Criminology

1
Criminology

• William S. Laufer
• Department of Legal Studies
• 2207 SH DH
• lauferw_at_wharton.upenn.edu
• 215.898.7693

2
Course Requirements

• Text
• Adler, Mueller, Laufer, Criminology and the
  Criminal Justice System (New York McGraw-Hill,
  2001)
  
• Handouts
• Grades
• Mid-term and Final Examination
• Class Participation

3
Criminology Sutherlands Definition--Modified

• Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding
  crime and criminality as a social, psychological,
  and biological phenomena.
  
• It includes within its scope the process of
  making laws, of breaking laws, and of reacting
  toward the breaking of laws.
  
• The objective of criminology is the development
  of a body of knowledge regarding crime,
  criminality, and its prevention.

4
Assignment for September 11, 2001The Forgotten
Criminology of Genocide

• Why has the field of criminology neglected any
  consideration of the crime of genocide?
  
• How could criminologists neglect an estimated
  sixteen million deaths in crimes against humanity
  since World War II?
  
• What has the field of criminology lost by its
  neglect of the crime of genocide?

5
Self-Report

• Take out a piece of paper and write down the 10
  most deviant and/or illegal acts that you have
  committed. Do not sign your name.

6
Criminology

• September 13, 2001

7
Terrorism

• FBI Definition
• The unlawful use of force or violence against
  persons or property to intimidate or coerce a
  government, the civilian population, or any
  segment thereof, in furtherance of political or
  social objectives.

8
Terrorism Generating Publicity and
Fear

• Classifying Terrorism
• Revolutionary Terrorism Forcing governments to
  respond to encourage a revolution, e.g., PLO
  
• State-Sponsored Terrorism
• Terrorist activities by governments against
  their own citizens or other countries, e.g.,
  Khmer Rouge
  
• Religious Terrorism
• Promoting a religious system or protect a
  set of religious beliefs, e.g., use of Jihad or
  holy war by Islamic fundamentalists

9
Terrorism

• Punishment?
• Symbolic
• Retributive
• Desert
• Expressive
• Restorative

10
Criminology Prof. Edwin H. Sutherlands
Definition--Modified

• Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding
  crime and criminality as a social, psychological,
  and biological phenomena.
  
• It includes within its scope the process of
  making laws, of breaking laws, and of reacting
  toward the breaking of laws.
  
• The objective of criminology is the development
  of a body of general and verified principles and
  of other types of knowledge regarding crime,
  criminality, and its prevention.

Criminology is an interdisciplinary field of study
Criminology is concerned with the construction of
deviance,
deviance, and the reaction to deviance
Criminology is a social science
11
The Criminological Enterprise
Boundary

• Criminal Statistics
• Gathering valid crime data devising new
  research methods measuring crime patterns and
  trends
  
• Psychology/Sociology of Law
• Exploring the intersection between the
  disciplines of psychology, sociology, and law
  
• Theory Construction, Development, and Verification

• Criminal Behavior Systems
• Determining the nature and cause of
  specific crime patterns the examination of
  specific offense, e.g., white collar crime.
  
• Penology
• The correction and control of criminal
  behavior
  
• Victimology
• The nature and cause of
  victimization
  
• Crime Prevention

12
Criminal StatisticsThe Death Penalty

• How many people have been executed since 1608?
• How many people have been executed this year?
• How many executions have taken place since the
  death penalty was reinstated in 1976?
  
• How many jurisdictions have death penalty
  statutes?
  
• Which states do not permit the death penalty?

• What percentage of defendants executed since 1976
  were white?
  
• What percentage of defendants executed were
  convicted of killing a white victim?
  
• Which two states can claim credit for more than
  40 of all executions since 1976?
  
• Do states still execute inmates either by hanging
  or with a firing squad?

