender intends, threatens, or commits physical harm against the victim.
Such crimes include homicide, RAPE, and armed robbery. Crimes against
property involve no physical threat to the victim, and include ARSON,
BURGLARY, LARCENY, and motor vehicle theft. These classifications do not,
of course, cover all types of crime. Recently, criminologists have focused
on crimes committed by the government in violation of the rights of
citizens: wiretapping, police brutality, bribery, and conspiracies such as
the Watergate crimes of the Nixon administration. A related category of
crime is the type that the U.S. criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland
(1885-1950) termed "WHITE-COLLAR CRIME." Sutherland defined white-collar
crimes as violations of the criminal law committed during the course of
their occupational activities by persons of upper socioeconomic status.
Such acts as EMBEZZLEMENT, price fixing, industrial pollution, and
computer fraud fall within this class. Sutherland held that these acts
must be considered criminal--regardless of the status of the
offender--because they are recognized by the law as harmful, often affect
large numbers of victims, and are usually the result of willful and
intentional behavior. Studies have estimated that white-collar crimes have
a far greater financial impact upon society than any other type of crime.
A final category of crime is the victimless crime, which includes
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drunkenness, drug addiction, prostitution, and gambling. The use of the
term victimless is an extremely qualified one. It refers to acts committed
by consenting adults in private; the acts involve only the participants
and are not harmful to others. If harm occurs, it is inflicted only upon
the willing participants. Victimless crimes are often characterized by the
exchange of sought-after goods and services, and they generate huge
amounts of illegal income. It has been argued, however, that no crime is
victimless. The drug addict suffers physical and emotional harm and often
commits property crimes to obtain money for buying drugs. Prostitution and
pornography damage property values, and their existence often breeds
lawlessness and leads to other, more serious types of crime. Finally, the
revenue gained by these acts is often funneled to organized crime, which
uses these funds to foster and extend control over legitimate elements of
society. The term organized crime refers to a system of crime in which a
group of individuals create and maintain a corporate-like organization,
its members each having recognized responsibilities and obligations. Such
criminal operations attempt to gain monopolistic control of certain types
of criminal enterprises--the marketing of illegal drugs, for
example--which are capable of generating large profits. These
organizations will often use the funds gained by criminal activities to
take over legitimate businesses, and they routinely employ force and
violence to maintain internal and external control. The mobs' enormous
wealth has tended to protect their members from the law; nonetheless,
convictions were obtained in three out of four major organized-crime
trials held in New York in 1986-87. (see also MAFIA; ORGANIZED CRIME).
MEASURING THE EXTENT OF CRIME
The development of accurate measures of crime has been the most
difficult task faced by criminologists and those engaged in law
enforcement. The oldest U.S. statistical analysis of certain types of
crime is the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), which has been issued annually
since 1930 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Individual
law-enforcement agencies are responsible for the collection of the crime
data assembled by the FBI. The statistics measure only "crimes known to
the police." In order for a crime to be included in the UCR, it must have
been reported to the police by the victim or a witness, or directly
observed by the police themselves. The most well-known portion of the UCR
is the Crime Index, in which eight major crime categories are listed:
murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor
vehicle theft, and arson. Data is also included on the age, sex, and race
of persons arrested, the percentages of crimes that are "cleared by
arrest"--the clearance rate--and the rate of crime per 100,000 U.S.
