{"id":1220,"date":"2016-05-13T02:09:50","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T02:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/introductiontosociology-waymaker\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=1220"},"modified":"2020-07-03T22:37:45","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T22:37:45","slug":"crime-and-the-law","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtosociology\/chapter\/crime-and-the-law\/","title":{"raw":"Crime and The Law","rendered":"Crime and The Law"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Learning outcomes<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Understand the three branches of the U.S. criminal justice system<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Identify and differentiate types of crimes<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Evaluate U.S. crime statistics<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\nSanctions (formal, informal, positive, and negative) are applied to control deviance and crime. For example, the death penalty is a formal negative sanction applied to those who commit murder in certain ways in specific states. In this section, you'll examine the organization of the U.S. criminal justice system and read about crime and punishment in the United States.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-5920\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2034\/2016\/05\/26195521\/matthew-ansley-1189637-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"Pictured is the hallway of a correctional facility. \" width=\"504\" height=\"323\" \/>\r\n<h2>The U.S. Criminal Justice System<\/h2>\r\n<section id=\"fs-id1171168978815\"><\/section><section id=\"fs-id2304288\">\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1308797\">A <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1317987\">criminal justice system<\/span><\/strong> is an organization that exists to enforce a legal code. There are three branches of the U.S. criminal justice system: the police, the courts, and the corrections system.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<section id=\"fs-id1471499\">\r\n<h3>Police<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1411477\"><strong><span id=\"import-auto-id3637603\">Police<\/span><\/strong> are a civil force in charge of enforcing laws and public order at a federal, state, or community level. No unified national police force exists in the United States, although there are federal law enforcement officers. Federal officers operate under specific government agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF); and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Federal officers can only deal with matters that are explicitly within the power of the federal government, and their field of expertise is usually narrow. A county police officer may spend time responding to emergency calls, working at the local jail, or patrolling areas as needed, whereas a federal officer would be more likely to investigate suspects in firearms trafficking or provide security for government officials.<\/p>\r\nState police have the authority to enforce statewide laws, including regulating traffic on highways. Local or county police, on the other hand, have a limited jurisdiction with authority only in the town or county in which they serve.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2016\/04\/15204309\/Figure_07_03_04a.jpg\" alt=\"An armored police officer is shown in a doorway holding and pointing his gun.\" width=\"300\" height=\"399\" \/> <strong>Figure 1.\u00a0<\/strong>Here, Afghan National Police Crisis Response Unit members train in Surobi, Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy of isafmedia\/flickr)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-id1325593\">\r\n<h3>Courts<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1663487\">Once a crime has been committed and a violator has been identified by the police, the case goes to court. A <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1318799\">court<\/span><\/strong> is a system that has the authority to make decisions based on law. The U.S. judicial system is divided into federal courts and state courts. As the name implies, federal courts (including the U.S. Supreme Court) deal with federal matters, including trade disputes, military justice, and government lawsuits. Judges who preside over federal courts are selected by the president with the consent of Congress.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id2770757\">State courts vary in their structure but generally include three levels: trial courts, appellate courts, and state supreme courts. In contrast to the large courtroom trials in TV shows, most noncriminal cases are decided by a judge without a jury present. Traffic court and small claims court are both types of trial courts that handle specific civil matters.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id168738\">Criminal cases are heard by trial courts with general jurisdictions. Usually, a judge and jury are both present. It is the jury\u2019s responsibility to determine guilt and the judge\u2019s responsibility to determine the penalty, though in some states the jury may also decide the penalty. Unless a defendant is found \u201cnot guilty,\u201d any member of the prosecution or defense (whichever is the losing side) can appeal the case to a higher court. In some states, the case then goes to a special appellate court; in others it goes to the highest state court, often known as the state supreme court.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1224\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"731\"]<img class=\"wp-image-1224 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2016\/05\/13022744\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-12-at-10.26.45-PM.png\" alt=\"Two different courthouse setups are shown here side by side. Image (a) shows a county courthouse for a state trial court. Image (b) shows the courtroom of the Michigan Supreme Court.\" width=\"731\" height=\"265\" \/> <strong>Figure 2.<\/strong> This county courthouse in Kansas (left) is a typical setting for a state trial court. Compare this to the courtroom of the Michigan Supreme Court (right). (Photo (a) courtesy of Ammodramus\/Wikimedia Commons; Photo (b) courtesy of Steve &amp; Christine\/Wikimedia Commons)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-id2624522\">\r\n<h3>Corrections<\/h3>\r\nThe <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1521030\">corrections system<\/span><\/strong>, more commonly known as the prison system, is charged with supervising individuals who have been arrested, convicted, and sentenced for a criminal offense. At the end of 2010, approximately seven million U.S. men and women were behind bars (BJS, 2011d); an\u00a0estimated 6,613,500 persons were under the supervision of U.S. adult correctional systems in 2016 and the decline is due solely due to a declining probation population (the numbers of people in prison, jail, and on probation remain steady).\u00a0[footnote]Kaeble, D. &amp; M. Cowhig (2018). Correctional Populations in the United States 2016. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/cpus16.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/cpus16.pdf<\/a>[\/footnote].\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-id2624522\">The United States incarceration rate has grown considerably in the last hundred years. In 2008, more than 1 in 100 U.S. adults were in jail or prison, the highest benchmark in our nation\u2019s history. And while the United States accounts for 5 percent of the global population, we have 25 percent of the world\u2019s inmates, the largest number of prisoners in the world (Liptak, 2008b).\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"640\"]<img class=\"attachment-large\" src=\"http:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/var\/www\/vhosts\/cms.pewresearch.org\/htdocs\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/12\/files\/2018\/05\/01170621\/FT_18.04.27_IncarcerationRate_map.png\" alt=\"A map titled &quot;U.S. incarcerates a larger share of its population than any other country&quot; with the subtitle &quot;Incarceration rate per 100,000 people of any age&quot; is shown here. Each country is a shade of brown to represent the rate of incarceration. The US has the highest rate of at 655.5\/100,000. The country shown with the second highest rate of 614\/100,000 is El Salvador. Countries with the lowest rates (0-99) are found mostly within central Africa.