Crime

(these ideas drawn from Goode, 1994-2008 chapter 6. See the disclaimer)

Economic Crimes

(from Goode, 4-7th editions,1999- 2005)

We are:

We tend to display an overall ambivalence toward economic crimes

TYPES

Opportunistic/Occasional

Professional

WHY PREVALENT?--Problem of Community

Stats and WWW Sites

Department of Justice: www.usdoj.gov
Bureau of Justice Statistics: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs
F.B.I.: www.fbi.gov
C.I.A.: www.odci.gov/cia
National Institute of Justice: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/
Federal Bureau of Prisons: www.bop.gov

Crime in the USA: UCR (current and historical data)

Characteristics: Perpetrator and Victim

Reporting and Clearance: Overall 40% reported, 21% of total cleared

Severity: ranking by general public

  1. Use of violence
  2. Victim confrontation
  3. Presence of victim
  4. Consequences: attempted vs. completed
  5. Use of weapon
  6. Amount of money involved
  7. What perpetrator has to do

Robbery

2004 FBI STATISTICS

400,00 robberies (down from 2002, 550,000 in CVS)
2.1 million burglaries
7 million simple thefts or larceny

Of the 400,000 robberies that took place in 2004:
49% took place on the street or on a highway
12% occurred in a residence
24% were robberies of a "a commercial house" i.e. a bank, or convenience store
15% were "miscellaneous"
 

·   The Total Financial Take for Robbers in 2004= $525 million and The Arrest Rate was 26%  (stable)

BUT: If a typical robber steals only $1,308 per offense, and assuming his crime is reported half the time, and he is arrested only a quarter of the time his crime is reported, he will earn around $9,000 for each arrest.

The average robbery represents an extremely risky and unlucrative means of earning a decent income. It is appealing because it yields a fairly substantial amount of cash in a very short period of time.

RURAL v. URBAN
 

Most people are robbed by a Strangers - (Harlow 1987)- a victimization survey:

Robbery is not a completely homogeneous category. However, robbery tends to be a crime between strangers, in which the victim does not usually know the offender. As, a consequence, it is a crime vastly likely to take place in large cities rather than in small towns and rural areas.

Who is victimized by robbery? (2002)  

Who is the robber? According to the 2002 Uniform Crime Reports of all arrested robbers: Robbers are predominately Young, Black and Male.

BUT:  These statistics represent arrested robbers, not robbers in general. Those who are not caught will differ. They are older, wiser, more cautious, more professional, and more experienced.

National Crime Victimization Surveys

The portrait we received from the FBI’s figures on arrest and the characteristics as identified in victimization surveys, is that, relative to their numbers in the population, robbers tend to be young, Black, male, and typically urban.

Explanations of robbery which focus on the offender must make use of two factors: daring and poverty.

Daring

Poverty

So: The combination of a lower per capita income and a far more urban residence makes it almost predictable that ‘Blacks’ will have a higher rate of robbery than ‘Whites’.

ALSO: In addition, there is the factor of age; while only 30% of the white population is under the age of 20, 40% of the Black population is. this factor alone would tend to boost the robbery rate for African Americans.

Burglary

Shoplifting (try The Sociology of Shoplifting: Boosters and Snitches Today)

Employee Pilferage

Violence

While Collar Crime

URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/200/econcrim.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel rok@umsl.edu
References and Credits for this Page of Notes
Last Updated: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 2:22 PM