Crime and Violence 149 consequences of guns in the wrong hands, the NRA has become more vocal in their campaign that "guns don't kill people do.” The NRA promotes the idea that greater gun ownership in the right hands, of course) actually promotes safety. The NRA has experienced its largest jump in membership ever, and public opinion is swinging in their direction. Going Beyond Left and Right No one likes crime, except perhaps the crin nals themselves. Americans are con- cerned about crime and violence, regardless of political persuasion. However, what differs between conservatives and liberals is the opinion on the best ways to tackle crime and violence in the community. Conservatives are less likely to support gun control and see gun ownership as a potential solution to crime, while liberals are more likely to believe that access to guns is a cause of crime, particularly violent crime. While the political debate continues, there have been some efforts to decrease the number of available guns in high-risk communities—that is, places where there have been recent histories of high murder rates and deaths of bystanders. Congress and the Justice Department have cooperated in instituting a number of programs such as the Kansas City experiment that attempted to show a relationship between seizures of guns and reduced numbers of crimes committed with guns. A target police beat covering a neighborhood where homicides were twenty times above the national average was selected. Officers with special training in detecting people who were car- rying weapons patrolled the beat. On another beat, similar in demographic and crime characteristics, the police continued to use their traditional methods. After 29 weeks of operations, statistics revealed that gun crimes had dropped significantly on the beat with the special patrols. Drive-by shootings also decreased, as did homicides of all kinds. Programs like this one can appeal to both liberals and conservatives, if the price is right Summary • A crime is any act or omission of an act for which the state can apply sanctions. According to the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) there has been a steady decline in the number and the rate of violent and property crime in the United States. However, exact statistics are difficult because of ambiguity about whether certain acts are crimes, police discretion regarding what laws to ignore and which ones to enforce, and reporting accuracy. • Violent personal crimes include rape, assault, robbery, and various types of homicide—acts in which physical injury is inflicted or threatened. Occasional property crimes include vandalism, check forgery, shoplifting, and some kinds of automobile theft. White-collar crimes are those in which people break the law as part of their normal business activity. Corporate crimes are committed by a corporation or an individual working on behalf of an organization (rather than an individual working on his or her own behalf), usually for monetary gain. Organized crime is a term that includes many types of criminal organizations, from large global crime syndicates to smaller local organizations whose membership may be more transient. Public-order offenses include prostitution, gambling, use of illegal substances, drunkenness, vagrancy, disorderly conduct, and traffic violations. Hate crimes include traditional offenses such as murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity. Gender-based violence includes acts likely to result in physical, sexual, or psychological harm and suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. Early criminologists proposed that crime and violence had a biological basis in some people; however, most experts now argue that, although aggression is natural, violence is not. Men commit far more crime than do women, which may be explained by men's . 150 Chapter 5 greater level of aggression and the different ways that men and women are socialized. of how people drift toward criminal subcultures and become socialized for criminal careers. . • Conflict theory proposes that most crime is either a form of rebellion by members of disadvantaged groups or a form of illegal exploitation by those who are rich and powerful. The functionalist perspective holds that crime stems from the uncertainty about norms of proper conduct that accompanies rapid social change and social disorganization. The interactionist perspective tends to focus on the study • Efforts by the police, courts, and other agencies to control crime include (a) retribution and deterrence, (b) rehabilitating offenders, and (c) crime prevention. Support for gun control usually correlates closely with the nation's murder rate. However, with the recent media attention around mass shootings, the NRA has become more vocal in their campaign that "guns don't kill ... people do."
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