The problem of the crime in the U.S has historically been misstated and exaggerated by bureaucrats and politicians whereby the intentions behind these overstatements vary within each context but a common thread emerges upon closer examination (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993).
As in any capitalist society, money and material possession are the key driving force that that moves the society and people.
The media never has been and probably never will be an accurate source for criminology or criminal analysis (Gaines& Miller, 2008). The startling media description of crime is almost always exaggerated and biased toward violent crimes. From newspapers to television the crimes that get the most coverage and attention are homicides and aggravated assaults, however, in actuality ninety percent of all crimes are property crimes and less than one percent is homicides (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993). The media also is interested in reporting crime clocks based on aggregate statistics. This is illustrated by popular and catchy lines such as a murder occurs every twenty seven minutes, a robbery every sixty seconds which are very misleading yet are used regularly (Matthews, 1994). These crime clocks show no reference to a ratio between crimes being committed and the people affected (Matthews, 1994).
Moreover, the motives behind depiction of crime by the media vary, but money can be found at the source (Gaines& Miller, 2008). Media stations do not want to report regular and usually petty crimes because they are boring and monotonous. Individuals do not purchase boring and monotonous newspapers and thereby in order to increase circulation and ultimately revenues, editors choose to emphasize and embellish violent crimes (Gaines& Miller, 2008). This intentional bias towards violent crimes, even though they represent a very small fraction of all crimes creates a sense of apprehension and concern in law-abiding citizens (Matthews, 1994).
Television is also responsible for exaggerating crime and over emphasizing its focal point on violent crimes; while newspapers can only offer writing and limited photographs of crime, television can take the next step in showing the crime and criminals (Gaines& Miller, 2008). Individuals throughout the country get to see criminals actually breaking the law on TV.
Given that most of the scenes shown are of violent crimes individuals create a violent and evil image of all criminals while in reality the most of police work is mundane, the show attempts to glamorize crime fighting (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993). These producers do not mind about how they are depicting crime or its consequences; they are just concerned about television ratings.
By constantly and disproportionately reporting violent crimes, the media influence the general public into thinking there is a bad crime problem (Matthews, 1994). The media provides various criminal fallacies and that strongly influences the public’s opinion on crime. It can be argued that by creating a distinction, people tend to believe they are not capable of committing violent crimes and that criminals are inherently evil and different from the rest of society (Matthews, 1994). And contrary to popular perception, the expansion of the U.S. prison and jail populations are not the direct result of a worsening or an exceptionally bad crime problem…rates of violent and property crime have been in decline (Matthews, 1994).
The fact that in majority of crimes what individuals hear and see in the news are violent and heinous, they tend assume that there is a crime problem and that something must be done to stop it. Law enforcement agencies have a direct interest in the reporting of crimes and crime rates. If they report that crime is on the decline, then people will feel more secure and satisfied with law enforcement but funding will be decreased (Gaines& Miller, 2008). Conversely if they report that crime is increasing, and make the public feel at risk, an increase in funding will occur and be justified (Gaines& Miller, 2008).
Individualistic theories of crime serve to contribute support to the image of the bad crime problem and encourage punitive crime control policies (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993).The rational choice theory defines human behavior through the two principles that humans act in order to maximize pleasure and minimize pain (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993). This very Hedonistic theory facilitates the creation of punitive polices because it creates a need to harshly punish self-indulgent crimes (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993).
So as to prevent crime based on the rational choice theory, policymakers have shaped policy around preventative measures. The foundation of preventive policy is based on controlling the physical environment (Matthews, 1994). Even though these policies are effective in curtailing crime in their particular contexts, measures which increase the difficulties of a particular crime will merely result in criminal activity being ‘displaced’ (Matthews, 1994).
. To counter the supposed pressing crime problem, bureaucrats and politicians alike have adopted a very punitive system of crime control (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993). They claim that, the people of this country are fed up with crime and that the people are the ones demanding better crime control. A recent research effort showed that crime was the most pressing problem in public opinion (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993). In reality during this same time period the crime rate has been decreasing annually which does not justify the tremendous rise in government spending that has been allocated to the criminal justice system (Schwendiger & Schwendiger, 1993).
This goes to show that public opinion does not necessarily mimic or reflect the true reality of the situation and can be easily shaped and molded by forces such as media and politicians (Matthews, 1994). More responsibility must be taken by the media in reporting statistics and crime because of their influence on public opinion. Overall, when influential leaders make statements based on the opinion of the masses instead of facts, the false crime problem is further worsened (Matthews, 1994)
References
Gaines, L. and Miller, R. (2008). Criminal Justice in Action – The Core. (4th ed.) Belmont CA: Wadsworth/Thompson.
Schwendiger & Schwendiger (1993), Giving crime prevention top priority’, Crime and Delinquency 39 (4).
R Matthews (1994) Crime prevention, disorder and victimization: some recent western experiences’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law 22, pp 87101.
According to (Bewley-Taylor, D. 2005, 171-79) 11% of shoplifting, burglary, vehicle crimes are drug related. BBC report informed that illegal drug rose in 2004.when looking at class A group in 2004/2005 we see a different pattern where 20 to 24 years old people reported high level of drug use then 16 to 19 years old. The reported use for class (A) drugs was the highest at 9.8% in 2004/2005. (Bewley-Taylor, D. 2005, 171-79) In 1998 the percentage was high among young people, this is because may be due to depressions and burdens of failed life’s take 20 to 24 years old people into drug and on the other hand there have done a lot for drug young people to keep them away from drugs in these years.
The same view is elaborated by Barton in the following words, “At one level, there is an obvious link between illicit drugs and crime—any action that contravenes the parameters of the law regarding drugs becomes criminal. Thus, for example, drug dealing, importation and possession are all crimes, making the link between drugs and crime obvious. However, there are other links, far more complex and requiring a much deeper analysis; links that have taxed academics for at least the last thirty years.” (Barton, 2003, 96)
Endorsing the same fact Newburn and Elliott also ratifies the opinion quoted by Barton in his book, “Illicit Drugs: Use and Control”. According to them, “There have been a number of contemporary attempts to ‘think through’ the relationship between drugs and crime, and almost without exception the results have been strewn with ambiguity and littered with caveats. For instance, Newburn and Elliott (1999:6) are unequivocal in stating that ‘it is undeniably the case that crime and drugs are linked’.” (Barton, 2003, 96)
Aims and Objectives
There is always a debate on normalisation of illicit drug use. According to home office figures and other resources we see that the percentage of drug use is quiet high in Britain but it does not mean that drug use is acceptable. (Sargent, 1992, 92) People who get involved in class (A) drugs need medical and psychological help. (Plant, 1994, 54) The kind of treatment they need will depend on whether or not they are well-motivated in stop taking drugs.
According to drug inventions programmes statistics ,in 2005/6,the proportion reporting that they have ever taken any drug has fallen by 16%; the proportion reporting that they have ever taken Class A drugs has fallen by 18%; the proportion reporting the use of any drug in the past year has fallen by 21%; the proportion reporting the use of class A drugs in the past year is stable; and the proportion reporting the use of cannabis in the past year has fallen by 24% Use of any drug had decreased: 19% of pupils had taken drugs in 2005, compared to 21% in 2003. Cannabis use had decreased: 12% of pupils had used cannabis in 2005, down from 13% in 2003, 2002 and 2001.
Government is working on many project stop overcome with this issue. The social exclusion unit introduced in 1997 is also working to discourage drugs. During recent years, television, newspaper and poster campaigns have been mounted and a number of educational aids such as films, audiotapes, booklets have been produced. Many health education activities have been directed as specific target groups such as school children.
Many people argue that illicit drug taking is often inspired by rebelliousness and health education may be ineffective in relation to illicit drug use but health education plays an important part.it highlights important issues and awareness of the important of drug problems as a matter for public concern and public policy. (Gossop, 2000, 159) Overall it is clear that drug use is not a normal problem, it is a serious social problem. Drugs is an escape for most of the people, they need help, it is important for the parents to know their children. Government is also emphasising on good parenting now.
The local community agencies are primarily aimed at the Police but it may be useful to local partnerships who want to know how to tackle drug problems. This includes information on the latest developments, research findings and approaches to tackling the drug supply. There are tools for identifying problems, developing responses and monitoring progress, as well as highlighting practical measures to make communities safer. (Coomber, 1994, 80)
The factors contributing to drug misuse are complex and youngsters who use drug always have more then a one reason for doing so. They differ from each other in this message, these reasons also make it clear that normal people don’t use drugs, Drug use is a vast social problem, which cannot only be solved by families or parents. (Robertson, 1997, 37) Changes must be made to improve the quality of human life in our communities and in our society on the whole. There is a plenty of scope for further research to identify which people especially will experience drug problems and the situations.
Drugs are related to crime in many ways both direct and indirectly. Drugs are often described as one of the main causes that lead a person to commit crime. This is often due to the effects they have on the user’s behaviour and by generating violence and other illegal activities. Offences committed due to being intoxicated or as a consequence of intoxication can include any type of crime, although there are some specific offences such as driving under the influence of drugs. (Fazey, 2002, 100)
Another main reason is the need for the abuser to feed his addiction, which may also result in criminal behaviour. Dependent users of heroin, crack, amphetamines and other drugs need to finance their addiction, and few have the means to do so easily or legally. Offenders themselves often say they committed their crime to feed their habit, even going so far as to imply that, were they not drug users, they would not be offenders. (Bean, 2002, 113)
Often when an addict is unable to feed his/her addiction they will often turn to petty crime such as burglary and mugging as a means to funding the habit. The Home Office states that crimes committed to fund drug use commonly include shoplifting, credit card fraud, handling stolen goods, vehicle crime, burglary and prostitution, and, less commonly, street robbery, theft and violent crime. It is estimated that up to 70% of acquisitive crime, particularly burglary, theft from vehicles and shoplifting, is drug related. This shows the clear link between drug abuse and crime.
