Copyright © 2014 by David Kanner

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotation in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing 2014

ISBN 978-965-92387-1-2

David Kanner

POBox1830
Eilat, Israel, 88118

Preface

To be a profiler is to be a sad person. Most of the time…

A profiler gets very few surprises.

Why would you become one?!

Yet, if you have decided to be one, I'll do my best to guide you.

By know you have finished your bachelor studies and you got your M.Sc. in Legal Psychology or some other equivalent studies. And you think you are a profiler…Ha, Ha, Ha! Now that you have learn to crawl let me teach you to walk and run.

At the very beginning you must understand that being a profiler request you to master statistics, Statistics and STATISTICS.

First Chapter

I'll start with a brief recall:

Offender profiling, also known as criminal profiling is a behavioral and investigative tool   intended to help investigators to accurately profile and predict the characteristics of unknown offenders.  Geographic profiling is another method to profile an offender. 

Holmes and Holmes (2002) outline the three main goals of criminal profiling:

1. To provide law enforcement with a social and psychological assessment of the offender;      

2. To provide law enforcement with a "psychological evaluation of belongings found in the possession of the offender" (p. 10);

3. To give suggestions and strategies for the interviewing process.

According to Ainsworth (2001) there are four main approaches to offender profiling:

(1) The geographical approach in which the patterns are analyzed in regard to timing and location of the crime scene in order to determine where the offender lives and works;

(2) The investigative psychology approach focuses on the use of psychological theories of analysis to determine the characteristics of the offender by looking at the presented offending behavior and style of offense;

(3) The typological approach looks at the specific characteristics of the crime scene to then categorize the offender according to the various ‘typical’ characteristics;

(4) The clinical approach in which the understanding of psychiatry and clinical psychology is used to determine whether the offender is suffering from mental illness of various psychological abnormalities.

When generating a profile one should use those 5 steps:

1. A thorough analysis of the nature of the criminal act is made and it is then compared to the types of people who have committed similar crimes in the past – (As mentioned before, Statistics);

2.   An in depth analysis of the actual crime scene is made;

3. The victim’s background and activities are analyzed to look for possible motives and connections;

4.  The possible factors for the motivation of the crime are analyzed;

5. The description of the possible offender is developed, founded on the detected characteristics, which can be compared to with previous cases – again Statistics…

Several aspects of the criminal's personality are determined from offender's choices before, during and after the crime.  This information is combined with other relevant details and physical evidence and then compared with the characteristics of known personality types and mental abnormalities in order to develop a practical working description of the offender. Offender profiling is as a method of identification which seeks to identify a person's mental, emotional and personality characteristics as manifested in things done or left at the crime scene, based on past experience.

One type of criminal profiling is referred to as linkage analysis. Gerard N. Labuschagne (2006) defines linkage analysis as "a form of behavioral analysis that is used to determine the possibility of a series of crimes as having been committed by one offender."  Gathering many aspects of the offender’s crime pattern such as Modus Operandi, ritual or fantasy-based behaviors exhibited and the signature of the offender, help to establish a basis for a linkage analysis. An offender’s modus operandi is his/her habits or tendencies during performing the crime. An offender’s signature is the unique similarities in each of his/her crime and it may not be directly connected to the crime. Linkage analysis is used especially when physical evidence, such as DNA, cannot be collected.   In gathering and incorporating these aspects of the offender’s crime pattern, investigators must engage in five assessment procedures: (1) obtaining data from multiple sources; (2) reviewing the data and identifying significant features of each crime across the series; (3) classifying the significant features as either MO and/or ritualistic; (4) comparing the combination of MO and ritual/fantasy-based features across the series to determine if a signature exists; (5) compiling a written report highlighting the findings.

According to Brent E. Turvey, linking analysis refers to the process of determining whether or not there are discrete connections between two or more previously unrelated cases through crime scene analysis.  It involves establishing and comparing the physical evidence, Victimology, crime scene characteristics, Modus Operandi, organized or disorganized typologies and signature behaviors between each of the cases under review. It has two purposes:

To assist law enforcement with the application of its finite resources by helping to establish where to apply investigative efforts

To assist the court in determining whether or not there is sufficient behavioral evidence to suggest a common scheme or plan in order to address forensic issues, such as whether similar crimes may be tried together or whether other crimes may be brought in as evidence.

With respect to behavioral evidence, case linkage efforts have most typically hinged on three concepts:

MO, modus operandi

Signature

Victimology

According to Gregg O. McCrary behavior reflects personality. In a homicide case profilers try to collect the personality of the offender through questions about his or her behavior at four phases:

Antecedent: What fantasy or plan, or both, did the offender have in place before the act? What triggered the offender to act some days and not others?

Method and manner: What type of victim or victims did the offender select? What was the method and manner of murder: shooting, stabbing, strangulation, poison or something else?

Body disposal: Did the murder and body disposal take place all at one scene or multiple scenes?

Post-offense behavior: Is the offender trying to inject himself into the investigation by reacting to media reports or contacting investigators?

A sexual crime is analyzed in much the same way because murder is sometimes a sexual crime. With a little advantage - in addition to the four points, we'll get information from the living victim.

How Does Criminal Profiling Work?

Criminal profiling works on the principle that each and every criminal, regardless of the level or severity of their crime, will work to a certain set of values. These values are as individual as one's own handwritten signature and once identified can be used to help law enforcement make a positive identification. Profiling also takes in victimology.

What is victimology?

Victimology is the study of the victims in a number of crimes perpetrated by the same criminal. The idea of victimology is to identify similarities between each of the victims of a particular crime so that the profiler may be able to identify a definite pattern in the criminal's approach to his/her crimes. Victimology looks at age, lifestyle, similarities in hair color and eye color, whether the victims have met or worked together in the past or if they share a common interest. All of this information can be used to help the profiler build up an accurate picture of the offender.

The Homicidal Triad

Profilers are also interested in what is referred to as the Homicidal Triad; three defining factors that may have bearing on an offender's adulthood from events that have taken place in their childhood. This triad normally takes the form of: Bed Wetting, Animal Cruelty and An Interest in Starting Fires. This triad of events which does often occur in a criminal's childhood - especially if their crime is murder - is indicative of their desire to be in control and to experience an emotional or sexual release as the result of inflicting pain on others. Their desire to test this on animals before moving on to human beings is also well documented. Most arsonists have this triad of events in their childhood as well as an absent or abusive father, trouble with the opposite sex and chronic low self – esteem.