13

Criminal Statistics Death Penalty
How many people have been executed since 1608?
(19,500) How many people have been executed this
year? (48) How many executions have taken place s
ince the death penalty was reinstated in 1976?
(731) How many states have death penalty statutes
? (38) Which states do not permit the death penal
ty? Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode Island,
Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and the
District of Columbia
What percentage of defendants executed since 1976
were white? (45) What percentage of defendants e
xecuted were convicted of killing a white victim?
(81) Which two states can claim credit for more
than 40 of all executions since 1976? (Texas and
Virginia) Do states still execute inmates either
by hanging or with a firing squad? Delaware,
Montana, and New Hampshire (H) Idaho, Oklahoma,
Utah (FS)

14
Criminal StatisticsThe Death Penalty

• How many documented innocent people have been
  executed this century?
  
• How many people have been released since 1972 as
  a result of being wrongfully convicted?
  
• What percentage of Texas and California death row
  populations are people of color?
  
• How many countries still execute people for
  crimes committed as children?
  

• How many children have been sentenced to death in
  the U.S. since 1973?
  
• The youngest person executed since WWII in the
  United States was___?
  
• What is the youngest person ever to be executed
  in the United States?
  
• How many people on death row today are known to
  be retarded?
  
• How much evidence exists to prove or suggest that
  the death penalty deters murder?
  

15
Criminal StatisticsThe Death Penalty

• How many documented innocent people have been
  executed this century? (23)
  
• How many people have been released since 1972 as
  a result of being wrongfully convicted? (98)
  
• What percentage of Texas and California death row
  populations are people of color? (60)
  
• How many countries still execute people for
  crimes committed as children? (6) Nigeria,
  Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and U.S.
  

• How many children have been sentenced to death in
  the U.S. since 1973? (160)
  
• The youngest person executed since WWII in the
  United States was___? (14)
  
• What is the youngest person ever to be executed
  in the United States? (10)
  
• How many people on death row today are known to
  be retarded? (300)
  
• How much evidence exists to prove or suggest that
  the death penalty deters murder?

16
Psychology/Sociology of Law

• Using psychology to explain objective
  expectations of privacy in Fourth Amendment
  cases
  
• Examining the reliance on formal versus informal
  social controls in Japan

17
Theory Construction, Development, and Validation

• Intuitive criminology
• poverty
• biological causes?
• genetic predispositions?
• social learning?
• control impulse, self and social?
• social structure?
• culture? subculture?

crime
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Criminal Behavior Systems

• Classifications
• Typologies
• Specific Offenses

21
Penology

• What is punishment?

22
Goals of Punishment
Retribution Deterrence Incapacitation Reh
abilitation
Proportional Penalty - Offense Determinative
Deserved Penalty - Harm Determinative
Expressive Penalty - Message Determinative
Crime Rates - Fear of Consequences
Power of Deterrence - Swift, Certain,
Sufficiently Severe, Laws Known to Public
Types General and Specific (or Special)
Collective Incapacitation Selective Incapacitatio
n
Individualized Sentences Offender Culpability - O
ffense
Offender Change - Intervention
Repairing the harm between Offender and victim
Restorative Justice
23
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24
Victimology

• Violence between intimates
• Child abuse
• Genocide?

25
The Forgotten Criminologyof Genocide

• Defend criminologys exclusion of genocide

26
The Forgotten Criminologyof Genocide

• Genocide is a Political Act Reflecting the Will
  of Sovereignty
  
• Genocide, it has been said, is a political
  rather than criminal act most often employed to
  enhance the solidarity and unification of
  nation-states. Decisions to liquidate,
  exterminate, and cleanse a minority population
  are matters of political policy reflecting the
  will and ideologies of sovereignty. Genocide
  results from a modern, developed, state
  bureaucratic apparatus that moves the conception
  of systematic torture and killing from the
  criminal to the political.

27
The Forgotten Criminologyof Genocide

• Genocide as a Breach of International Norms and
  International Law
  
• To understand the law of genocide, one must
  appreciate its place in law as an international
  crime.

28
The Forgotten Criminologyof Genocide

• Genocide is Committed by the State
• Of all the many revelations over the last
  fifty years, criminologists seem to have the most
  difficulty with the notion that an organization
  or entity, whether a corporation or nation state,
  may commit a crime. When crimes are imputed from
  an individual to an inanimate entity, the
  intellectual challenge becomes Should an
  individual be blamed as well?

