CPA-AlmV1.tpgs 10/7/04 2:23 PM Page 1 Crime and Punishment in America AALLMMAANNAACC CPA-AlmV1.tpgs 10/7/04 2:23 PM Page 3 Crime and Punishment in America 11 AALLMMAANNAACC VVOOLLUUMMEE Richard C. Hanes and Sharon M. Hanes Sarah Hermsen,Project Editor 70223-FM-ALM-iv-xliv.qxd 10/13/04 6:46 AM Page iv Crime and Punishment in America: Almanac Richard C. Hanes and Sharon M. Hanes Project Editor Imaging and Multimedia Composition Sarah Hermsen Dean Dauphinais, Lezlie Light, Dan Evi Seoud Newell Rights Acquisitions and Manufacturing Management Product Design Rita Wimberley Ann Taylor Michelle Dimercurio ©2005 Thomson Gale, a part of The storage retrieval systems—without the Courtroom, fingerprints, and police car Thomson Corporation. written permission of the publisher. reproduced by permission of ©Corbis Images. 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ISBN 0-7876-9163-1 (set hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 0- 7876-9164-X (v. 1) — ISBN 0-7876-9165-8 (v. 2) 1. Criminal justice, Administration of—United States—History. 2. Crime—United States—History. 3. Punishment—United States—History. I. Hanes, Sharon M. II. Hermsen, Sarah. III. Title. IV. Series. HV9950.H39 2005 364.973’09—dc22 2004017067 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 70223-FM-ALM-iv-xliv.qxd 10/13/04 6:46 AM Page v Contents Reader’s Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Timeline of Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Words to Know . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii Research and Activity Ideas . . . . . . . . . xxxix Volume 1 Chapter 1: Colonial Period . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 2: The Early Years of American Law . . . . 21 Chapter 3: Modern Criminal Justice. . . . . . . . 39 Chapter 4: Violent Crime: Crime Against a Person. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Chapter 5: Crime Against Property . . . . . . . . 75 Chapter 6: White-Collar Crime . . . . . . . . . 92 Chapter 7: Organized Crime. . . . . . . . . . 111 Chapter 8: Public Order Crimes. . . . . . . . . 131 v 70223-FM-ALM-iv-xliv.qxd 10/13/04 6:46 AM Page vi Chapter 9: Environmental Crime . . . . . . . . 148 Chapter 10: Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Chapter 11: Cyber Crime . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Chapter 12: Causes of Crime. . . . . . . . . . 209 Volume 2 Chapter 13: Crime Victims . . . . . . . . . . 229 Chapter 14: Policing . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Chapter 15: Crime Laboratories. . . . . . . . . 264 Chapter 16: Criminal Courts. . . . . . . . . . 284 Chapter 17: Corrections . . . . . . . . . . . 304 Chapter 18: Military and Native American Criminal Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322 Chapter 19: Juvenile Justice . . . . . . . . . . 340 Chapter 20: Children’s Rights . . . . . . . . . 358 Chapter 21: School Violence. . . . . . . . . . 378 Chapter 22: Moral and Religious Influences . . . . 392 Chapter 23: Economic and Social Effects of Crime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409 Chapter 24: Race and Ethnicity. . . . . . . . . 419 Chapter 25: Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 Where to Learn More . . . . . . . . . . . . xlvii Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . liii vi Crime and Punishment in America: Almanac 70223-FM-ALM-iv-xliv.qxd 10/13/04 6:46 AM Page vii Reader’s Guide Crimes are forbidden acts considered harmful or danger- ous. They fall outside society’s rules of proper behavior. Some acts—such as murder, robbery, and rape—violate the be- havioral codes of almost every society. Other acts may be con- sidered crimes in one culture but not in another. In criminal law both society and the individual victim, when there is one, are considered harmed by crimes. Each crime threatens some aspect of society; for example, white-collar crime—business- related crimes such as fraud or embezzlement—threatens the economy, and the illegal dumping of waste threatens the qual- ity of the environment. For this reason, a victim’s approval is not necessary for the government to prosecute a crime and punish the offender. Over the past four centuries, crime and punishment in America have steadily changed as society has changed. Some types of behavior considered criminal in colonial times, such as idleness and heresy, have ceased to be treated as crimes, while other behaviors, such as computer hacking and toxic- waste dumping, have since been added to the list of prohib- ited acts. Technological advances have improved the abilities vii 70223-FM-ALM-iv-xliv.qxd 10/13/04 6:46 AM Page viii of criminals to commit crimes and avoid detection, but such advances have also aided law enforcement officials in their work. The rise of the automobile in the early twentieth cen- tury resulted in an increase in interstate crime and faster get- aways for the criminals, but with their new patrol cars police were able to respond more readily to calls for help. At the end of the twentieth century, advances in telecommunications in- troduced new methods of breaking the law but also gave law enforcement officials many new ways to catch criminals and expanded crime-fighting to an international stage. In a democratic society, the rules of behavior that main- tain social order come from citizens, not from a church or from a royal head of state such as a king. These rules are set through judicial decisions, legal history, and cultural tradi- tion. Rules are also established by legislatures, or law-making bodies, acting through democratic principles by passing laws of government based on the beliefs, opinions, and desires of the citizens. The rules and consequent punishments for vio- lations are organized in sets and written down. Those who break the codes of criminal law in the United States are sub- ject to the U.S. criminal justice system—arrest by law en- forcement authorities, court trial, and punishment. As English colonists established settlements in the New World beginning in the early seventeenth century, they brought English common law with