inhabitants. For 1985 the UCR revealed that the number of reported Index
crimes had increased by 4.6 percent over the previous year--following
three years of decline. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter increased 1.5
percent, forcible rape went up by 4 percent, and the total of aggravated
assaults rose by 5.5 percent. Violent crime climbed by 5 percent overall,
while crimes against property were up by 4 percent. The later category
included a 7-percent rise in motor-vehicle theft. The FBI reported that
the 1985 rise was disproportionately distributed geographically: the
Midwest had no increase, but crime levels rose 9 percent in the South, 5
percent in the West, and 2 percent in the Northeast. Arrests in 1985
totaled 11.9 million, an increase of 3 percent. A great deal of criticism
has been directed at the UCR statistics. The data, it is charged, is open
to manipulation by law enforcement agencies that have a vested interest in
demonstrating reduced crime rates or in obtaining more funds should crime
rates be shown to have risen. Some doubt exists as to whether all the
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reporting agencies count the same offense in the same manner. Perhaps the
most common complaint is that the figures change along with changing
police practices. If a police agency were to concentrate on apprehending
the sellers of stolen goods (or if citizens began to report all robbery or
theft incidents), the number of Index crimes in those categories would
rise sharply. In order to counteract this problem, the U.S. Bureau of
Justice Statistics issues the National Crime Survey (NCS), an annual
report on household crime victimization based on census surveys rather
than on individuals' complaints to law enforcement officials. It is
believed that these interview/surveys give a more accurate picture of the
amount of crime that occurs by uncovering unreported crimes. In fact,
statistics for 1983 revealed that only 45 percent of personal crimes and
48 percent of property, or household, crimes had been reported to the
police that year. While the UCR generally depicts a rising crime rate over
the extended periods of years, the NCS gives a different picture. Using
the measure "households touched by crime," the NCS found that crimes
against individuals and households had decreased 1.9 percent during 1985,
reaching a 13-year low of about 25% of national households. The NCS,
however, may not present a wholly accurate picture. The most common
complaint is that the survey is dependent upon the sometimes faulty memory
of the respondents. The victim of a crime is likely to recall the event as
if it had occurred recently, and as a consequence, some respondents report
crimes that occurred prior to the year with which the interview is
concerned. Compared with other countries that keep crime statistics, the
United States has the highest rate per 100,000 population for reported
murders, rapes, and robberies. It is important to remember, however, that
the incidence of crime is influenced by such factors as industrialization,
urbanization, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment, and the availability
of firearms. Many of these factors, of course, are present in other
countries. The U.S. population, however, possesses more firearms than any
other population group and has an extremely high rate of alcohol and drug
abuse. Also, the effect of periods of high unemployment (such as the late
1970s and early 1980s) and the influence of television and movie
representations of violence (in fact, the nagging question of violence as
an American cultural phenomenon) are issues that have not yet been
definitively studied.
CRIMINOLOGY AND THE CAUSES OF CRIME
Criminology is the scientific study of crime and criminal behavior.
Although there are several contemporary schools of criminological theory,
they all share a common goal: the search for the causes of criminal
behavior in the hope that this information can be transformed into
policies that will be effective in handling or even eliminating crime. The
earliest criminologists, the classical school, were late-18th-century
thinkers concerned with humanizing the highly arbitrary and harsh systems
of criminal punishment of the time. The Italian economist Cesare Bonesana
BECCARIA and the English philosopher Jeremy BENTHAM both emphasized the
deterrent effect of punishment on potential criminals. The theory evolved
by the classical school posits the existence of a rational humanity that
possesses free will and whose primary motivation is to maximize pleasure
and minimize pain. Classical theorists reasoned that if a rational person
knows that a particular, painful punishment will almost certainly follow
the commission of a particular crime, he or she will not commit the crime.
This line of thought led to the attempt to establish elaborate categorical
systems in which each crime had its punishment equivalent ("let the
punishment fit the crime") and which prefigured the fixed-term sentences
that are increasingly being imposed today. In addition, the classical
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belief that everyone has the capacity to make rational choices still
influences the field of criminology. A later influential body of
criminological thought was the positivist, or Italian, school, founded in
the late 19th century by the Italian psychiatrist and anthropologist
Cesare LOMBROSO. Responding to the new evolutionary theories of Charles
Darwin, Lombroso embarked on a detailed physiological study of convicts in
order to determine if criminal behavior was biologically determined.
Lombroso found that his convicts possessed certain physical
characteristics to a greater degree then the general population. Although
his findings were later refuted, his use of the scientific method and his
emphasis on the multiple environmental causes of crime had a great impact
on criminology and the development of the ideal of rehabilitation. The
biological approach pioneered by Lombroso is used today in such studies as
the link between learning disabilities and crime, and the relationship
between diet and assaultive behavior. Twentieth-century criminologists
have been profoundly influenced by the work of such sociologists as
Durkheim; by the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud and his
followers; and by the case-study approach inspired by Freud and first used
by criminologists in the 1920s in work on juvenile delinquency, where
possible environmental and genetic causes of criminal behavior were
examined. In the 1930s Edwin H. Sutherland propounded his theory of
differential association, which attributed the genesis of criminality to
the social environment of the offender. Sutherland believed that criminal
behavior is learned behavior, and that persons who live in a social milieu
that contains more criminals than law-abiding citizens are likely to
become criminals themselves. This line of thought led Sutherland and his
followers to the conclusion that some transformation of the social
structure is necessary in order to eliminate what they believe to be the
root causes of crime. Theorists of the Radical, or Marxist, school of
criminology believe that the ruling classes designate certain types of
behavior as criminal in an attempt to secure and maintain the capitalist
system. Thus the criminal justice system is in their eyes largely a means
to maintain the status quo by suppressing the proletariat. This school
also calls for change in the social structure in order to eliminate crime.