Drug dependence is a problem in its own right because it serves to perpetuate drug use and the problems associated with it. In fact, dependent users are commonly defined as problem drug users and it is widely believed that such users are the main sources of the common problem behaviours associated with drug misuse, such as health problems and crime. (Bennett, 2004, 133)
Aspects of Drug and Its Related Crime Control
Drug abuse does not solely have a negative impact on petty crime throughout a society. It has other implications including squatting in abandoned buildings, assault, child and spouse abuse, suicide, and even murder. Early detection and corrective action can help prevent the spread of drug related crime. Left unchecked, drug abusers can take over public places such as parks and street corners. This can lead to a negative atmosphere throughout a community and create fear throughout societies.
Government research also suggests that:
Half of all recorded crime has been estimated to relate to drug use in some way
Around three quarters of crack and heroin users say they are committing crime so they can buy drugs
75% of persistent criminal offenders have used drugs
Heroin and/or cocaine users who have been arrested have committed almost ten times as many offences as non-users who have been arrested.
Unfortunately, it has become an authenticated fact that drug mafia has acquired a strong role in determining the economic stability and destabilisation. The underworld mafia is involved even in forming and falling of governments in third world countries. This is the most shocking perspective of this heinous business. Barton affirms in this respect, “The cultivation and production of drugs have become an important and sometimes integral part of many countries’ economic development.
Ruggerio and South (1995:3) endorse this perspective and claim that illicit drugs should be seen ‘simply as commodities’. If this approach is adopted, and there seem to be few good reasons why it should not be, there is a need to examine the nature of market-based relationships that surround drug users. The logical corollary of this is that the market mechanism, including the laws of supply and demand, holds the potential to control the illicit drug market.” (Barton, 2003, 79)
Regarding the legitimacy of drugs, Barton is of the view that “There is a need to undertake a market-based review of the illicit drug milieu in order to ascertain the ways illicit drug markets resemble legitimate markets, and the ways in which they vary. In order to achieve this there are a number of requirements to be fulfilled. First and foremost there is the need to understand the value of illicit drugs in relation to other commodities. Then there is the need for an excursion into economics and economic theory in order to understand the market mechanism and the nature of markets.” (Barton, 2003, 79)
There are certain perspectives that must be addressed and considered while controlling drug abuse and crime, Barton suggests in this respect that “Nevertheless, and recognizing the limitations inherent in those perspectives, there remains the fact that, for some at least, adolescence is a period characterized by experimentation and discovery, in any number of aspects of life. Equally, the latter half of the twentieth century and the beginnings of the twenty-first has seen a visible expression of this period of experimentation, which is often contained in particular, and time-specific youth cultures. Plant (1994:55) links this to the subject matter of our text by claiming that the visibility of youth culture has bred worry and, especially that ‘The use of psychoactive drugs…by adolescents has become firmly established as a major area of concern.’” (Barton, 2003, 115)
Drug addiction has close relation with certain fatal diseases. Most of the drugs users become habitual to get their dose orally or through syringes and this habit causes them fall a victim to hepatitis or HIV. “In Britain, the relationship between intravenous drug use and HIV infection has featured uppermost in health concerns about drug use. Such concerns found origin in the heroin epidemic of the 1980s, when the spread of HIV was largely attributed to the use of shared drug injecting paraphernalia among injecting drug users.” (Gossop, 2000, 160) This shows the severity of the situation prevailed in UK due to drug abuse.
As the police do not record which crimes are drug-related, we do not know exactly how big a problem drug-related offending is. However, there is undoubtedly a strong association between drug use and crime. (De Hann, 1997, 355-66)
Law Enforcement
International drug trafficking is defined by international treaties and the domestic laws that implement these treaties. Before the Hague Convention of 1912, trafficking in illicit drugs did not exist. There were, of course, prohibitions against the use, and hence the trafficking, of certain drugs in various countries, but there were no international agreements binding on all countries. Which drugs were or were not illegal was dependent on individual states or countries.
The first drug to attract international attention was opium, where international concern dates back to the nineteenth century. The UK fought two opium wars with China to ensure the continuation of the opium trade because China would only accept silver in return for the tea, porcelain, and other goods traded with the UK. With the UK running out of silver, it grew opium in India for sale in China. Other countries, notably the U.S. (which was also trading in opium produced in Turkey) wanted a means of breaking control of the trade.
This concern also coincided with the moral distaste experienced by Bishop Brent when he discovered the opium dens in the Philippines, which had been liberated from Spain and occupied by the U.S. The pressure that Brent was able to exert on the U.S. administration through his friendship with Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft meant that there was both a moral as well as commercial reason for controlling the trade. (Musto, 1999, 121)
With moral pressure against the trade in the UK, an international commission met in Shangai in 1908 chaired by Bishop Brent. Under American pressure, the 13 countries present supported another conference in the Hague, with Brent in the chair again, leading to the Hague Convention of 1912, which put opium and cocaine trading under international control (Bruun, Pan, & Rexed, 1975, 13), though it was not until the Convention was added to the Versailles Treaty of 1918 that ended the First World War that it was ratified and came into force.
Interestingly, Italian and American attempts to control cannabis (Indian hemp) through the Hague Convention proved unsuccessful, but the drug was added to the Geneva Convention of 1924, after El Guindy, the Egyptian representative, argued that 70% of people in insane asylums were smokers of hashish–figures provided by a British doctor, Warnock, working in Cairo. “El Guindy … manipulated the Geneva meeting so that cannabis found itself on the lists of dangerous substances that were subjected to the international laws of the International Opium Convention” (Mills, 2003, p. 177).
One factor was that two years previously the UK had handed over power to the Egyptians after ruling it for 40 years. Hemp was an important business for Britain and India. It was used for rope making (still important in shipping), paper making, and textiles and was integral to the Indian economy. A compromise restricted control to medical and scientific use of flowering and fruiting tops of cannabis plants, so that the stalks and leaves could still be used for other purposes.
None of this meant—or means today–that the United Nations and the League before it had any power to enforce any of these conventions. The tools remain persuasion and, sometimes, naming and shaming nations to fulfil their international obligations under the treaties. In the extreme, individual nations may put pressure on certain states to adhere to the conventions, but this is at the level of one country to another and does not involve the United Nations. (United Nations 2007 Report)
Prevention
The Paris Peace Conference at the end of the First World War entrusted the League of Nations with “the general supervision over agreements with regard to the traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs” (Bruun, Pan, & Rexed, 1975, p. 13). At the first meeting of the League, an Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other Dangerous Drugs was established, but with membership comprising countries involved in opium production and trade, controls were not rigorously enforced. So in 1929 the Permanent Central Narcotics Board (PCNB) was created, followed by the Drug Supervisory Body (DSB) in response to a new Convention in 1931. Drug trafficking increased, but the diversion of drugs from licit supplies did decrease.
The Paris Pact (2003) is a consultative mechanism for a group of countries concerned with the illicit drug routes from Central Asia to Europe, which in reality means the Afghanistan opium problem and the trafficking routes to Europe. It was the outcome of a ministerial conference in Paris in 2003 that suggested a concerted strategic approach to heroin trafficking from Afghanistan. UNODC has taken the lead in carrying forward this initiative, organizing four expert roundtables to identify action priorities for better border control, anti-trafficking measures, and new forms of regional and international cooperation and to recommend new action to the Policy Consultative Group.
The roundtables were on the trafficking of Afghan opiates, drug trafficking in the Balkan Region (2003), drug trafficking through the Islamic Republic of Iran (2003), and trafficking through Central Asia, CIS countries, and the Russian Federation (2004).
The Paris statement called upon UNODC to take the lead and ensure that actions taken by the UNODC, the European Union, and OSCE should reinforce one another and to ensure that projects are not duplicated. It said that a clearinghouse mechanism should be reactivated for all assistance projects. To this end UNODC set up ADAM, the Automated Donor Assistance Mechanism, so that agencies and countries can connect, cooperate, and coordinate their projects.
This was followed up in 2006 with a ministerial meeting in Moscow where the UNODC’s efforts to set up the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Centre (CARICC) were strongly supported. The Centre will be located in Almaty, Kazakhstan where it was hoped that a building would be handed over for this purpose by the end of 2006. There have been many hold-ups, both political and financial, but it is hoped to be operational by the end of 2007.
Money laundering is the other side of the trafficking coin. As with precursor control, many different groups have become involved in trying to counter money laundering, which in the electronic age has come far. The days when cases of cash were taken to offshore banks are probably gone, and banking in the developed world has been forced to become more transparent, but even more ingenious means are being developed by criminals and terrorists.
FATF produced 40 recommendations against money laundering in 1990 and updated them in 2003. CICAD set up an Anti-Money Laundering Unit in 1999, has an Expert Group on Money Laundering Control, and has produced model regulations on money laundering and offences related to drug trafficking and other criminal offences. They regularly provide training for judges and prosecutors, law enforcement officials, bankers and regulators (CICAD, 2006).
Treatment
Precursors are those chemicals which are necessary for the processing of raw materials into illicit drugs (such as acetic anhydride and hydrochloric acid for heroin processing) or those chemicals which form the basis for the laboratory creation of illicit drugs (such as pseudepedrine and ephedrine for amphetamine, methamphetamine, and ecstasy). There are many organizations involved in this enterprise. One of the biggest problems facing those wishing to control these precursor drugs and stop them from being used to manufacture illicit drugs is that they are extensively used in the legitimate manufacture of a wide variety of products.
Alcohol plays a significant role in many people’s lives. It is often associated with celebration, socialising or just relaxing. The vast majority of people in the UK consume alcohol responsibly, without causing any harm to themselves or others. Unfortunately alcohol can also be associated with crime, violence and anti-social behaviour. You don’t have to drink to experience the harm that can be associated with alcohol. Common assaults, road accidents, property damage and excessive noise can all seriously affect the lives of individuals and the community.