\" width=\"640\" height=\"547\" \/> <strong>Figure 3.<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2018\/05\/02\/americas-incarceration-rate-is-at-a-two-decade-low\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cAmerica\u2019s incarceration rate is at a two-decade low.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (May 2, 2018).\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2018\/05\/02\/americas-incarceration-rate-is-at-a-two-decade-low\/ft_18-04-27_incarcerationrate_map\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cU.S. Incarcerates a Larger Share of Its Population than Any Other Country.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (May 1, 2018).[\/caption]\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id2329171\">Prison is different from jail. A jail provides temporary confinement, usually while an individual awaits trial or parole. Prisons are facilities built for individuals serving sentences of more than a year, whereas jails are small and local, prisons are large and run by either the state or the federal government.\u00a0Increasingly jails operate more like larger prisons, as institutions like Los Angeles County Jail have nearly 20,000 inmates (63 percent of which are non-violent offenders) in seven facilities over 4,000 square miles. Rikers Island in New York City, which sits on a 40-acre complex with ten different facilities (including a juvenile facility), house nearly 14,000 inmates[footnote]Misachi, J. (updated 2017). The largest jails in the U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldatlas.com\/articles\/the-largest-jails-in-the-united-states.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.worldatlas.com\/articles\/the-largest-jails-in-the-united-states.html<\/a>.[\/footnote].<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id2015281\">Parole refers to a temporary release from prison or jail that requires supervision and the consent of officials. Parole is different from probation, which is supervised time used as an alternative to prison. Probation and parole can both follow a period of incarceration in prison, especially if the prison sentence is shortened.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\r\n<h3>Dig Deeper<\/h3>\r\nRead this\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/kalief-browder-1993-2015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">story about Kalief Browder, arrested at age 16 on a robbery charge,<\/a>\u00a0held at Rikers Island for more than 1,000 days, including two years in solitary confinement, and then released when his charges were dropped. Read about Kalief's experiences in jail and what occurred after he was released.\r\n\r\nHis story has been documented in a six-part Netflix series titled\u00a0<em>The Kalief Browder Story<\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>Watch the following video from vlogger Hank\u00a0Green about the messy situation that is mass incarceration in America:<\/strong>\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NaPBcUUqbew[\/embed]<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/section><\/section>\r\n<h2>Criminal Activity<\/h2>\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\"]<img src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2016\/04\/15204307\/Figure_07_03_01a.jpg\" alt=\"A police ICE officer is shown handcuffing a suspect outside.\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" \/> <strong>Figure 4.\u00a0<\/strong>How is a crime different from other types of deviance? (Photo courtesy of Duffman\/Wikimedia Commons.)[\/caption]\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1199610\">Although deviance is a violation of social norms, it\u2019s not always punishable, and it\u2019s not necessarily bad. <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id2689839\">Crime<\/span><\/strong>, on the other hand, is a behavior that violates official law and is punishable through formal sanctions. Walking to class backward is a deviant behavior. Driving with a blood alcohol percentage over the state\u2019s limit is a crime. Like other forms of deviance, however, ambiguity exists concerning what constitutes a crime and whether all crimes are, in fact, \u201cbad\u201d and deserve punishment.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id2696873\">As you have learned, all societies have informal and formal ways of maintaining social control. Within these systems of norms, societies have <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id842608\">legal codes<\/span><\/strong> that maintain formal social control through laws, which are rules adopted and enforced by a political authority. Those who violate these rules incur negative formal sanctions. Normally, punishments are relative to the degree of the crime and the importance to society of the value underlying the law. As we will see, however, there are other factors that influence criminal sentencing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<section id=\"fs-id1462651\">\r\n<h3>Types of Crimes<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1499293\">Not all crimes are given equal weight. Society generally socializes its members to view certain crimes as more severe than others. For example, most people would consider murdering someone to be far worse than stealing a wallet and would expect a murderer to be punished more severely than a thief. In modern U.S. society, crimes are classified as one of two types based on their severity. <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1904230\">Violent crimes<\/span><\/strong> (also known as \u201ccrimes against a person\u201d) are based on the use of force or the threat of force. Rape, murder, and armed robbery fall under this category. <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id2626144\">Nonviolent crimes<\/span><\/strong> involve the destruction or theft of property but do not use force or the threat of force. Because of this, they are also sometimes called \u201cproperty crimes.\u201d Larceny, car theft, and vandalism are all types of nonviolent crimes. If you use a crowbar to break into a car, you are committing a nonviolent crime; if you mug someone with the crowbar, you are committing a violent crime.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1683351\">We discussed the differences between\u00a0<strong><span id=\"import-auto-id2770627\">street crime<\/span><\/strong>, or offenses committed by ordinary people against other people or organizations, usually in public spaces,\u00a0and\u00a0<strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1365511\">corporate crime<\/span><\/strong>, or\u00a0<strong>white-collar crime, <\/strong>which are\u00a0committed by workers in a business environment. Embezzlement, insider trading, and identity theft are all types of corporate crime.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1763961\">An often-debated third type of crime is <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1255710\">victimless crime<\/span><\/strong>. Crimes are called victimless when the perpetrator is not explicitly harming another person. As opposed to battery or theft, which clearly have a victim, a crime like drinking a beer when someone is twenty years old or selling a sexual act do not result in injury to anyone other than the individual who engages in them, although they are illegal. While some claim acts like these are victimless, others argue that they actually do harm society. Prostitution may foster abuse toward women by clients or pimps. Drug use may increase the likelihood of employee absences. Such debates highlight how the deviant and criminal nature of actions develops through ongoing public discussion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\r\n<h3>Hate Crimes<\/h3>\r\nThe term \u201chate crime\u201d refers to\u00a0a \u201ccriminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender\u2019s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.