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          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

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     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

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     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

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     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

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     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

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     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

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     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.
     