Another social structural theory, labeling theory, relates to the manner
in which criminal law is enforced and and is primarily concerned with the
explanation of JUVENILE DELINQUENCY and the commission of status
offenses--that is, acts that are considered to be criminal if they are
committed by a juvenile but are not considered criminal if committed by an
adult. Running away, for example, is a status offense. Enforcement of the
punishment for a status offense, it was found, could lead to a juvenile's
committing further and more serious offenses. In effect, enforcement of
the law created rather than prevented crime. This theory has been
influential in the decriminalization of most status offenses, although
decriminalization has produced further problems. If the police cannot
arrest a runaway juvenile, they also do not possess the power to hold him
or her for treatment for obvious drug problems or ill health. At present,
it appears that the emphasis in criminological studies is moving away from
investigations of individual motivation, as criminologists bring more
attention to bear on the ways in which criminal law is made and enforced,
the probable effects of present-day criminal-justice practices, and the
potential consequences of changes in criminal-law enforcement.
CONTROL OF CRIME
Strategies for crime control and crime prevention have shifted over
the years. Since the mid-19th century a major goal of U.S. CRIMINAL
JUSTICE practices has been the rehabilitation of the prisoner. To this
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end, at the discretion of the trial judge, a convicted criminal has often
received an indeterminate sentence under the terms of which he or she
might be given an early release from prison, perhaps under the supervision
of a PAROLE officer; or might, instead, be sentenced to PROBATION rather
than imprisonment. In addition, the use of CAPITAL PUNISHMENT steadily
declined in the United States; in a 1972 decision the Supreme Court banned
its use under the then-existing state statutes, requiring instead (in
1976) laws that carefully defined what crimes merited capital punishment
along with standardized judicial proceedings for imposing it. In recent
years, however, attitudes toward crime and criminals have hardened. In
1984, Congress ordered the drawing up of sentencing guidelines for judges
in federal courts. Many states are also moving twoard determinate
sentencing, which mandates fixed sentences for certain crimes and may
eliminate the possibility of probation or parole. In addition, the numbers
of death sentences imposed and carried out are increasing. The theoretical
justifications for these changes emphasize the principles of retribution
and deterrence in the punishments meted out to criminals. Retributionists
assert that punishment functions as an expression of the desire of
citizens to maintain social order and as a demonstration of social
disapproval of criminal acts. They believe that swift and certain
punishment prevents criminal behavior by warning potential offenders of
the likely consequences of crime and by persuading the punished criminal
not to repeat the crime. A related theory, the doctrine of incapacitation,
holds that it is not possible to rehabilitate criminals and therefore
offenders should be incarcerated as long as possible. Further, if the
greatest amount of serious crime is committed by repeat offenders
(recidivists), then such a step should also reduce the crime rate. The
theory implicitly assumes that there is a fixed supply of criminals. By
locking up for long periods of time those who are presently active, the
disease of crime will disappear, or at least grow at a slower rate. Many
criminologists disagree, pointing to the increasing numbers of young
people arrested for minor crimes who will, soon, replace the incarcerated
recidivists on the streets. Incapacitation and deterrence theories support
the adoption of habitual offender laws, whereby persons who are convicted
of a serious offense for a second or third time receive a harsher penalty
than first offenders. Deterrence is the basis for laws like California's
"use a gun, go to prison" legislation, under which offenders convicted of
a felony while using a firearm automatically draw a prison term. It is
increasingly obvious that there are no easy solutions to the problem of
crime. Hard-line policies, such as determinate sentencing, cannot be
accomplished at small cost. They have instead aggravated overcrowded
conditions in prisons and have increased the already heavy costs of
incarceration.
Gennaro F. Vito
Bibliography:
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization in the United
States, annual; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports:
Crime in the United States, annual; Jeffrey, C. Ray, Crime Prevention
through Environmental Design (1977); Morris, Norval, and Hawkins, Gordon,
The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control (1970); Quinney, Richard,
Class, State and Crime, 2d ed. (1980); Reid, Sue Titus, Crime and
Criminology, 4th ed. (1985); Silberman, Charles E., Criminal Violence,
Criminal Justice (1978); Vold, George B., Theoretical Criminology, 3d ed.
(1985); Wilson, James Q., Thinking about Crime, rev. ed. (1985); Wolfgang,
Marvin E., and Ferracuti, Franco, The Subculture of Violence (1982).
Incidence of Three Major Crimes in Selected Countries, 1984 (rates per
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100,000) ---------------------------------------------------------------
Country Murder Rape Robbery
--------------------------------------------------------------- Australia
3.42 13.79 83.58 England and Wales 1.37 2.69 44.59 (1983) Germany, West
4.51 9.73 45.79 Israel 1.83 5.45 34.95 Japan 1.47 1.60 1.82 Spain 2.16
3.56 147.33 Sweden 5.74 11.93 44.12 United States 7.90 35.70 205.40
--------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE:
Interpol, International Crime Statistics, 1983-84.