Criminology

William S. Laufer
Department of Legal Studies
2207 SH DH
lauferw@wharton.upenn.edu
215.898.7693
 Course Requirements
Text
• Adler, Mueller, & Laufer, Criminology
and the Criminal Justice System (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 2001)
• Handouts
Grades
• Mid-term and Final Examination
• Class Participation
 Criminology:
Sutherland’s Definition--Modified
• Criminology is the body of knowledge
regarding crime and criminality as a social,
psychological, and biological phenomena.
• It includes within its scope the process of
making laws, of breaking laws, and of
reacting toward the breaking of laws.
• The objective of criminology is the
development of a body of knowledge
regarding crime, criminality, and its
prevention.
 Assignment for September 11, 2001
The Forgotten Criminology of Genocide
• Why has the field of criminology neglected
any consideration of the crime of genocide?
• How could criminologists neglect an
estimated sixteen million deaths in crimes
against humanity since World War II?
• What has the field of criminology lost by its
neglect of the crime of genocide?
 Self-Report
• Take out a piece of paper and write
down the 10 most deviant and/or illegal
acts that you have committed. Do not
sign your name.
 Criminology

September 13, 2001

Terrorism
FBI Definition
• The unlawful use of force
or violence against
persons or property to
intimidate or coerce a
government, the civilian
population, or any
segment thereof, in
furtherance of political or
social objectives.
 Terrorism:
Generating Publicity and Fear
Classifying Terrorism
• Revolutionary Terrorism
Forcing governments to respond;
to encourage a revolution, e.g.,
PLO
• State-Sponsored Terrorism
Terrorist activities by
governments against their own
citizens or other countries, e.g.,
Khmer Rouge
• Religious Terrorism
Promoting a religious system or
protect a set of religious beliefs,
e.g., use of Jihad or holy war by
Islamic fundamentalists
Terrorism

Punishment?
• Symbolic
• Retributive
• Desert
• Expressive
• Restorative
 Criminology:
Prof. Edwin H. Sutherland’s
Definition--Modified
• Criminology is the body of knowledge regarding crime and
criminality as a social, psychological, and biological
phenomena. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field of study

• It includes within its scope the process of making laws, of

breaking laws, and of reacting toward the breaking of
laws. Criminology is concerned with the construction of deviance,
deviance, and the reaction to deviance
• The objective of criminology is the development of a body
of general and verified principles and of other types of
knowledge regarding crime, criminality, and its
prevention. Criminology is a social science
 The Criminological Enterprise
Boundary