Predicting a Criminal's Next Move

Profiling is also used as a means of attempting to - and in most cases succeeding - predict the next move of a criminal who may be on what is commonly referred to as a 'spree'. Offenders who are engaged in crime sprees often devolve from a lucid state of mind into a pathological state of frenzied criminality which can often result in assault or even murder. A profiler will try - where possible with the evidence already in hand - to predict what the offender may attempt to do next and may also try to communicate with them via the media.  Profilers often spend a lot of their time working in conjunction with companies and large organizations offering psychological evaluations of their staff and this is most apparent among the variety of law enforcement agencies that are required to undergo evaluations on a regular basis. The most important element of any case against a suspected criminal is the forensic evidence. In the past much was made of eye witness accounts of a crime but now – as technology evolves – the eye witness is the evidence left at the scene of a crime by the perpetrator before he/she flees; here we look at how that evidence is used to build a case against the criminal that will pass jury muster.

Fingerprint Evidence

Fingerprints are unique to each and every one of us; they cannot be forged or copied and they cannot be altered to appear as someone else’s. Many criminals tend to wear gloves to disguise their fingerprints in an attempt to throw the law enforcement agencies off the scent as it were but a great number of crimes that are committed are ‘opportunistic’ meaning that they have been committed on a spur of the moment and that fingerprints are often found. Fingerprint evidence is not only important as a means of identifying a suspect but also as a means of proving the suspect’s presence at the scene of a crime especially if the scene of the crime is somewhere he or she may not have had any reason to be.

Hair and Fibers

Again hairs are something that is unique to each of us and the presence of our hair at the scene of a crime can be a great source of evidence. Our hair also contains strands of our DNA, the unique genetic code that identifies each of us individually and this DNA – just like fingerprints – is something that cannot be duplicated or forged so the presence of such can only seek to prove that the individual in question was present. Fibers also are useful as a means of identification especially if the offender has been wearing a particular kind of shirt, jumper, coat and so on which may have woven fibers or fabric that are unique to a particular brand or style.

Computer Evidence

Many crimes are now committed using computers, the Internet and computer technology – much of which creates its own set of logs and transcripts that are hidden away for only the most expert to find. Those who commit computer crime such as online banking fraud often find it difficult to dispose of their cyber trail even though for the most part they think that they have. Specialist computer experts – forensic computer technicians – can reconstitute wiped hard drives and reassemble erased files in order to build up a detailed picture of the suspect’s online activities. This is also useful if the suspect is considered to be involved in the production or distribution of child pornography.

DNA Evidence

DNA is a specific kind of evidence that cannot be altered, manipulated or forged in any way. Within each of us we have specific DNA that when collected from a crime scene and that tested against a sample taken from the individual later nearly always matches. This genetic fingerprint is now widely recognized as one of the most accurate ways in which to identify a suspect after he or she has fled the scene of a crime.

New Chapter

As you know by now you can and probably use your knowledge in your daily life as well. You know that out there are a bunch of different types. As I personally support the traits theory I'll start with them.

Let's see.

(Factor A): Warmth - The tendency to move toward others seeking closeness and connection because of genuine feelings of caring, sympathy, and concern (versus the tendency to be reserved and detached and thus be independent and unemotional).

(Factor F): Liveliness - The tendency to be high-energy, fun-loving, and carefree, and to spontaneously move towards others in an animated, stimulating manner. (Versus the tendency to be more serious and self-restrained and to be cautious, unrushed and judicious).

(Factor H): Social Boldness -The tendency to seek social interaction in a confident, fearless manner, enjoying challenges, risks, and being the center of attention. (Versus the tendency to be shy and timid and to be more modest and risk-avoidant).

(Factor N): Forthrightness - The tendency to want to be known by others, to be open, forthright, and genuine in social situations and thus to be self-revealing and unguarded. (Versus the tendency to be more private and oneself-revealing and to be harder to get to know).

(Factor Q2): Affinitive - The tendency to seek companionship and enjoy belonging to and functioning in a group. (Versus the tendency to be more individualistic and self-reliant and to value their autonomy).

In a similar manner researchers found that four other primary traits consistently merged to define another global factor which they called Receptivity or Openness (versus Tough-Mindedness). This factor was made up of four primary traits that describe different kinds of openness to the world:

(Factor I): Sensitivity - Openness to sensitive feelings, emotions, intuition, and aesthetic dimensions.

(Factor M): Abstractedness - Openness to abstract, theoretical ideas, conceptual thinking, and imagination.

(Factor Q1): Openness-to-Change - Openness to free thinking, inquiry, exploration of new approaches, and innovative solutions.

(Factor A): Warmth - Openness to people and their feelings.

Another global factor, Self-Controlled (or conscientious) versus Unrestrained, resulted from the natural coming together of four primary factors that define the different ways that human beings manage to control their behavior:

(Factor G): Rule-Consciousness - involves adopting and conscientiously following society's accepted standards of behavior

(Factor Q3): Perfectionism - describes a tendency to be self-disciplined, organized, thorough, attentive to detail, and goal-oriented

(Factor F): Seriousness - involves a tendency to be cautious, reflective, self-restrained, and deliberate in making decisions; and

(Factor M): Groundedness - involves a tendency to stay focused on concrete, pragmatic, realistic solutions.

As I already mention I'm a big fun of the Traits Theory and today the global traits of personality are commonly known as the Big Five. The Big Five traits are most important for getting an abstract, theoretical understanding of the big, overarching domains of personality, and in understanding how different traits of personality relate to each other and how different research findings relate to each other of actual daily behavior (Ashton, 1998; Goldberg, 1999; Mershon & Gorsuch, 1988; Paunonen & Ashton, 2001).

The Big Five factors are:  openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism:

(1) Openness to experience: (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious). Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, curiosity, and variety of experience. Openness reflects the degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity and a preference for novelty and variety a person has. It is also described as the extent to which a person is imaginative or independent, and depicts a personal preference for a variety of activities over a strict routine. Some disagreement remains about how to interpret the openness factor, which is sometimes called "intellect" rather than openness to experience.

(2) Conscientiousness: (efficient/organized vs. easy-going/careless).  A tendency to be organized and dependable, show self-discipline, act dutifully, aim for achievement and prefer planned rather than spontaneous behavior.

(3) Extraversion: (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved). Energy, positive emotions, assertiveness, sociability and the tendency to seek stimulation in the company of others and talkativeness.

(4) Agreeableness: (friendly/compassionate vs. analytical/detached). A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others. It is also a measure of one's trusting and helpful nature and whether a person is generally well tempered or not.

