CRIM 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Mens Rea, Actus Reus
22 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
A social science studying crime and related phenomenon, such as law making, criminal behavior, victimization, and punishment . Most ideas and concepts we now have about crime and criminals emerged over last 2 or 3 centuries. Crime is popular topic for newspapers, tv shows, books and movies. Little relationship btwn crim news and actual amount of crime. Media focus primarily on violent crimes, even though such crimes form only a small part of all criminal activity. Appears as though police solve more crimes and arrest more criminals than they do in reality. Deal with moral questions of good vs evil. Criminals appear in stories as insane, or dangerous psychopaths. Stories happen in short time span btwn newscasts or newspaper editions. Felson"s 10 fallacies about crime: the dramatic fallacy, media seek a. i. Strange/violent incidents to report/create dramas around: murder makes up less than 1% c. Seems that most murders are well-planned, grisly affairs, or they happen solely by random chance d.