\u201d[footnote]What we investigate: Hate crimes. (2017). FBI. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/investigate\/civil-rights\/hate-crimes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/investigate\/civil-rights\/hate-crimes<\/a>[\/footnote] Hate itself is not a crime\u2014and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3911\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"350\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3911 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2034\/2016\/04\/10153638\/Screen-Shot-2018-09-10-at-10.36.00-AM.png\" alt=\"Bar graph of hate crimes in 2016. 28.4% targeted African-Americans, 17.5% lesbians, gays, or bisexual, 11.8% targeted whites, 11.2% targeted Jews, 6.1% Latinos, and 5% Muslims.\" width=\"350\" height=\"163\" \/> <strong>Figure 5.<\/strong> <strong>Hate Crime Victims in 2016.<\/strong> Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: FBI[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFrom Roman persecution of Christians in the 1st century AD, to 6 million people, predominantly Jews, killed in the Holocaust in the 20th century, we find many examples of hate crimes.\u00a0When hate crimes are state-sponsored, such as the Holocaust, the Indian Removal Act (1830), or slavery in the U.S. (1619-1865), we can see the state's efforts to eliminate legal rights and deny citizen rights to certain people. The Nuremberg laws were enacted in Germany in 1935, which stripped Jews of any citizenship rights. In Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that an African American did not qualify as a U.S. citizen and effectively said that even blacks in free territories had no rights and were still legally the property of white slaveowners.\u00a0A series of laws and Supreme Court decisions in the 18th and 19th centuries rendered Native Americans landless and stripped them of citizenship rights, which allowed the U.S. government to take land from them with impunity.\r\n\r\nIn a contemporary context, reports of hate crimes have increased steadily since 2016. The FBI has been investigating hate crimes in the U.S. since World War I, but like many violent crimes, much of the available statistical data depends on how crimes are categorized and whether hate crimes are reported at all. Orlando, Florida reported just five (5) hate crimes in 2017. In 2016, a gay nightclub in Orlando, was the site of one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history with 49 dead and 53 wounded, but is not included in the 2016 Florida Hate Crimes Report. Testimony by the shooter Omar Mateen's wife seemed to affirm the fact that it was a terrorist act, but that the site was not chosen because of its LGBTQ+ population, but rather out of convenience and lack of security (the initial target being Disney Springs, which has far more security).[footnote]Jeltsen, M. 2018. How everyone got the pulse massacre completely wrong. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/noor-salman-pulse-massacre-wrong_us_5ac29ebae4b04646b6454dc2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/noor-salman-pulse-massacre-wrong_us_5ac29ebae4b04646b6454dc2<\/a>[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nA white man opened fire inside a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people in 2015. He was immediately charged with a hate crime and confessed to the shootings the morning after in hopes of starting a race war[footnote]Charleston church shooting. Wikipedia. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charleston_church_shooting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charleston_church_shooting<\/a>[\/footnote] (Wikipedia). South Carolina is one of a handful of states with no hate crime laws, so he was charged with nine counts of murder in South Carolina but also was tried in federal court and convicted of 33 federal hate crime and murder charges and sentenced to death.<del><\/del>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3912\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"627\"]<img class=\"wp-image-3912 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2034\/2016\/04\/10153641\/Screen-Shot-2018-09-10-at-10.35.39-AM.png\" alt=\"A graph showing rising number of hate crimes since 2013 is shown. Listed on the X-Axis are the years 2010 through 2017. The Y-axis is numbered from 0 at the bottom to 1,000 at the top. The graph includes data from New York City, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, Chicago, San Jose, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, and San Antonio. The graph shows that each city trended upwards in hate crimes over the years with San Antonio having the most at around 800 to 1,000, and New York City having the least around 200 to 400. \" width=\"627\" height=\"311\" \/> <strong>Figure 6.<\/strong> <strong>Hate Crimes in Top 10 U.S. Cities.<\/strong> Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: Brian Levin, James Nolan and John Reitzel[\/caption]\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-id1171161013461\">\r\n<h3>Crime Statistics<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"eip-id1166253098621\">The FBI gathers data from approximately 17,000 law enforcement agencies, and the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) is the annual publication of this data (FBI, 2011). The UCR has comprehensive information from police reports but fails to account for the many crimes that go unreported, often due to victims\u2019 fear, shame, or distrust of the police. The quality of this data is also inconsistent because of differences in approaches to gathering victim data; important details are not always asked for or reported (Cantor and Lynch 2000).<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"eip-id1166253310160\">Due to these issues, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics publishes a separate self-report study known as the National Crime Victimization Report (NCVR). A <strong>self-report study<\/strong> is a collection of data gathered using voluntary response methods, such as questionnaires or telephone interviews. Self-report data are gathered each year, asking approximately 160,000 people in the United States about the frequency and types of crime they\u2019ve experienced in their daily lives (BJS, 2013). The NCVR reports a higher rate of crime than the UCR, likely picking up information on crimes that were experienced but never reported to the police. Age, race, gender, location, and income-level demographics are also analyzed (National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, 2010).<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"eip-id1166252594290\">The NCVR survey format allows people to more openly discuss their experiences and also provides a more-detailed examination of crimes, which may include information about consequences, relationship between victim and criminal, and substance abuse involved. One disadvantage is that the NCVR misses some groups of people, such as those who don't have telephones and those who move frequently. The quality of information may also be reduced by inaccurate victim recall of the crime (Cantor and Lynch, 2000).<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-id1171168978815\">\r\n<h3>Public Perception of Crime<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1171162350121\">Neither the NCVR nor the UCR accounts for all crime in the United States, but general trends can be determined. Crime rates, particularly for violent and gun-related crimes, have been on the decline since peaking in the early 1990s (Cohn, Taylor, Lopez, Gallagher, Parker, and Maass, 2013). However, the public believes crime rates are still high, or even worsening. Recent surveys (Saad, 2011; Pew Research Center, 2013, cited in Overburg and Hoyer, 2013) have found U.S. adults believe crime is worse now than it was twenty years ago.