29
The Forgotten Criminologyof Genocide

• The Magnitude of Victimization in Genocide Defies
  Belief
  
• Criminological research confirms intuitive
  ratings of crime seriousness from multiple murder
  to shoplifting. The differences in seriousness
  ratings for virtually all offenses are highly
  objective and quantifiable. The extent of
  victimization and harm in genocide, however,
  strains any assessment of seriousness. Who
  appreciates differences in seriousness where the
  offense is, for example, 100,000, 250,000, or
  500,000 butchered Hutus or Tutsis?

30
The Forgotten Criminologyof Genocide

• The Problems of Denying and Admitting Atrocity
• Two prominent themes that emerge from the
  literature on genocide capture an ambivalence
  hard felt by some survivors and refugees of
  genocide. This ambivalence is captured in the
  titles of two recently published books on the
  HolocaustDeborah Lipstadts Denying the
  Holocaust (1994) and Lawrence L. Langers
  Admitting the Holocaust (1995).

31
The Science of Criminology

• Police Productivity and Crime Rates
• Is violent crime increasing or decreasing?
• Childhood Maltreatment and Delinquency
• Are mistreated children more likely to engage
  in delinquency?
  
• Specific Deterrence and White Collar Offenders
• Are white collar offenders specifically
  deterred by prison?

32
Criminology

• Substantive Criminal Law

33
The Concept of Crime

• A person is not criminally culpable
  (blameworthy) unless she acted
  
• voluntarily (or failed to act when required by
  law to do so)
  
• with a guilty mind
• in such a way that her action and intention
  coincided in time causing the harm
  
• in violation of the criminal law
• so as to produced harm and injury

34
Simple Formula

• ACT
• INTENT
• CONCURRENCE CAUSATION INJURY HARM
  PROHIBITED ACT Crime

35
Criminal Act (actus reus)

• All crimes require an affirmative or negative
  act.
  
• Affirmative acts (act of commission) require
  conscious and volitional movement--a product of
  the determination of the actor.
  
• Involuntary acts are insufficient.
• Negative acts (acts of omission) are failures to
  act where there is a legal duty to act, and where
  it was possible for the actor to act.

36
Involuntary Acts

• Somnambulism
• Unconsciousness
• Seizure
• Involuntary Neurological Response

37
Acts of Omission

• Legal Relationship, e.g., parent-child
• Contractual Obligation, e.g., lifeguard to
  swimmer
  
• Statutory Obligation, e.g., taxes
• Creation of Peril
• Voluntary Assumption of care

38
Criminal Intent (mens rea)

• Purposely - with conscious desire to cause a
  certain result
  
• Knowingly - with awareness that something will
  occur
  
• Recklessly - with a conscious disregard of a
  substantial risk or injury
  
• Negligently - actions that the actor should have
  known would cause harm

39
Degrees of Mental Fault
Purposely
Knowingly
Crime-Tort Barrier
Recklessly
Negligently
40
Gradations of Intention

• Purposely A desires to kill B by blowing up a
  building in which he knows B is sleeping. He has
  acted purposely with regard to the death of B.
  
• Knowingly A intends to blow up a building in
  which he knows B is asleep on the top floor.
  Even though does not desire Bs death, if B
  dies, A has killed B knowingly because it is
  practically certain the B will die.

41
Gradations of Intention

• Recklessly A intends to blow up a building in
  which he knows B is asleep. He calls C and asks
  him to go to the building and wake up B. B knows
  that C is not very responsible. If C fails to do
  wake B, and B dies, A has killed B recklessly
  because he consciously disregarded a significant
  risk of injury to B.

42
Gradations of Intention

• Negligently A desires to blow up a building.
  Although it would be apparent to the average
  person that B is in the building and will be
  killed, A is totally unaware of that possibility.
  If B dies, A has acted with criminal negligence
  with regard to Bs death.

43
Strict Liability Crimes

• Certain public welfare (e.g., hand gun
  possession) and sexual offenses (e.g., statutory
  rape, bigamy, and adultery) do not require proof
  of mens rea. The act alone will suffice.

44
Two Tests for Causation

• Factual Causation But for As act, the result
  would not have occurred when and as it did.
  
• But for Bills act, Harry would not have been
  injured in the way in which he was.

