II Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся

Старт в науке

CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

• Авторы
• Руководители
• Файлы работы
• Наградные документы

Гайсина Д.А. 1

---

1

Мельникова В.И. 1

---

1

Работа в формате PDF

1 MB

Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя II степени

Диплом школьникаСвидетельство руководителя

Introduction

Many Americans are already painfully aware that violent crime is experiencing a massive upsurge in the United States. As the U.S. economy has tanked and as unemployment has skyrocketed, many Americans have found themselves becoming increasingly desperate. Hard economic times usually lead to an increase in crime, but what is happening across the U.S. now is absolutely stunning. In economically-troubled areas such as Detroit crime statistics are climbing into the stratosphere. In fact, there are many communities in the United States where it is simply not safe to go out at night anymore. Millions of Americans find themselves prisoners in their own homes as they lock themselves in their houses in an attempt to keep the crime out. The truth is that it is really hard to live the American Dream when there is a raging crime wave going on right outside your door. The truly frightening thing is that crime is almost certainly going to get even worse as economic conditions continue to deteriorate.

In America, the crime clock continues to click: one murder every 22 minutes, one rape every 5 minutes, one robbery every 49 seconds, and one burglary every 10 seconds. And the cost of crime continues to mount: $78 billion for the criminal justice system, $64 billion for private protection, $202 billion in loss of life and work, $120 billion in crimes against business, $60 billion in stolen goods and fraud, $40 billion from drug abuse, and $110 billion from drunk driving. When you add up all the costs, crime costs Americans a stunning $675 billion each year.

1.  
   1. The Crime Rate Is Increasing

The recent string of heinous crimes does not represent a sudden wave of crime in America. Violent crime actually has been steadily increasing since the 1960s (though violent crime rates did dip for a time during the early 1980s). But in addition to the steady increase of crime has been the changing nature of these crimes. For example, there has been a pronounced increase in the prevalence of stranger-on-stranger robberies and drive-by shootings. According to a government survey that was just released, violent crime in the United States increased by 15 percent last year, and property crime was up by 12 percent. If violent crime keeps increasing at this rate, it will approximately double in just six years.

The F.B.I.'s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data(see application № 1), particularly the Crime Index (homicide, robbery, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, auto theft) document the robustness of the age effect on crime and also reveal a long-term trend toward younger age-crime distributions in more modern times. Today, the peak is younger than twenty-five for all crimes reported in the F.B.I.'s UCR program except gambling, and rates begin to decline in the teenage years for more than half of the UCR crimes. In fact, even the median age (50 percent of all arrests occurring among younger persons) is younger than thirty for most crimes.A variety of social and cognitive factors can help explain the rapid rise in age-specific rates of offending around mid-adolescence. Teenagers generally lack strong bonds to conventional adult institutions, such as work and family. At the same time, teens are faced with strong potential rewards for offending: money, status, power, identity claims, strong sensate experiences, natural adrenaline highs or highs from illegal substances, and respect from similar peers. At the same time, they possess the physical prowess required to commit crimes. Finally, a certain amount of misbehavior is often seen as natural to youth and seen as simply a stage of growing up.

1.3 A Majority of the Crimes Are Committed by Habitual Criminals

Habitual criminal – someone who is repeatedly arrested for criminal behavior (especially for the same criminal behavior)

Being classified as a habitual offender can result in severe legal consequences, including:

• Highercriminalfines

• Longer jail or prison sentences (often times much longer than the normal maximum limit for the crime)

• Loss of various rights and privileges, such as the right to own a firearm or the loss of driving licenses

• Negative impacts on the defendant’s child custody privileges

In an attempt to protect society from such criminals, penal systems throughout the world provide for lengthier terms of imprisonment for them than for first-time offenders. In the 1990s habitual-offender laws became harsher, and in extreme cases some offenders were detained permanently.

Also, many habitual offenders repeat their crimes because they involve some element of addiction. For example, addiction may be an element in some crimes, especially drug and alcohol-related crimes. In such cases, the defendant may also be required to complete mandatory substance abuse courses and/or psychological counseling.

Consider these statistics compiled by professor Morgan Reynolds(Texas A&M University)(see application № 2) concerning burglary:

• 500,000 burglariestakeplaceeachmonth

• 250,000 of these are reported to the police

• 35,000 arrestsaremade

• 30,450 prosecutionstakeplace

• 24,060 areconvicted

• 6,010 are sent to prison; the rest paroled

Of the 500,0000 burglaries, only 6,000 burglars went to jail! And if this 1 percent effectiveness ratio isn't disturbing enough, professor Reynolds found that the average time served was only 13 months.