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"420\"]<img class=\"attachment-large\" src=\"http:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/01\/31162534\/FT_16.11.16_crime_trend.png\" alt=\"Image titled, &quot;Public perception of crime rate at odds with reality&quot; is shown with two graphs. The first line graph shows that over 60% of people tend to say that there is more crime in the U.S. than a year ago. The second line graph shows that violent crimes per 1,000 persons ages 12 and older are actually shown to be decreasing.\" width=\"420\" height=\"378\" \/> <strong>Figure 7.<\/strong> While public perception holds that crime rates are on the rise, violent crimes have, in fact, decreased significantly since the early 1990s.\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2016\/11\/16\/voters-perceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality\/ft_16-11-16_crime_trend-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Public perception of crime rate at odds with reality.<\/a>\u201d Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (January 31, 2018).[\/caption]\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1171164180296\">Inaccurate public perception of crime may be heightened by popular crime shows such as <em>CSI<\/em>, <em>Criminal Minds<\/em> and <em>Law &amp; Order<\/em> (Warr, 2008) and by extensive and repeated media coverage of crime. Many researchers have found that people who closely follow media reports of crime are likely to estimate the crime rate as inaccurately high and more likely to feel fearful about the chances of experiencing crime (Chiricos, Padgett, and Gertz, 2000). Recent research has also found that people who reported watching news coverage of 9\/11 or the Boston Marathon Bombing for more than an hour daily became more fearful of future terrorism (Holman, Garfin, and Silver, 2014).<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-id2304288\"><section id=\"fs-id2624522\">\r\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\r\n<h3>Further Research<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1967457\">How is crime data collected in the United States? Read about the methods of data collection and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&amp;iid=245\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">take the National Crime Victimization Survey.<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section><\/section><section id=\"fs-id2674760\" class=\"section-summary\">\r\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\r\n<h3>Think It Over<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>How are crime statistics used by politicians to sway voters?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\r\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\r\n[glossary-page]\r\n[glossary-term]corporate crime:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]crime committed by white-collar workers in a business environment[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]corrections system:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]the system tasked with supervising individuals who have been arrested for, convicted of, or sentenced for criminal offenses[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]court:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]a system that has the authority to make decisions based on law[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]crime:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]a behavior that violates official law and is punishable through formal sanctions[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]criminal justice system:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]an organization that exists to enforce a legal code[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]hate crimes:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]attacks based on a person\u2019s race, religion, or other characteristics[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]legal codes:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]codes that maintain formal social control through laws[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]nonviolent crimes:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]crimes that involve the destruction or theft of property, but do not use force or the threat of force[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]police:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]a civil force in charge of regulating laws and public order at a federal, state, or community level[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]self-report study:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]a collection of data acquired using voluntary response methods, such as questionnaires or telephone interviews[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]street crime:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]crime committed by average people against other people or organizations, usually in public spaces[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]victimless crime:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]activities against the law, but that do not result in injury to any individual other than the person who engages in them[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[glossary-term]violent crimes:[\/glossary-term]\r\n[glossary-definition]crimes based on the use of force or the threat of force[\/glossary-definition]\r\n\r\n[\/glossary-page]\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Learning outcomes<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Understand the three branches of the U.S. criminal justice system<\/li>\n<li>Identify and differentiate types of crimes<\/li>\n<li>Evaluate U.S. crime statistics<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Sanctions (formal, informal, positive, and negative) are applied to control deviance and crime. For example, the death penalty is a formal negative sanction applied to those who commit murder in certain ways in specific states. In this section, you&#8217;ll examine the organization of the U.S. criminal justice system and read about crime and punishment in the United States.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-5920\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2034\/2016\/05\/26195521\/matthew-ansley-1189637-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"Pictured is the hallway of a correctional facility.\" width=\"504\" height=\"323\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>The U.S. Criminal Justice System<\/h2>\n<section id=\"fs-id1171168978815\"><\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id2304288\">\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1308797\">A <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1317987\">criminal justice system<\/span><\/strong> is an organization that exists to enforce a legal code. There are three branches of the U.S. criminal justice system: the police, the courts, and the corrections system.<\/p>\n<section id=\"fs-id1471499\">\n<h3>Police<\/h3>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1411477\"><strong><span id=\"import-auto-id3637603\">Police<\/span><\/strong> are a civil force in charge of enforcing laws and public order at a federal, state, or community level. No unified national police force exists in the United States, although there are federal law enforcement officers. Federal officers operate under specific government agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF); and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Federal officers can only deal with matters that are explicitly within the power of the federal government, and their field of expertise is usually narrow. A county police officer may spend time responding to emergency calls, working at the local jail, or patrolling areas as needed, whereas a federal officer would be more likely to investigate suspects in firearms trafficking or provide security for government officials.<\/p>\n<p>State police have the authority to enforce statewide laws, including regulating traffic on highways. Local or county police, on the other hand, have a limited jurisdiction with authority only in the town or county in which they serve.