Intro to Criminal Justice Chp 2

1.) Offenses against the person (Assault, robbery, Sexual assult, rape, homicide) 2.) Offenses against property (Burglary, arson, embezzlement, larceny/theft, and auto theft)
3.) Offenses against the public order (Drug use, distrubing the peace, drunkeness, prostitution, gambling)

Crimes that are not reported. If a offense is not reported to the police, it will not be counted in the indexes that comprise the official measures of crime rates.

A victim might not want to report an offense for the following reasons; the offense is so subtle that it escapes the victims attention; the offense is not perceived as such; the victim knowns the offender; the victim believes that the offense was trivial; the victim fears reprisal; the victim feels antipathy toward the police; or the victim has broken the law as well.

The UCR is the largest, most expensive, most comprehensive, and the oldest method to get an accurate picture of the incidence and seriousness of crime. The UCR does have some limiations, including intentional and unintentional sources of error and classification by the hierachy rule. The UCR produces the statistics used to calculate the crime rate.

The National Incident-based reporting system (NIBRS), an improved method for gathering national crime statistics, is designed to correct some of the UCR's flaw and is still under development. The NIBRS collects data on all criminal offenses that take place in an incident

The ratio of crimes in an area to the population of that area; expressed per 1000 population per year . One of the problems of attempting to measure crime is that not all offenses are reported. Offenses that are not reported and never known by the police constitute the dark figure of crime.

Victimization Surveys have evolved in an interesting manner. There have been four generations of victimization surveys since their inceptions in the late 1960's.

White-collar and corporate crime often go unnoticed and unrecorded much more so then street crime. This is important because it is impossible for the CJ system to address crime that goes unreported and remains unknown. On a large scale, the Financial offenses that usually occur whin the framework of white-collar and corportate crime can damage the nation's economy, and on an individual scale, they can hurt thousands of people, articually those who are impoverished and are struggling to get by. Coporate, Organized, Drug sales & Prostitution and Gambling.

Patternlessness- Certain people are more likely to be victims than are other people. Crime can be exaimed for patterns, and according to to Best, the patterns are so clear and distinct that the term “Random violence” is inaccurate.
2.) Pointlessness- Sensational incidents of crime can appear to be pointless. Most criminal offenses have a motive. Violence can be instrumental, but even when it seems random, on further examination it is often fount to have a purpose.
3.) Deterioration of society- When the media report a number of sensational offenses, random violence appears to be epidemic. Because of the national and international scope of the media, all news can be perceived as local news.

Best contended that perceptions of violence are constructed not by the offical measures of crime, but by the media, which can distory and sensationalize particular incidents. Isolated violent events can appear to be a threat to everyone. One of the first issues that Best confronted was the notion of random violence, pointing out problems with three popular conceptions that compose the idea of random violence.

the ratio of crimes in an area to the population of that area; expressed per 1000 population per year

Where a victim plays an active role in initating the conflict or escalating it to the point of violence.

serial killer: someone who murders more than three victims one at a time in a relatively short interval

The crime, committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with him without their consent and against their will, esp. by the threat or use of violence against them

a statutory offense that provides that it is a crime to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat; "most states have replaced the common law definition of rape with statutes defining sexual assault"