It is alcohol rather more than illegal drugs that tends to be linked to aggression and violent crime, and hence, potentially, to crime with longer-term effects for victims and society. (Ruggerio, V. and South, N. 1995, p3).
Conclusion
Drug abuse and crime are connected in many ways. It is repeatedly highlighted that drug users are more likely than nonusers to commit crimes; therefore it is possible to state that drugs can generate violence. Assessing the nature and extent of the influence of drugs on crime requires that reliable information about the offence and the offender is available. This is not always the case and in the face of problematic evidence, it is impossible to say how much drugs actually influence the occurrence of crime.
Drug use and criminal behaviour certainly seem to be correlated. While the argument that drugs cause crime generally involves an explicit statement to the effect that drug addicts are driven to commit crimes to finance their habits, the fact is that not all drug users are addicts. Indeed, there is a large population of regular drug users who are not addicted. This can be related to the large numbers of people that drink alcohol, but are not necessarily addicted to it.
References
Barton, Adrian: 2003: Illicit Drugs: Use and Control. Routledge. New York: 79-96 & 115.
Bean, Phillip: Drugs and Crime. 2002, (Cullompton: Willan Publishing, 112-14.
Bennett, T. K. Holloway (2004) Understanding Drugs, Alcohol and Crime Open University Press. 131-36.
Bewley-Taylor, D. 2005 Challenging the UN drug control conventions: Problems and possibilities. The International Journal of Drug Policy, 14(2), 171-179.
Bruun, K., Pan, L., & Rexed, I. 1975 The gentlemen’s club. London: The University of Chicago Press. p.13.
CICAD 2006: Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) 2006 CICAD history. Web.
Coomber, R., (1994) Drugs and Drug Use In Society, London, Greenwich University Press Ltd. 78-82.
De Hann, Willem. (1997). “Abolitionism and crime control” In M. Maguire, R. Morgan, and R. Reiner (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, (pp 355-366). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
Fazey, C.S.J 2002: Estimating the world illicit drug situation — Reality and the seven deadly political sins. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, 9(1), 95-103.
Gossop, M., (2000) Living with drugs, London, M.P.G books Ltd. 156-63.
Mills, J.H. 2003 Cannabis Britannia: Empire, trade and prohibition 1800-1928. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 177.
Musto, D. 1999 The American disease: Origins of narcotic control (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 118-23.
Newburn, T. and Elliott, J. (1999) Risk and Responses: Drug Prevention and Youth Justice. London: DPAS, paper 3.
Plant, M., (1994) Drugs in Perspective, London, Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd. 52-57
Robertson, R., (1997) Heroine Aids Society, London, Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd. 35-39.
Ruggerio, V. and South, N. (1995) Eurodrugs: Drug Use, Markets and Trafficking in Europe. London: UCL Press. p.3.
Sargent, M., (1992) Women, drugs and policy in Sydney, London and Amsterdam, Newcastle upon Tyne: Athenaeum Press Ltd. 91-92.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2007 Annual report 2007. Web.
The qualitative approaches behind studying ‘Youth crime’ such as interviews, observations and ethnography uncover reasons for the prejudice. The discrepancy between the subjective interpretations and understandings of youth to appear in such social phenomena emerges the notion to understand and visualise reasoning behind prejudice. The reason behind the criminal prejudice is of course the variations of cultures in context with the ‘Multicultural environment’.
Recent British Crime Survey (BCS) data is the best evidence of the disproportionate crime rates. From vandalism to vehicle thefts and from ‘street’ crimes to inner urban cities (Simmons et al. 2002) these variations in England and Wales over the past few years have raised the feelings of lawlessness and helplessness associated with inner cities. UK is following a long term trend according to which the rates of crime pursue a disproportionate figure every year.
BCS shows that 1995 was the peak year of youth crime whereas over the last ten years the crime has fallen by 42%. However with such a decrease an average person was exposed to risk by 41% increased by 1% in 2006. According to the UK police, many categories of youth crime has declined up to 13% like firearm and burglary while on the other end vandalism is increasing over the years. (British Crime Survey, 2006/07)
The existence of prejudice among UK youth crime is justified for the multiculturalism which evoke or explain specifics about their offending. Such justification can be measured to the extent where structural deficiencies within the area occurs, such as high population density and high unemployment, and they may give rise to additional, illicit and illegal forms of economic activity, such as selling drugs and the trading of ‘second-hand’ merchandise (Hagan, 1994).
Cultural attributes of young people themselves are considered in relation to their offending (Surette and Otto, 2001). Post-war Britain has seen the changes throughout the generations in which crime-prone youngsters were exposed to young offenders with the teddy boys, mods and rockers, punks, skinheads, hippies, ravers, and, perhaps more recently, yardies and gangsters. And while the image of the young offender has certainly changed in appearance over the second half of the twentieth century, factors like media and society are responsible for it.
One half of all persons convicted each year in the United Kingdom are males aged between 15 and 21. The strongest predictors of known involvement in criminality are firstly sex, followed by age and class. There is a strong association between crime and being male, young, and from the inner city. High levels of crime within this group also produce high levels of victimisation. In some inner-city areas, the most likely perpetrators and the most likely victims of street robberies will be young black males aged between 15 and 21. In addition, a distinctive feature of young black offenders is that many come from respectable law-abiding families. Some are academically able. There are young people going to jail who should be going to college.
Reasons to Justified Prejudice
Criminality among the youth cannot be fully explained alone by the persistence of racist social attitudes and associated factors such as racist bias in the police and the criminal justice system. Though these factors do create deep and serious difficulties, but one cannot ignore the external threats to the younger generation. Effects of our social dilemmas such as youth unemployment and alcohol related crimes are also unable to highlight the real causes behind disproportionate crime (Robins, 1992, p. 3).
UK follows a particular trend which might be among one of the reasons for varying crime rates. There are certain places where the black people, particularly Afro-Caribbean people, are significantly over-represented at various stages of the criminal justice system. Africans that are living within the black ghettos have always been disproportionately represented in local criminal statistics. Between 2000 and 2002, all the robbery and violence serious offences was done mostly by blacks. When the youth justice workers and the youth and community workers were inquired they replied that about half of the young men they worked with were white and the other half black (Sanders, 2005, p. 19).
In the view of the government, the ‘joined-upness’ of solutions to youth crime and community safety consists in the simultaneous management of those ‘risk factors’ associated with the onset of crime and delinquency, and the application of ‘evidence-based’ technologies for the correction of familial, cognitive or behavioural deficiencies which lead to persistence. Along with this perception, systemic anomalies are eradicated by rigorous audits and the imposition, by central government, of financial penalties upon local government, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Many times the efforts of Conservative government had failed to limit the powers of local authorities, which were seen as unreliable, but a decade later this policy was reversed by an incoming Labour government and local authorities in conjunction with the local police were given statutory responsibility for crime prevention and community safety. Local authorities in community safety participated and were seen as uniquely placed to connect with the local population and thereby able to increase citizen involvement in crime control while mobilising the wide range of agencies which were deemed necessary to develop a comprehensive community safety strategy housing, planning, social services, education, leisure services, youth services and others.
Youth crime control and its associated problems have always acquired limited attention. The responsibility has always been in a continuous shift in which local authorities played down the existing unequal distribution of needy people in different areas, as well as the geographical concentration of victimisation. Such placement of responsibility on the shoulders of local authorities have resulted in an increased range of problems that have further burdened certain municipalities.
Therefore neither this development may be seen as a recipe for the consolidation of injustice to the youth crime nor does it provide an alternative to the growth of a crime control bureaucracy, but instead broadens its base. Although crime in itself may be locally extremely variable, the level of crime in any particular area will also be a product of a wider process of deflection and displacement as well as a function of social and economic movements which affect the make-up and distribution of local populations.
Similarly, when youth crime starts affecting community safety in the vast majority of localities, it is affected by environmental, health and transport issues which reach far beyond the geographical boundaries of local boroughs and over which particular local authorities may have little or no control (Young, 1990). Therefore, in relation to crime and community safety there are unresolved issues about whether the local authority is the appropriate regulatory site and whether it might be more appropriate to locate these responsibilities in regional authorities if the aim is to achieve greater levels of distributive and social justice.
In a society in which the structural and social divisions are becoming increasingly pronounced, the ability of the Social Exclusion Unit to do more than identify and possibly ameliorate certain pockets of poverty and deprivation appear to be limited. This has given rise to the young criminal behavior. The proposed interventions such as job training, the development of ‘more flexible’ benefits, improved housing management, measures to ‘tackle’ anti-social neighbours, youth crime and drugs, youth work, improved local services and initiatives to get central government departments working more closely together appear to be both overly ambitious and at the same time inadequate.
Youth culture alone is not responsible for the increased and varied crime; they are not taught the morals and the restrictions of family by the device of deviance and truth. If we analyse youth violence community wise we would come to know that from the black diaspora to the gay community, a single culture has split into many subcultures that develop in the freedom of the urban landscape and spread into a virtual community under the influence of mass media and cultural artefact (Matthews & Pitts, 2001, p. 39).
The best example of media contribution to youth violence is the ‘gun culture’. There was a time when only USA was at peak in ‘gun culture’, today Britain is becoming in this respect, may swim in the media, guns were not really an issue with the young people some decades ago. Gun culture did not exist till the time when media promoted Hollywood movies. In fact gun violence is spread among the youngsters by three means, through home or school setting, the community and through media. Children who are subjected to gun violence are found easy victims of experiencing negative psychological effects that include anger, withdrawal, posttraumatic stress, and violence (Garbarino et al, 2002).
