The Electronic Encyclopedia (TM) (C) 1988 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. crime In the broadest legal sense, a crime in most countries is an act committed in violation of a law forbidding it and for which a court may impose a variety of punishments including imprisonment, death, fine, or removal from office. A fundamental categorization divides criminal acts into two classes, mala in se and mala prohibita. Some offenses, such as HOMICIDE, are considered to be "wrong in themselves" (mala in se) and inherently evil. On the other hand, mala prohibita offenses, such as drug abuse or gambling, are considered criminal because society seeks to regulate these particular types of behavior. Such offenses often drift in and out of the legal codes, their status determined by current public opinion, custom, or religious standards. Ideally, the punishment for crimes should be scaled according to the severity of the offenses. Murder, for example, is widely considered an offense meriting the death penalty--in which case it is called a capital offense--or life imprisonment. Some harmful offenses, however, do not bring so serious a punishment as others. White-collar offenses, despite the fact that they often involve large sums of money and affect great numbers of people, commonly bring shorter terms of imprisonment than such offenses as armed robbery or burglary. The reason for this disparity is often the social status of the offender: a bank president who has embezzled bank funds is not usually viewed as a common criminal. Thus public attitudes and socioeconomic status may affect the severity of punishment, just as changing social attitudes affect the status of criminal acts. The French sociologist Emile DURKHEIM considered crime to be an integral aspect of society and a "normal" social phenomenon in the sense that it has existed in all societies throughout history. Durkheim felt that mala prohibita crimes function in society as a means of defining the limits of acceptable behavior, serving as a vehicle for social change by extending and testing those boundaries. Western society's present liberal attitudes toward sexual behavior, for example, have emerged out of an era when certain sexual acts were classified as criminal. Abortion provides another pertinent example of a shift in the public perception of what constitutes a crime. In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court (in ROE V. WADE) decriminalized abortion, declaring it instead to be a right guaranteed women under the Constitution. That decision would probably have been impossible 20 years earlier, given the then-existing public attitudes toward abortion. Despite the great qualitative difference between the many acts currently classified as criminal, however, there is little doubt that the entire area of crime is perceived as a unitary, largely undifferentiated phenomenon by ordinary citizens, and that this perception affects the way many people live. Surveys of U.S. public opinion reveal that the majority of people feel that crime is increasing; they feel more and more uneasy on the streets and have taken measures to protect their homes against crime. In addition, "law and order" has become a potent theme in political campaigns, and candidates who embrace it are more likely to be accepted by voters. CRIMINAL INTENT Once it has been established that a person has committed a criminal act, the law then questions the intent (MENS REA) of the actor, in effect inquiring whether the offender intended to cause harm by committing the act. The answer to this question helps to determine not only the question of guilt or innocence but also the severity of the punishment, if any. Mens rea has played a major role in the development of the insanity defense (see INSANITY, LEGAL), which is derived from an 1843 English case The Electronic Encyclopedia (TM) (C) 1988 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. in which a man named M'Naghten shot and killed a member of Parliament. M'Naghten was tried and acquitted because the jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI). After a public protest, the judges of the Queen's Bench (an appeals court) formulated a standard to determine mental responsibility that became known as the M'Naghten Rule. It states that, in order to acquit, "It must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know it was wrong." The "right and wrong" test has become the basis for most legal statutes dealing with intent. The insanity defense, however, has been controversial because it seems to offer a legal loophole that permits the obviously guilty to escape just punishment--as in the case of John W. Hinckley, Jr., who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan but was acquitted by a jury. Commitment to a mental institution is the most common result of the NGRI verdict, and--despite the fact that competency hearings that could result in release are required by law--persons so committed often serve longer sentences than their counterparts in penal institutions. Certain states, such as Michigan, have abolished the insanity defense in favor of a plea of "guilty but insane," by which the court recognizes the mental deficiencies of the accused, and the accused accepts his or her legal responsibility for the act. Persons found to be "guilty but insane" receive sentences that include treatment in a mental hospital. If they are released as cured, the time during which they have received treatment is counted as part of their total sentence, which they must complete in prison. CLASSIFICATION OF CRIME The basic legal distinction between crimes is that separating felonies from misdemeanors. In general, a FELONY is a serious offense punishable by death or imprisonment in a state or federal facility. A MISDEMEANOR is a less serious act that is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for less than one year, usually in a jail. Another basic categorization of crime is based on criminological theory and is commonly used to detect patterns in the crime rate. This classification