Criminology 1-3
Terms
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- Crime
- Human conduct in violation of the criminal law of a state, the federal government, or a local jurisdiction that has the power to make such laws.
- Criminalist
- A specialist in the collection and examination of the physical evidence of crime.
- Criminality
- A behavioral predisposition that disproportionately favors criminal activity.
- Criminalize
- To make illegal.
- Criminal Justice
- The scientific study of crime, the criminal law, and components of the criminal justice system, including the police, courts, and corrections.
- Criminal Justice System
- The various agencies of justice, especially the police, courts, and corrections, whose goal is to apprehend, convict, punish, and rehabilitate law violators.
- Criminologist
- One who is trained in the field of criminology. Also, one who studies crime, criminals, and criminal behavior.
- Criminology
- An interdisciplinary profession built around the scientific study of crime and criminal behavior, including their forms, causes, legal aspects, and control.
- Deviant bahavior
- Human activity that violates social norms.
- General theory
- One that attempts to explain all (or at least most) forms of criminal conduct through a single, overarching approach.
- Integrated theory
- An explanatory persepective that merges (or attempts to merge) conecpts drawn from different sources.
- Socialization
- The lifelong process of social experience whereby individuals acquire the cultural patterns of their society.
- Social Policy
- A government initiative, programs, or plan intended to address problems in society. The "war on crime," for example, is a kind of generic (large-scale) social policy--one consisiting of many smaller programs.
- Social Problems Perspective
- The belief that crime is a manifestation of underlying social problems, such as poverty, discrimination, pervasive family violence, inadequate socialization practices, and the breakdown of traditional social institutions.
- Social Relativity
- The notion that social events are differently interpreted according to the cultural experiences and personal interests of the initator, the observer, or the recipent of the behavior.
- Social Responsibility Perspective
- The belief that individuals are fundamentally responsible for thier own behavior and that they choose crime over other, more law-abiding courses of action.
- Statute
- A formal written enactment of legislative body.
- Statutory law
- Law in the form of statutes or formal, writeen strictures made by a legislative or governing body with the power to make law.
- Theory
- A series of interrelated propositions that attempt to describe, explain, predict, and ultimately to control some class of events. This gains explanatory power from inherent logical consistency and is 'tested' by how well it describes and predicts reality.
- Unicausal
- Having one cause. These theories posit only one source for all that they attempt to explain.
- Aggravated Assault
- An unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. (UCR definition)
- Arson
- Any willful or malicious burning or attempt to burn, with or without intent to defraud, a dwelling house, public building, motor vehicle, or aircraft, personal property of another, and so on.
- Burglary
- By the narrowest and oldest definition: the tresspassory breaking and entering of the dwelling house of another in the nighttime with the intent to commit a felony. Also, the unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or a theft. The UCR definition of burglary is the unlawful entry of any fixed structure, vehicle, or vessel used for regular residence, industry, or business, with or without force, with intent to commit a felony or larceny.
- Carjacking
- The stealing of a car while it it occupied.
- Clearance Rate
- The proportion of reported or discovered crimes within a given offense category that are solved.
- Cohort
- A group of individuals having certain significant social characteristics in common, such as date and place of birth.
- Correlation
- A causal, complementary, or reciprocal relationship between two measureable variables.
- Criminal homicide
- The illegal killing of one human being by another. Also, the UCR category which indcludes and is limited to all offenses of causing the death of another person without justification or excuse.
- Criminality Index
- The actual extent of the crime problem in a society. The criminality index is computed by adding the actual crime rate and the latent crime rate.
- Dark figure of crime
- The numerical total of unreported crimes that are not reflected in official crime statistics.
- Date Rape
- Unlawful forces sexual intercourse with a woman against her will which occurs within the context of a dating relationship.
- Demographics
- The characteristics of population groups, usually expressed in statistical fashion.
- Desistance Phenomenon
- The observable decrease in crime rates that is invariably associated with age.
- Felony Murder
- A special class of criminal homicide in which an offender may be charged with first-degree murder when that person's criminal activity results in another person's death.
- First-degree Murder
- Criminal homicide that is planned or involves premeditiation.
- Forcible Rape
- The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Assults or attempts to commit rape by force or threat of force are also included in the UCR definition: however, statutory rape (without force) and other sex offenses are excluded.
- Hate Crime
- A criminal offense in which the motive is hatred, bias, or prejudice based on the actual perceieved race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation of another individual or group of individuals. Also called bias crime.
- Larceny-Theft
- It is defined as the unlawful taking or attempted taking of property (other than a motor vehicle) from the possession of another, by stealth, without force or deceit, with intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property. The UCR definition is the unlawful taking, carrying, leading, or riding away of property (other than a motor vehicle) from the possession or constructive possession of another. Attempts are included.
- Latent crime rate
- A rate of crime calculated on the basis of crimes that would likely be committed by those who are in prison or jail or who are otherwise incapacitated by the justice system.
- Monitoring the Future
- A national self-report survey on drug use that has been conducted since 1975.
- Motor Vehicle Theft
- As defined by the UCR, the theft or attempted theft of a motor vehicle. According to the FBI, this offense category includes the stealing of automobiles, trucks, buses, motorcycles,motorscooters, and snowmobiles.
- National Crime Victimization Survery (NCVS)
- A survey conducted annually by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that provides data on surveyed households that report they were affected by crime.
- National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
- A new and enhanced statistical reporting system that will collect data on surveyed households that report they were affected by crime.
- National Youth Survey (NYS)
- A longitudinal panel study of a national sample of 1,725 individuals that measured self-reports of deliquency and other types of behavior.
- Negligent Homicide
- The act of causing the death of another person by recklessness or gross negligence.
- Part I Offenses
- The crimes of murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft, as defined under the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Also called major crimes.
- Part II Offenses
- Less serious offenses as identified by the FBI for the purpose of reporting arrest data.
- Rape
- As defined by the NVCS, carnal knowledge through the use of force or the threat of force, including attempts. Statutory rape (without force) is excluded. Both heterosexual and homosexual rape are included.
- Robbery
- The taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control or a person or persons by force or threat or force or violence or by putting the victim in fear.
- Second-degree murder
- Criminal homicide that is unplanned and is oftern described as a 'crime of passion'
- Self-report Survey
- A survey in which anonymous respondents, without fear of disclosure or arrest, are asked to confinentially report any viloations of the criminal law that they have committed.
- Simple Assault
- An attak without a weapon, resulting either in minor injury or in undermined injury requiring less than two days of hospialization.
- Statistical School
- A criminological perspective with roots in the early 1800s which seeks to uncover correlations between crime rates and other types of demographic data.
- Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Reporting
- A Federal Bureau of Investigation summation of crime statistics tallied annually and consisting primarily of data on crimes reported to the police and of arrests.
- Applied Research
- Scientific inquiry that is designed and carried out with practical applicatons in mind.
- Confounding Effects
- A rival explanation, or competing hypothesis, which is a threat to the internal and external validity of a research design.
- Control Group
- A group of experimental subjects that attempts to hold conditions (other than the intetionally introduced experimental intervention) constant.