If we look into the pages of history we would see that there somehow has been a decline in the youth crime rate. The homicide rate in the city of Amsterdam in the year 1450 is estimated to have been 150 per 100,000 people. By 1850, when Amsterdam had been “civilized,” the rate dropped to 2 per 100,000 (Richman & Fraser, 2001, p. 84). Equality and equity issues invariably stand out as evidence that public schools are not what they appear to be: a democratic institution that provides increasingly diverse citizenry the opportunity to better their lives. Instead, schools mirror the more general social inequalities in society-income, race, gender, and age disparities.
The gap between rich and poor families is widening in almost all the European countries. Among inner-city schools, income differences translate into ‘savage inequalities’. As a result, poor children of all colors are consigned to a procession of overcrowded, under heated, textbookless, indifferently taught classrooms (Davis, 1999, p. 66).
According to my analysis, youth criminal activities whether call it in the context of prejudice, disproportional or simply crime is multidimensional. Starting from the assertion of petty crime and ending up in violence, youth crime is justified with what it seeks. Both dimensions end up in single notion of youth crime that ends up in ‘morals’. Whether it is culturally influenced or multicultural twisted, the essence lies with those factors that are primarily responsible for transforming our younger generation into criminals. When our children are suffering from lack of attention, due to poor economic conditions of our country no one cares. Why would one bother to notice psychological changes among our children when there is a significant flux with regard to materialism?
Low level psychological disorders are the main grounds on which youth lives revolves. From the school going teenagers to the gangs, all such civilities are the results of male and female teenagers’ gatherings which are often unsupervised, in public spaces on front walls, street-corners, in town centres and by the local shops.
Family factors like teenage mothers and parental psychopathology which depicts antisocial parental behaviour like alcoholism and depression is also among the major causes for disturbed children. Other factors contribution like television and media violence promotes the hidden aggressive behaviour in our youth. Youth violence has been a part of our society and cannot be placed aloof to understood the social and cultural contexts in which it occurs. Children learn not only from the larger culture, but from their specific subculture as well and particularly when it comes to UK, children have a lot to learn as it is a multicultural country.
For some children, that subculture might consist of a mostly white, middle-class, suburban neighbourhood. Other children might live within ethnic neighbourhoods in the inner city. Still others might inhabit rural areas such as those in the south or northeast. It has been observed that sub-cultures also play a significant role in influencing or reinforcing messages from the larger culture and when it comes to youth crime, culture matters.
There are other reasons to the justification of youth crime. When the Labour government, elected in May 1997, considered youth crime prevention, it wasted time in identifying and selecting crime control as a major plank of public policy upon which it grounded its office and judged.
Upon clearly visualising ‘flagship’ pieces of legislation such as the Crime and Disorder Act (1998) and the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act (1999) as key elements in the implementation of Third Way politics in the field of law and order, UK Home Secretary, Jack Straw, suggested that the statutory community safety partnerships established by the Crime and Disorder Act (1998) alongside measures such as the anti-social behaviour orders (ASBO) and child curfews will help bind together and empower communities to fight crime.
Labour government’s strategy for dealing with problem and excluded youth argued that although this strategy may strive to tackle ‘alienation’ amongst the young it would be unable to renovate the structural links between impoverished, destabilised, neighbourhoods and local and regional labour markets; nor will it offer the financial incentives and tax breaks to the businesses and industries which would ‘kick-start’ moribund local economies into life.
Government policy encourages the individualisation and commodification of security, offering only minimum guarantees, above which youngsters are encouraged to take responsibility for themselves. Such a liberal notion of ‘freedom’ and responsibility helps the youth to shape up and influence their personal morality and therefore welfare is replaced by the juridical subject of neo-liberalism.
Only through implementing such initiatives we can think to make the disproportional rate of youth crime to an extent where one can begin to make sense of the contradictory policy initiatives. Such policy initiatives are biased in a sense that on one hand they are aimed to establish agencies to alleviate social exclusion from the society, whereas on the other they seek methods to reduce welfare payments to marginalised populations.
Contribution to stop Youth Crime
Schools act as the fundamental institutions that provide regular access to students throughout the developmental years. Therefore schools are the only institutions that shape up young children morale in the early school years. Proper efforts should be made to socialise youth by staffing individuals to help youth develop as healthy, happy, and productive citizens. Many youngsters already possess delinquent behaviour must be identified and treated in accordance with the school-based intervention.
The School must understand its responsibility to point out those factors that escort towards delinquency and therefore be capable to identify the youngster if he possesses things like alcohol, drugs or any weapon. Factors that are responsible for disturbing or causing emotional disturbances must be identified such as school experiences, attitudes, poor school performance and attendance, low attachment to school, and low commitment to schooling (Sherman et al, 2002, p. 58).
Other approaches suggested by Sherman et al (2002) to reduce youth crime includes community based mentoring and after school recreational programs. Another community based anti-violence initiative is the ‘Gun buy-back campaign’, which remained unable to reduce the targeted outcome.
The true British youth learns in context with the aspirations that jump frontiers, about crime, since crime has been a free-floating commodity of the media. Our youth learns from the informal mores of everyday life which are constituted within public cultures which are global in their reach. The thing that bothers us towards considering the problem is the maintenance of order among teenagers. We ourselves are the notions of respectable and proper behaviour but are unable to teach discipline and order to our younger generation. This is so because our social entities have transformed our feelings of guilt into our attitude that means such morals are no longer part of our face-to-face encounter.
References
British Crime Survey, 2006. Web.
Davis J. nanette, (1999) Youth Crisis: Growing Up in the High-Risk Society: Praeger Publishers: Westport, CT.
Garbariono James, Bradshaw P. Catherine & Vorrasi A. Joseph, (2002) “Mitigating the Effects of Gun Violence on Children and Youth” In: The Future of Children. Volume: 12: 2.
Hagan, J. (1994) Crime and Disrepute. Thousand Oaks CA, Pine Forge Press.
Matthews Roger & Pitts John, (2001) Crime, Disorder, and Community Safety: A New Agenda?: Routledge: London.
Richman M, Jack & Fraser W. Mark, (2001) The Context of Youth Violence: Resilience, Risk, and Protection: Praeger: Westport, CT.
Robins David, (1992) Tarnished Vision: Crime and Conflict in the Inner City: Oxford University: Oxford.
Sanders Bill, (2005) Youth Crime and Youth Culture in the Inner City: Routledge: London.
Sherman W. Lawrence, Farrington P. David & Welsh C. Brandon, (2002) Evidence-Based Crime Prevention: Routledge: London.
Simmons, J. and colleagues (2002) Crime in England and Wales 2001/2002. Home Office Statistical Bulletin No. 07/02, London, Home Office.
Surette, R. and Otto, C. (2001) ‘The media’s role in the definition of crime’, in S. Henry and M.M. Lanier (eds), What is Crime?: Controversies over the Nature of Crime and What to Do About It. Oxford, Rowman and Littlefield, p. 139.
Young I. M. (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Organized crimes are no ideological enterprises that involves a number of people who might be closely related, have common social practices and interactions and they are established with the purpose of securing profits or power through engaging in almost any kind of illegal activities (Abadinsky 2010). These organizations can also be described as a collection of criminals working together in the same criminal business working towards a common goal. An example of such an organization is the La Cosa Nostra (LCN) which has been operating in the United States for a long time since 1920s. This organization is also known as the Mafia, or the Mob. The LCN over a very long time have become the most prominent criminal organization in the U. S. Their strength is the fact that they possessed great monopoly control over several other criminal markets. There strategy is to use or threaten violence in order to gain and maintain control.
The organization is involved in ruthless violence activities. This ruthless violence is usually conducted in form of beatings and killings or just the threat of violence. They commonly used this tactics to gain monopoly and control over other criminal enterprises. Besides carrying out violence activities, they also threaten and discourage their competitors in a way to eliminate their participation and also to regain and reinforce its reputation. In 1997, the organization was alleged to have plotted an assignation against a federal judge who is said to have presided over a couple of big mob trials in New York City. According to Lauryn (1999), the organization is linked in a number of crimes that are their specialty and unique to this organization only which includes business racketing, industry cartels bid-rigging and other business frauds. La Cosa Nostra illegal activities are beyond violence activities they are also involved in gambling and drugs which they have always counted as their biggest money makers including hijacking, air cargo theft and murder.
The other criminal organization is Crips. This is an African American organization that was started in Los Angeles California and has grown to have several networks around the United States. It is considered as one of the most violent street gangs in the states. They have an estimated number of about 35000 members across the states of California, Texas Oklahoma and Missouri. The members of this organization are mostly young African American men with a few members being white. They are associated with criminal activities such as drug trade. They assert their profits from conducting illegal drug trading. They are responsible of producing and conducting the distribution of the PCP drug in the city of Los Angeles. They also carried out trades and distributed cocaine and marijuana across the city. Other criminal activities involved with this gang are murders robberies which they carried out in pursuit of making profits and ensuring that the primary activities of the group continued (Colton, 2005).
In comparison to other criminal organizations, La Cosa Nostra was involved in many illegal activities including corrupting law enforcements and other political systems something their competitors were not able to do. According to Colton 2005), “no other criminal organization in the United States has controlled labor unions, organized employer cartels, operated as a rationalizing force in major industries and functioned as a bridge between the upper world and the underworld”. Hence, the capacity of the organization to conduct and get involved in such activities made the organization become distinguished from any other criminal organization in the U. S.
References
Abadinsky, H. (2010). Organized crime 9th ed. Florence, KY: Thomas Wadsworth Publishing.
Colton S. (2005). Inside the Crips: Life Inside L.A.’s Most Notorious Gang. Gordonsville: Virginia St. Martin’s Press.
Lauryn, P. G. (1999). Cosa Notstra: the final chapter? Crime and justice. Chicago : The University of Chicago.
Crime statistics in general emerged in the early 19th century to measure whether criminal activity in certain areas was increasing or decreasing. However, it is a common fact that a high proportion of crimes do not come to the knowledge of the police, and alterations in police procedures and strategies can have quite a huge impact on how crimes are reported and categorized. This essay will present an argument that crime statistics cannot give an exhaustive measurement of crime trends due to several shortcomings and flaws that are experienced during the various stages of handling crime figures.