(5) Neuroticism: (sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident). The tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, and vulnerability. Neuroticism also refers to the degree of emotional stability and impulse control and is sometimes referred to by its low pole, "emotional stability".

Trait models have been criticized as being purely descriptive and offering little explanation of the underlying causes of personality. Eysenck's theory proposes biological mechanisms as driving traits and modern behavior genetics researchers have shown a clear genetic substrate to them. Another potential weakness of trait theories is that they may lead some people to accept oversimplified classifications or worse, offer advice based on a superficial analysis of personality. Finally, trait models often underestimate the effect of specific situations on people's behavior. Traits are considered to be statistical generalizations that do not always correspond to an individual's behavior.

The importance that genetic influences have on personality characteristics can change across a five-year period. Age differences create more variables even within a family, so the best comparisons are found using twins. Twins typically share a family environment called a shared environment because they may share other aspects like teachers, school, and friends. A non-shared environment means completely different environment for both subjects. "Biologically related children who are separated after birth and raised in different families live in non-shared environments." Identical twins separated at birth and raised in different families constitute the best cases for heredity and personality because similarities between the two are due only to genetic influences. Vulnerability was a factor in this study that was taken into consideration regarding the issue of genetic influences on vulnerability. The study concluded that the monozygotic co-twins would be more similar than dizygotic co-twins in change over time. The data concluded that there were no significant differences for either variance between the monozygotic and dizygotic co-twins. Another current open question is whether genetic influences are important for the likeliness of co-twins to change in the same way over a period of time. A link was found between the personality trait of neuroticism and a polymorphism called 5-HTTLPR in the serotonin transporter gene, but this association was not replicated in larger studies.  Other candidate gene studies have provided weak evidence that some personality traits are related to AVPR1A ("ruthlessness gene") and MAOA ("Warrior gene"). Genotypes or the genetic makeup of an organism, influence but don't fully decide the physical traits of a person. Those are also influenced by the environment and behaviors they are surrounded by. For example, a person's height is affected by genetics, but if they are malnourished growth will be stunted no matter what their genetic coding says. Environment is also not completely responsible for an outcome in personality. An example from Psychobiology of Personality by Marvin Zuckerman is alcoholism: Studies suggest that alcoholism is an inherited disease, but if a subject with a strong biological background of alcoholism in their family tree is never exposed to alcohol, they will not be so inclined regardless of their genome. It is also a question open to debate whether there are genetic influences on the tendency of the co-twins to change, without keeping in mind the direction of the change. Another factor that can be addressed is biological versus adoptive relatives and can be clearly seen in what is a real-life experiment: adoption. This creates two groups: genetic relatives (biological parents and siblings) and environmental relatives (adoptive parents and siblings). After studying hundreds of adoptive families, researchers discovered that people who grow up together, whether biologically related or not, do not much resemble one another in personality. In characteristics such as extroversion and agreeableness, adoptees are more like their biological parents than their adoptive parents. However, the minute shared-environment effects do not mean that adoptive parenting is ineffective. Even though genetics may limit the family environment's influence on personality, parents do influence their children's attitudes, values, faith, manners, and politics. In adoptive homes, child neglect and abuse and even divorce between the parents is uncommon. This noted it is not surprising, despite a somewhat greater risk of psychological disorder, that most adopted children excel, especially when they are adopted as infants. In fact, seven out of eight have reported feeling a strong connection with one or even both of their adoptive parents.

Type theories

Personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of people. Personality types are distinguished from personality traits, which come in different degrees. For example, according to type theories, there are two types of people, introverts and extroverts. According to trait theories, introversion and extroversion are part of a continuous dimension with many people in the middle. The idea of psychological types originated in the theoretical work of Carl Jung,  specifically in his 1921 book "Psychological Types" and William Marston work. Building on the writings and observations of Jung during World War II, Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother, Katharine C. Briggs, delineated personality types by constructing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.  This model was later used by David Keirsey with a different understanding from Jung, Briggs and Myers.  In the former Soviet Union, Lithuanian Aušra Augustinavičiūtė independently derived a model of personality type from Jung's called Socionics. The model is an older and more theoretical approach to personality, accepting extroversion and introversion as basic psychological orientations in connection with two pairs of psychological functions:

Perceiving functions: sensing and intuition (trust in concrete, sensory-oriented facts vs. trust in abstract concepts and imagined possibilities)

Judging functions: thinking and feeling (basing decisions primarily on logic vs. considering the effect on people).

Briggs and Myers also added another personality dimension to their type indicator to measure whether a person prefers to use a judging or perceiving function when interacting with the external world. Therefore they included questions designed to indicate whether someone wishes to come to conclusions (judgment) or to keep options open (perception).

This personality typology has some aspects of a trait theory: it explains people's behavior in terms of opposite fixed characteristics. In these more traditional models, the sensing/intuition preference is considered the most basic, dividing people into "N" (intuitive) or "S" (sensing) personality types. An "N" is further assumed to be guided either by thinking or feeling and divided into the "NT" (scientist, engineer) or "NF" (author, humanitarian) temperament. An "S", in contrast, is assumed to be guided more by the judgment/perception axis and thus divided into the "SJ" (guardian, traditionalist) or "SP" (performer, artisan) temperament. These four are considered basic, with the other two factors in each case (including always extraversion/introversion) less important. Critics of this traditional view have observed that the types can be quite strongly stereotyped by professions (although neither Myers nor Keirsey engaged in such stereotyping in their type descriptions) and thus may arise more from the need to categorize people for purposes of guiding their career choice.  This among other objections led to the emergence of the five-factor view, which is less concerned with behavior under work conditions and more concerned with behavior in personal and emotional circumstances. It should be noted that the MBTI is not designed to measure the "work self", but rather what Myers and McCaulley called the "shoes-off self."  Some critics have argued for more or fewer dimensions while others have proposed entirely different theories often assuming different definitions of "personality".

Type A and Type B personality theory: During the 1950s, Meyer Friedman and his co-workers defined what they called Type A and Type B behavior patterns. They theorized that intense, hard-driving Type A personalities had a higher risk of coronary disease because they are "stress junkies." Type B people, on the other hand, tended to be relaxed, less competitive, and lower in risk. There was also a Type AB mixed profile.

John L. Holland's RIASEC vocational model, commonly referred to as the Holland Codes, stipulates that six personality types lead people to choose their career paths. In this circumflex model, the six types are represented as a hexagon, with adjacent types more closely related than those more distant. The model is widely used in vocational counseling.

