Download Victimization Theories - Washington State University

Homicide
Aggravated Assault
Robbery
Forcible rape
Property Crimes
Property Crime numbers show a similar overall trend over the 50 years. Again,
numbers peak in the early 90's at about 13 million incidents nationwide in the
US. Even though the trend is for a lowering of the number of Property Crimes
reported each year, the number is still the highest of all seen here.
Factors That Explain
the Decline in Crime
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Causation is a relationship that holds
between events, objects, variables, or states
of affairs
It is not possible to detect a cause empirically
We can rarely directly sense a cause
We merely induce their existence from our
experience of the association of two or more
events
Can we observe how a hard blow to the arm
causes a bruise?

Bruise occurs when underlying muscle fibers
and connective tissue are damaged without
breaking the skin.
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Causality is an interpretation of observables
Roosters crow early in the morning, they
cause the Sunrise
Ice Cream
Sales
Crime
Summer
Time
Ice Cream
Sales
Crime
Cavity
Vocabulary
size
Age
Cavity
Vocabulary
size
1) Increases in the Number of Police
 The number of police officers per capita,
which is tracked by the FBI and reported
annually in the Uniform Crime Reports,
increased by 50,000– 60,000 officers, or
roughly 14 percent, in the 1990s.
2) The Rising Prison Population
 The increase in prisoners can be attributed to
a number of factors, the most important of
which were the sharp rise in incarceration for
drug-related offenses, increased parole
revocation and longer sentences for those
convicted of crimes.
3) The Legalization of Abortion
 The underlying theory rests on two premises:
1) unwanted children are at risk for crime,
2) legalized abortion leads to a reduction in
the number of unwanted births.
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States with high abortion saw dramatic declines in
crime relative to the low-abortion states
The magnitude of the differences in the crime
decline between high- and low-abortion states was
over 25 percent for homicide, violent crime and
property crime.
For instance, homicide fell 25.9 percent in highabortion states between 1985 and 1997 compared
to an increase of 4.1 percent in low-abortion
states.
4) The aging population (baby boomers)
 The share of the elderly population increased
during the 1990s.
 The elderly have extremely low rates of both
offending and criminal victimization
5) The strong economy of the 1990s
 The annual unemployment rate fell from 6.8
in 1991 to 4.8 percent in 2001
 Gross domestic product (GDP) or the market
value of all final goods and services produced
in a country in a given period grew by almost
30 percent between 1991 and 2001.