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2016\/04\/15204309\/Figure_07_03_04a.jpg\" alt=\"An armored police officer is shown in a doorway holding and pointing his gun.\" width=\"300\" height=\"399\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 1.\u00a0<\/strong>Here, Afghan National Police Crisis Response Unit members train in Surobi, Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy of isafmedia\/flickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id1325593\">\n<h3>Courts<\/h3>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1663487\">Once a crime has been committed and a violator has been identified by the police, the case goes to court. A <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1318799\">court<\/span><\/strong> is a system that has the authority to make decisions based on law. The U.S. judicial system is divided into federal courts and state courts. As the name implies, federal courts (including the U.S. Supreme Court) deal with federal matters, including trade disputes, military justice, and government lawsuits. Judges who preside over federal courts are selected by the president with the consent of Congress.<\/p>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id2770757\">State courts vary in their structure but generally include three levels: trial courts, appellate courts, and state supreme courts. In contrast to the large courtroom trials in TV shows, most noncriminal cases are decided by a judge without a jury present. Traffic court and small claims court are both types of trial courts that handle specific civil matters.<\/p>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id168738\">Criminal cases are heard by trial courts with general jurisdictions. Usually, a judge and jury are both present. It is the jury\u2019s responsibility to determine guilt and the judge\u2019s responsibility to determine the penalty, though in some states the jury may also decide the penalty. Unless a defendant is found \u201cnot guilty,\u201d any member of the prosecution or defense (whichever is the losing side) can appeal the case to a higher court. In some states, the case then goes to a special appellate court; in others it goes to the highest state court, often known as the state supreme court.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1224\" style=\"width: 741px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1224\" class=\"wp-image-1224 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2016\/05\/13022744\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-12-at-10.26.45-PM.png\" alt=\"Two different courthouse setups are shown here side by side. Image (a) shows a county courthouse for a state trial court. Image (b) shows the courtroom of the Michigan Supreme Court.\" width=\"731\" height=\"265\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1224\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 2.<\/strong> This county courthouse in Kansas (left) is a typical setting for a state trial court. Compare this to the courtroom of the Michigan Supreme Court (right). (Photo (a) courtesy of Ammodramus\/Wikimedia Commons; Photo (b) courtesy of Steve &amp; Christine\/Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id2624522\">\n<h3>Corrections<\/h3>\n<p>The <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1521030\">corrections system<\/span><\/strong>, more commonly known as the prison system, is charged with supervising individuals who have been arrested, convicted, and sentenced for a criminal offense. At the end of 2010, approximately seven million U.S. men and women were behind bars (BJS, 2011d); an\u00a0estimated 6,613,500 persons were under the supervision of U.S. adult correctional systems in 2016 and the decline is due solely due to a declining probation population (the numbers of people in prison, jail, and on probation remain steady).\u00a0<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Kaeble, D. &amp; M. Cowhig (2018). Correctional Populations in the United States 2016. https:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/cpus16.pdf\" id=\"return-footnote-1220-1\" href=\"#footnote-1220-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id2624522\">The United States incarceration rate has grown considerably in the last hundred years. In 2008, more than 1 in 100 U.S. adults were in jail or prison, the highest benchmark in our nation\u2019s history. And while the United States accounts for 5 percent of the global population, we have 25 percent of the world\u2019s inmates, the largest number of prisoners in the world (Liptak, 2008b).<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-large\" src=\"http:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/var\/www\/vhosts\/cms.pewresearch.org\/htdocs\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/12\/files\/2018\/05\/01170621\/FT_18.04.27_IncarcerationRate_map.png\" alt=\"A map titled &quot;U.S. incarcerates a larger share of its population than any other country&quot; with the subtitle &quot;Incarceration rate per 100,000 people of any age&quot; is shown here. Each country is a shade of brown to represent the rate of incarceration. The US has the highest rate of at 655.5\/100,000. The country shown with the second highest rate of 614\/100,000 is El Salvador. Countries with the lowest rates (0-99) are found mostly within central Africa.\" width=\"640\" height=\"547\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 3.<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2018\/05\/02\/americas-incarceration-rate-is-at-a-two-decade-low\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cAmerica\u2019s incarceration rate is at a two-decade low.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (May 2, 2018).\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2018\/05\/02\/americas-incarceration-rate-is-at-a-two-decade-low\/ft_18-04-27_incarcerationrate_map\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cU.S. Incarcerates a Larger Share of Its Population than Any Other Country.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (May 1, 2018).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id2329171\">Prison is different from jail. A jail provides temporary confinement, usually while an individual awaits trial or parole. Prisons are facilities built for individuals serving sentences of more than a year, whereas jails are small and local, prisons are large and run by either the state or the federal government.\u00a0Increasingly jails operate more like larger prisons, as institutions like Los Angeles County Jail have nearly 20,000 inmates (63 percent of which are non-violent offenders) in seven facilities over 4,000 square miles. Rikers Island in New York City, which sits on a 40-acre complex with ten different facilities (including a juvenile facility), house nearly 14,000 inmates<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Misachi, J. (updated 2017). The largest jails in the U.S. https:\/\/www.worldatlas.com\/articles\/the-largest-jails-in-the-united-states.html.\" id=\"return-footnote-1220-2\" href=\"#footnote-1220-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id2015281\">Parole refers to a temporary release from prison or jail that requires supervision and the consent of officials. Parole is different from probation, which is supervised time used as an alternative to prison. Probation and parole can both follow a period of incarceration in prison, especially if the prison sentence is shortened.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\n<h3>Dig Deeper<\/h3>\n<p>Read this\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/kalief-browder-1993-2015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">story about Kalief Browder, arrested at age 16 on a robbery charge,<\/a>\u00a0held at Rikers Island for more than 1,000 days, including two years in solitary confinement, and then released when his charges were dropped. Read about Kalief&#8217;s experiences in jail and what occurred after he was released.<\/p>\n<p>His story has been documented in a six-part Netflix series titled\u00a0<em>The Kalief Browder Story<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>Watch the following video from vlogger Hank\u00a0Green about the messy situation that is mass incarceration in America:<\/strong><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-1\" title=\"Mass Incarceration in the US\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NaPBcUUqbew?