• Criminal Statistics • Criminal Behavior

Gathering valid crime data; devising Systems
new research methods; measuring Determining the nature and cause of
crime patterns and trends specific crime patterns; the
examination of specific offense, e.g.,
• Psychology/Sociology of white collar crime.
Law • Penology
Exploring the intersection between the The correction and control of
disciplines of psychology, sociology, criminal behavior
and law
• Victimology
• Theory Construction, The nature and cause of
victimization
Development, and
Verification • Crime Prevention
 Criminal Statistics:
The Death Penalty
• How many people have been
executed since 1608?
• How many people have been
executed this year?
• How many executions have taken
place since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976?
• How many jurisdictions have death
penalty statutes?
• Which states do not permit the
death penalty?
• What percentage of
defendants executed since
1976 were white?
• What percentage of
defendants executed were
convicted of killing a white
victim?
• Which two states can claim
credit for more than 40% of
all executions since 1976?
• Do states still execute
inmates either by hanging or
with a firing squad?
 Criminal Statistics: Death Penalty
How many people have been
executed since 1608? (19,500)
How • many people have been
executed this year? (48)
How many executions have taken
place since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976? (731)
How many states have death
penalty statutes? (38)
Which states do not permit the death
penalty? Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa,
Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Minnesota, North Dakota, Rhode
Island, Vermont, West Virginia,
Wisconsin, and the District of
Columbia
What percentage of defendants
executed since 1976 were
white? (45%)
What percentage of defendants
executed were convicted of
killing a white victim? (81%)
Which two states can claim
credit for more than 40% of all
executions since 1976? (Texas
and Virginia)
Do states still execute inmates
either by hanging or with a firing
squad? Delaware, Montana,
and New Hampshire (H); Idaho,
Oklahoma, Utah (FS)
 Criminal Statistics:
The Death Penalty
• How many documented
innocent people have been
executed this century?
• How many people have been
released since 1972 as a result
of being wrongfully convicted?
• What percentage of Texas and
California death row
populations are people of
color?
• How many countries still
execute people for crimes
committed as children?
• How many children have been
sentenced to death in the U.S.
since 1973?
• The youngest person executed
since WWII in the United States
was___?
• What is the youngest person
ever to be executed in the
United States?
• How many people on death row
today are known to be retarded?
• How much evidence exists to
prove or suggest that the death
penalty deters murder?
 Criminal Statistics:
The Death Penalty
• How many documented innocent
people have been executed this
century? (23)
• How many people have been
released since 1972 as a result
of being wrongfully convicted?
(98)
• What percentage of Texas and
California death row populations
are people of color? (60%)
• How many countries still execute
people for crimes committed as
children? (6) Nigeria, Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, and
U.S.
• How many children have been
sentenced to death in the U.S.
since 1973? (160)
• The youngest person executed
since WWII in the United States
was___? (14)
• What is the youngest person
ever to be executed in the
United States? (10)
• How many people on death row
today are known to be
retarded? (300)
• How much evidence exists to
prove or suggest that the death
penalty deters murder?
 Psychology/Sociology of Law
• Using psychology to explain objective
expectations of privacy in Fourth
Amendment cases
• Examining the reliance on formal
versus informal social controls in Japan
 Theory Construction,
Development, and Validation
• Intuitive criminology

poverty crime

biological causes?
genetic predispositions?
social learning?
control – impulse, self and social?
social structure?
culture? subculture?
 number of reports

assault
narcotics
fake id
vandalism
speeding
marijuana
alcohol
petty theft
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
14

12

10

0
trespassing DUI/DWI drug sales soliciting burglary public copyright incest
prostitution drunkeness
 Criminal Behavior Systems
• Classifications
• Typologies
• Specific Offenses
 Penology
• What is punishment?
 Goals of Punishment
Proportional Penalty - Offense Determinative
Deserved Penalty - Harm Determinative
Retribution Expressive Penalty - Message Determinative
Crime Rates - Fear of Consequences
Power of Deterrence - Swift, Certain***,
Deterrence Sufficiently Severe, Laws Known to Public
Types: General and Specific (or Special)
Collective Incapacitation
Incapacitation Selective Incapacitation

Individualized Sentences
Rehabilitation Offender Culpability - Offense
Offender Change - Intervention
Repairing the harm between
Restorative Justice Offender and victim
Traditional Justice Restorative Justice
(retributive and
rehabilitative)
Victims are peripheral to the Victims are central to the
process process