Larceny-theft hits the top of the crime list, far outweighing any other crime. This termsmean taking the property of someone else without their permission, and with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property taken. The numbers of larceny-theft in US are staggering – more than 7 million reported each year, making up almost sixty percent of all reported crimes.

Nowadays shoplifting is gaining popularity at railway speed. "Shoplifting" generally refers to the theft of merchandise from a store or place of business. Shoplifting offenses are fairly common, but that doesn't mean shoplifting crimes aren't taken seriously. Every state's penal code includes provisions that apply to shoplifting, and penalties can be harsh — especially when the dollar value of the merchandise is high, or the offender has a criminal record. In many states, shoplifting is charged and punished as a theft or larceny offense — usually as a petty theft or the state’s lowest-level theft offense if the value of the merchandise stolen falls below a certain threshold ($500, for example). Other states do differentiate between shoplifting and standard theft offenses for purposes of charging and sentencing, and may treat shoplifting less severely than other theft offenses.

How stores can fight shoplifting? Simply concealing merchandise, inside or outside the store, will often be enough. One must have the intent to take the item from the store, however, many states consider the act of concealing merchandise to be evidence of intent.In addition to hiding an item to avoid paying for it, shoplifting laws also make it illegal to take actions to avoid paying the full purchase price for an item. This can include altering price tags, manipulating merchandise, and putting goods into different containers or packaging to avoid paying all or part of the purchase price.

Kidnapping in the United States remains one of the most common crimes in the country.

Reports of missing persons have increased sixfold in the past 25 years, from roughly 150,000 in 1980 to about 900,000 this year. The increase was driven in part by the country's growing population. But the numbers also indicate that law enforcement treats the cases more seriously now, including those of marginalized citizens.

An astounding 2,300 Americans are reported missing every day, including both adults and children.

But only a tiny fraction of those are stereotypical abductions or kidnappings by a stranger.

For example, the federal government counted 840,279 missing persons cases in 2001. All but about 50,000 were juveniles, classified as anyone younger than 18.Slightly more than half—about 25,500—of the missing are men. About four out of 10 missing adults are white, three of 10 black and two of 10 Latino.

Only about 100 missing-child reports each year fit the profile of a stereotypical abduction by a stranger or vague acquaintance. Two-thirds of those victims are ages 12 to 17, and among those eight out of 10 are white females, according to a Justice Department study. Nearly 90 percent of the abductors are men, and they sexually assault their victims in half of the cases.

Crime Fighting is often seen as the main mission of law enforcement professionals. Professional Crime Fighting Science is often called Criminal Justice. Criminal Justice is looked at as a system. That system includes the police, courts and corrections. The police deal with crime, crime control, arrest and bookings. The courts deal with charging the defendants. The courts determine if the suspect has committed a misdemeanor, an ordinance violation, or a felony. It may file an information or an indictment. An arrest warrant may be issued by the court in order that the police may arrest a suspect. Corrections are responsible for people while they are in custody and in the community serving their sentence. Correction staff helps people become a law-abiding member of the community.

The statistics from professor Reynolds(see application № 4) illustrate the problem for burglary. Similar statistics exist for other major crimes including murder. Today 3.3 violent crimes are committed for every police officer. Twenty-five years ago, the ratio was exactly opposite. It is not surprising that we have an epidemic of crime in this country when the chances of being caught, prosecuted and convicted are so low. The average criminal has no reason to fear law enforcement. The obvious solution is to increase the deterrent through more police and swift and sure punishments.

The premise is simple: a criminal in prison cannot shoot your family. While the idea of incarceration is not new, some of the recent findings are. A 1992 publication by the Justice Department entitled, "The Case for More Incarceration" showed the following:

• That incarceration is cheaper than letting a criminal out on the streets.

• That although the crime rate is high, the rate of increase has been going down since we started putting more people in prison.

• That blacks and whites are treated equally and that the vast majority of law-abiding African-Americans would gain most from more incarceration of criminals because African-Americans are more likely to be victims of violent crime.

Putting criminals behind bars keeps them off the streets and is less expensive to society than letting them back out on the street.

The same publication by the Justice Department also found that much violent crime is committed by people who have already been in the criminal justice system. This included those who have been arrested, convicted, or imprisoned, or who are on probation or parole. The chronic offender has had 5 or more arrests by the age of 18 and has gotten away with dozens of other crimes.

