The Mythology of Crime and Criminal Justice
Crime is defined as: commission of an act or act of omission that
violates the law and is punishable by the state. Crimes are considered
injurious to society and the community. As defined by law, a crime includes
both the act, or actus rea, and the intent to commit the act, or mens rea.
Criminal intent involves an intellectual apprehension of factual elements of the
act or acts commanded or enjoined by the law. It is usually inferred from the
apparently voluntary commission of an overt act. Criminal liability is relieved
in the case of insanity. Legal minors are also relieved of criminal liability,
as are persons subjected to coercion or duress to such a degree as to render the
commission of criminal acts involuntary. In most countries, crimes are defined
and punished pursuant to statutes. Punishments may include death, imprisonment,
exile, fines, forfeiture of property, removal from public office, and
disqualification from holding such office.
Unless the act of which a defendant is accused is expressly defined by
statute as a crime, no indictment or conviction for the commission of such an
act can be legally sustained. This provision is important in establishing the
difference between government by law and arbitrary or dictatorial government.
Under common law, a crime was generally classified as treason, felony,
or misdemeanor, but many offenses could not be defined exactly, and the rule was
adopted that any immoral act tending to the prejudice of the community was, per
se, a crime, and punishable by the courts. Crimes are now usually classified as
mala in se, which includes acts, such as murder, so offensive to morals as to be
obviously criminal; and mala prohibita, which are violations of specific
regulatory statutes, such as traffic violations, that ordinarily would not be
punishable in the absence of statutory enactments prohibiting the commission of
such acts. In most cases, crimes, including treason, that are mala in se are
called felonies and are punished more severely than those that are mala
prohibita, most of the latter falling into the category of misdemeanors.
Nearly everyone in America has been touched by crime in one way or
another. There are reports of murders, arson, robberies, etc. every night on
the news. However, the viewer is constant...
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...discussed petty
crimes. The media has made crime into a great moneymaking opportunity. By
viewing television shows like these, the viewer comes to believe that the only
crimes that exist are violent crimes. This is due to the fact that the media
spends so much time covering violent crimes here in the United States.
As you can see, there are many factors in deciphering crime today.
Different reports and different presentations by the media can lead the public
to believe that minorities commit crimes against the white majority, almost all
crimes committed today are violent, most crimes are committed by young, urban
black males, and the list goes on. The best way for people to understand crime
or a crime wave is through the use of statistics. Since most crime covered on
television, radio, or through other media sources focuses on violent crimes,
these statistics can be very confusing. As the authors point out in The
Mythology of Crime and Criminal Justice by Victor E. Kappeler, Mark Blumberg,
and Gary W. Potter, crime can be perceived in nearly every fashion.
Unfortunately, crime is reported in ways that are not always accurate solely to
influence the public.
The term ‘Actus Reus’ is Latin, and translates to ‘the guilty act’ , it refers to the thing that the offender did that wa...
Crime in this country is an everyday thing. Some people believe that crime is unnecessary. That people do it out of ignorance and that it really can be prevented. Honestly, since we live in a country where there is poverty, people living in the streets, or with people barely getting by, there will always be crime. Whether the crime is robbing food, money, or even hurting the people you love, your family. You will soon read about how being a criminal starts or even stops, where it begins, with whom it begins with and why crime seems to be the only way out sometimes for the poor.
The media plays a huge role in forming people's perceptions of crime. Without the media we would remain ignorant to occurrences outside our direct social groups. The media and especially news coverage therefore provides us with an important point of contact with the rest of society. In evaluating its effect on popular perceptions of crime it becomes important to consider where most of the information comes from and how representative it is on actual criminality. If it takes "facts" (the truth, the actual event, a real thing) or if it is heightened to a crime myth. With a myth being based upon "exaggeration" or heightening of "ordinary" events in life. Crime myths become a convenient mortar to fill gaps in knowledge and to provide answers to question social science either cannot answer or has failed to address. Myths tend to provide the necessary information for the construction of a "social reality of crime (Quinney, 1970)." As crime related issues are debated and re debated, shaped and reshaped in public forms, they become distorted into myth, as largely seen in the mass media.
This would be true by way of the fact that people are not reporting these crimes
“Crime myths are powerful constructions of reality because they speak to our personal values and beliefs and are steeped in rich symbolism, which reinforces those values and belief.” (Kappeler & Potter, 2004) Crime myths are created when a series of fictional events that are later altered so that they become social and political problems. The media plays a major role in the creation of crime myths they broadcast images and videos to go along with the crime myths, they also use social context that play on humans thought on the community seeing it as unsafe. Myths also contain some measure of economic conditions that then cause reactions by politicians to create new laws to prevent these myths from becoming major problems in the criminal justice system. (K&P, 2004) In order for a statement to be characterized as a crime myth, if the crimes instill fear and threaten the vast majority of society. (K&P,2004) Crime myths are made up of components that targets and identify of a distinct deviant population, they involve innocent and helpless victims, the emergence of brave and virtuous hearos ,comes as a threat to peoples established norms, values, or traditional lifestyles.