Since the crime, by definition, is an illegal activity, every employed in measuring it is likely to have flaws: the disparities in the reporting and analytic procedures are generating different sets of crime victimization statistics. This essay will critically examine ways that explain why crime statistics do not necessarily reflect a true measure of criminal activity. Attention will be drawn particularly to the way data is collected, reported, and classified to highlight its inaccuracy and disparity.
Data Collection
One of the strongest criticisms against crime statistics revolves around the data collection process. Since crime rates and other parameters relating to crime depend on the accuracy of the data collection process, any flaw in the process could heavily affect the reliability of information derived from the data.
There are two major methods for collecting crime data. The first method uses law enforcement reports that only reflect reported crimes. The second is the use of victimization surveys in which information is collected by asking a population sample of the crimes that have been committed against them, and whether or not they have passed over this information to law enforcement agents. The accuracy of victimization surveys, therefore, depends on the honesty of the respondent or the ability of the respondent to have a good memory of the criminal instances. Besides, the methods used for data collection vary between jurisdictions comparing crime statistics between and even within countries and this can create ambiguity while computing the national or comparing criminal activity between states. For example, in Australia, some states use a prima facie system in that essentially, all crime reported is recorded, however, other states, such as Victoria previously used an ‘evidentiary’ system where only the crime with evidence was recorded. These inconsistencies and administrative changes can invalidate comparisons between jurisdictions and across time.
Another criticism that has been leveled against victimization surveys is the unfair treatment or discrimination of specific communities, social groupings, or ethnic minorities during data collection. Maguire states that ‘booster’ samples have been used to prove, or disapprove, victimization of ethnic minorities and separate methods have been used to collect information from older people. The reliability or accuracy of data derived through this data collection method may also be affected by the wording of the interview question, the population sampled, and the situation on which the research is based. For example, the degree of empathy that is created between the surveyor and the respondent may influence the respondents to answer in a considerable manner. Again, some surveys are based on loosely defined samples and lack thoroughness in defining the duration covered: plainly, it makes a significant disparity if a respondent is asked whether he/she has been a victim of a specific crime within the past year, past few years, or ever.
Public Surveys and other Surveys
Another type of criticism regarding the validity of crime statistics is the use of public surveys. This form of data collection is sometimes used to estimate the proportion of crimes that are not reported to law enforcement agents. Information derived from such surveys is normally useful for evaluating crime trends. Most public surveys do not cover all crimes, rarely employ statistical analytical methods, often overlook crimes against children, and do not keep records of suspects brought before the criminal courts. For instance, when faced with a domestic dispute, a law enforcement officer may opt to arrest the man in the argument that the woman may have other family roles to play, such as caring for the children, despite both the couple is responsible for the offense. Hence, in public surveys, it is the respondent’s discernment that a crime occurred, or even their comprehension of what amounts to the crime being investigated. Consequently, this data collection method can exhibit partiality. Also, contradictory methods may make comparison with other surveys tricky. Likewise, often statistics from law enforcement organizations are used. Despite the obvious credibility of this method, surveys frequently tend to mirror the efficiency of law enforcement processes of the officers and may bear little association to the real amount of crime. This is because officers can only document crimes that come to their attention, still, these offenses can only be recognized as ‘crime’ by the officer on duty. Biasness or partiality of these statistics may also stem from actions taken by the officers while on routine patrols.
Another important criticism regarding crime statistics is directed toward recording practices. Crime statistics recording norms differ not just between nations and authorities, but even between officers under the same system handling a similar situation. Due to the authority accorded to them, officers can heavily influence crime statistics. In the same way, even though a person may report a crime to a police officer, it may not be regarded as so unless that crime is recorded in a manner that makes it possible to be included in the official crime statistics. For this reason, minor offenses may be considerably ignored when officers have lots of work or do not perceive the crime as worth documenting.
Law enforcement agencies tend to record or fail to record certain high-profile crimes, especially if there is an incentive. For instance, officers record almost all cases of traffic offenses due to the financial incentive in form of fines. In contrast, only a few of these traffic offenses make it to the official crime statistics. In the same way, it is observed that certain criminal activities may be omitted from the official crime records due to factors ranging from work avoidance or a wish to improve the overall clear-up rate. According to Maguire, the more the ‘hopeless’ cases, in terms of their probability of detection if they are omitted from the records, the higher the number detected (and hence the higher the clear-up rate). If a law enforcement division’s clear-up rate is small, the officers can be criticized by their seniors for tarnishing their image, or by the media. Unfortunately, this negligence does a lot of harm to crime statistics as it reduces their reliability and accuracy.
Surveys in themselves are good in that they help identify different types of crime and assist in crime prevention. However, it is how they are conducted that raises some concern. It could be argued that it is fair to say that the public knows little about the criminal justice systems and how policymakers evaluate crime. Therefore from this point, it would be necessary that these reservations are somewhat dispelled. First and foremost would be that these policymakers investigate further what the public perceives to constitute a crime to accurately measure crime. Determining the public’s responses as to what they perceive as important would further assist with the feedback they get from them including having their full participation in these surveys. They would then accordingly improve the questions used in a survey to uncover crime, and as a result of this, the survey methods would be enhanced and, consequently, the scale of crimes measured would be widened. The argument here is that at times the surveys conducted are for different purposes, which perhaps focuses on different aspects of crime such as violent crime, while burglary, property damage, and theft are at the lower end of the scale. Additionally, these surveys could also be used as a resource to provide an insight into public perceptions of the police and the criminal justice systems that to some level impact the reasons why the public chooses not to report the crime.
Classification
Another inaccuracy in the measurement of criminal statistics is regarding the area of classification. In order a clear picture of crime trends, it is vital that various forms of crime are classified into different categories. This procedure has a flaw in that a crime can be interpreted in different ways according to the reporting person and the officer on duty. The ambiguity of the classification process also arises from the differences in policies among various jurisdictions. The punishment for a crime may also differ and the degree of the punishment depends on each jurisdiction’s definition of the specific crime.
Further criticism of crime statistics is drawn from their lack of specificity, for example, a crime classified as ‘robbery’ comprises several actions such as significant as a bank raid to trivial crimes such as stealing from a retail shop at knifepoint, or snatching a handbag from a woman in the streets. Therefore, such crime statistics only give information relating to the general criminal activity and not the decline or increase in the prevalence of specific forms of robbery. Failure to have distinct classes of crime could stem from the law enforcement officer’s indolence or lack of adequate information on the importance of the crime statistics.
Conclusion
The use of official crime statistics as a measure of ‘criminal activity’ has come under intense criticism owing to their lack of credibility, accuracy, and flaws in the data collection, analysis, and differences in crime policies and strategies. This is widely acknowledged and referred to universally as the ‘dark figure’ of crime. Flaws mainly occur through lack of detection, underreporting by the public, and underrecording by the police. It impacts official crime statistics. This has led to the augmentation of police-recorded crime statistics with surveys of the general public (generally referred to as crime victim surveys) or surveys of offenders. The gaps between the police-recorded statistics and the self-reported statistics of victims or offenders are marked but depend on the type of crime. For example, studies have shown that only 31% of assaults were reported to the police in Australia in 2005, but they also highlight that this may depend on the victim’s perception of the act as a criminal event. There are many other methodological issues with these types of surveys. For example, the survey sample needs to be large enough to provide reasonably accurate estimates for relatively rare crimes. The sampling frame needs to be sophisticated enough to address the problem that the people who are most likely to be victims are probably the least likely to be in a position to participate in a survey.
Bibliography
Boni, N. Youth and Serious Crime: Directions for Australasian Researchers into the New Millennium, 1999, Web.
Maguire, M. The Oxford handbook of criminology, 4th Ed. NY: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Stossel, J., and Grayling, C. Crime Statistics, 2011, Web.
Crime has been one of the most rapidly used words in the current world of information. The word itself is capable enough to give a whole lot of meaning but giving it a technical definition is one of the toughest jobs. But despite all sorts of technical and non technical problems, a proper wholesome definition of the same is very much urgent so that this phenomenon can be made understood at every stage of a human life. The crime and its implications has to be made understood to each and every citizen of the nation right from the stage he or she starts getting the feel of the society and things that have been associated with it (Baldassare, 1986).
The most important philosophy around which the whole act of crime and crime prevention hovers is that this crime is very much a manmade enigma and the perpetrators or the criminals are not born, they are developed in this society and later become a bane to the same society from where it has been developed. In other words it can be understood that crime is very much a human act and if we take out the civilization clause from the dictionary of human society and make it equivalent to the savagery, this crime is not exactly something which can be termed inhumane. It’s something present in very nature of humans and they technically possess every characteristic of an animal. It is a threat that is comparable to anything that has been faced by the society in past but is actually a very intelligent form of threat that waits for the opportunity to transform its ability into an act of crime under the influence of desire. Hence this phenomenon of crime is basically an action which involves at least two human beings with one being the perpetrator and the other one is the victim (Kelling, & Wilson, 1982).
Crime prevention needs to tackle the social complexity of crime. Though the legal procedures and enforcement agencies are very much present to redress the problem, they have miserably failed to provide something which will have some long term impact. They actually provide security either through prosecution or through prevention. Prosecution leads to arrest and a whole lot of legal procedures including the judgment and imprisonment. Prevention deals with stopping a criminal from committing something heinous. The option of committing a crime is to be closed. Hence the target issue is the creation the hindrance for a criminal through wide spread precautionary measures being implemented through every single home to any of the working place or public place present in the locality. The important point is to shield oneself from being a victim. The crime and its different techniques have to be made understood to each and every person. Right from the beginning i.e., during childhood, one should be made aware of the prevention procedures and the importance of it has to be made a part of the complete thought process. But still after this much precaution the outcome of these procedures has been found to be very much limited and the crime rate is on its way to rise and rise (Kelling, & Wilson, 1982).
