CCJS 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Motor Vehicle Theft, Operationalization, Arson

• School: University of Maryland
• Department: Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Course: CCJS 105
• Professor: Kiminori Nakamura

Document Summary

Ways criminals are operationalized matter because of how cjs works. At every stage in cjs, there is an exit(s), not all crimes go through the whole cjs. System is like a funnel, wide at the top, very little at the bottom. Reports two types of crimes: part i crimes (index crimes) and part ii crimes. Part i crimes (serious, occur frequently, likely to be reported): criminal homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft, arson. Mala in se crimes, likely to be reported. Part ii crimes (less serious, not used to calculate crime rate, only arrest data reported to. Fbi): other 21 offenses, all drug related crimes, dui"s. Disadvantages: not all crimes are reported (dark figure of crime), no federal/white- collar, crimes are not counted consistently across types (robbery vs. aggravated assault), hierarchy rule, vulnerable to changes in reporting/recording and political manipulations.