divides crime broadly into two categories: crimes against the person and crimes against property. Crimes against the person are predatory in nature: the offender intends, threatens, or commits physical harm against the victim. Such crimes include homicide, RAPE, and armed robbery. Crimes against property involve no physical threat to the victim, and include ARSON, BURGLARY, LARCENY, and motor vehicle theft. These classifications do not, of course, cover all types of crime. Recently, criminologists have focused on crimes committed by the government in violation of the rights of citizens: wiretapping, police brutality, bribery, and conspiracies such as the Watergate crimes of the Nixon administration. A related category of crime is the type that the U.S. criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland (1885-1950) termed "WHITE-COLLAR CRIME." Sutherland defined white-collar crimes as violations of the criminal law committed during the course of their occupational activities by persons of upper socioeconomic status. Such acts as EMBEZZLEMENT, price fixing, industrial pollution, and computer fraud fall within this class. Sutherland held that these acts must be considered criminal--regardless of the status of the offender--because they are recognized by the law as harmful, often affect large numbers of victims, and are usually the result of willful and intentional behavior. Studies have estimated that white-collar crimes have a far greater financial impact upon society than any other type of crime. A final category of crime is the victimless crime, which includes The Electronic Encyclopedia (TM) (C) 1988 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. drunkenness, drug addiction, prostitution, and gambling. The use of the term victimless is an extremely qualified one. It refers to acts committed by consenting adults in private; the acts involve only the participants and are not harmful to others. If harm occurs, it is inflicted only upon the willing participants. Victimless crimes are often characterized by the exchange of sought-after goods and services, and they generate huge amounts of illegal income. It has been argued, however, that no crime is victimless. The drug addict suffers physical and emotional harm and often commits property crimes to obtain money for buying drugs. Prostitution and pornography damage property values, and their existence often breeds lawlessness and leads to other, more serious types of crime. Finally, the revenue gained by these acts is often funneled to organized crime, which uses these funds to foster and extend control over legitimate elements of society. The term organized crime refers to a system of crime in which a group of individuals create and maintain a corporate-like organization, its members each having recognized responsibilities and obligations. Such criminal operations attempt to gain monopolistic control of certain types of criminal enterprises--the marketing of illegal drugs, for example--which are capable of generating large profits. These organizations will often use the funds gained by criminal activities to take over legitimate businesses, and they routinely employ force and violence to maintain internal and external control. The mobs' enormous wealth has tended to protect their members from the law; nonetheless, convictions were obtained in three out of four major organized-crime trials held in New York in 1986-87. (see also MAFIA; ORGANIZED CRIME). MEASURING THE EXTENT OF CRIME The development of accurate measures of crime has been the most difficult task faced by criminologists and those engaged in law enforcement. The oldest U.S. statistical analysis of certain types of crime is the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), which has been issued annually since 1930 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Individual law-enforcement agencies are responsible for the collection of the crime data assembled by the FBI. The statistics measure only "crimes known to the police." In order for a crime to be included in the UCR, it must have been reported to the police by the victim or a witness, or directly observed by the police themselves. The most well-known portion of the UCR is the Crime Index, in which eight major crime categories are listed: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson. Data is also included on the age, sex, and race of persons arrested, the percentages of crimes that are "cleared by arrest"--the clearance rate--and the rate of crime per 100,000 U.S. inhabitants. For 1985 the UCR revealed that the number of reported Index crimes had increased by 4.6 percent over the previous year--following three years of decline. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter increased 1.5 percent, forcible rape went up by 4 percent, and the total of aggravated assaults rose by 5.5 percent. Violent crime climbed by 5 percent overall, while crimes against property were up by 4 percent. The later category included a 7-percent rise in motor-vehicle theft. The FBI reported that the 1985 rise was disproportionately distributed geographically: the Midwest had no increase, but crime levels rose 9 percent in the South, 5 percent in the West, and 2 percent in the Northeast. Arrests in 1985 totaled 11.9 million, an increase of 3 percent. A great deal of criticism has been directed at the UCR statistics. The data, it is charged, is open to manipulation by law enforcement agencies that have a vested interest in demonstrating reduced crime rates or in obtaining more funds should crime rates be shown to have risen. Some doubt exists as to whether all the The Electronic Encyclopedia (TM) (C) 1988 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. reporting agencies count the same offense in the same manner. Perhaps the most common complaint is that the figures change along with changing police practices. If a police agency were to concentrate on apprehending the sellers of stolen goods (or if citizens began to report all robbery or theft incidents), the number of Index crimes in those categories