The most important thing is to act against the cause that make a criminal rather than reducing the opportunities for him to commit some crime. We have to realize that this criminal has been developed from this society only and the problem is in the social pattern and due to these patterns we have to face certain people who have got out of the normal way of social life and are acting against the group of which it is a very important part. So the new crime prevention should deal with the very cause of creation of a criminal and factors fuelling its growth.
Crime Prevention Plan of the new society
The humans have reached to the current age of information after getting a number of destruction and wars. Initially, it had to fight adversities of earth and its surroundings and after the formation of some civilization, it had to fulfill the expectations of the society and associated challenges as well as the responsibilities that came up along with the evolutionary process. The criminal instinct is the outcome of the growth of the negative fighter characteristic that is remnant from the earlier days of struggle. The same old natural characteristics are very active and are always thriving to make some impact on the behavior pattern and have been the ultimate source for every single occurrence of the crime (Bursik, 1988).
The law based forced approach has been extremely powerful as well as effective solution to the occurrence of crime but has not been able to eliminate this social curse. The crime prevention under this approach is more of based on the concept of hindering the criminal element. But the real cause that creates a criminal has not been given enough value and hence the process of new legislation and new wave of crime and criminals continue to get happened. It’s not the criminals who are the subject of concern but it’s the criminal thought process and that has to be targeted so that the ultimate objective of developing a new human within that disturbed person can be developed (Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior [IVDB], 2003).
The possible solution to the cause of crime requires the application of different social processes involving research based approach. But before the application of the processes different causes for this criminal behavior and its creation has to be discussed. The child in its formative sees many things and in accordance with its understanding capability it takes decision (Bursik & Gramsick, 1993). A healthy child hood is a very necessary thing to stop the creation of any criminal. There are many possible factors which affect the child. Different factors that have strongly associated and have become reason can be the
Material wealth: It depicts the average financial state of area or the society which breeds crime. It quantifies the very material or average prosperity of the family and the society of which a person is a part of. The lack of houses or accommodation of a large number of people in a small house sharply reduces the quality of up bringing of a child (Bursik & Gramsick, 1993).
Health: This factor has its importance while quantifying security at the physical as well as mental health of the people. It decides the affluence and the penury that has been faced by the child (IVDB, 2003).
Social security and stability: The overall development and upbringing of a child is a multiple of this factor. The child is greatly affected with its neighborhood and hence every thing that happens in the neighborhood makes an impact on the child’s social as well personal behavior (IVDB, 2003).
Family life: The condition of a family on an average is an indication of family life of the child. The divorce rates are being given the status of indicator for quantifying this factor. The rising instances of single parenthood are another very important cause. The separation is a very traumatic experience of a child and can be a reason behind the creation of a situation of loneliness and the state of depression (IVDB, 2003).
Community and Social Life: This factor corresponds to the social behavior of the child and how much adjustable his attitude is. The negligibility in social life corresponds to lower interest of the child in community life thereby increasing another wave of insecurity at personal as well social level (Bursik & Gramsick, 1993).
Job Security: This factor is self explanatory and is being indicated through unemployment rate expressed in percentage. A secure job to a youth makes him more confident and ultimately he or she turns out to be a better prospect to the society. At the same time the insecurity in this factor causes frustration and causes the occurrence of diminishing patterns in above mentioned factors especially material well being (Bursik & Gramsick, 1993).
Juveniles
The Juvenile based crime prevention program is based on making an impact on the causes that promotes this problem. At the same time the child should be made aware of the benefits associated with a healthy social life. At every levels of growth right from the home to schools, the children must be taught of the requirements of civilized society that is none other than personal accountability for every actions and decisions. The learning process should be in form of both theoretical as well as social practices. The consequences of a poor decision and the positives associated with the good decision should be made into a matter of fact and curriculum (Butts, Coggeshall, Gouvis, Mears, Travis, Waul, & White, 2002).
The introduction as well as implementation of this type of process will require participation of every element of the system as well as the society. The basic purpose of every such efforts being implemented through the channels emanating from the state, local governments as well as the communities should be the deterrence to commit first time offenses and hence reduction in recidivism and possible hardening of criminal thought. Every constituent element of the juvenile system should be given lessons of child treatment while those who should be subjected to intense study of child behavior are those simple policemen or on ground staff who are in continuous touch with the common public which also includes children. The rehabilitation plan should necessary be initiated with the help of private enterprises so that the possible partnership could be stretched from learning in schools to rehabilitation in form of job as well as creation of opportunities for more growth and possible higher level of satisfaction at personal front as well as social fronts (Butts et. al, 2002).
Conclusion
The child is the future and it’s our responsibility to keep in an environment of social happiness and tranquility. They require proper attention and respect. Any piece of indifference from our side will make the situation worse and hence in later stages its not just that child who is going to suffer but the whole society will have to face the music of that indifferent attitude. The crime prevention plan is more of juvenile centric rather than legal provision centric. The criminal mind set has to be attacked and the whole cause of its creation and sustenance should be weeded out. The reduction in cases of juveniles is meant for creating a better future with 100 percent crime elimination.
References
Baldassare, M (1986). Trouble in Paradise: the suburban transformation in America. New York: Columbia University Press.
Butts, J., Coggeshall, M., Gouvis, C., Mears, D., Travis, J., Waul, M. & White, R. (2002). Youth Guns and juvenile Justice System, Urban Institute Justice Policy Center.
Bursik, Robert J. (1988). Social Disorganization and Theories of Crime and Delinquency. American Journal of Sociology 88: 24-42.
Bursik, Robert J. and H. G. Gramsick. (1993). Economic Deprivation and Neighborhood Crime Rates. Law and Society Review 27: 263-83.
Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior (2003). Juvenile Crime Prevention Program Evaluation.
Kelling, G. L. & Wilson, J. Q (1982). The police and neighborhood safety, Atlantic Monthly.
Crime in urban communities is quite a persistent issue, especially when speaking about multicultural neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The present paper is designed to use the subculture approach that belongs to the array of ecological theories to explain the emergence of crime in Boyle Heights, composed mostly of citizens of Latino cultural background.
Main Text
Subculture theory, developed by Cohen in 1955 (Eve, 1978, p.116) is an attempt to examine youth subcultures, manifesting their protest against the dominant culture. “The subcultures emerge in the slums of some of the nation’s largest cities. Often, they are rooted in class differentials, parental aspirations and school standards. Cohen notes that the position of one’s family in the social structure determines the problems the child will later face in life. Thus, they will experience status frustration and strain and adapt into either a corner boy, college boy, or a delinquent boy” (Eve, 1978, p.116). Corner boys are conventional in terms of lifestyle and therefore receive considerable support in group activities. Such individuals often fail to meet academic standards and thus receive poor education, which doesn’t allow them to penetrate the middle-class environment (Paulsen and Robinson, 2004, p.96). Delinquent boys, on the contrary, form bands and gangs in an attempt to define social and group position, so their disobedience and criminal behavior are normally purposeless: such young people steal in order to establish themselves as personalities and support their hedonistic lifestyles, – again, the latter purpose is less important, comparing to the manifestation of subcultural identity. Moreover, corner boys can participate in stealth and robbery in order to attain peer support, whereas most delinquent boys through stealth subconsciously show their ‘scorn’ for middle-class values.
Residential patterns in Los Angeles refer to traditions rather than models of settlement, but Boyle Heights is to certain degree an exception from the common rule, given that the area was “seized” by Hispanic and Latino Americans in the 1980s when the specified groups replaced Jewish Americans. The community profile is nowadays depicted in quite pessimistic terms, since it frequently endures funding deficiencies, high unemployment rates as well as problems with universal access to public education. Therefore, using the framework, prepared by Paulsen and Robinson (2004, p. 124), one can assume that the public space lacks safety patterns, taking into consideration the fact that the neighborhood has been substantially impoverished after the withdrawal of Jewish Americans, whose culture normally implies the development of domestic infrastructure (Vincent, 2008, p.4). The recent housing project, designed to address the needs of citizens dwelling in “The Flats”, or the poorest part of the neighborhood, failed not a long ago owing to the collapse of the American commercial sector supporting the long-term housing program.
According to Vincent, “In the 1980s, he [the respondent] said, drug dealers trolled the neighborhood, drunks stumbled about and young gang members shot it out. One of his sons was assaulted once and his car was shot up one day” (Vincent, 2008, p.4). In the present day, the criminality rate in the area is 30 per cent higher than the average Los Angeles index; this fact certainly causes the concerns of law enforcement agencies, but the efforts, ordered at the level of the city government, have appeared to not reach their goal, as the local police officers also belong to the specified community and often originate from the same circles as gang members (Vincent, 2008, p.4). Therefore, it is possible to speak about subcultural identity in the given case; moreover, the criminal unit is vast in Boyle Heights and surprisingly covers the groups of non-delinquent profile (e.g. qualified workers, who are not likely remain unemployed and are able to successfully earn their living).
The two major dimensions where delinquent subculture is cultivated are local schools and local construction sites, where predominantly seasonal workers are involved. It needs to be noted, however, that the latter dimension to certain degree reflects the former one, as both actually depend on two undermining tendencies which are the spread of unsound leisure practices and the inhibition of leadership inclinations in the majority of subculture members.
