Crime
Sentencing First Time Offender
Victim of Personal Crime
Victims of Property Crimes
Abstract crime can be any action that by societies or personal standards may be an action of violating or breaking a law. By western standards or jurisprudence, for a crime to be committed there ususally has to be a combination of a some type of guilty action in addtion to a knowing guilty thinnking parttern by the perpetrator. This report focuses on a specific crime scenario and attempts to answer related questions. Our criminal justice system is both overwelmed and understaffed as crime continues to escalate.
This report is about a particular incident from the year 2003 that involved a 23-year-old white male named Michael Harris. Mr. Harris was arrested and charged with a theft that involved personal property. Allegedly, on December 5, 2003, Mr. Harris picked a lock and broke into a motor vehicle that belonged to Mrs. Elizabeth Porter who was at the time a 35-year-old woman. Mr. Harris was said to have had the intent to steal the car stereo as well has Mrs. Porter's purse which had money in it. During the break in, Mrs. Porter was inside of her own home on the property where the automobile was parked. However, Mr. Harris was apprehended by a police officer who was on routine neighborhood patrol after observing Mr. Harris' suspicious behavior. On the scene, Mr. Harris was subsequently searched and arrested when he was found to have in his possession the stereo and the purse. It was later discovered that this was Mr. Harris' first criminal offense. Later, Mr. Harris was tried and convicted and then sentenced to 6 months imprisonment for the offense.
Based on this scenario, a statistical analysis was conducted to try to understand the feelings by participants on the seriousness of this crime, the justification of the penalty, the satisfaction of the court ruling and how fair the penalty can be considered. By understanding the inherent statistical results, certain assumptions can be made regarding society, crime, ethical behavior and expectations.
Sentencing First Time Offender - Victim of Personal Crime
Victims of Property Crimes
Introduction
Crimes can be seen as offenses against society and they are therefore punished by the state. Crimes are often distinguished by the effect on the crime's victim. but, crimes can also be distinguished as degrees of offenses. So, crime can be against but not limited to:
The State itself
The rights of citizens public order and morality
The economy, industry or commerce
The environment
Crime in and of itself generally reflects the existing attitudes that are prevalent in an enforcing society. Therefore, this type of report and analysis may be used to monitor if and by how much society concurs with the enforcement of paricular punishments, crimes and/or criminally-based scenarios.
This report focused on survey questionaires that asked specific questions that pertained to the scenario that was introduced in the abstract regarding the theft of a stereo and purse, breaking and entering and other related crimial acts and offenses. But the surveys also aimed to answer questions that pertained to the legal enforcement of these crimes committed by a first itme offender. These questions or DV's served as the driving factors or hypothesis that needed to be answered and were therefore the foundation of these statistical experiments.
Hypotheses 1: How Serious is the offense?
Hypotheses 2: How much do you believe the offender deserved the penalty?
Hypotheses 3: How pleased are you with the penalty the offender received?
Hypotheses 4: Based on the crime, how fair do you believe the penalty is?
Methods and Materials
Through survey polls, this research attempted to discover the opinions of citizens as to how the sentencing process applied to them. The crime was not a violent crime and the offender was a white male with no prior convictions who was sentenced to imprisonment.
Tests of Between- Subjects Effects
Dependent Variable: How fair is the penalty?
Source
Type III Sum of Squares df
Mean Squares
Sig
Corrected Model
Intercept
Code
Error
Corrected Total
Multiple Comparisons
Dependent Variable: How fair is the penalty?
I) Version of scenario
J) version of scenario
Mean Diff
I-J)
Std. Error
Sig
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario D
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Univariate Analysis of Variance
Between-Subjects Factors
Version of scenario
Value Label
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario D
Tests of Between- Subjects Effects
Dependent Variable: How pleased are you with this penalty?
Source
Type III Sum of Squares df
Mean Squares
Sig
Corrected Model
Intercept
Code
Error
Corrected Total
Multiple Comparisons
Dependent Variable: How pleased are you with this penalty?
I) Version of scenario
J) version of scenario
Mean Diff
I-J)
Std. Error
Sig
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario D
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Univariate Analysis of Variance
Between-Subjects Factors
Version of scenario
Value Label
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario D
Post HOC Tests
Versions of Scenario
Multiple Comparisons
Dependent Variable: How serious is this offense?
I) Version of scenario
J) version of scenario
Mean Diff
I-J)
Std. Error
Sig
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario D
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario...
Error
Sig
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario D
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Multiple Comparisons
Dependent Variable: How serious is this offense?
Based on observed Means
I) Version of scenario
J) version of scenario
Lower Bound
Upper Bound
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Scenario a Scenario C
Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario D
Scenario a Scenario D
Scenario B
Scenario D
Scenario C
Statistics
Gender
Ethnicity
Age
Version of scenario
Are you a student
Have you been victimized?
Valid
Missing
Mean
Std Dev.
Age
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid 12
Missing
Statistics
Are you employed
What Type of Crime?
Valid
Missing
Mean
Std Dev.
Ethnicity
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid white black
Asian
Hispanic
Native
American
Gender
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid male female
Version of Scenario
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Scenario a Scenario B
Scenario C
Scenario D
Are you a student?
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid NO
Have you been victimized?
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid NO
Are You Employed
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid NO
What Type of Crime
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid not a victim of crime
Property crime
Personal crime
Results section
The results of the indicate that Discussion section
This survey of 320 individuals was conducted as part of an overall experiment to try to understand sentencing from four different perspectives. The objective was to understand the correlation between types of crimes such as personal and property acts with frequency of the culprit. Historically, first time offenders have been at the margins of the criminal justice system especially when no violent crime has been committed. Theories regarding criminal behavior coupled with studies of arrest, pre-trial, prosecution, and sentencing outcomes, have tended to focus on patterns of criminality by repeat offenders - consider the concept of three strikes.
This type of study does not reflect a lack of interest in first time offenders, but instead that repeat criminal offenders seem to pose a greater threat to society. In other words, there is a preoccupation with repeat offenders and the first time offenders seem to get less severe penalties. As crime levels continue to rise although the media tends to report the opposite, citizens seem more dedicated to getting even first time offenders off of the streets.
References
Carlsmith, Kevin J., Darley, John M., & Robinson, Paul H. (2002). Why Do We Punish? Deterrence and Just Deserts as Motives for Punishment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 83 No. 2, 284-299.
Curry, Theodore R., Lee, Gang, & Rodriquez, S. Fernando (2004). Does Victim Gender Increase Sentencing Severity? Further Explorations of Gender Dynamics and Sentencing Outcomes. Crime & Delinquency, Vol. 50 No. 3, 319-343.
Saks, Michael J. (1989). Legal Policy Analysis and Evaluation. American Psychological Association, Vol. 44 No. 8, 1110-1117.
Sanders, Trevor, & Roberts, Julian V. (2000). Public Attitudes Toward Conditional Sentencing: Results of a National Survey. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, Vol. 32 No. 4, 199-207.
Shaffer, David R., Plummer, Diane, & Hammock, Georgina (1986). Hath He Suffered Enough? Effects of Jury Dogmatism, Defendant Similarity and Defendant's Pretrial Suffering on Juridic Decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 50 No. 5, 1059-1067.
Task Force on the Victims of Crime and Violence (1985). Executive Summary: The Final Report of the APA Task Force on the Victims of Crime and Violence. American Psycholgist, Veol. 40 No. 1, 107-112.
Crime
