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CONVENTIONAL CRIME

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2012, Organized Crime, White-Collar Crime, Political Crime

Conventional crimes are those traditional, illegal behaviors that most people think of as crime. Most crime is conventional crime. Non-conventional crime, may be organized crime, white-collar crime, political crime, etc.

It has been argued that cybercrime is just a conventional crime committed with high-tech devices.

Weltanschauung of Crime: Revisited - Ugljesa Zvekic 
Conventional crime from an international perspective. This paper compares and attempts to integrate the results of the two largest international empirical sources of crime and criminal justice data (the United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems and the International Crime Victim Survey) with respect to world crime levels. These two sources provide different pictures of conventional crime from an international perspective. One of the main factors contributing to differences in crime levels based on these two international data sources relates to police reporting patterns. These are much higher in the industrialized world compared with other developmental regions. Differences are due to a number of factors related to the propensity to report to the police, including the degree of insurance coverage and the public confidence in police. Comparative analysis stimulates discussion on the relationships between development and crime, particularly in relation to the modernization theory. The results seriously challenge modernization theory, whose empirical base is composed exclusively of official criminal justice statistics. The International Crime Victim Survey empirical base, composed of citizens' direct experience with crime and reporting to the police, serously undermines the very foundations of the prevalent explanatory paradigm regarding development and crime relationships. - icj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/1/56

Race, conventional crime, and criminal justice - The declining importance of skin color 
Matt DeLisia and Bob Regolia, Department of Sociology University of Colorado Boulder,
Abstract: Blacks in the United States are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated in numbers disproportionate to their percentage of the population. One explanation is that racial discrimination against Blacks pervades the American system of criminal justice. This study examined the nature and extent of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system by evaluating five propositions using data from extant literature. Little evidence was found to support the allegation that the criminal justice system systematically discriminates against Blacks. - sciencedirect.com

Prisoner-on-prisoner violence: Victimization of young offenders in prison. Some German findings - Helmut Kury, University of Freiburg, Germany 
Ursula Smartt, Thames Valley University, London 
This article will discuss new findings relating to prisoner-on-prisoner violence from Germany. The juxtaposition of victim and victimizer, deeply embedded in the prisonization culture, will be given careful consideration. It will be argued that victimology has largely concentrated on 'conventional crime', which, in turn, has created and generated certain limitations regarding the concepts of 'good' and 'evil' and 'acceptable' and 'non-acceptable' victims. While there are a number of studies concentrating on prison violence per se, research of this kind has been limited in Germany, particularly studies that focus on young offender institutions. Previously under-researched fear of victimization among prisoners will also be discussed, supported by results from a study at the North German Young Offender Institution Hamlin (Jugendanstalt Hameln). This article will focus, inter alia, on non-consensual sexual assaults, which remains a taboo subject in prison managerial cultures. - crj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/4/411

Occupational crime, occupational deviance, and workplace crime: Sorting out the difference - David O Friedrichs, University of Scranton, USA 
The concept of occupational crime - as one of the principal forms of white collar crime - has been quite familiar and widely invoked since the publication of Clinard and Quinney's influential Criminal Behavior Systems: A Typology. More recently, however, the term occupational crime has been applied to activities quite removed from the original meaning of white collar crime, and it has been used interchangeably with such terms as occupational deviance and workplace crime. In the interest of greater conceptual clarity within the field of white collar crime the argument is made here for restricting the term 'occupational crime' to illegal and unethical activities committed for individual financial gain - or to avoid financial loss - in the context of a legitimate occupation. The term 'occupational deviance' is better reserved for deviation from occupational norms (e.g. drinking on the job; sexual harassment), and the term 'workplace crime' is better reserved for conventional forms of crime committed in the workplace (e.g. rape; assault). The conceptual conflation of fundamentally dissimilar activities hinders theoretical, empirical, and policy-related progress in the field of white collar crime studies. - crj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/3/243

Police Strikes and Conventional Crime - ERDWIN H. PFUHL, JR.
ABSTRACT: Employing FBI "Return A Record Card" data, this study examines the impact of municipal police strikes on reported rates of burglary, robbery, larceny, and auto theft in 11 U.S. cities. Relationships reflecting the view that police presence is essential for crime prevention and social order are examined for variation duration of police strike, city size, and offense category. Overall, analysis yields very limited support for the police presence argument, suggesting that strikes have neither a significant nor a systematic impact on rates of reported crime. Implications of findings for the formulation of police policy are discussed. - blackwell-synergy.com

Conventional Crime (From Criminology: A Canadian Perspective, 1987, Rick Linden, ed.) 
D J Koenig 
Hindelang and associates have developed a lifestyle/exposure theory to explain the correlates of crime against persons, and Cohen and Felson have extended the theory to property crimes. 
Abstract: According to this perspective, the probability of criminal victimization varies by time, space, and social setting and by the extent to which routine activities increase target suitability and reduce effective guardianship. The patterns and correlates of conventional crimes are consistent with this approach. Crimes against property tend to be committed disproportionately against those whose lifestyle leave their possessions least effectively guarded. Crimes against persons have some different correlates than do crimes against property, but most of these differences are consistent with the lifestyle/exposure theory. For typical crimes, victims (and offenders) are most likely to be young, male, and engage in evening activities away from home. Thus, their lifestyles place them in social settings with a higher risk of criminal victimization. Strategies for crime control consistent with this theory would include those to increase effective guardianship and reduce the availability of motivated offenders - ncjrs.gov/app/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=108172

