Criminology is the scientific study of crime that attempts to explain why people commit crime. It is different from philosophical or legal reasoning because it uses scientific method and tests hypotheses. Theory is linked concepts by a series of statements to explain why an event or phenomenon occurs. Crimes are unacceptable acts defined within legal codes. The Legalistic approach, evil in itself is Mala in se, whereas Mala prohibita is evil because it is in the legal code defined to be against the law. Deviance is not against the law however, is considered immoral. Theoretical Paradigms examined by human behavior. Paradigms are either a distinctive theoretical model or perspective. The four major criminological paradigms are classical …show more content…
The UCR is the oldest of this kind, in effect since the 1930’s and widely used and produced by FBI, collected and submitted by police departments. The FBI defines crimes by two categories, Index and Non-index. Index Offenses include four violent crimes: Murder or non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. It also includes four property offenses, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny, and arson. One of the major problems with UCR reporting is Dark Figure of Crime. This is because much of the crime that is committed within the US is not reported to the police. A strength of UCR is the long, systematic way of measuring crime in US. The UCR weaknesses include crime counting and police department reporting. The National Crime Victimization Survey collects information from households once every 6 months for 3 years, it asks about victimization, crime is three times more likely than found in UCR and has a 90% completion rate. Strengths of NCVS include its collects the dark figure of crime and has a high completion rate. Weaknesses of NCVS are individuals unaccounted for: children (12 and younger) and homeless persons. Furthermore, does not include businesses, does not collect on homicide, the reliability of victim accounts. Self-reporting includes accounts of individuals reporting past criminal offending or