The focus is on punishing or on The focus is on repairing the

treating the offender harm between an offender and
victim, and perhaps also an
offender and a wider community
The community is represented Community members or
by the state organizations take a more active
role
The process is characterized by The process is characterized by
adversarial relationships among dialogue and negotiation among
the parties parties
 Victimology
• Violence between intimates
• Child abuse
• Genocide?
 The Forgotten Criminology
of Genocide
• Defend criminology’s exclusion of
genocide
 The Forgotten Criminology
of Genocide
• Genocide is a Political Act Reflecting the Will of
Sovereignty
Genocide, it has been said, is a political rather than
criminal act most often employed to enhance the
solidarity and unification of nation-states. Decisions
to liquidate, exterminate, and cleanse a minority
population are matters of political policy reflecting the
will and ideologies of sovereignty. Genocide results
from a modern, developed, state bureaucratic
apparatus that moves the conception of systematic
torture and killing from the criminal to the political.
 The Forgotten Criminology
of Genocide
• Genocide as a Breach of International Norms and
International Law
To understand the law of genocide, one must
appreciate its place in law as an international
crime.
 The Forgotten Criminology
of Genocide
• Genocide is Committed by the State
Of all the many revelations over the last fifty
years, criminologists seem to have the most
difficulty with the notion that an organization
or entity, whether a corporation or nation
state, may commit a crime. When crimes are
imputed from an individual to an inanimate
entity, the intellectual challenge becomes:
Should an individual be blamed as well?
 The Forgotten Criminology
of Genocide
• The Magnitude of Victimization in Genocide
Defies Belief
Criminological research confirms intuitive ratings of
crime seriousness from multiple murder to shoplifting.
The differences in seriousness ratings for virtually all
offenses are highly objective and quantifiable. The
extent of victimization and harm in genocide,
however, strains any assessment of seriousness.
Who appreciates differences in seriousness where
the offense is, for example, 100,000, 250,000, or
500,000 butchered Hutus or Tutsis?
 The Forgotten Criminology
of Genocide
• The Problems of Denying and Admitting Atrocity
Two prominent themes that emerge from the
literature on genocide capture an
ambivalence hard felt by some survivors and
refugees of genocide. This ambivalence is
captured in the titles of two recently published
books on the Holocaust—Deborah Lipstadt’s
Denying the Holocaust (1994) and Lawrence
L. Langer’s Admitting the Holocaust (1995).
 The Science of Criminology
• Police Productivity and Crime Rates:
Is violent crime increasing or decreasing?
• Childhood Maltreatment and Delinquency:
Are mistreated children more likely to engage
in delinquency?
• Specific Deterrence and White Collar
Offenders:
Are white collar offenders specifically deterred
by prison?
Criminology

Substantive Criminal Law

 The Concept of Crime
A person is not criminally culpable
(blameworthy) unless she acted:
voluntarily (or failed to act when required by law to do so)
with a “guilty mind”
in such a way that her action and intention
coincided in time causing the harm
in violation of the criminal law
so as to produced harm and injury
 Simple Formula
ACT +
INTENT +
CONCURRENCE +
CAUSATION +
INJURY +
HARM +
PROHIBITED ACT = Crime
Criminal Act (actus reus)
✓ All crimes require an affirmative or
negative act.
✓ Affirmative acts (act of
commission) require conscious
and volitional movement--a
product of the determination of
the actor.
✓ Involuntary acts are insufficient.
✓ Negative acts (acts of omission)
are failures to act where there is a
legal duty to act, and where it was
possible for the actor to act.
 Involuntary Acts
➯Somnambulism
➯Unconsciousness
➯Seizure
➯Involuntary Neurological Response
 Acts of Omission
➱Legal Relationship, e.g., parent-child
➱Contractual Obligation, e.g., lifeguard to
swimmer
➱Statutory Obligation, e.g., taxes
➱Creation of Peril
➱Voluntary Assumption of care
Criminal Intent (mens rea)
✓ Purposely - with conscious
desire to cause a certain result
✓ Knowingly - with awareness
that something will occur
✓ Recklessly - with a conscious
disregard of a substantial risk or
injury
✓ Negligently - actions that the
actor should have known would
cause harm
 Degrees of Mental Fault

Purposely

Knowingly
Crime-Tort
Barrier
Recklessly

Negligently
 Gradations of Intention
• Purposely: A desires to kill B by blowing up a
building in which he knows B is sleeping. He has
acted purposely with regard to the death of B.
• Knowingly: A intends to blow up a building in
which he knows B is asleep on the top floor. Even
though does not desire B’s death, if B dies, A has
killed B knowingly because it is practically certain
the B will die.
 Gradations of Intention
• Recklessly: A intends to blow up a building
in which he knows B is asleep. He calls C
and asks him to go to the building and wake
up B. B knows that C is not very responsible.
If C fails to do wake B, and B dies, A has
killed B recklessly because he consciously
disregarded a significant risk of injury to B.
 Gradations of Intention
• Negligently: A desires to blow up a
building. Although it would be apparent
to the average person that B is in the
building and will be killed, A is totally
unaware of that possibility. If B dies, A
has acted with criminal negligence with
regard to B’s death.
Strict Liability Crimes
• Certain public
welfare (e.g., hand
gun possession)
and sexual offenses
(e.g., statutory rape,
bigamy, and
adultery) do not
require proof of
mens rea. The act
alone will suffice.
 Two Tests for Causation
➯Factual Causation ➯Proximate Causation
But for A’s act, the B’s injuries must have
result would not have been the natural and
occurred when and as probable consequences of
it did. A’s act.
“But for Bill’s act, Harry B’s injuries must have
been foreseeable, without
would not have been any intervening factors
injured in the way in sufficient to break the
which he was.” causal chain that would
relieve A of liability.
 Defenses:
Excuses and Justifications
EXCUSES JUSTIFICATIONS
Defenses in which the law Defenses in which the
recognizes the absence of law authorizes the
mens rea or actus reus, and violation of another law
concludes that no crime has where there is a
been committed justification
✓ Insanity ✓ Self Defense
✓ Infancy ✓ Defense of Others
✓ Intoxication ✓ Duress
✓ Necessity
 The Issue of Mental Disease is Raised
Throughout the Criminal Process
Execution
Crime Trial of Sentence