Eduard Spranger's personality-model, consisting of six (or, by some revisions, 6 +1) basic types of value attitudes, described in his book "Types of Men".

The Enneagram of Personality, a model of human personality which is principally used as a typology of nine interconnected personality types. It has been criticized as being subject to interpretation, making it difficult to test or validate scientifically. It is not commonly taught or researched in academic psychology.

Psychoanalytic theories

Psychoanalytic theories explain human behavior in terms of the interaction of various components of personality. Sigmund Freud was the founder of this school of thought. Freud drew on the physics of his day (thermodynamics) to coin the term psychodynamics. Based on the idea of converting heat into mechanical energy, he proposed psychic energy could be converted into behavior. Freud's theory places central importance on dynamic, unconscious psychological conflicts.   Freud divides human personality into three significant components: the id, ego, and super-ego. The id acts according to the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification of its needs regardless of external environment; the ego then must emerge in order to realistically meet the wishes and demands of the id in accordance with the outside world, adhering to the reality principle. Finally, the superego (conscience) inculcates moral judgment and societal rules upon the ego, thus forcing the demands of the id to be met not only realistically but morally. The superego is the last function of the personality to develop, and is the embodiment of parental/social ideals established during childhood. According to Freud, personality is based on the dynamic interactions of these three components. The channeling and release of sexual (libidal) and aggressive energies, which ensues from the "Eros" (sex; instinctual self-preservation) and "Thanatos" (death; instinctual self-annihilation) drives respectively, are major components of his theory.  It is important to note that Freud's broad understanding of sexuality included all kinds of pleasurable feelings experienced by the human body. Freud proposed five psychosexual stages of personality development. He believed adult personality is dependent upon early childhood experiences and largely determined by age five.  Fixations that develop during the infantile stage contribute to adult personality and behavior.

Alfred Adler did agree with Freud that early childhood experiences are important to development and believed birth order may influence personality development. Adler believed that the oldest child was the individual who would set high achievement goals in order to gain attention lost when the younger siblings were born. He believed the middle children were competitive and ambitious. He reasoned that this behavior was motivated by the idea of surpassing the firstborn's achievements. He added, however, that the middle children were often not as concerned about the glory attributed with their behavior. He also believed the youngest would be more dependent and sociable. Adler finished by surmising that an only child loves being the center of attention and matures quickly but in the end fails to become independent.

Heinz Kohut thought similarly to Freud's idea of transference. He used narcissism as a model of how people develop their sense of self. Narcissism is the exaggerated sense of oneself in which one is believed to exist in order to protect one's low self-esteem and sense of worthlessness. Kohut had a significant impact on the field by extending Freud's theory of narcissism and introducing what he called the 'self-object transferences' of mirroring and idealization. In other words, children need to idealize and emotionally "sink into" and identify with the idealized competence of admired figures such as parents or older siblings. They also need to have their self-worth mirrored by these people. These experiences allow them to thereby learn the self-soothing and other skills that are necessary for the development of a healthy sense of self.

Another important figure in the world of personality theory is Karen Horney. She is credited with the development of the "real self" and the "ideal self". She believes all people have these two views of their own self. The "real self" is how humans act with regard to personality, values, and morals; but the "ideal self" is a construct individuals implement in order to conform to social and personal norms.

Behaviorist theories

Behaviorists explain personality in terms of the effects external stimuli have on behavior. The approaches used to analyze the behavioral aspect of personality are known as behavioral theories or learning-conditioning theories. These approaches were a radical shift away from Freudian philosophy. One of the major tenets of this concentration of personality psychology is a strong emphasis on scientific thinking and experimentation. This school of thought was developed by B. F. Skinner who put forth a model which emphasized the mutual interaction of the person or "the organism" with its environment. Skinner believed children do bad things because the behavior obtains attention that serves as a reinforce. For example: a child cries because the child's crying in the past has led to attention. These are the response, and consequences. The response is the child crying, and the attention that child gets is the reinforcing consequence. According to this theory, people's behavior is formed by processes such as operant conditioning. Skinner put forward a "three term contingency model" which helped promote analysis of behavior based on the "Stimulus - Response - Consequence Model" in which the critical question is: "Under which circumstances or antecedent 'stimuli' does the organism engage in a particular behavior or 'response', which in turn produces a particular 'consequence'."

Richard Herrnstein extended this theory by accounting for attitudes and traits. An attitude develops as the response strength (the tendency to respond) in the presences of a group of stimuli become stable. Rather than describing conditional traits in non-behavioral language, response strength in a given situation accounts for the environmental portion. Herrstein also saw traits as having a large genetic or biological component as do most modern behaviorists.

Ivan Pavlov is another notable influence. He is well known for his classical conditioning experiments involving dogs. These physiological studies led him to discover the foundation of behaviorism as well as classical conditioning.

Social cognitive theories

In cognitive theory, behavior is explained as guided by cognitions (e.g. expectations) about the world, especially those about other people. Cognitive theories are theories of personality that emphasize cognitive processes, such as thinking and judging.

Albert Bandura, a social learning theorist suggested the forces of memory and emotions worked in conjunction with environmental influences. Bandura was known mostly for his "Bobo Doll experiment". During these experiments, Bandura videotaped a college student kicking and verbally abusing a bobo doll. He then showed this video to a class of kindergarten children who were getting ready to go out to play. When they entered the play room, they saw bobo dolls, and some hammers. The people observing these children at play saw a group of children beating the doll. He called this study and his findings observational learning, or modeling.

Early examples of approaches to cognitive style are listed by Baron (1982).  These include Witkin's (1965) work on field dependency, Gardner's (1953) discovering people had consistent preference for the number of categories they used to categorize heterogeneous objects, and Block and Petersen's (1955) work on confidence in line discrimination judgments. Baron relates early development of cognitive approaches of personality to ego psychology. More central to this field have been: Attribution style theory  dealing with different ways in which people explain events in their lives. This approach builds upon locus of control, but extends it by stating we also need to consider whether people attribute to stable causes or variable causes, and to global causes or specific causes.

Various scales have been developed to assess both attribution style and locus of control. Locus of control scales include those used by Rotter and later by Duttweiler, the Nowicki and Strickland (1973) Locus of Control Scale for Children and various locus of control scales specifically in the health domain, most famously that of Kenneth Wallston and his colleagues, The Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale.  Attribution style has been assessed by the Attribution Style Questionnaire,  the Expanded Attribution Style Questionnaire,  the Attributions Questionnaire,  the Real Events Attribution Style Questionnaire  and the Attribution Style Assessment Test.