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<h2>Criminal Activity<\/h2>\n<div style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2016\/04\/15204307\/Figure_07_03_01a.jpg\" alt=\"A police ICE officer is shown handcuffing a suspect outside.\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 4.\u00a0<\/strong>How is a crime different from other types of deviance? (Photo courtesy of Duffman\/Wikimedia Commons.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1199610\">Although deviance is a violation of social norms, it\u2019s not always punishable, and it\u2019s not necessarily bad. <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id2689839\">Crime<\/span><\/strong>, on the other hand, is a behavior that violates official law and is punishable through formal sanctions. Walking to class backward is a deviant behavior. Driving with a blood alcohol percentage over the state\u2019s limit is a crime. Like other forms of deviance, however, ambiguity exists concerning what constitutes a crime and whether all crimes are, in fact, \u201cbad\u201d and deserve punishment.<\/p>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id2696873\">As you have learned, all societies have informal and formal ways of maintaining social control. Within these systems of norms, societies have <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id842608\">legal codes<\/span><\/strong> that maintain formal social control through laws, which are rules adopted and enforced by a political authority. Those who violate these rules incur negative formal sanctions. Normally, punishments are relative to the degree of the crime and the importance to society of the value underlying the law. As we will see, however, there are other factors that influence criminal sentencing.<\/p>\n<section id=\"fs-id1462651\">\n<h3>Types of Crimes<\/h3>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1499293\">Not all crimes are given equal weight. Society generally socializes its members to view certain crimes as more severe than others. For example, most people would consider murdering someone to be far worse than stealing a wallet and would expect a murderer to be punished more severely than a thief. In modern U.S. society, crimes are classified as one of two types based on their severity. <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1904230\">Violent crimes<\/span><\/strong> (also known as \u201ccrimes against a person\u201d) are based on the use of force or the threat of force. Rape, murder, and armed robbery fall under this category. <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id2626144\">Nonviolent crimes<\/span><\/strong> involve the destruction or theft of property but do not use force or the threat of force. Because of this, they are also sometimes called \u201cproperty crimes.\u201d Larceny, car theft, and vandalism are all types of nonviolent crimes. If you use a crowbar to break into a car, you are committing a nonviolent crime; if you mug someone with the crowbar, you are committing a violent crime.<\/p>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1683351\">We discussed the differences between\u00a0<strong><span id=\"import-auto-id2770627\">street crime<\/span><\/strong>, or offenses committed by ordinary people against other people or organizations, usually in public spaces,\u00a0and\u00a0<strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1365511\">corporate crime<\/span><\/strong>, or\u00a0<strong>white-collar crime, <\/strong>which are\u00a0committed by workers in a business environment. Embezzlement, insider trading, and identity theft are all types of corporate crime.<\/p>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1763961\">An often-debated third type of crime is <strong><span id=\"import-auto-id1255710\">victimless crime<\/span><\/strong>. Crimes are called victimless when the perpetrator is not explicitly harming another person. As opposed to battery or theft, which clearly have a victim, a crime like drinking a beer when someone is twenty years old or selling a sexual act do not result in injury to anyone other than the individual who engages in them, although they are illegal. While some claim acts like these are victimless, others argue that they actually do harm society. Prostitution may foster abuse toward women by clients or pimps. Drug use may increase the likelihood of employee absences. Such debates highlight how the deviant and criminal nature of actions develops through ongoing public discussion.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\n<h3>Hate Crimes<\/h3>\n<p>The term \u201chate crime\u201d refers to\u00a0a \u201ccriminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender\u2019s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"What we investigate: Hate crimes. (2017). FBI. https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/investigate\/civil-rights\/hate-crimes\" id=\"return-footnote-1220-3\" href=\"#footnote-1220-3\" aria-label=\"Footnote 3\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[3]<\/sup><\/a> Hate itself is not a crime\u2014and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3911\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3911\" class=\"wp-image-3911 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2034\/2016\/04\/10153638\/Screen-Shot-2018-09-10-at-10.36.00-AM.png\" alt=\"Bar graph of hate crimes in 2016. 28.4% targeted African-Americans, 17.5% lesbians, gays, or bisexual, 11.8% targeted whites, 11.2% targeted Jews, 6.1% Latinos, and 5% Muslims.\" width=\"350\" height=\"163\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-3911\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 5.<\/strong> <strong>Hate Crime Victims in 2016.<\/strong> Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: FBI<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>From Roman persecution of Christians in the 1st century AD, to 6 million people, predominantly Jews, killed in the Holocaust in the 20th century, we find many examples of hate crimes.\u00a0When hate crimes are state-sponsored, such as the Holocaust, the Indian Removal Act (1830), or slavery in the U.S. (1619-1865), we can see the state&#8217;s efforts to eliminate legal rights and deny citizen rights to certain people. The Nuremberg laws were enacted in Germany in 1935, which stripped Jews of any citizenship rights. In Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that an African American did not qualify as a U.S. citizen and effectively said that even blacks in free territories had no rights and were still legally the property of white slaveowners.\u00a0A series of laws and Supreme Court decisions in the 18th and 19th centuries rendered Native Americans landless and stripped them of citizenship rights, which allowed the U.S. government to take land from them with impunity.<\/p>\n<p>In a contemporary context, reports of hate crimes have increased steadily since 2016. The FBI has been investigating hate crimes in the U.S. since World War I, but like many violent crimes, much of the available statistical data depends on how crimes are categorized and whether hate crimes are reported at all. Orlando, Florida reported just five (5) hate crimes in 2017. In 2016, a gay nightclub in Orlando, was the site of one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history with 49 dead and 53 wounded, but is not included in the 2016 Florida Hate Crimes Report. Testimony by the shooter Omar Mateen&#8217;s wife seemed to affirm the fact that it was a terrorist act, but that the site was not chosen because of its LGBTQ+ population, but rather out of convenience and lack of security (the initial target being Disney Springs, which has far more security).