would rise sharply. In order to counteract this problem, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics issues the National Crime Survey (NCS), an annual report on household crime victimization based on census surveys rather than on individuals' complaints to law enforcement officials. It is believed that these interview/surveys give a more accurate picture of the amount of crime that occurs by uncovering unreported crimes. In fact, statistics for 1983 revealed that only 45 percent of personal crimes and 48 percent of property, or household, crimes had been reported to the police that year. While the UCR generally depicts a rising crime rate over the extended periods of years, the NCS gives a different picture. Using the measure "households touched by crime," the NCS found that crimes against individuals and households had decreased 1.9 percent during 1985, reaching a 13-year low of about 25% of national households. The NCS, however, may not present a wholly accurate picture. The most common complaint is that the survey is dependent upon the sometimes faulty memory of the respondents. The victim of a crime is likely to recall the event as if it had occurred recently, and as a consequence, some respondents report crimes that occurred prior to the year with which the interview is concerned. Compared with other countries that keep crime statistics, the United States has the highest rate per 100,000 population for reported murders, rapes, and robberies. It is important to remember, however, that the incidence of crime is influenced by such factors as industrialization, urbanization, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment, and the availability of firearms. Many of these factors, of course, are present in other countries. The U.S. population, however, possesses more firearms than any other population group and has an extremely high rate of alcohol and drug abuse. Also, the effect of periods of high unemployment (such as the late 1970s and early 1980s) and the influence of television and movie representations of violence (in fact, the nagging question of violence as an American cultural phenomenon) are issues that have not yet been definitively studied. CRIMINOLOGY AND THE CAUSES OF CRIME Criminology is the scientific study of crime and criminal behavior. Although there are several contemporary schools of criminological theory, they all share a common goal: the search for the causes of criminal behavior in the hope that this information can be transformed into policies that will be effective in handling or even eliminating crime. The earliest criminologists, the classical school, were late-18th-century thinkers concerned with humanizing the highly arbitrary and harsh systems of criminal punishment of the time. The Italian economist Cesare Bonesana BECCARIA and the English philosopher Jeremy BENTHAM both emphasized the deterrent effect of punishment on potential criminals. The theory evolved by the classical school posits the existence of a rational humanity that possesses free will and whose primary motivation is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Classical theorists reasoned that if a rational person knows that a particular, painful punishment will almost certainly follow the commission of a particular crime, he or she will not commit the crime. This line of thought led to the attempt to establish elaborate categorical systems in which each crime had its punishment equivalent ("let the punishment fit the crime") and which prefigured the fixed-term sentences that are increasingly being imposed today. In addition, the classical The Electronic Encyclopedia (TM) (C) 1988 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. belief that everyone has the capacity to make rational choices still influences the field of criminology. A later influential body of criminological thought was the positivist, or Italian, school, founded in the late 19th century by the Italian psychiatrist and anthropologist Cesare LOMBROSO. Responding to the new evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin, Lombroso embarked on a detailed physiological study of convicts in order to determine if criminal behavior was biologically determined. Lombroso found that his convicts possessed certain physical characteristics to a greater degree then the general population. Although his findings were later refuted, his use of the scientific method and his emphasis on the multiple environmental causes of crime had a great impact on criminology and the development of the ideal of rehabilitation. The biological approach pioneered by Lombroso is used today in such studies as the link between learning disabilities and crime, and the relationship between diet and assaultive behavior. Twentieth-century criminologists have been profoundly influenced by the work of such sociologists as Durkheim; by the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud and his followers; and by the case-study approach inspired by Freud and first used by criminologists in the 1920s in work on juvenile delinquency, where possible environmental and genetic causes of criminal behavior were examined. In the 1930s Edwin H. Sutherland propounded his theory of differential association, which attributed the genesis of criminality to the social environment of the offender. Sutherland believed that criminal behavior is learned behavior, and that persons who live in a social milieu that contains more criminals than law-abiding citizens are likely to become criminals themselves. This line of thought led Sutherland and his followers to the conclusion that some transformation of the social structure is necessary in order to eliminate what they believe to be the root causes of crime. Theorists of the Radical, or Marxist, school of criminology believe that the ruling classes designate certain types of behavior as criminal in an attempt to secure and maintain the capitalist system. Thus the criminal justice system is in their eyes largely a means to maintain the status quo by suppressing the proletariat. This school also calls