As the teachers of the community school suggest, it is not “fashionable” in Boyle Heights to have high academic achievement; on the contrary, the local leisure culture existing among school students, implies constant search for adventures till the late night. Therefore, underage community members simply have no opportunity to behave like “college boys”, as they normally fail to prepare their home assignments given the above described leisure culture. As mentioned above, the neighborhood has quite poor infrastructure that includes a number of abandoned shops or accommodations that served various “civilized” purposes in the past, but nowadays can be found half-ruined. These are major places of interest attributed to local young males, as insufficient budgeting has reduces the local educators’ motivation for arranging more useful and healthy leisure activities for students. According to Weisburd and Lum (2005, p.426), minimization of opportunities for the commitment of transgression is amongst the most important components of crime prevention; in this sense, the abundance of uncontrolled places in Boyle Heights becomes a determinative factor is the persistence of the pathological identity.
Furthermore, the strength of the criminal subculture is increased by the size of the group of corner boys, described as the main “executors” in the gang, due to their compliance with the internal norms. Leadership skills are normally nurtured in families and classrooms; but the profile of the average community member (manual worker, non-management) points to the fact that the patterns of cognitive and emotional independence are not popular in the community; moreover, the lack of educational initiatives aimed at raising students’ self-awareness determines schools’ failure to fully address the issue of leadership. The “college boy” identity is the major object of school students’ bullying, which might refer to the antagonism between the broad lower-middle class and relatively underrepresented class of white collars (upper-middle). The intensity of group pressure has already been depicted above: those whose lifestyle has been “intellectualized” and who have upgraded their socioeconomic background, are often physically assaulted, their property becomes the target of vandalism (e.g. car destruction). As one can assume, the criminal subculture actually dominates in Boyle Heights.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is necessary to provide several recommendations concerning the further crime prevention activities in this environment. First of all, it is necessary to re-shape the public space and increase its safety through incorporating Geographic Information Systems suggested by Howard (2002, p. 69). The re-construction of abandoned buildings into the objects of infrastructure is also plausible; in this case, businesses are more likely to jointly support the new mapping system for their own profit. Furthermore, it would be also useful to encourage employers to create more beneficial job opportunities and social security packages (including health care, partial compensations of house rent and so forth). Furthermore, the local municipal government should work in the direction of the empowerment of the community’s educators for the strengthening of the connections between schools and population so that more control over the students’ out-of-school activities is obtained. Finally, local law enforcement authorities are supposed to strengthen supervision and de-formalize policing management (Schmerler and Velasco, 2002, p. 85) so that commitment to crime prevention and reduction is reinforced in police officers.
Reference list
Paulsen, D., & Robinson, M. (2004). Spatial Aspects of Crime: Theory and Practice. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Howard, J. (2002). How to De-Mystify GIS by Understanding the Role of Common Sensed GIS and Blue Collar GIS in Public Safety. In S. Bair. R. Boba, N. Fritz, D. Helms, &. Hick (Eds.), Advanced Crime Mapping Topics (pp.68-71). Dencer, Co: National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center.
Eve, R. (1978). A Study of the Efficacy and Interactions of Several Theories for Explaining Rebelliousness Among High School Students. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 69 (1), 115-25.
Vincent, J. (2008). Towering Ambitions for Boyle Heights. Los Angeles Times, 11 Jan, pp.4-5.
Schmerler, K. & Velasco, M. (2002). Primary Data Collection: A Problem-Solving Necessity. In S. Bair. R. Boba, N. Fritz, D. Helms, &. Hick (Eds.), Advanced Crime Mapping Topics (pp. 83-88). Dencer, Co: National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center.
Weisburd, D., & Lum, C. (2005). The Diffusion of Computerized Crime Mapping in Policing: Linking Research and Practice. Police Practice and Research, 6(5), 419-434.
A lot of research has been conducted regarding the crime rates between men and women. Men have been consistently showing higher crime rates than women. Researchers have given biological and socio-cultural reasons for the disparity of crime rates between the men and women. Recently, it has been noted that female crime rates are increasing as more women enter the labor force. This has caused researchers to look more keenly on the impact of division of labor between the different genders on the crime rates. The findings have shown that the division of labor has a huge impact.
Role of Division of Labor in Gender Crime Rates
The rate of male criminal offenders is higher than the rate of female crime offenders. One of the contributing factors to the disparity in the crime rates between the genders is the labor force participation. The tendency in women’s crime rate has been higher in the minor offenses of shop-lifting and theft while men have been involved in more serious crimes. Women have shown a lower rate in the serious crimes. Research has shown that women are no more or no less likely to commit crime compared to men. What really matters are the opportunities available to an individual to commit a criminal offense. Men commit more serious crimes than women because of their location in the labor force environment. In most white collar professions the number of men is higher than the women. This makes the men have more opportunities, skills and social networks causing them to record higher crime rates than women.
This proves that men have been displaying high crime rates because of the opportunities of committing fraud that are present in the workplace. However the female crime rate has been increasing and it has been linked to higher participation in the labor force. In 1960, for every thousand offenders, there were only three. By 2003, the number of women offenders per thousand of offenders had increased to 15. The rate of male crime in property offenses increased over the same period however the rate of increase has not been as high. At the same time the rate of women’s labor participation has increased steadily since 1960 while that of men has been showing a long steady decline (Engelhardt, Rocheteau & Rupert, 2007). These statistics explain the impact on the division of labor amongst men and women in society and its impact on the gender crime rates. With higher participation in the labor force, there have also been decreased fertility rates, increase in real wages and increase in educational attainment among women contributing to the higher female crime rates. As women gain higher education and skills, they become empowered and no longer engage in petty crimes like shop-lifting or mild threats. Rather there will be an increase in the rate of women’s property crimes such as embezzlement, forgery and fraud (Kevonne, 2000). Increased participation in the labor force also causes the women to engage less in violent crimes at home against their children and husbands.
The woman who does well in her career will feel more confident and empowered and will more likely engage in property crimes instead. Another contributing factor in the increase in female crime rates is the gender inequality in the workplace. As women increase in the workplace, they end up receiving poorer pay and working conditions than the men thus they get more involved in crime to be economically empowered. As more women enter the labor force, they become masculinized. They become like men and have male characteristics such as aggressiveness and hardheartedness. They therefore learn to use crime as a way to get success and power. In the future as more and more women join the workforce the rate of men and women crime rates will converge.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the way the men and women lead their daily lives influences the rates of crime in both the men and the women.
References
Engelhardt, B.,Rocheteau, G. & Rupert, P.(2007). The Labor Market and Female Crime. Web.
Kevonne, S. (2000) Female Crime in the United States, 1963-1998: An Update (Statistical Data Included). Web.
Insider Trading: Walt Disney Company Proprietary Information
In this particular case the accused, Yonni Sebbag, was able to obtain insider information pertaining to the quarterly earnings of Disney Land through his co-conspirator Bonnie Hoxie. He intended to sell the information to various hedge funds/ trading firms with the intent of facilitating the illegal act of insider trading. Overall the severity of the crime is rather minimal compared to other activities of white-collar crime such as the Ponzi scheme conducted by Bernard Madoff. In this particular case, the only possible ramification would have been the effect the insider trading scheme would have had on the future profit margins of Disney however in terms of affecting other companies or individuals the overall ramification is rather minimal. It must be noted though such a view is not isolated to my own personal opinion but is also reflected in the prison term of the Sebbag himself which consists of only 27 months in prison with 2 years of supervised release. All in all such a prison sentence can be considered rather light which is a reflection of what the courts perceived as a rather minor crime. The inherent problem though in such a case is that due to the light prison term it might encourage other individuals to pursue similar white-collar crimes since the perceived benefits greatly outweigh the costs which can be considered rather minimal.
Health Fraud Takedown
In summary, this article details the various cases of medical insurance fraud wherein various individuals to pose as legitimate medical health providers in an attempt to defraud Medicare out of millions of dollars in false claims. Overall the scheme itself does seem rather sophisticated since not only do the people involved have to know the proper procedures necessary to file false billing claims to Medicare but they also have to ensure that for all intents and purposes they appear as legitimate medical health providers, at least on paper. Such a scheme is not limited to people posing as medical health practitioners but can also involve the practitioners themselves since additional research into this particular article reveals that various medical clinics are themselves guilty of repetitively filing false claims in order to increase their rate of revenue. The inherent problem with such a scheme is that the U.S. is already suffering from problems involving its ability to provide affordable medical assistance to its citizens. As such, not only does this particular scheme affect Medicare but it also affects various individuals who are in need of medical assistance since these false claims directly affect the ability of the company to properly sustain its current method of operations.
Bribery Aimed at Controlling the Taxicab Industry of the District of Columbia
In this particular case the accused, Yitbarek Syume, pleaded guilty to charges involving his attempt to dominate the taxicab industry of the District of Columbia through $360,000 in bribes handed out to various public officials within the district. In this particular case while there is little impact to the general public in terms of lost revenue the crime is still considered severe since it involved various public officials who were supposed to uphold a certain measure of integrity regarding their positions. What must be understood though is that this is not an isolated case rather it is one where the public officials were actually caught. Various studies examining the degree of corruption in certain sectors of the government reveal that there is indeed corruption however the people responsible are rarely caught or prosecuted due to the power of their positions. As such this particular case should be made into an example wherein the prosecution should levy the heaviest possible punishment applicable to deter and prevent people in public office from committing similar crimes in the future.
Denial of Service Attacks on Websites
For this case, the accused, Bruce Raisley, was charged with committing several denials of service attacks on various websites as a result of malicious articles being distributed which portray him in a negative light. While it is understandable that Raisley would want to prevent such articles from being distributed further maligning his name the fact remains that he resorted to the use of an illegal activity that compromised nearly 100,000 computers around the world. The crime itself was definitely sophisticated since it involved the creation of a computer virus capable of penetrating 100,000 systems and using all those systems at once in order to commit denial of service attacks on various websites. The inherent problem with this case is that the main problem was not solved at all, while it may be true that Raisley was arrested and put into jail for a number of years the fact remains that a certain level of resentment does remain between Raisley and Von Erck. What the prosecutors and even the judge in this particular case failed to take note of is the potential for this particular type of resentment to escalate well into the future possibly leading to a case of violent crime. Based on this assumption not only has the judgment, in this case, avoiding the main issue but it has in effect created a greater impetus for Raisley to commit a violent crime against Von Erck in the future as revenge.