Achievement style theory focuses upon identification of an individual's Locus of Control tendency, such as by Rotter's evaluations, and was found by Cassandra Bolyard Whyte to provide valuable information for improving academic performance of students.  Individuals with internal control tendencies are likely to persist to better academic performance levels, presenting an achievement personality, according to Cassandra B. Whyte

Recognition that the tendency to believe that hard work and persistence often results in attainment of life and academic goals has influenced formal educational and counseling efforts with students of various ages and in various settings since the 1970s research about achievement.  Counseling aimed toward encouraging individuals to design ambitious goals and work toward them, with recognition that there are external factors that may impact, often results in the incorporation of a more positive achievement style by students and employees, whatever the setting, to include higher education, workplace, or justice programming.

Walter Mischel (1999) has also defended a cognitive approach to personality. His work refers to "Cognitive Affective Units", and considers factors such as encoding of stimuli, affect, goal-setting, and self-regulatory beliefs. The term "Cognitive Affective Units" shows how his approach considers affect as well as cognition.

Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) is another cognitive personality theory. Developed by Seymour Epstein, CEST argues that humans operate by way of two independent information processing systems: experiential system and rational system. The experiential system is fast and emotion-driven. The rational system is slow and logic-driven. These two systems interact to determine our goals, thoughts, and behavior.

Personal construct psychology (PCP) is a theory of personality developed by the American psychologist George Kelly in the 1950s. Kelly's fundamental view of personality was that people are like naive scientists who see the world through a particular lens, based on their uniquely organized systems of construction, which they use to anticipate events. But because people are naive scientists, they sometimes employ systems for construing the world that are distorted by idiosyncratic experiences not applicable to their current social situation. A system of construction that chronically fails to characterize and/or predict events and is not appropriately revised to comprehend and predict one's changing social world, is considered to underlie psychopathology (or mental illness.)  From the theory, Kelly derived a psychotherapy approach and also a technique called The Repertory Grid Interview that helped his patients to uncover their own "constructs" with minimal intervention or interpretation by the therapist. The Repertory Grid was later adapted for various uses within organizations, including decision-making and interpretation of other people's world-views.

Humanistic theories

Humanistic psychology emphasizes that people have free will and that this plays an active role in determining how they behave. Accordingly, humanistic psychology focuses on subjective experiences of persons as opposed to forced, definitive factors that determine behavior. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were proponents of this view, which is based on the "phenomenal field" theory of Combs and Snygg (1949). Rogers and Maslow were among a group of psychologists that worked together for a decade to produce the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. This journal was primarily focused on viewing individuals as a whole, rather than focusing solely on separate traits and processes within the individual.

Robert W. White wrote the book "The Abnormal Personality" that became a standard text on abnormal psychology. He also investigated the human need to strive for positive goals like competence and influence, to counterbalance the emphasis of Freud on the pathological elements of personality development.

Maslow spent much of his time studying what he called "self-actualizing persons", those who are "fulfilling themselves and doing the best they are capable of doing". Maslow believes all who are interested in growth move towards self-actualizing (growth, happiness, satisfaction) views. Many of these people demonstrate a trend in dimensions of their personalities. Characteristics of self-actualizers according to Maslow include the four key dimensions:

Awareness - maintaining constant enjoyment and awe of life. These individuals often experienced a "peak experience". He defined a peak experience as an "intensification of any experience to the degree there is a loss or transcendence of self". A peak experience is one in which an individual perceives an expansion of themselves, and detects a unity and meaningfulness in life. Intense concentration on an activity one is involved in, such as running a marathon, may invoke a peak experience.

Reality and problem centered - having a tendency to be concerned with "problems" in surroundings.

Acceptance/Spontaneity - accepting surroundings and what cannot be changed.

Un-hostile sense of humor/democratic - do not take kindly to joking about others, which can be viewed as offensive. They have friends of all backgrounds and religions and hold very close friendships.

Maslow and Rogers emphasized a view of the person as an active, creative, experiencing human being who lives in the present and subjectively responds to current perceptions, relationships, and encounters. They disagree with the dark, pessimistic outlook of those in the Freudian psychoanalysis ranks, but rather view humanistic theories as positive and optimistic proposals which stress the tendency of the human personality toward growth and self-actualization. This progressing self will remain the center of its constantly changing world; worlds that will help mold the self but not necessarily confine it. Rather, the self has opportunity for maturation based on its encounters with this world. This understanding attempts to reduce the acceptance of hopeless redundancy. Humanistic therapy typically relies on the client for information of the past and its effect on the present, therefore the client dictates the type of guidance the therapist may initiate. This allows for an individualized approach to therapy. Rogers found patients differ in how they respond to other people. Rogers tried to model a particular approach to therapy- he stressed the reflective or empathetic response. This response type takes the client's viewpoint and reflects back their feeling and the context for it. An example of a reflective response would be, "It seems you are feeling anxious about your upcoming marriage". This response type seeks to clarify the therapist's understanding while also encouraging the client to think more deeply and seek to fully understand the feelings they have expressed.

Bio-psychological theories

Biology plays a very important role in the development of personality. The study of the biological level in personality psychology focuses primarily on identifying the role of genetic determinants and how they mold individual personalities.  Some of the earliest thinking about possible biological bases of personality grew out of the case of Phineas Gage. In an 1848 accident, a large iron rod was driven through Gage's head, and his personality apparently changed as a result, although descriptions  of these psychological changes are usually exaggerated. 

Genetic basis of personality

Ever since the Human Genome Project allowed for a much more in depth understanding of genetics, there has been an ongoing controversy involving heritability, personality traits, and environmental vs. genetic influence on personality. The human genome is known to play a role in the development of personality. Previously, genetic personality studies focused on specific genes correlating to specific personality traits. Today's view of the gene-personality relationship focuses primarily on the activation and expression of genes related to personality and forms part of what is referred to as behavioral genetics. Genes provide numerous options for varying cells to be expressed; however, the environment determines which of these are activated. Many studies have noted this relationship in varying ways in which our bodies can develop, but the interaction between genes and the shaping of our minds and personality is also relevant to this biological relationship. DNA-environment interactions are important in the development of personality because this relationship determines what part of the DNA code is actually made into proteins that will become part of an individual. It has been noted that while different choices are made available by the genome, in the end, the environment is the ultimate determinant of what becomes activated. Small changes in DNA in individuals are what lead to the uniqueness of every person as well as differences in looks, abilities, brain functioning, and all the factors that culminate to develop a cohesive personality.