THE VOICE OF VICTIMS OF CRIME: ESTIMATING THE
TRUE LEVEL OF CONVENTIONAL CRIME - by Anna Alvazzi del Frate
Abstract: Since its launch in 1989, the International Crime Victim Survey has attracted growing interest from the research community and policy makers. In addition to providing an alternative source of data on crime to complement official statistics, the Survey offers internationally standardized indicators for the perception and fear of crime. At the country level, the International Crime Victim Survey is used to monitor differences in crime and perceptions between countries and over time. By collecting social and demographic information on respondents, crime surveys also allow analysis of how both objective and subjective risks of crime vary for different groups within the population, in terms of age, gender, education, income levels and lifestyles. Data from recent sweeps of the Survey are presented in order to analyse global crime levels and trends.
Methodology
The Survey targets samples of households in which only one respondent, aged 16 or above, is selected. National samples include at least 2,000 respondents, who are generally interviewed using the computer-assisted telephone interview technique. In the countries where that method could not be used because of insufficient distribution of telephones, face-to-face interviews were conducted in the main cities, generally with samples of 1,000-1,500 respondents.
The questionnaire includes sections on 11 types of “conventional” crime, for which standard definitions are provided.
Questions on consumer fraud and corruption are included; those are also accompanied by standard definitions. The questionnaire is also used to gather data on whether crimes were reported to the police, the reasons for not reporting crimes, attitudes towards the police, the fear of crime and crime prevention measures.
Of the eleven “conventional” crimes, some are “household crimes”, that is, crimes that can be seen as affecting the household at large.
Respondents report on all the incidents involving household crimes that are known to them.
A first group of crimes deals with vehicles owned by the respondent or other members of his or her household: theft of car; theft from car; car vandalism; theft of bicycle; and theft of motorcycle.
A second group refers to breaking and entering burglary; and attempted burglary.
A third group of crimes refers to crimes experienced personally by the respondent: robbery; theft of personal property; assault or threat; and sexual incidents (women only). Finally, the questionnaire addresses two more types of crime that may have been experienced by the respondents: consumer fraud; and bribery or corruption. Regular meetings of survey coordinators from participating countries have helped to facilitate the translation of concepts and definitions into the various languages. The Voice of Victims of Crime: Estimating the True Level of Conventional Crime 131 Data analysis.
Each sweep of the Survey provides an enormous amount of information.
In-depth analysis of the database is one of the objectives of researchers across the world. The wealth of data produced can hardly be analysed between two consecutive sweeps of the Survey. Analysis of the Survey has been carried out mostly within comparable groups of countries, for example, national surveys in the “industrialized countries” city surveys in Central and Eastern Europe and the developing countries [2]. Analysis of the main comparative results concerning industrialized countries was published upon completion of the first, second, third and fourth international crime victim surveys [2-5]; results from developing countries and countries with economies in transition were made available in numerous publications [3-9]; and results from the International Crime Victim Survey 2000 were also widely published [10-13]. The present article will deal with some of the main findings of the Survey conducted in 2000.
For international comparisons across groups, only respondents located in urban areas with populaions of more than 100,000 are considered from national surveys.
The crime count The Survey provides an overall measure of victimization in the previous year through any of the 11 conventional crimes included in the questionnaire (which do not include consumer fraud and corruption). On average, approximately 28 per cent of respondents suffered at least one form of victimization over the twelve months preceding the interview. Overall victimization of around 27 per cent was observed in four out of six regions of the world (Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, North America and Australasia), while in Africa and Latin America much higher levels of victimization were observed (35 and 46 per cent respectively).

Conventional Crime, U.N. Report: Balkans Safer Than Thought
With detailed, comprehensive statistics, the report concludes that the Balkans, contrary to widespread opinion, does not have a problem with conventional crime: “South East Europe does not, in fact, suffer from high rates of crime, at least in terms of the range of offences commonly referred to as ‘conventional crime’: murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, theft, and the like. In fact, most of the region is safer than West Europe in this respect.” The report notes, “This key fact is often omitted from discussions on crime in the region.”

White Collar Crime Steals Thunder From Conventional Crime, Says Police Chief
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 (Bernama) -- White collar crime steals the thunder from conventional crime as it potentially affects the financial performance of commercial organisations in the country.
As such, issues related to financial crime, fraud and corruption were a major concern to the government, said Deputy Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar.
He said white collar crime or economic crime could take different forms, including bribery, cyber crime, asset misappropriation, cheque and credit card fraud, identity theft, insurance fraud, money laundering and counterfeiting.
"The other main contributing offences are criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and illegal money lending," he told reporters after opening a Seminar on Forensic Accounting and Financial Criminology at the Securities Commission here Tuesday.
Between January and August this year, Ismail said the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) estimated the loss from various economic crimes at RM546,114,099.
For the whole of last year, the loss was reported at RM1,988,959,883, while the previous year saw the loss as RM833,453,263.
He added, Pricewaterhouse Coopers Global Economic Crime Survey 2007 revealed that 48 per cent of Malaysian companies were subjected to economic crime during the past two years.
"In fact, this has doubled as compared to the 2005 survey and according to the same survey, fraud remains as one of the most problematic issues for businesses worldwide, no matter what a company's country of operation, industry sector or size," he said.
The deputy inspector-general of police said over the years, capitalists, corporate executives and even criminologists argued that white collar crime took a back seat to a strong national focus on more conventional crimes, specifically violent ones.
However, with changing times, Malaysians especially, were now much more aware of the seriousness of economic crime, he said.
"Those who are engaged in financial transaction are also at risk from banking, insurance and credit card fraud, as well as identity theft which is generally a precursor to the aforementioned cases of fraud.
"Demand for the expertise of forensic accountants these days are higher as there are now signs that economic crime is affecting other economic sectors such as manufacturing, tourism and property," added Ismail.
He said coalitions of private and public groups, and an international approach was needed to work together to combat financial and economic crime.
-- BERNAMA.com

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