Criminal Behaviour

Lecture Topic 1

Week 1

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Aims

The aim of this lecture is to provide students with an overview of

the unit the different perspectives on crime the different methods for measuring

crime; and learning theory

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Overview of the Unit

Introduction CE6 Assessment

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Lecture Objectives

At the end of this lecture you should be able to:Identify the different methods which have

been used to measure crime in the community

Briefly describe the key elements of respondent conditioning, instrumental learning and social learning

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A cautionary note Crime is complex – unlikely to be one theory which

explains all crime. Even single theories can be very complex.

Most people want simple answers.

This unit focuses on the attributes of offenders. This is complex, sometimes contradictory and ambiguous.

Most of the data is based on persons found guilty of offences.

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Perspectives in Criminology Before commencing the unit you should

be aware that there are many different perspectives or views about crime and criminals. This is the subject matter of criminology.

We simply need to understand the conflict and consensus distinction.

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Perspectives in Criminology Consensus perspective is based on the

notion that there is some general community acceptance of the criminal law. That is, there is consensus in the community about the norms, values and rules which need to be uniformly accepted so that society can function (hence sometimes referred to as “functionalist”).

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Perspectives in Criminology Conflict view is that society is made up

of diverse groups with different perspectives. This conflict has two effects – it produces crime and the most powerful use the criminal law to protect their power.

In this course we take a consensus view and focus on those offences for which there is largely considerable consensus!

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Understanding crime statistics The major sources of crime statistics are

police reports. Crime statistics are regularly available

through the AIC and the ABS The problem with official statistics is that

not all offences are reported, recorded or result in determination of guilt

This naturally produces biases since not all offenders are caught and not all offences reported. This is especially problematic with respect to sex offenders and to a lesser degree, all forms of interpersonal violence

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Self Report Measures

One way of assessing criminal activity is to ask people. These suffer from over- and under-estimation. These surveys show three main points noted by Bartol: Almost everyone has broken the law The amount of hidden crimes is enormous Most of the offences are minor

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Self Report Measures An important question is whether official

reports are indicative of actual behaviour. The surveys show that more serious offenders are more likely to be adjudicated. That is, while there are limitations with official statistics these are not so severe as to make generalisations impossible. We can conclude that for serious offences, crime statistics are a good estimate of the actual level of crime. Therefore, focusing on attributes of high risk offenders also has some validity.

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Victimisation Surveys Another method of measuring crime is

through victimisation surveys. Victimisation surveys are regularly

conducted in many jurisdictions. In Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes these.

These figures show that not all crime is reported and not all reported crime is recorded.

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Unrecorded Crimes are not recorded because, for

example: Complaint is false, mistaken or withdrawn (ie

due to reporter) Incident is trivial or not likely to be cleared up or

perpetrator is a child (ie due to recorder) Ambiguities in offence categories (ie due to legal

definitions)

It is clear that there is considerable under-reporting of crime, most of it is trivial.

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Unreported Under-reporting of sex offences and violent

offences where the victim knows the offender is also a problem.

The reasons for not reporting have also been identified.

Overall, police figures/recorded crime figures show substantial increases in most crime over extended time (20 years), although this has levelled off in recent years in many jurisdictions (including Australia). It is probably not a reflection of the true increase in crime.

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Increasing crime rates

Possible explanations: Availability of new crimes: car theft, credit

card fraud, computer fraud Greater resources – more police, academics

etc Media attention – more media Less tolerance of private crime

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Increasing crime rates Urban design – street design, dormitory

suburbs More leisure time Urbanisation – increased opportunity, less

reliance on social problem resolutionMore litigious Police practices

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Increasing crime rates Criminal justice policies eg sexual assault Changes in definitions Creation of crime waves for political

purposes Pressure groups Reporting opportunities – more phones Insurance Police reactions to crime reporting (40% of

reported crime not recorded) – new accountability in policing

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Understanding crime statistics Need to distinguish between incidence and

prevalence

Prevalence refers to the number of offenders in a given area over a given time.

Incidence refers to the number of offences committed by offenders in a given area over a given time.

Crime rate refers to the number of offences in a given area over a given time.

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Understanding crime statistics Using example in Andrews & Bonta

Community A has 3,000 burglars per 100,000 who on average commit 2 burgs pa

Community B has 300 burglars per 100,000 who on average commit 20 burgs pa

Note each has a burglary rate of 6,000 pa but we cannot say that each of the communities has the same crime problem. That is, the aggregate cannot be used to make judgments at the level of the individual

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Understanding crime statistics Note that crime prevention would take

entirely different approaches in each community.

If you make a judgment about individual behaviour based on aggregated data then you may be prone to the Ecological Fallacy. If you do not understand the attributes of individual behaviour then you may be prone to the Ecological Fallacy.

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Learning occurs through three main processes:

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Classical Conditioning

Classical, respondent or Pavlovian conditioning

Naturally occurring stimulus (S) response (R) relationships (smell of food results in salivation).

The stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus US.

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Stimulus Response

A Dog

Unconditio

ned Stimulus

Classical Conditioning After many pairings the unconditioned

stimulus produces the response.S RUSAfter many pairings:US R

The strength of the US/R bond is determined mostly by the number of pairings.

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Instrumental or operant learning Antecedents can control behaviour as

well as reinforcement or punishment. This tends to be the basis of applied

behaviour analysis.

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Instrumental or operant learning The main components of behaviourism

are:functional analysis:

Stimulus control techniquesPositive and negative reinforcementExtinctionPunishment

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Vicarious learning or modelling Much of what we learning occurs

through observing others. This includes values and beliefs as well

as behaviours. This tends to be the basis of cognitive

behaviour therapy.

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All three learning approaches are applied to the treatment of anti-social behaviour. These approaches have been found to be the most effective.

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