Cattell and Eysenck have proposed that genetics have a strong influence on personality. A large part of the evidence collected linking genetics and the environment to personality have come from twin studies. This "twin method" compares levels of similarity in personality using genetically identical twins. One of the first of these twin studies measured 800 pairs of twins, studied numerous personality traits, and determined that identical twins are most similar in their general abilities. Personality similarities were found to be less related for self-concepts, goals, and interests. Twin studies have also been important in the creation of the five factor personality model : neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Neuroticism and extraversion are the two most widely studied traits. A person that may fall into the extrovert category can display characteristics such as impulsiveness, sociability, and activeness. A person falling into the neuroticism category may be more likely to be moody, anxious, or irritable. Identical twins however, have higher correlations in personality traits than fraternal twins. One studied measuring genetic influence on twins in five different countries found that the correlations for identical twins were .50, while for fraternal they were about .20.  It is suggested that heredity and environment interact to determine one's personality.

Evolutionary theory

Charles Darwin is the founder of the theory of the evolution of the species. The evolutionary approach to personality psychology is based on this theory. This theory examines how individual personality differences are based on natural selection. Through natural selection organisms change over time through adaptation and selection. Traits are developed and certain genes come into expression based on an organism's environment and how these traits aid in an organism's survival and reproduction.

Polymorphisms, such as gender and blood-type, are forms of diversity which evolve to benefit a species as a whole.  Computer scientists can solve wider ranges of problems when their algorithmic toolboxes have greater evaluative diversity,  various evolutionary theorists have shown that evaluative diversity could have evolved as a polymorphism among humans,  and evaluative diversity has be shown to be significantly related to some aspects of personality.  In other words, the reason why we have different personalities may be because this diversity can make teams more effective.

The theory of evolution has wide ranging implications on personality psychology. Personality viewed through the lens of evolutionary psychology places a great deal of emphasis on specific traits that are most likely to aid in survival and reproduction, such as conscientiousness, sociability, emotional stability, and dominance.  The social aspects of personality can be seen through an evolutionary perspective. Specific character traits develop and are selected for because they play an important and complex role in the social hierarchy of organisms. Such characteristics of this social hierarchy include the sharing of important resources, family and mating interactions, and the harm or help organisms can bestow upon one another.

Psychological typologies are classifications used by psychologists to describe the distinctions between people. The problem of finding the essential basis for the classification of psychological types—that is, the basis determining a broader spectrum of derivative characteristics—is crucial in differential psychology.

The logic of development of classification hypotheses in psychology

The entire history of human studies from the system-classification position reveals itself as arena of struggle of two opposite methodological directions, the goals of which were:

1) to "catch" the central organizing link, some kind of the motor of all design, and to distribute people by the qualitative specificity of these central links;

«The typological approach consists in the global perception of the person with the following reduction of variety of individual forms to a small number of the groups uniting around the representative type» (Meily, 1960).

2) to decompose the psychic to its components in order to understand the work of parts and to create a classification on the basis of differences in the structure and quality of parts.

«It is necessary to reduce all the personality character traits to the elementary mental elements and to the elementary forms of the basic psychological laws, revealing the nature of the discovered ties» (Polan, 1894).).

At present there are several thousand of various psychological classifications that point to these or other distinctions between people or mental characteristics as such.

The classifications may have different ground scales of generalizations, degree of inner strictness.

Classification of people and psychological characteristics

The logic of psychological classifications development demanded parallel existing of two scientific approaches: one of which was named «psychology of types», and the other — «psychology of traits». In the course of time both the approaches shifted towards each other: the psychology of types - in attempts to understand the structure of psychological traits of every type, trait psychology - in attempts to achieve more high and system generalizations.

«As soon as the fact that the observable traits do not corresponds to separate essential psychic characteristics and rather are only aspects of the personality and behavior, received general recognition immediately appeared the necessity to reveal the fundamental factors behind the traits. Haimans and Virsma as well as other scientists after them tried to solve the problem. However all these researches had a fragmentary character, their results have been caused by preliminary hypotheses, and the choice of traits as a rule was determined by the personal view of the researcher» R.Maily 

An example of trait psychology development stages:

Singling out the types of love as psychology of traits. In the Antique time the typology of love kinds was very popular, which comprised:

Eros – a passionate physical and emotional love based on aesthetic enjoyment; stereotype of romantic love

Ludus – a love that is played as a game or sport; conquest

Storge – an affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity ( kindred to Philia )

Pragma – love that is driven by the head, not the heart; undemonstrative

Mania – highly volatile love; obsession; fueled by low self-esteem

Agape – selfless altruistic love; spiritual; motherly love

2. Every person, as a rule, possesses all the possible types of love, but in different proportion. This can be expressed by the profile characteristic with ups and downs.

3. The Types of people with similar profile characteristics combined into classification of higher level.

The example of type psychology development (stages):

Singling out groups of people that have obvious dominate of conscious cognitive operations — "Rationals" or unconscious operation out — "Irrationals".

Pick out the specific cognitive abilities connected with rationality and irrationality.

A network for the profile characteristic is worked out which is typical for rationals and irrationals.

In the course of development of psychology as a science and a practice, the understanding has developed that the individual is a «microcosm», which has all traits, properties, and characteristics, but they are distributed according to certain systemic lows, which have yet to be discovered.

Psychological type scales

Cosmologies

Systems of views about the material and mental world based on principles of harmony, common universal laws of the nature and mind, have the greatest scale and orderliness. Everything including the principle of psychological classification has mathematical accuracy and clearness. The typology has the subordinated role; it reflects the natural belonging to cosmic laws.

Formal typologies

Classifications that included stabile types singled out on the basis of some psychological or anatomo - physiological traits refer to formal typologies. The formal typology may have quote varies scale. Often these are typologies on the basis of behavior particulars in certain activity.

Dynamic typologies

The dynamic typologies are connected with change and transformations of people, with doing through stages in their development (biological, psychological, social).