• Proximate Causation
• Bs injuries must have been the natural and
  probable consequences of As act.
  
• Bs injuries must have been foreseeable,
  without any intervening factors sufficient to
  break the causal chain that would relieve A of
  liability.

45
DefensesExcuses and Justifications

• EXCUSES
• Defenses in which the law recognizes the
  absence of mens rea or actus reus, and concludes
  that no crime has been committed
  
• Insanity
• Infancy
• Intoxication

• JUSTIFICATIONS
• Defenses in which the law authorizes the
  violation of another law where there is a
  justification
  
• Self Defense
• Defense of Others
• Duress
• Necessity

46
The Issue of Mental Disease is Raised Throughout
the Criminal Process
Execution of Sentence
Trial
Crime
Criminal Responsibility
Competence to be tried (fitness to proceed)
Competence to be executed
Understand the proceedings
Be able to assist in their defense
47
FBI Guidelines on Deadly Force
Publics Safety

• May not fire to disable vehicle
• May not fire warning shot
• Should not fire to wound

Officers Safety
MAY (NOT MUST) USEDEADLY FORCE WHEN
1. Imminent Danger a. Armed intent to us
e, or b. Armed moving to cover, or
c. Ability to incapacitate intent
to use AND
2. No safe alternative verbal
warning, if feasible
Exception Escape from scene of violent confront
ation
48
The Law of Deadly Force

• Constitutional Law
• Tennessee v. Gardner
• Police may not use deadly force against a fleeing
  unarmed felony suspect. Such force is an
  unconstitutional seizure of the person and
  violates the Fourth Amendment to the
  Constitution.
• State Statute
• Justification by law enforcement
• Departmental Policies
• Examples FBI Guidelines, PPD Directive 10

49
Forcibly subdued suspect using methods
other than hands, e.g., gun or baton
Forcibly subdued suspects with hands
Officer uses an arm/wrist lock,
takedown, block, punch, or kick
Slight force Officer uses strong directive la
nguage and/or minimal physical force to enco
urage compliance
No force Officer uses typical verbal commands
50
New York Central Hudson River Railroad v. U.S.
(1909)

• Corporations conduct the great majority of
  business transactions
  
• Interstate commerce is almost entirely in their
  hands
  
• The notion that corporations are incapable of
  committing crimes would virtually take away the
  only means of effectively controlling business
  transactions in interstate commerce
• Corporations can commit crimes

51
Corporate Criminal Liability The Federal Law

• A corporation may be held criminally liable for
  acts committed by its employees if they were
  acting within the scope of their authority, and
  for the benefit of the corporation even if such
  acts were against corporate policy or express
  instructions.
• This rule extends corporate criminal liability to
  acts committed by
  
• officers and directors
• managers and supervisors
• subordinate employees
• independent contractors

52
Vicarious Liability
Agents Criminal Intent
Agents Criminal Act
53
The Corporate Compliance Movement
Corporate Compliance

• The likelihood of a criminal investigation,
  indictment, aggressive prosecution, conviction,
  and significant fine may be reduced significantly
  by evidence of corporate compliance.
• Vicarious liability might be defeated by active
  corporate compliance efforts.

Liability
54
Criminology

• September 20, 2001

55
What are the ingredients (elements) of all
crimes?

• ACT
• INTENT
• CONCURRENCE CAUSATION
• INJURY
• HARM PROHIBITED ACT Crime

Biological Persons Corporate Persons
56
How can a corporation commit a crime?

• Who acts
• Who intends?
• Who causes injury?
• Who is punished?

57
New York Central Hudson River Railroad v. U.S.
(1909)

• Corporations conduct the great majority of
  business transactions
  
• Interstate commerce is almost entirely in their
  hands
  
• The notion that corporations are incapable of
  committing crimes would virtually take away the
  only means of effectively controlling business
  transactions in interstate commerce
• Corporations can commit crimes

58
Corporate Criminal Liability The Federal Law

• A corporation may be held criminally liable for
  acts committed by its employees if they were
  acting within the scope of their authority, and
  for the benefit of the corporation even if such
  acts were against corporate policy or express
  instructions.
• This rule extends corporate criminal liability to
  acts committed by
  
• officers and directors
• managers and supervisors
• subordinate employees
• independent contractors

59
Vicarious Liability
Agents Criminal Intent
Agents Criminal Act
60
The Corporate Compliance Movement
Corporate Compliance

• The likelihood of a criminal investigation,
  indictment, aggressive prosecution, conviction,
  and significant fine may be reduced significantly
  by evidence of corporate compliance.
• Vicarious liability might be defeated by active
  corporate compliance efforts.