for change in the social structure in order to eliminate crime. Another social structural theory, labeling theory, relates to the manner in which criminal law is enforced and and is primarily concerned with the explanation of JUVENILE DELINQUENCY and the commission of status offenses--that is, acts that are considered to be criminal if they are committed by a juvenile but are not considered criminal if committed by an adult. Running away, for example, is a status offense. Enforcement of the punishment for a status offense, it was found, could lead to a juvenile's committing further and more serious offenses. In effect, enforcement of the law created rather than prevented crime. This theory has been influential in the decriminalization of most status offenses, although decriminalization has produced further problems. If the police cannot arrest a runaway juvenile, they also do not possess the power to hold him or her for treatment for obvious drug problems or ill health. At present, it appears that the emphasis in criminological studies is moving away from investigations of individual motivation, as criminologists bring more attention to bear on the ways in which criminal law is made and enforced, the probable effects of present-day criminal-justice practices, and the potential consequences of changes in criminal-law enforcement. CONTROL OF CRIME Strategies for crime control and crime prevention have shifted over the years. Since the mid-19th century a major goal of U.S. CRIMINAL JUSTICE practices has been the rehabilitation of the prisoner. To this The Electronic Encyclopedia (TM) (C) 1988 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. end, at the discretion of the trial judge, a convicted criminal has often received an indeterminate sentence under the terms of which he or she might be given an early release from prison, perhaps under the supervision of a PAROLE officer; or might, instead, be sentenced to PROBATION rather than imprisonment. In addition, the use of CAPITAL PUNISHMENT steadily declined in the United States; in a 1972 decision the Supreme Court banned its use under the then-existing state statutes, requiring instead (in 1976) laws that carefully defined what crimes merited capital punishment along with standardized judicial proceedings for imposing it. In recent years, however, attitudes toward crime and criminals have hardened. In 1984, Congress ordered the drawing up of sentencing guidelines for judges in federal courts. Many states are also moving twoard determinate sentencing, which mandates fixed sentences for certain crimes and may eliminate the possibility of probation or parole. In addition, the numbers of death sentences imposed and carried out are increasing. The theoretical justifications for these changes emphasize the principles of retribution and deterrence in the punishments meted out to criminals. Retributionists assert that punishment functions as an expression of the desire of citizens to maintain social order and as a demonstration of social disapproval of criminal acts. They believe that swift and certain punishment prevents criminal behavior by warning potential offenders of the likely consequences of crime and by persuading the punished criminal not to repeat the crime. A related theory, the doctrine of incapacitation, holds that it is not possible to rehabilitate criminals and therefore offenders should be incarcerated as long as possible. Further, if the greatest amount of serious crime is committed by repeat offenders (recidivists), then such a step should also reduce the crime rate. The theory implicitly assumes that there is a fixed supply of criminals. By locking up for long periods of time those who are presently active, the disease of crime will disappear, or at least grow at a slower rate. Many criminologists disagree, pointing to the increasing numbers of young people arrested for minor crimes who will, soon, replace the incarcerated recidivists on the streets. Incapacitation and deterrence theories support the adoption of habitual offender laws, whereby persons who are convicted of a serious offense for a second or third time receive a harsher penalty than first offenders. Deterrence is the basis for laws like California's "use a gun, go to prison" legislation, under which offenders convicted of a felony while using a firearm automatically draw a prison term. It is increasingly obvious that there are no easy solutions to the problem of crime. Hard-line policies, such as determinate sentencing, cannot be accomplished at small cost. They have instead aggravated overcrowded conditions in prisons and have increased the already heavy costs of incarceration. Gennaro F. Vito Bibliography: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization in the United States, annual; Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States, annual; Jeffrey, C. Ray, Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (1977); Morris, Norval, and Hawkins, Gordon, The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control (1970); Quinney, Richard, Class, State and Crime, 2d ed. (1980); Reid, Sue Titus, Crime and Criminology, 4th ed. (1985); Silberman, Charles E., Criminal Violence, Criminal Justice (1978); Vold, George B., Theoretical Criminology, 3d ed. (1985); Wilson, James Q., Thinking about Crime, rev. ed. (1985); Wolfgang, Marvin E., and Ferracuti, Franco, The Subculture of Violence (1982). Incidence of Three Major Crimes in Selected Countries, 1984 (rates per The Electronic Encyclopedia (TM) (C) 1988 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc. 100,000) --------------------------------------------------------------- Country Murder Rape Robbery --------------------------------------------------------------- Australia 3.42 13.79 83.58 England and Wales 1.37 2.69 44.59 (1983) Germany, West 4.51 9.73 45.79 Israel 1.83 5.45 34.95 Japan 1.47 1.60 1.82 Spain 2.16 3.56 147.33 Sweden 5.74 11.93 44.12 United States 7.90 35.70 205.40 --------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCE: Interpol, International Crime Statistics, 1983-84.