The developing person is viewed as an auto-erotic creature that receives sensual pleasure from stimulation of erogenous zones of the body by the parents or other people during the process of rearing. Freud believed that for every such stage there is a particular erogenous zone. The person goes through certain studies in the development of self-consciousness in the search of Self. Carl Jung considered the Self to be a central archetype, the one of order and wholeness of personality. Jung called ability of humans to self-cognition and self-development as individuation confluence of her/his conscious and unconscious. The first stage of the individuation is the acquisition of the element in the structure of the personality psychic called - person or mask hiding the real self and the unconscious, called the shadow. The second stage of the individuation is awareness of the shadow. The third stage is meeting still other components of psychic – called Anima and Animus. The last stage of individuation – development of the Self, that becomes the new center of soul. It brings unity and integrates a conscious and unconscious material. All the mentioned stages intersect. The person constantly and repeatedly returns to old problems. Individuation may be depicted as a spiral in which the person continues once and again deal with the same fundamental problems, each time in a more subtle form.

In modeling of psychological systems the systematization and classification play a very important role. With the development of statistics in the description of weight of the trait (or type) in society character of the trait (type)distribution is very important. It is also important, if the distinctions of trait have a quantitative or qualitative character for the adequate interpretation of practically every research in the field of differential psychology understanding of certain fundamental statistical concepts is required. "There are at least three various theories of the psychological types worked out by psychologists. Some authors represent types as separate classes that exclude each other. Some others psychologists accept the theory of types as more or less detailed trait theory, defining the types as poles of one and same continuum between which people may be ranked by the law of normal distribution. The adepts of the third view believe that the types differ from the traits by having multimodal distributions in which the people are grouped with in definite points, representing pure types". Stagner, 1948.

Distribution of the traits

The more distribution is fundamental and doesn't depend on cultural factors. The majority of measuring instruments (tests) are constructed so that the trait could be normalized with the normal distribution term, if distinctions have quantitative character. For instance, the traits which enter the base of personality named the Big Five have a normal distribution.

Strict sets

If characteristics have qualitative rather than quantitative distinctions, they are usually described as strict sets.

Non- strict sets

It is very seldom that a certain quality is stably absent absolutely in psychic. Therefore, in most cases, it is useful to use mild classifications which reflect real character of distribution more precisely.

Cognitive characteristics as a basis for classification 

Cognitive characteristics as a basis for classification become popular in the 20th century.

Table1. Some examples of classifications based on concrete methods of receiving and processing information.

The problems of psychological classifications are caused the high complexity and mobility of psyche. To classify the objects of the material world is more easy a task.

In psychology we study consciousness with the help of consciousness. Here new possibilities are opened and the same time new limitations occurred, in part, due to the subjectivity and the necessity to overcome it as it is known, in the psyche there are conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. They often take place separately, as two different means to get knowledge (information) about situations in the world. Because of this, for instance, estimations of personality characteristics with the help of projective tests (which are addressed mostly to unconscious properties) often contradict the results of self-estimations made with help of questionnaires (which are based on consciousness).

For determining of psychological type of a person, it is important to have a measuring instrument (test, inventory etc.), that is calibrated to reveal not the present and actual situational characteristics, but the opens which are typical, repeating with higher probability in the course of life. That is why the methods, which allow to see the present characteristics through the prism of the person whole life: biographical, structured talk, longitudinal observation in real situations) are very important for the psychologists. Such methods are well developed in the clinical psychology. In the work with healthy people the use of these methods is rather narrow.

Training qualified specialists in the field of research and diagnostics of psychological types is a particular problem. Here a whole complex of specific knowledge and skills is required. For measuring psychological types it is important to have the ability to see not separate fragments of the psychic reality but operating with the systems (cognition, motivation, values, will, emotions, self-consciousness) and taking into account their holistic character, to master the knowledge of steady variants of these systems and skills to compare their properties. The comparing and estimating the systems are more difficult in the absence of the reliable methodological base: there is no a generally accepted opinion on what to compare and how to estimate.

For investigation the types it is necessary to be able to use both the qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical reality research, taking into account the following factors:

1. The scale and the complex character of research (the possibility of keeping under control several plans of different scales).

2. The character and specificity of distribution of properties and characteristics in the studied environment.

3. The adequate number of sub-scales, not violating the completeness and the constructive validity of psychological traits.

Next Chapter

The academic studies are behind you. You know all about the legal system, the criminal world and victimology. For my first chapter I choose to introduce you to the list of felonies according to the legal American system. Make sure you know and understand them – it will help you to better understand the behavior.

Understand the crime and you'll understand the criminal.

Following is a list of felonies:

Aiding, Abetting or Accessory.

When a person helps a crime by having knowledge of a crime before or after the fact, assisting through advising, actions or financial support up to the level of conspiracy.

Assault is often defined as an attempt to injure to someone else and in some circumstances can include threats or threatening behavior against others. One common definition would be an intentional attempt, using violence or force, to injure or harm another person.

In most states, an assault/battery is committed when one person: 1) tries to or does physically strike another; 2) acts in a threatening manner to put another in fear of immediate harm.

Aggravated Assault

Usage of weapon, the victim's status, the perpetrator's intent and the degree of damaged caused separated assault from aggravated assault.

Arson

Arson is defined as the willful and malicious burning or charring of property.

Attempt

When an individual has an actual intent to commit a crime and takes direct action towards completion of the crime.

Battery

The intentional offensively or harmfully touching of another person without their consent. It requires intentional touching, the touching must be harmful or offensive, no consent from the victim.

Bribery

The offer or acceptance of anything of value in exchange for influence on a government/public official or employee. Bribes are always intended to influence or alter the action of various individuals and go hand in hand with both political and public corruption. Both, the person offering and the person accepting the bride can be charged with bribery.

Burglary

The unlawful breaking or entry into almost any structure with the intent to commit any crime inside.

Child Abandonment

Occurs when a parent, guardian or person in charge of a child either deserts a child without any regard for the child's physical health, safety or welfare and with the intention of wholly abandoning the child or fails to provide necessary care for a child living under their roof.

Child Abuse

Any type of cruelty inflicted upon a child including mental, physical and sexual abuse, neglect and exploitation.

Child pornography

Is a crime to produce, possess, distribute, or sell pornographic materials that exploit or portray a minor.

Computer crime

Performing certain acts without authorization including – improperly accessing a computer, system or network, modifying, damaging, using, copying or taking programs or data, introducing a virus or other contaminant into a computer system, using a computer in a scheme or defraud, interfering with someone else's computer access or use, using encryption in aid of a crime, falsifying email source in information, stealing an information service from a provider

Conspiracy

When 2 or more people agree to commit almost any unlawful act and take action toward competition.