Liability
61
Minimum Requirements for an Effective Compliance
Program

• Standards and Procedures reasonably capable of
  preventing criminal conduct
  
• Oversight of standards by high level personnel
• Care in the delegation of substantial managerial
  authority to individuals

• Effective communication of standards and
  procedures to employees
  
• Reasonable steps taken to achieve compliance
• Enforcement of disciplinary mechanisms
• Appropriate response after detection of an offense

62
Key to Compliance

• Proactive Compliance
• Reactive Compliance

63
Criminology

• Chapter Two

64
You be the criminologist!

• What do we know?
• Test the conventional wisdom about crime in New
  York
  
• Propose a study using international crime data
• Explain the drop in crime

65
What do we know?

• Crime rates are declining (p. 36-38)
• Most crimes are committed in large urban areas
  (p.40)
  
• The safest place to be is in ones home (p. 40)
• Most crimes are committed at night (p. 40)
• Personal and household crimes are more likely to
  be committed during the warmer months of the year
  (p. 40)
  
• Crime decreases with age (p. 44)
• A small group of offenders commit a large
  percentage of all crime (p. 45-46)
  
• Males commit more crimes than females (p. 47-48)
• Social class may (or may not) be associated with
  crime (p. 49)
  
• People of color are represented
  disproportionately in the criminal justice system
  (p. 49-50)
  

66
What is your hypothesis?

• Why are crime rates declining?
• Why are most crimes committed in large urban
  areas?
  
• Why are most crimes committed at night?
• Why is it that personal and household crimes are
  more likely to be committed during the warmer
  months of the year?
  
• Why does crime decrease with age?
• Why is it that a small group of offenders commit
  a large percentage of all crime?
  
• Why do males commit more crimes than females?
• Why is the crime-social class association less
  than convincing?
  
• Why is it that people of color are represented
  disproportionately in the criminal justice
  system?
  

Why?
67
What is your hypothesis?

• Crime rates are declining because of changing
  demographics, better and more sophisticated
  policing strategies, e.g., community-based
  policing and quality of life arrests (broken
  windows), and an increased commitment to crime
  prevention strategies, e.g., target hardening.
• Criminal behavior decreases with age for reasons
  of social maturation.
  
• People of color are disproportionately
  represented in the criminal justice system
  because there remains an institutionalized racism
  that touches each and every stage of the system
  from arrest decisions to parole eligibility
  determinations.

68
Test the conventional wisdom about crime in New
York

• Eric H. Monkkonen, Murder in New York City
  (2001)
  
• Cities are cauldrons of murder.
• The underlying social forces of mass society
  cause deviance.
  
• Crowding leads to deviance and violence
• Poverty explains murder.
• A corrupt criminal justice system loosens morals
  and leads to violence.
  
• We know what causes violence young men coming
  home from war, trained to kill.
  
• Riots unleash violence.

69
Propose a study using international crime
dataFrom Synnomie to Anomie
United States
Anomie (Normlessness)
Germany Great Britain Italy
Formation of Subcultures (Lower class are in conf
lict with dominant culture)
Crime Rate
Russia Saudi Arabia Switzerland Japan
Cultural Deviance (Social disorganization and val
ue conflict social controls absent in transitio
nal neighborhoods)
Failure in Social Control (Social institutions br
eak down movement away from family, school reli
gious commitment, etc.)
Nepal Costa Rica
Strain (disconnect between means and goals)
Synnomie (Norm Cohesion)
Social Development/Social Change
70
Explain the drop in crime

• The decay of crack markets
• New police tactics
• Growing deterrence due to violence
• Rejection of crack by a new generation
• Strength of the economy
• Increased gun control, and
• Increased incarceration

71
Explain the drop in crime last week in New York
City

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