Police departments that target "serious habitual offenders" and put them behind bars have found the number of violent crimes as well as property crimes drops significantly. Arresting, prosecuting, convicting, and incarcerating this small percentage of criminals will make communities safer.

Many politicians seem to think that crime can be fought through gun control rather than criminal control.

No matter where you come down on the issue of gun control, consider the following statistics. Only 1 percent of all guns purchased in America are ever used in the commission of a crime. And of those 1 percent, 5 out of 6 were obtained illegally. At its best, any gun control bill is only going to affect a very small portion of the criminal element.

Criminals who are not a physical threat to society should not be locked up with violent criminals but should be sentenced to projects that will pay back the community. Criminals should pay restitution to their victims and the community. Locking up violent criminals makes sense; locking up non-violent criminals does not. Alternative sentencing for non-violent offenders will reduce taxpayer cost and generate funds which can provide restitution for the crime committed.

There is one organization called «Community payback». Community Payback is essentially the replacement for Community Service, also more recently called Community Punishment. Courts are given the power to sentence offenders of certain crimes to undertake between 40 and 300 hours of Community Payback. This work is unpaid and demanding work that is aimed at giving something to local communities and forcing offenders to repay the community for the wrong they have done.

While doing the research on the Internet, I suddenly came up with an idea to ask my Russian schoolmates and teachers and my American friends about what they think about crime in America. 14 people in my school were asked (3 teachers, 10 students, 1 parent) also 14 people from America of different age were interrogated.I asked them what they think of organizers of crimes, by what motives they are guided, as far as they are protected from crime, who will be able to fight crime and what disturbs fight against crime. In Russia most of people think that organizers of crimes are the ordinary people driven to despair. People in America think the same. 7 out of 14 people in Russia think that criminals commit their crimes because of unbelief of that the problem can`t be solved in a peace way. And 7 people out of 14 in America decided that happens because of desire of lucre. If we consider feeling of safety, 5 people in Russia couldn't decide the answer, 4 persons think that they are mostly protected and nobody feels completely protected. Also 5 people in America were not able to determine the answer, 4 persons feel completely not protected and only 1 person thinks that he is absolutely safe. Who will be able to resist to crime in? The most common option among Russians is police. The same thing is in America. The largest number on both sides thinks that fight against crime is disturbed by corruption, second is the insufficient professionalism of responsible people. Relying on results of my poll(see application № 5) I want to tell that people from both countries don't consider that they are in perfect security. But in meanwhile among Americans there are more people who consider that crime rate in their country the very high.

The United States is regarded as one of the top industrialized and developed countries in the world. In terms of economics, technology and education, the U.S. also prides itself as one of the world leaders as it constantly sets the bar a notch higher.

According to some experts, the increasing crime rate in the U.S. can be linked to poverty and low economic growth. It can be noted that most of the incidences of crime are in high-poverty area such a Detroit, Camden and East St. Louis in Illinois.

As compared with other developed countries, the U.S. holds the record for the highest number of homicides by firearms with a total number of 9,960 deaths in 2010 alone. Switzerland on the other hand has 40, Canada with 173 and Sweden with only 18. This means that the government as well as the laws relating to gun ownership and control are ineffective and are poorly implemented.

Another obvious reason behind the looming crime problem in the United States is the culture of people and the notion of «too much freedom and democracy». Many Americans feel that their police and justice system are too tolerant and flexible. Thus, it creates a popular idea that people can easily get away with committing a crime.

Although the most common solution behind crime is to improve the economy and regulate gun ownership, it is first important to examine the main cause of crime as well as the behavior of the criminal.

In addition, it allows policy makers to create effective policies that will control, deter, and ultimately eliminate the prevalence of a crime.

I. Used literature

1. Baranovsky L.S., Kozokis D.D. Hello, America! Mn., 1995

2. ElainKirn. About the USA. USIA, 1989

3. Stevenson D.K. American life and Institutions. Stuttgart: Ernst KlettVerlag, 1987

4. ГалицинскийЮ.Б. “The United States of America” СтрановедениеСанкт-Петербург «Каро»

5. Ощепкова В.В. Учебное пособие по страноведению США. Новая школа, Москва, 1995

II. Internetresources

1. http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Russia/United-States/Crime

2. http://www.city-data.com/crime/

3. http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/

4. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-quigley/fourteen-examples-of-raci_b_658947.html

5. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/crime.html

6. http://law.jrank.org/pages/473/Age-Crime-Age-crime-patterns-U-S.html

7. https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-racial-discrimination

8.http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/americas_missing/2.html

9. http://www.freerangekids.com/crime-statistics/

№1

№2

№3

№4

№5