A New York Senator Embezzling Funds
The details of this particular case involved a New York State Senator, Pedro Espada Jr. and his son Pedro Gautier Espada, who collectively embezzled $500,000 from the not for profit Soundview Healthcare center which Espada Jr. had established in 1978. An examination of the case proceedings reveal that the funds embezzled from the clinic went into paying for the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by the father and son as well as other family members and friends who directly benefitted from their actions. It must be noted that due to its location in the Bronx, an area in New York known for having a large population of urban poor, the clinic was directly responsible for providing many within the area with an affordable means of healthcare. Not only that the Soundview center also happened to receive up to $1,000,000 in annual federally mandated aid in order to help sustain its operations. While there is no inherent sophistication to the crime it can be considered severe since not only did the Senator and his son embezzle funds from a clinic that was not for profit but in effect denied essential services to various members of the Bronx community since the money that was embezzled could have gone to providing better medical equipment or services that the community needed. While the 10 year imprisonment and the subsequent fine of $250,000 per conviction seems to be a fair punishment for the crime committed it must be questioned whether other similar incidences are happening with not for profit clinics that are also receiving federally mandated aid.
Ponzi Scheme Involving a Fake Grocery Business
The accused in this case, Nevin Shapiro, was convicted of creating a Ponzi scheme wherein he tricked investors through the use of his company, Capitol Investments USA Inc., into investing into a fraudulent wholesale grocery distribution business which was actually nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. The severity of the crime can be seen in the fact that nearly $880 million dollars was tricked out of 60 investors which may be lost forever. One insight I gained from this particular case is the fact that Shapiro was easily able to dupe supposedly intelligent investors into thinking that he had a whole sale grocery business when in fact he didn’t. While this particular fraud involved $880 million dollars in potentially lost assets it did however only affect 60 people. This is an indication that most if not all of those 60 were very wealthy investors who had invested into project based on the facts and figures Shapiro showed to them. This is an indication that a proper system needs to be put into place wherein corporations are properly investigated and listed by a third party or government mandated agency as being acceptable recipients of investments.
Based on past precedents such as the case of Bernard Madoff involving a similar type of Ponzi scheme albeit to a lesser degree it is possible that the prosecution in this particular case will implement a similar style of sentencing wherein Shapiro will probably receive a lifetime sentence for his actions. What must be understood is that unlike cases of street crime various types of white collar crime have distinct economic impacts since they affect the level of spending and amount of assets that enter into the public market. Such cases when they do occur are usually followed by periods of economic stagnation where people are reluctant to invest into anything in particular due to the possibility of fraud or loss of assets. As such in terms of the prosecution of this offense I would have to say that the harshest possible punishment be implemented in order to prevent future actions in the same category.
The Mafia is an informal and unofficial name given to a crime organization that has its roots in New York’s Lower East Side and other areas of the East Coast of the United States of America. The Mafia was established at time when America received wave after wave of Italian immigrants from Sicily. The criminal elements from Sicily saw an opportunity to develop in the USA, and they created their own version of the Mafia in America.
In the present time, the Mafia is active in New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, New England, Detroit, and Chicago. At the same time, it must be noted that smaller crime families and associates of the Mafia operate in places like Los Angeles, Texas, Florida and Las Vegas. It must be made clear that there have been at least 26 cities around the United States with Mafia families.
Crime Prevention and Prosecution
One of the best methods to defeat the mafia is through the use of law enforcement agencies as well as the Justice Department should also participate. This particular method requires active involvement of all the bodies meaning that law enforcement agencies must conduct active investigations and follow up on leads generated by their respective intelligence community.
Effective law enforcement requires not only active participation but also dedicated service from law enforcers to prosecutors. In other words, public servants like police officers, detectives, and public prosecutors must maintain a certain level of integrity so that the Mafia would not corrupt them. A tainted law enforcement agency and a corrupt justice department would result in too many legal loopholes so that it would be impossible to indict and punish the members of the American Mafia.
Effective law enforcement also requires the use of available resources and programs that could help bring down the Mafia. In terms of legislation, one of the most effective rulings was the RICO Act. The acronym stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law that was ratified in 1970. The RICO Act was designed to counter the growing influence of the Mafia. At the same time, the said statute made it illegal to belong to an organization that performed illegal acts.
The provision that made it illegal to belong to a crime family created a negative impact on the Mafia. Before the ratification of the RICO Act, the Mafia was able to circumvent the law by exploiting certain legal loopholes. For example, the law requires direct participation in a crime. Unless the person was in the scene of the crime and there was strong evidence to show that the said individual was the mastermind, then there is no case. In addition, serious criminal offenses required at least one witness to the crime.
The members of the Mafia and their bosses were aware of the limitations of the law enforcement framework that had been designed to capture and imprison criminals. It seems that the legal framework was built on the idea that it would be better to set free a person who was probably guilty, rather than to imprison someone who was innocent. In other words, the law focuses on the principle that states that an individual must only be punished if there is knowledge beyond a shadow of doubt that he committed that crime.
An overview of the Mafia’s organizational structure seems to suggest that the organization was created to make it extremely difficult to penetrate and dismantle the said group. Consider, for instance, the hierarchy of leaders and members. The associates are at the lowest rung. The associates are not members of the crime family, but they perform illegal acts on behalf of the family members.
The least important and yet powerful members of the crime family are the soldiers. They are comparable to rank-and-file employees in a company. But the major difference is that they can commit serious crimes like murder, assault, arson, and intimidation. The significance of the structure is rooted in the fact that there is a buffer layer that separates the soldiers and associates from the boss of the crime family.
In order to insulate the boss from prosecution, the flow of communication does not link the top leaders to their underlings. There are several capos or captains that separate the big boss from the person who commits the crime. For instance, if an associate burglarized a jewelry store and was apprehended, he would not be able to testify that the boss of a certain crime family was the one who authorized the heist. Even if it were indeed true and the top leader of a particular Mafia family was the one who had given the go signal for the robbery, the associate would never be able to prove that fact. The best that the associate can do is to reveal the identity of the one of the soldiers of the family who worked with the associate in executing the plan for the robbery.
In a bungled burglary or in the event of exceptional detective work, the perpetrators of the said crime are apprehended, tried, and convicted. But the only people expected to serve time are the associates and the soldiers. Even if law enforcement agencies are able to indict and incarcerate a soldier belonging to a crime family, the Mafia has already developed contingency plans in the event of a capture, interrogation or imprisonment. The Mafia developed the concept of “Omerta”, which simply means “silence” on the part of the soldier. In other words, the soldier makes an oath never betray his captain and his boss.
The importance of the RICO Act is seen in the fact that it attacks more a group rather than an individual. Therefore, the fact of membership and participation in the criminal activity of a crime family is considered a criminal act. There are various implications to this particular statute. First, the layer of protection that the Mafia created to protect the boss from direct connection to a particular crime would no longer be effective. The mere fact that the boss was a member of the group already means that he could be imprisoned for up to twenty years.
The second implication is that the associates who form part of the criminal structure are no longer prosecuted merely on the type of crime committed but on the more serious charge that he or she is a member of the Mafia. There is rather a greater impact when the U.S. Attorney General or the FBI tells a person that he or she is a suspected member of the Mafia than refer to the person as an ordinary suspect (Jacobs, Panarella, & Worthington, 1996).
The success of the RICO Act is a major proof that a dedicated law enforcement agency can weaken and immobilize a major crime family. However, there are those who fear the possible re-emergence of an invigorated American Mafia, especially after significant portions of government resources were diverted to deal with homeland security. There is, therefore, the need to intensify actions against the American Mafia or develop alternative solutions to prevent crimes in an area.
Alternative Solution
The strategy outlined in the previous discussion demonstrated the conventional way to fight against crime. In the conventional method, law enforcement agencies work in conjunction with the justice department to apprehend, convict and incarcerate members of the Mafia. But the said strategy is not pro-active. In other words, the main goal is to apprehend the criminal, not to prevent the crime.
It is necessary to be pointed out that crime prevention is more practical and more cost-efficient than investigation, litigation and incarceration are. In addition, it is expensive and time-consuming to deal with the aftermath of serious crimes like murder, damage to property, robbery, arson, assault and human trafficking. It is also expensive to build and maintain prison facilities.
There are two major ways to prevent crimes: 1) Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED), and 2) Crime Prevention through Social Development (CPSD). CPTED is the manipulation of the environment, such as enhancing the lighting facilities in a community to lessen dark areas where crimes could be committed. Another example of CPTED is the establishment of a community policing force wherein volunteers help watch homes and public areas at night (Arrington, 2007).
CPSD focuses on social development in order to deal with the social forces that could compel teenagers and individuals to join a crime family or become an associate of the Mafia. There must be access to public education as well as information dissemination with regard to the real nature of criminal organizations (Hoffman, Knox, & Cohen, 2011). Another related strategy is to help those who are prone to join crime families, and these are troubled youth, teenagers in foster care, and those who are from poor families.
Conclusions
It is imperative to strengthen the capabilities of law enforcement agencies to apprehend and convict members of crime families like the American Mafia. But limited resources and other limiting factors make it difficult for law enforcers to accomplish their jobs. It is, therefore, important to develop crime prevention strategies, such as CPTED and CPSD. By combing crime prevention to the task of crime deterrence, law enforcers would have a greater chance of dismantling the Mafia.
References
Arrington, R. (2007). Crime prevention: the law enforcement’s officer’s guide. UK: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Hoffman, J., Knox, L., & Cohen, R. (2011). Beyond suppression: global perspectives on youth violence. CA: ABC-CLIO.
Jacobs, J., Panarella, C., & Worthington, J. (1996). Busting the mob. New York: New York University Press.