"Anybody living in the United States in the early 1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to the nightly news or a daily paper could be forgiven for having been scared out of his skin... The culprit was crime. It had been rising relentlessly - a graph plotting the crime rate in any American city over recent decades looked like a ski slope in profile... Death by gunfire, intentional and otherwise, had become commonplace, So too had carjacking and crack dealing, robbery, and rape. Violent crime was a gruesome and constant companion...
Criminology is defined as the scientific study of the nature, extent, management, causes, control, results, and prevention of criminal behavior, both on individual and social levels. Criminology is the study of how people act towards each other, and has in effect been studied in one way or another for thousands of years. It has only been compared to other things not very long ago, even though it has been recognized as a scientific control field of study in its own right
violent crimes do not involve guns as often as many people believe. According to the FBI
The definition of justice and the means by which it must be distributed differ depending on an individual’s background, culture, and own personal morals. As a country of many individualistic citizens, the United States has always tried its best to protect, but not coddle, its people in this area. Therefore, the criminal justice history of the United States is quite extensive and diverse; with each introduction of a new era, more modern technologies and ideals are incorporated into government, all with American citizens’ best interests in mind.
Actus reus refers to a criminal act that occurs or happens as a result of voluntary bodily movement (Dressler, 2015). In other words, it is a physical activity that harms an individual, or damage properties. Every physical activity such as murder to the destruction of public properties qualifies to be an actus reus. It consists of all the elements of a crime other than the state of mind of the offender. Apparently, it may consist of conduct, the state of affairs, result, or an omission.
To be criminally liable of any crime in the UK, a jury has to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant committed the Actus Reus and the Mens Rea. The Actus Reus is the physical element of the crime; it is Latin for ‘guilty act’. The defendant’s act must be voluntary, for criminal liability to be proven. The Mens Rea is Latin for guilty mind; it is the most difficult to prove of the two. To be pronounced guilty of a crime, the Mens Rea requires that the defendant planned, his or her actions before enacting them. There are two types of Mens Rea; direct intention and oblique intention. Direct intention ‘corresponds with everyday definition of intention, and applies where the accused actually wants the result that occurs, and sets out to achieve it’ (Elliot & Quinn, 2010: 59). Oblique intention is when the ‘accused did not desire a particular result but in acting he or she did realise that it might occur’ (Elliot & Quinn, 2010: 60). I will illustrate, by using relevant case law, the difference between direct intention and oblique intention.
“There is a widespread concern that the level and type of crime reported in the media present a distorted view of the real level of crime in the community” (Media portrayals of crime, 2000). If a crime is portrayed as ‘out of control’ or perceived as ‘dangerous’ to a community through the media, it could create social repercussions, such as isolation of consumers who believe that their community is in a high-crime or high-violence area. Statistics recorded from the Australian Institute of Criminology confirms property crime, such as break and enter, burglary, vehicle theft and shoplifting are continually being reported at a higher rate than violent crime (Media portrayals of crime, 2000). In 2013 alone, there were approximately 739,317 property offences in total (homicide incidents, 2017). Therefore, the increase in property offences in society was the highest recorded in 2013, compared to violent crimes that are decreasing in a total of 151,714 in the same reviewed period. In addition, this evidence shows that the majority of crime in our society is not of a violent nature.
Crime and criminalization can be ambiguous; crime is only crime until certain authorities deem the actions illegal. However, social inequalities can lead to increased crime rates, notions such as gender, age, race, and class influence crime and provide criminologist with the date to determine who is most likely to commit a crime and where.
The U.S. Department of Labor (2011) reported the national average of unemployment for 2008 was 5.8 percent. The rate dramatically increased in 2009 with an average of 9.3 percent and 9.6 percent for 2010. While unemployment rates have increased, the FBI’s preliminary reports for 2010 show that law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have reported a decrease of 6.2 percent in the number of violent crimes for the first 6 months of 2010 when compared to figures reported for the same time in 2009. The violent crime category includes rape, murder, robbery, and aggravated result. The number of property crimes also decreased 2.8 percent when compared to the same time last year. Property crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Arson decreased 14.6 percent when compared to the same time periods of 2009 (FBI, 2011).
A defence in criminal law arises when conditions exist to negate specific elements of the crime: the actus reus when actions are involuntary, the mens rea when the defendant is unaware of the significance of their conduct, or both. These defences will mitigate or eliminate liability from a criminal offence. Insanity, automatism and diminished responsibility are examples of said defences. They each share characteristics but can be distinguished in their scope and application.