Criminal Justice 330

Reiman notes:

"We know that more than 70% of the inmates in the nation's prisons or jails are not there for the first time."

Prevalence

(epidemiology) the ratio (for a given time period) of the number of occurrences of a disease or event to the number of units at risk in the population.

Qualitative Research

*emphasis on words and feelings; *research problems/methods evolve as understanding of topic increases; *smaller sample sizes; *relies on categorizing & organizing data into themes or patterns to describe & synthesize the data; *high level interaction with subjects; *many possible contexts & meanings for different people; *subjective by nature.

Positive School Perspective

Assumes that individuals are passive subjects of determinism.

Observational Research

Gathering primary data by observing relevant people, actions, and situations.

Offender viewed as:

Genetically deranged and untrainable, much like wild animals, then caging them would seem to be the only option available.

Guidelines of Investigation

Make participation voluntary, never injure participants, protect anonymity and confidentiality, practice full disclosure, and remember ethics when analyzing and reporting the research findings.

Cross-Sectional Research

Often referred to as survey research. Allows researchers to collect data from a cross-section of the community, that could later represent the entire community.

Positives for Observational Research

One can observe changes in people over time, the method is fairly inexpensive, and is high on validity.

Determinism

People do not freely choose their behavior.

Paradigm

Something that serves as a model, example, or pattern; the framework of assumptions and understandings shared by a group or discipline that shapes its worldview.

Plessy vs. Ferguson

The influence on constitutional law was evident in this case. This served as the constitutional foundation of racial segregation for fifty-eight years.

Spuriousness

To determine that the predictor variable causes the explanatory variable, other factors that could be causing the observed association must be accounted for before one is sure that it is actually the predictor variable that is cause the explanatory variable.

Social Science was used:

To support legal efforts of blacks, but before that was possible, it would have to abandon its attachment to a nineteenth-century interpretation of Darwinian laws of nature.

The Broken Window Theory

Which says that to reduce serious crimes, authorities should focus on the minor incivilities that occur in a given area.

John Allen Paulos

Wrote Innumeracy, a short book about mathematical illiteracy.

Bohm states:

"Some people embellish crime experiences and thus distort their own conceptions or the conception of those to whom they communicate."

Freda Adler argued:

"That as females gain educational and employment opportunities, they will be more likely to converge with males on crime rates."

Collective Efficacy

A condition of mutual trust and cooperation that develops in neighborhoods that have a high level of formal and informal social control.

Mala in se

A descriptive term for acts that are inherently wrong, regardless of whether they are prohibited by law.

Mala Prohibita

A descriptive term for acts that are made illegal by criminal statute and are not necessarily wrong in and of themselves.

The Broken Windows Thesis

A problem-solving theory based on the idea that one unchecked problem may lead to other problems.

Longitudinal Research

A research design in which the same individuals are followed over time and their development is repeatedly assessed.

Participant Observation

A research method in which investigators systematically observe people while joining them in their routine activities.

Scientific Method

A series of steps followed to solve problems including collecting data, formulating a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and stating conclusions.

Theory

A set of concepts linked together by a series of statements to explain why an event or phenomenon occurs.

The National Crime Victimization Survey

A study in which citizens are asked whether they have been victimized, and estimates that residents over 12 years of age experienced approximately 21.3 million crimes in 2008.

Micro-level of Analysis

A study on an individual through a level of analysis.

National crime Victimization Survey

A survey conducted annually by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that provides data on surveyed households that report they were affected by crime.

Hypothesis

A testable prediction, often implied by a theory.

Criminal Justice System Beliefs:

About what is a criminal and how to deal with crime, that predate industrial society.

Validity

Accurate. The degree to which a study accurately reflects or assesses the specific concepts that the researcher is attempting to measure. Does it measure what its suppose to.

Deterrence

An effort to preserve the status quo through the threat of force.

Deviance

Any behavior, belief, or condition that violates significant social norms in the society or group in which it occurs.

Classical School

Approach to understanding crime and social policy for offenders.

Pyrrhic Defeat Theory

Argues that failure of the criminal justice system yields such benefits o those in positions of power that it amounts to success.

Muller vs. Oregon

Became famous because of Louis Brandeis and the "Brandeis belief."

Crimes and Punishment

By Cesare Beccaria pointed out short-comings in criminal justice practices in Europe prior to the era of Enlightenment.

Cesare Lombroso

Called the father of Criminology.

Thomas Szasz

Cautioned "ideas have consequences."

Joshua Gamson

Conducted observations on stigmatized individuals who appear on television talk shows (Jerry Springer).

Reliability

Consistency in measurement.

Activists use statistics to:

Convince us that social problems are serious and deserve our attention and concern.

Legalistic Approach

Crime is whatever the law defines as a crime in a particular place and time.

Surveys Allow:

Criminologists to get to the "dark" figures of crime. These are figures that are not calculated into official crime statistics.

Souryal

Defines ethics as a branch of philosophy that studies what is morally right and wrong, or good and bad, as decided on by a group of people.

Three-Strikes law

Demonstrate another example of how crime-control policies may actually increase crime problems.