Criminal
Responsibility Competence Competence
to be tried to be executed
(fitness to proceed)

Understand the proceedings

Be able to assist in their defense
 FBI Guidelines on Deadly Force
✓May not fire to disable vehicle Public’s Safety
✓May not fire warning shot
✓Should not fire to wound
Officer’s Safety

MAY (NOT MUST) USE

DEADLY FORCE WHEN:
1. Imminent Danger
a. Armed & intent to use, or
b. Armed & moving to cover, or
c. Ability to incapacitate & intent
to use
AND
2. No safe alternative & verbal
warning, if feasible

Exception:
Escape from scene
of violent confrontation
 The Law of Deadly Force
• Constitutional Law
– Tennessee v. Gardner
• Police may not use deadly force against a fleeing unarmed
felony suspect. Such force is an unconstitutional seizure of
the person and violates the Fourth Amendment to the
Constitution.
• State Statute
– Justification by law enforcement
• Departmental Policies
– Examples: FBI Guidelines, PPD Directive 10
 Forcibly
subdued suspect
using methods other
than hands, e.g.,
gun or baton
Forcibly subdued suspects with hands
Officer uses an arm/wrist lock,
takedown, block, punch, or kick
Slight force
Officer uses strong directive language and/or
minimal physical force to encourage compliance
No force
Officer uses typical verbal commands
 New York Central & Hudson
River Railroad v. U.S. (1909)
• Corporations conduct the great majority of
business transactions
• Interstate commerce is almost entirely in their
hands
• The notion that corporations are incapable of
committing crimes would “virtually take away
the only means of effectively controlling”
business transactions in interstate commerce
• Corporations can commit crimes
 Corporate Criminal Liability:
The Federal Law
• A corporation may be held criminally liable for acts
committed by its employees if they were acting within
the scope of their authority, and for the benefit of the
corporation even if such acts were against corporate
policy or express instructions.
• This rule extends corporate criminal liability to acts
committed by:
✔ officers and directors
✔ managers and supervisors
✔ subordinate employees
✔ independent contractors
 Vicarious Liability

Agent’s Criminal Act Agent’s Criminal Intent

 The Corporate Compliance
Movement
Corporate Compliance
• The likelihood of a
criminal investigation,
indictment, aggressive
prosecution, conviction,
and significant fine may Liability
be reduced significantly
by evidence of
corporate compliance.
• Vicarious liability might
be defeated by active
corporate compliance
efforts.
 Criminology
September 20, 2001
 What are the ingredients
(elements) of all crimes?

ACT +
INTENT +
Biological Persons
CONCURRENCE +
CAUSATION +
INJURY +
HARM +
PROHIBITED ACT = Crime Corporate Persons
 How can a corporation
commit a crime?
• Who acts
• Who intends?
• Who causes injury?
• Who is punished?
 New York Central & Hudson
River Railroad v. U.S. (1909)
• Corporations conduct the great majority of
business transactions
• Interstate commerce is almost entirely in their
hands
• The notion that corporations are incapable of
committing crimes would “virtually take away
the only means of effectively controlling”
business transactions in interstate commerce
• Corporations can commit crimes
 Corporate Criminal Liability:
The Federal Law
• A corporation may be held criminally liable for acts
committed by its employees if they were acting within
the scope of their authority, and for the benefit of the
corporation even if such acts were against corporate
policy or express instructions.
• This rule extends corporate criminal liability to acts
committed by:
✔ officers and directors
✔ managers and supervisors
✔ subordinate employees
✔ independent contractors
 Vicarious Liability