<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Jeltsen, M. 2018. How everyone got the pulse massacre completely wrong. https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/noor-salman-pulse-massacre-wrong_us_5ac29ebae4b04646b6454dc2\" id=\"return-footnote-1220-4\" href=\"#footnote-1220-4\" aria-label=\"Footnote 4\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A white man opened fire inside a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people in 2015. He was immediately charged with a hate crime and confessed to the shootings the morning after in hopes of starting a race war<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Charleston church shooting. Wikipedia. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charleston_church_shooting\" id=\"return-footnote-1220-5\" href=\"#footnote-1220-5\" aria-label=\"Footnote 5\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[5]<\/sup><\/a> (Wikipedia). South Carolina is one of a handful of states with no hate crime laws, so he was charged with nine counts of murder in South Carolina but also was tried in federal court and convicted of 33 federal hate crime and murder charges and sentenced to death.<del><\/del><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3912\" style=\"width: 637px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3912\" class=\"wp-image-3912 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2034\/2016\/04\/10153641\/Screen-Shot-2018-09-10-at-10.35.39-AM.png\" alt=\"A graph showing rising number of hate crimes since 2013 is shown. Listed on the X-Axis are the years 2010 through 2017. The Y-axis is numbered from 0 at the bottom to 1,000 at the top. The graph includes data from New York City, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, Chicago, San Jose, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, and San Antonio. The graph shows that each city trended upwards in hate crimes over the years with San Antonio having the most at around 800 to 1,000, and New York City having the least around 200 to 400.\" width=\"627\" height=\"311\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-3912\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 6.<\/strong> <strong>Hate Crimes in Top 10 U.S. Cities.<\/strong> Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: Brian Levin, James Nolan and John Reitzel<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id1171161013461\">\n<h3>Crime Statistics<\/h3>\n<p id=\"eip-id1166253098621\">The FBI gathers data from approximately 17,000 law enforcement agencies, and the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) is the annual publication of this data (FBI, 2011). The UCR has comprehensive information from police reports but fails to account for the many crimes that go unreported, often due to victims\u2019 fear, shame, or distrust of the police. The quality of this data is also inconsistent because of differences in approaches to gathering victim data; important details are not always asked for or reported (Cantor and Lynch 2000).<\/p>\n<p id=\"eip-id1166253310160\">Due to these issues, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics publishes a separate self-report study known as the National Crime Victimization Report (NCVR). A <strong>self-report study<\/strong> is a collection of data gathered using voluntary response methods, such as questionnaires or telephone interviews. Self-report data are gathered each year, asking approximately 160,000 people in the United States about the frequency and types of crime they\u2019ve experienced in their daily lives (BJS, 2013). The NCVR reports a higher rate of crime than the UCR, likely picking up information on crimes that were experienced but never reported to the police. Age, race, gender, location, and income-level demographics are also analyzed (National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, 2010).<\/p>\n<p id=\"eip-id1166252594290\">The NCVR survey format allows people to more openly discuss their experiences and also provides a more-detailed examination of crimes, which may include information about consequences, relationship between victim and criminal, and substance abuse involved. One disadvantage is that the NCVR misses some groups of people, such as those who don&#8217;t have telephones and those who move frequently. The quality of information may also be reduced by inaccurate victim recall of the crime (Cantor and Lynch, 2000).<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id1171168978815\">\n<h3>Public Perception of Crime<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-id1171162350121\">Neither the NCVR nor the UCR accounts for all crime in the United States, but general trends can be determined. Crime rates, particularly for violent and gun-related crimes, have been on the decline since peaking in the early 1990s (Cohn, Taylor, Lopez, Gallagher, Parker, and Maass, 2013). However, the public believes crime rates are still high, or even worsening. Recent surveys (Saad, 2011; Pew Research Center, 2013, cited in Overburg and Hoyer, 2013) have found U.S. adults believe crime is worse now than it was twenty years ago.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 430px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-large\" src=\"http:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2018\/01\/31162534\/FT_16.11.16_crime_trend.png\" alt=\"Image titled, &quot;Public perception of crime rate at odds with reality&quot; is shown with two graphs. The first line graph shows that over 60% of people tend to say that there is more crime in the U.S. than a year ago. The second line graph shows that violent crimes per 1,000 persons ages 12 and older are actually shown to be decreasing.\" width=\"420\" height=\"378\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure 7.<\/strong> While public perception holds that crime rates are on the rise, violent crimes have, in fact, decreased significantly since the early 1990s.\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2016\/11\/16\/voters-perceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality\/ft_16-11-16_crime_trend-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Public perception of crime rate at odds with reality.<\/a>\u201d Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (January 31, 2018).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-id1171164180296\">Inaccurate public perception of crime may be heightened by popular crime shows such as <em>CSI<\/em>, <em>Criminal Minds<\/em> and <em>Law &amp; Order<\/em> (Warr, 2008) and by extensive and repeated media coverage of crime. Many researchers have found that people who closely follow media reports of crime are likely to estimate the crime rate as inaccurately high and more likely to feel fearful about the chances of experiencing crime (Chiricos, Padgett, and Gertz, 2000). Recent research has also found that people who reported watching news coverage of 9\/11 or the Boston Marathon Bombing for more than an hour daily became more fearful of future terrorism (Holman, Garfin, and Silver, 2014).<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id2304288\">\n<section id=\"fs-id2624522\">\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>Further Research<\/h3>\n<p id=\"import-auto-id1967457\">How is crime data collected in the United States? Read about the methods of data collection and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&amp;iid=245\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">take the National Crime Victimization Survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id2674760\" class=\"section-summary\">\n<div class=\"textbox learning-objectives\">\n<h3>Think It Over<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>How are crime statistics used by politicians to sway voters?