Social Statistics

Describe society, but are also products of social arrangement.

Consensual Perspective

Different groups agree about the fairness of laws.

Social Sciences

Disciplines that study human social behavior or institutions and functions of human society in a scientific manner.

Researchers use statistics to:

Document their findings and support their conclusions.

Boundaries of Right and Wrong Behavior

Implies that there is an objective difference between good and evil and that those committing crime are on the immoral side.

Parsimony

In scientific studies, the search for the least complex explanation for an observed phenomenon.

Experimental Research

Intervening in the lives of the subjects to determine the outcome of the intervention. (cause and effect). High on validity and reliability.

Pyrrhic Victory

Is a military victory purchased at such a cost in troops and treasure that it amounts to a defeat.

Scope

Is the characteristic that indicates how much of a given phenomenon the theory seeks to explain.

Correlation or Covariation

Is the extent to which a change in the predictor variable is associated with a change in the explanatory variable.

Empirical Validity

Is the extent to which a theoretical model is supported by scientific research.

Testability

Is the extent to which a theory can be put to empirical, scientific testing.

Policy Implications

Is the extent to which a theory can create realistic and useful guidance for changing the way that society deals with a given phenomena.

Logical Consistency

Is the extent to which a theory makes sense in terms of its concepts and propostions.

Domestic Violence

Is the most common form of violence encountered by the police. More women are injured by a spouse or partner than by any other source.

Macro-level of Analysis

Is the study of economic principles at the aggregate or group level of analysis.

Research Methodology

Is very important in any scientific investigation, because it provides the blueprint used in any study from start to finish.

The media use statistics to:

Make their reporting more dramatic, more convincing, and more compelling.

Jack Douglas

Makes a strong case for using participant observation method "Sociologists must be involved as participants in the everyday lives of deviant groups if they wish to observe the social meanings of things to those deviants. This is the only way to get valid information on social meanings, especially those shared by deviants."

Consciousness-Rasing

Meant connecting the personal and political, that is, locating the origins of personal troubles in political oppression and seeking personal liberation in political action.

Strain Theory

Merton's theory that deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals.

Politicians use statistics to:

Persuade us that they understand society's problems and that they deserve our support.

social Context

Plays a critical role in nourishing certain ways of theorizing about crime. If it changes, people will begin to experience life differently.

Nimmo and Combs

Point out that one of the functions of myths is to provide "social glue" for society. Myths obviously assist in building a consensus in society about the regulation of behaviors.

Self-Report Data

Primarily collected by independent academic scientist or agencies such as RAND corporation.`

Corporations use statistics to:

Promote and improve their products.

Ethnics

Refers to the standard of conduct of a given profession.

Aggregate Data Research

Relies on official crime reports or any officially collected data by government agencies. High reliability and low validity.

Uniform Crime Report

Reports about certain crime and arrests for committing them to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Retrospective Format

Requires taking a group of known offenders and looking back into their early childhood experiences to determine what may have caused their law violations.

Temporal Ordering

Requires that the predictor variable must precede the explanatory variable is we are to determine that the predictor variable causes the explanatory variable.

Quantitative Research

Research based on collected objective data that can be subjected to statistical analysis.

Blumstein States:

Research points to the likelihood that crime-control policies focusing on illicit drugs may actually contribute to more violent crime.

Evaluation Research

Research undertaken for the purpose of determining the impact of some social intervention, such as a program aimed at solving a social problem.

Conflict Perspective

That different groups disagree about the fairness of laws and that laws are used as a tool by those in power to keep down other, lower-power groups.

Marvel and Moody concluded:

That the legislation increased homicide rates because criminals were more likely to kill victims and witness to their crimes to reduce the likelihood of being convicted for their third offense.

Uniform Crime Reports

The FBI lists the numbers of various crimes that have become known (mostly through reports by citizens) to the nation's police departments.

Brown vs. The Board of Education

The U.S Supreme court decided the landmark case in 1954, ruling that racial segregation in public schools violated the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

Negatives for Observational Research

The method is very time consuming, researchers cannot control the behaviors of the subjects, problems gaining entry, the research conclusions are tentative, there are problems with generalization, the method may be low on reliability,and the researcher may face ethical dilemmas.

The myth on Crime

The myth that perhaps the most persistent is that crime in the United States is rising, particularly violent crime. Crime rates in the US are higher than in other industrialized nations yet official data indicates that crime rates have had fluctuations but overall reported violent crime incidents and rates were lower in 2005 than in 1986.

Recidicism

The return to crime by prison alumni.

Sample

This can later be a representative to the population.

Juvenile Superpredator

This myth led to radical policy changes that have drastically altered the life course of many juvenile offenders.

A report by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

This shows that juvenile violent crime rose slightly in the early 1990s but came back to typical levels and even dropped by the late 1990s. It also concludes that the rise in serious juvenile crime in the early 1990s was comparable to a similar trend that had occured with previous generation of juveniles.

Psychotherapy

Used on criminals who were thought to be mentally ill.

Job Training

Used on criminals who were thought to commit crime by the strains of economic deprivation.

Criminology

the scientific study of crime and criminal behavior and law enforcement.