Many types of crime exist.

Criminologists commonly group crimes into several major

Violent Crime
violent crime is all too real for too many people; it traps some people inside their
homes and makes others afraid to let their children play outside or even walk to
school. Rape and sexual assault are a common concern for many women and
leads them to be more fearful of being victimized than men:
Research on violent crime tends to focus on homicide and on rape and sexual
assault. Homicide, of course, is considered the most serious crime because it
involves the taking of a human life. Also, homicide data are considered more
accurate than those for other crimes because most homicides come to the
attention of the police and are more likely than other crimes to lead to an arrest.
For its part, the focus on rape and sexual assault reflects the contemporary
women’s movement’s interest in these related crimes beginning in the 1970s and
the corresponding interest of criminologists, both female and male, in the
criminal victimization of women.
Certain aspects of homicide are worth noting. First, although some homicides are
premeditated, most in fact are relatively spontaneous and the result of intense
emotions like anger, hatred, or jealousy . About 25–50 percent of all homicides
are victim-precipitated, meaning that the eventual victim is the one who starts
the argument or the first one to escalate it once it has begun.
Property Crime
As noted earlier, the major property crimes are burglary, larceny, motor vehicle
theft, and arson.
Much property crime can be understood in terms of the roles and social networks
of property criminals. In this regard, many scholars distinguish between amateur
theft and professional theft. Most property offenders are amateur offenders: They
are young and unskilled in the ways of crime, and the amount they gain from any
single theft is relatively small. They also do not plan their crimes and instead
commit them when they see an opportunity for quick illegal gain. In contrast,
professional property offenders tend to be older and quite skilled in the ways of
crime, and the amount they gain from any single theft is relatively large. Not
surprisingly, they often plan their crimes well in advance. The so-called cat
burglar, someone who scales tall buildings to steal jewels, expensive artwork, or
large sums of money, is perhaps the prototypical example of the professional
property criminals. Many professional thieves learn how to do their crimes from
other professional thieves, and in this sense they are mentored by the latter just
as students are mentored by professors, and young workers by older workers.
White-Collar Crime
What exactly is white-collar crime? The most famous definition comes from Edwin
Sutherland (1949, p. 9), a sociologist who coined the term in the 1940s and
defined it as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social
status in the course of his occupation.” Sutherland examined the behavior of the
seventy largest US corporations and found that they had violated the law
hundreds of times among them. Several had engaged in crimes during either
World War I or II; they provided defective weapons and spoiled food to US troops
and even sold weapons to Germany and other nations the United States was
fighting.
Although white-collar crime as studied today includes auto shop repair fraud and
employee theft by cashiers, bookkeepers, and other employees of relatively low
status, most research follows Sutherland’s definition in focusing on crime
committed by people of “respectability and high social status.” Thus, much of the
study of white-collar crime today focuses on fraud by physicians, attorneys, and
other professionals and on illegal behavior by executives of corporations designed
to protect or improve corporate profits (corporate crime).
Organized Crime
Organized crime refers to criminal activity by groups or organizations whose
major purpose for existing is to commit such crime.
Organized crime flourished during the 1920s because it was all too ready and
willing to provide an illegal product, alcohol, that the public continued to demand
even after Prohibition began. Today, organized crime earns its considerable
money from products and services such as illegal drugs, prostitution,
pornography, loan sharking, and gambling.
Consensual Crime
Consensual crime (also called victimless crime) refers to behaviors in which people
engage voluntarily and willingly even though these behaviors violate the law.
Illegal drug use, is a major form of consensual crime; other forms include
prostitution, gambling, and pornography. People who use illegal drugs, who hire
themselves out as prostitutes or employ the services of a prostitute, who gamble
illegally, and who use pornography are all doing so because they want to. These
behaviors are not entirely victimless, as illegal drug users, for example, may harm
themselves and others, and that is why the term consensual crime is often
preferred over victimless crime. As just discussed, organized crime provides some
of the illegal products and services that compose consensual crime, but these
products and services certainly come from sources other than organized crime.
Critics of consensual crime laws say we are now in a new prohibition and that our
laws against illegal drugs, prostitution, and certain forms of gambling are causing
the same problems now that the ban on alcohol did during the 1920s and, more
generally, cause more harm than good. Proponents of these laws respond that
the laws are still necessary as an expression of society’s moral values and as a
means, however imperfect, of reducing involvement in harmful behaviors.
VOCABULARY
Aggravate- to make a bad situation worse
Assault- a violent attack
Larceny- /ˈlɑːr.sən.i/- stealing, especially (in the US) the crime of taking
something that does not belong to you, without illegally entering a building to
do so
Synonyms
Theft
Arson- /ˈɑːr.sən/- the crime of intentionally starting a fire in order to damage or
destroy something, especially a building:
loan shark- a person who charges very large amounts of money for lending
money to someone
Consensual- /ˌkɒnˈsen.sju.əl/ with the willing agreement of all the people involved
Proponent-/prəˈpoʊ.nənt/-a person who speaks publicly in support of a
particular idea or plan of action