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"textbox key-takeaways\">\n<h3>Glossary<\/h3>\n<div class=\"titlepage\">\n<dl>\n<dt>corporate crime:<\/dt>\n<dd>crime committed by white-collar workers in a business environment<\/dd>\n<dt>corrections system:<\/dt>\n<dd>the system tasked with supervising individuals who have been arrested for, convicted of, or sentenced for criminal offenses<\/dd>\n<dt>court:<\/dt>\n<dd>a system that has the authority to make decisions based on law<\/dd>\n<dt>crime:<\/dt>\n<dd>a behavior that violates official law and is punishable through formal sanctions<\/dd>\n<dt>criminal justice system:<\/dt>\n<dd>an organization that exists to enforce a legal code<\/dd>\n<dt>hate crimes:<\/dt>\n<dd>attacks based on a person\u2019s race, religion, or other characteristics<\/dd>\n<dt>legal codes:<\/dt>\n<dd>codes that maintain formal social control through laws<\/dd>\n<dt>nonviolent crimes:<\/dt>\n<dd>crimes that involve the destruction or theft of property, but do not use force or the threat of force<\/dd>\n<dt>police:<\/dt>\n<dd>a civil force in charge of regulating laws and public order at a federal, state, or community level<\/dd>\n<dt>self-report study:<\/dt>\n<dd>a collection of data acquired using voluntary response methods, such as questionnaires or telephone interviews<\/dd>\n<dt>street crime:<\/dt>\n<dd>crime committed by average people against other people or organizations, usually in public spaces<\/dd>\n<dt>victimless crime:<\/dt>\n<dd>activities against the law, but that do not result in injury to any individual other than the person who engages in them<\/dd>\n<dt>violent crimes:<\/dt>\n<dd>crimes based on the use of force or the threat of force<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-1220\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Original<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Introduction to Crime and The Law. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Lumen Learning. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>Revision, Modification, and Original Content. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Lumen Learning. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>Mass Incarceration in the United States. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Hank Green. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: vlogbrothers. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NaPBcUUqbew\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NaPBcUUqbew<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em>Other<\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Standard YouTube License<\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Locked up, bar, cell and jail. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Matthew Ansley. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Unsplash. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/ihl2Q5F-VYA\">https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/ihl2Q5F-VYA<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/about\/cc0\">CC0: No Rights Reserved<\/a><\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: https:\/\/unsplash.com\/license<\/li><li>Hate crime graphs, New data shows US hate crimes continued to rise in 2017. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Brian Levin, James J. Nolan, and John David Reitzel. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: The Conversation. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/new-data-shows-us-hate-crimes-continued-to-rise-in-2017-97989\">http:\/\/theconversation.com\/new-data-shows-us-hate-crimes-continued-to-rise-in-2017-97989<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\">CC BY-ND: Attribution-NoDerivatives<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>Deviance, Crime, and Social Control. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: OpenStax CNX. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/AgQDEnLI@10.1:F4_L3p7G@7\/Introduction-to-Deviance-Crime-and-Social-Control\">https:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/AgQDEnLI@10.1:F4_L3p7G@7\/Introduction-to-Deviance-Crime-and-Social-Control<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: Download for free at http:\/\/cnx.org\/contents\/02040312-72c8-441e-a685-20e9333f3e1d@3.49<\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">All rights reserved content<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>u00a0Americau2019s incarceration rate is at a two-decade low. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>:  Pew Research Center. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"\"><\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em>All Rights Reserved<\/em><\/li><li>Public perception of crime rate at odds with reality. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Pew Research Center. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2016\/11\/16\/voters-perceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality\/ft_16-11-16_crime_trend-2\/\">http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2016\/11\/16\/voters-perceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality\/ft_16-11-16_crime_trend-2\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section><hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-1220-1\">Kaeble, D. &amp; M. Cowhig (2018). Correctional Populations in the United States 2016. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/cpus16.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.bjs.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/cpus16.pdf<\/a> <a href=\"#return-footnote-1220-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1220-2\">Misachi, J. (updated 2017). The largest jails in the U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldatlas.com\/articles\/the-largest-jails-in-the-united-states.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.worldatlas.com\/articles\/the-largest-jails-in-the-united-states.html<\/a>. <a href=\"#return-footnote-1220-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1220-3\">What we investigate: Hate crimes. (2017). FBI. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/investigate\/civil-rights\/hate-crimes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/investigate\/civil-rights\/hate-crimes<\/a> <a href=\"#return-footnote-1220-3\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 3\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1220-4\">Jeltsen, M. 2018. How everyone got the pulse massacre completely wrong. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/noor-salman-pulse-massacre-wrong_us_5ac29ebae4b04646b6454dc2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/noor-salman-pulse-massacre-wrong_us_5ac29ebae4b04646b6454dc2<\/a> <a href=\"#return-footnote-1220-4\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 4\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-1220-5\">Charleston church shooting. Wikipedia. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charleston_church_shooting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charleston_church_shooting<\/a> <a href=\"#return-footnote-1220-5\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 5\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":29,"menu_order":4,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Introduction to Crime and The Law\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"Lumen Learning\",\"url\":\"\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Revision, Modification, and Original Content\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\"Lumen Learning\",\"url\":\"\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc-by-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Locked up, bar, cell and jail\",\"author\":\"Matthew Ansley\",\"organization\":\"Unsplash\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/ihl2Q5F-VYA\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"cc0\",\"license_terms\":\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/license\"},{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Mass Incarceration in the United States\",\"author\":\"Hank Green\",\"organization\":\"vlogbrothers\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NaPBcUUqbew\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"other\",\"license_terms\":\"Standard YouTube License\"},{\"type\":\"copyrighted_video\",\"description\":\"u00a0Americau2019s incarceration rate is at a two-decade low\",\"author\":\"\",\"organization\":\" Pew Research Center\",\"url\":\"u00a0http:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/fact-tank\/2018\/05\/02\/americas-incarceration-rate-is-at-a-two-decade-low\/\",\"project\":\"\",\"license\":\"arr\",\"license_terms\":\"\"},{\"type\":\"cc\",\"description\":\"Hate crime graphs, New data shows US hate crimes continued to rise in 2017\",\"author\":\"Brian Levin, James J. 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