Agent’s Criminal Act Agent’s Criminal Intent

 The Corporate Compliance
Movement
Corporate Compliance
• The likelihood of a
criminal investigation,
indictment, aggressive
prosecution, conviction,
and significant fine may Liability
be reduced significantly
by evidence of
corporate compliance.
• Vicarious liability might
be defeated by active
corporate compliance
efforts.
Minimum Requirements for an
Effective Compliance Program
✔ Standards and ✔ Effective communication of
Procedures reasonably standards and procedures
capable of preventing to employees
criminal conduct ✔ Reasonable steps taken to
✔ Oversight of standards achieve compliance
by high level personnel ✔ Enforcement of disciplinary
✔ Care in the delegation mechanisms
of substantial ✔ Appropriate response after
managerial authority to detection of an offense
individuals
 Key to Compliance
Proactive Compliance

Reactive Compliance
Criminology

Chapter Two
 You be the criminologist!
• What do we know?
• Test the conventional wisdom
about crime in New York
• Propose a study using international
crime data
• Explain the drop in crime
 What do we know?
• Crime rates are declining (p. 36-38)
• Most crimes are committed in large urban areas (p.40)
• The safest place to be is in one’s home (p. 40)
• Most crimes are committed at night (p. 40)
• Personal and household crimes are more likely to be
committed during the warmer months of the year (p. 40)
• Crime decreases with age (p. 44)
• A small group of offenders commit a large percentage of
all crime (p. 45-46)
• Males commit more crimes than females (p. 47-48)
• Social class may (or may not) be associated with crime
(p. 49)
• People of color are represented disproportionately in the
criminal justice system (p. 49-50)
 What is your hypothesis?
• Why are crime rates declining?
• Why are most crimes committed in large urban
areas?
• Why are most crimes committed at night?
• Why is it that personal and household crimes
are more likely to be committed during the
warmer months of the year?
• Why does crime decrease with age? Why?
• Why is it that a small group of offenders commit
a large percentage of all crime?
• Why do males commit more crimes than
females?
• Why is the crime-social class association less
than convincing?
• Why is it that people of color are represented
disproportionately in the criminal justice system?
 What is your hypothesis?
• Crime rates are declining because of changing
demographics, better and more sophisticated policing
strategies, e.g., community-based policing and
quality of life arrests (“broken windows”), and an
increased commitment to crime prevention strategies,
e.g., target hardening.
• Criminal behavior decreases with age for reasons of
social maturation.
• People of color are disproportionately represented in
the criminal justice system because there remains an
institutionalized racism that touches each and every
stage of the system from arrest decisions to parole
eligibility determinations.
Test the conventional wisdom
about crime in New York
Eric H. Monkkonen, Murder in New York City (2001)
• Cities are cauldrons of murder.
• The underlying social forces of mass society cause
deviance.
• Crowding leads to deviance and violence
• Poverty explains murder.
• A corrupt criminal justice system loosens morals and
leads to violence.
• We know what causes violence: young men coming
home from war, trained to kill.
• Riots unleash violence.
 Propose a study using international crime data:
From Synnomie to Anomie

at es
St Anomie
it ed
Un
Crime Rate

(Normlessness)
any ain
e rm Brit
G at Formation of Subcultures
e
Gr y (Lower class are in conflict with dominant culture)
ia rabia l
s s Ita Cultural Deviance
Ru udi A and
Sa itzerl
(Social disorganization and value conflict;
social controls absent in transitional neighborhoods)
w
S an
Jap Failure in Social Control
(Social institutions break down;
l
e pa Rica Strain
movement away from family, school
N sta religious commitment, etc.)
C o (disconnect between
means and goals)
Synnomie
(Norm Cohesion)

Social Development/Social Change

 Explain the drop in crime
• The decay of crack markets
• New police tactics
• Growing deterrence due to violence
• Rejection of crack by a new generation
• Strength of the economy
• Increased gun control, and
• Increased incarceration
Explain the drop in crime last
week in New York City
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