them. This law included the well-known process of accusation, arrest, decision to pros- ecute or to dismiss, trial, judgment, and punishment. How- ever, in colonial America rigid social order had to be maintained for survival of the first settlements and the colonists had to modify the English legal system to accom- modate their unique situation in the New World. For exam- ple, there were often too few people residing in a given area for jury trials to be practical. In addition, many areas lacked a person with the proper law training to serve as a judge. Of- ten an officer of the colony or a respected member of the com- munity made legal decisions. Another difference between English courts and the developing American legal system in- volved the death penalty—the punishment of death to those convicted of serious crimes. American criminal courts applied the death penalty to fewer crimes than English courts. Colonists were also more respectful of individual civil liber- ties, believing the accused had a legal right to fairness. viii Crime and Punishment in America: Almanac 70223-FM-ALM-iv-xliv.qxd 10/13/04 6:46 AM Page ix With independence from England following the American Revolution (1775–83), a new American criminal justice system came into being. The common-law crime system gradually gave way to statutory criminal law. In contrast to common law, in statutory law acts are deemed criminal when the leg- islative body responds to a changing society’s needs and passes a law prohibiting some activity or behavior. During the nine- teenth century other basic changes in criminal justice arrived, such as professional policing and penitentiaries, or prisons. Although fairness in the criminal justice system is a trait traditionally valued by American citizens, it has not always been evident. Throughout much of American history politi- cal power was held by one segment of society—white Protes- tant males. As a result black Americans, immigrant minorities, women, and other segments of society felt the full weight of law for much of American history. For example in the early twentieth century women could be arrested for voting and blacks could be convicted and executed simply because they were accused of a crime, regardless of the evidence available. The march for equality before the law and fairness in crimi- nal justice procedures as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution made steady progress through the late twentieth century. The criminal justice system today is composed of many parts and numerous players. Legislatures, usually under pres- sure from society, make laws defining crime. Police and de- tectives apprehend offenders. Courts, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges determine the offenders’ guilt. Prison war- dens and guards, probation officers, and parole board mem- bers carry out the sentences. Criminal justice can be found in many varied settings, ranging from street community polic- ing on bicycles to high-tech forensic laboratories; from iso- lation cells in a maximum-security prison to the historic chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court. For an action to be considered a crime, not only does a loss or injury have to occur, but there must typically be a proven willful “intent” to commit the act. A harmful action that is an accident and did not occur from irresponsible be- havior is not usually considered a crime. Crimes defined in the codes of law are either felonies or misdemeanors. Felonies are major crimes resulting in prison sentences of longer than one year. For certain felonies, namely murder cases, and in Reader’s Guide ix 70223-FM-ALM-iv-xliv.qxd 10/13/04 6:46 AM Page x certain states, the punishment might be the death penalty, also known as capital punishment. Other felonies include rob- bery and rape. Misdemeanors are minor crimes punishable by fines or short periods of time, up to one year, in a local jail. Misdemeanors are sometimes called “petty” crimes, including such acts of petty theft as stealing a lawnmower from a shed or a compact disc player from a car. Academics search for reasons why social deviance grew during the twentieth century. Criminologists and other pro- fessionals attempted to find the causes of crime in the hope of finding a cure for crime. Even though crime can be highly predictable—despite a seeming randomness at times—progress has been slow in isolating the causes. Even less clear than the root cause of crime is the effect of the justice system on criminal activity. Crime seems to in- crease even as efforts to combat crime are intensified. Crime impacts millions of people, and the prevention, control, pros- ecution, rehabilitation, and punishment of criminals result in extraordinary expenses—not to mention the losses resulting from the crimes themselves. By the end of the twentieth cen- tury, operation of the criminal justice system at federal, state, and local levels cost $130 billion a year in addition to the $20 billion a year in losses to crime. On the other hand, indus- tries related to crime and punishment create thousands of jobs, and the various forms of crime-related entertainment bring in many millions of dollars. Features Crime and Punishment in America: Almanacpresents a com- prehensive overview of the development of the American jus- tice system. The two-volume set covers in twenty-five chapters various topics including violent crime, crimes against prop- erty, cyber crime, terrorism, environmental crime, organized crime, public order crime, school violence, and white-collar crime, from the first European settlements of the seventeenth century to the early twenty-first century. The Almanacalso de- scribes elements of the criminal justice system including courts, policing, forensic science, corrections, military justice, American Indian criminal justice systems, and juvenile jus- tice. Additional chapters address the influences of moral and religious values as well as the media on crime and punish- ment. Each chapter contains sidebars highlighting people and x Crime and Punishment in America: Almanac