Credit/ Debit card fraud

Is a form of identity theft that involves a unauthorizated taking of another's credit card information for the purpose of charging purchases to the account or removing fund from it. When a person fraudulently obtains, takes, signs, uses, sells, buys or forges someone else's credit or debit card information or sells goods or services to someone else with the knowledge that the credit or debit card being used was illegally obtained or is being used without authorization, or uses hers or his own card with the knowledge that it is revoked or expired or that the account lacks enough money to pay for the items charged.

Criminal solicitation

Requesting, encouraging or demanding someone to engage in criminal conduct, with the intent to facilitate or contribute to the commission of that crime, most commonly to engage in prostitution.

Criminal contempt of court

Conduct that defies, disrespects or insults the authority or dignity of a court, "directly" or "indirectly" and may be a criminal or civil contempt.

Cyber bulling

The use of Internet and/or mobile technology to harass, intimidate, or cause harm to another.

Drug Possession

It a crime to willfully possess illegal controlled substances such as marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, LSD, "club drugs," and heroin or possession of "precursor" chemicals used in drug cultivation and manufacturing, as well as certain accessories related to drug use.

Disorderly conduct

Being drunk in public, "disturbs the peace," or loiter in certain areas.

Domestic violence

Refers to violent acts committed by a family or household member against another, such as child abuse or the mistreatment of one’s spouse.

Drug distribution or trafficking

Are the selling, transportation, and illegal import of unlawful controlled substances, such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, and other illegal drugs.

DUI

Driving under the influence (DUI)," "driving while intoxicated (DWI),"

Embezzlement

Is the Theft/larceny of assets, money or property, by a person in a position of trust or responsibility over those assets. Four factors must be present:

(1)The actions were intentional, (2)There must be a fiducially relationship between the two parties,(3) The property was acquired through the relationship,(4) The defendant must have taken ownership of the property or transferred the property to someone else.

Extortion

Is the crime of obtaining money or property by threat to a victim's property or loved ones, intimidation, or false claim of a right.

Forgery

Is the making of a fake document, the changing of an existing document, or the making of a signature without authorization.

Fraud

The intentional deception of a person or entity by another made for personal or monetary gain.

Harassment

Criminal harassment entails intentionally targeting someone else with behavior that is meant to alarm, annoy, torment or terrorize them

Hate crimes

Violent actions intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.

Homicides

Include all killings of humans.

Indecent exposure

Is a crime to purposefully display one's genitals in public, causing others to be alarmed or offended.

Identity theft

All types of crime in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person's personal data in some way that involves fraud or deception, typically for economic gain.

Insurance fraud

It's happened when an insured individual or entity makes a false or exaggerated insurance claim, seeking compensation for injuries or losses that were not actually suffered.

Kidnapping

It's the taking of a person from one place to another against his or her will, or the confining of a person to a controlled space.

Involuntary Manslaughter

An unintentional killing that results from recklessness or criminal negligence, or from an unlawful act that is a misdemeanor or low-level felony

Voluntary Manslaughter

Is an intentional killing in which the offender had no prior intent to kill, such as a killing that occurs in the "heat of passion."

Minor in possession

Alcohol and drugs found in the possession of minors

Money laundering

The transfer money derived from any criminal activity into seemingly legitimate channels in an attempt to disguise the origin of the funds.

First-degree Murder

An unlawful killing that is both willful and premeditated, meaning that it was committed after planning or "lying in wait" for the victim

Second-degree Murder

Ordinarily is defined as: (1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion"; (2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life.

Perjury

Knowingly misleading a court

Probation violation

Is an offense that occurs when one breaks the terms or conditions of his probation.

Prostitution

It's a crime to offer, agree to or engage in a sexual act for compensation

Public intoxication

Being "drunk and disorderly", is a legal charge alleging that a person is visibly drunk or under the influence of drugs in public.

Racketeering/ RICO

When organized groups run illegal businesses, known as “rackets,” or when an organized crime ring uses legitimate organizations to embezzle funds

Rape

It’s a non-consensual sexual intercourse that is committed by physical force, threat of injury or other duress.

Statutory Rape

Sexual relations involving someone below the "age of consent."

Robbery

The theft/larceny of property or money through the offender's use of physical force or fear against a victim.

Securities fraud

When someone makes a false statement about a company or the value of its stock, and others makes financial decisions based on the false information

Sexual assault

Any crime in which the offender subjects the victim to sexual touching that is unwanted and offensive.

Shoplifting

The theft of merchandise from a store or place of business.

Stalking

The unwanted pursuit of another person, such as following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property.

Tax evasion

When a person or a company purposefully underpays its taxes

Theft

Are crimes involving the taking of a person's property without their permission.

Vandalism

When a person destroys or defaces someone else's property without permission.

As I mention in the first chapter, there are many, too many, types of crime. I'm going to concentrate on several groups in deep – crimes against children, crimes against adults, homicides, property crimes and sex crimes.

Crimes against children

Children are the most vulnerable victims of crime. They are innocent, trustful and dependent. Therefore, all adults, parents, relatives, caretakers, school and other pedagogical institutes, physicians, law enforcement are required to report any signs of abuse or crime against children. Following are the main crimes again children:

Child Abuse

Crimes against any type of child cruelty, including child endangerment and neglect plus links to state and national child abuse laws and information clearinghouses.

Child abuse is broadly defined in many states as any type of cruelty inflicted upon a child including mental abuse, physical harm, neglect, sexual abuse or exploitation. The specific crimes charged in instances of child abuse can include assault and battery.  Unfortunately, many cases of child abuse go unreported. A child who has been abused or neglected may experience a range of problems such as relationship difficulties, lack of trust of adults, emotional outbursts or retreat, low performance at school, depression, anxiety and anger.

State child abuse laws define child abuse as any act  or failure to act that:

Results in imminent risk or serious harm to a child's health and welfare due to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse;

2. affects a child;

3. by a parent or caregiver who is responsible for the child's welfare.

In most states, the harm must have been inflicted by non-accidental means. This includes intentional acts, actions that were careless  such as, allowing a known sexual offender or known abuser to be with a child alone  and acts of negligence  such as, leaving a child under a certain age at home alone. Also, the "harm" inflicted upon a child need not be actual, but may include "threats" or "risks of imminent harm".

In addition to state child abuse laws, all states have child protective services (CPS) agencies that investigate reports of abuse and neglect of children in a home. CPS also serves to place children who have been abused or neglected in safer homes, either through adoption or foster care.

Every state has mandatory reporting laws that require certain people to report apparent or suspected child abuse to a central authority, such as via a statewide toll-free hotline. The reports, which are often anonymous, are meant to promote early intervention of child abuse.

Many states require "any person" to report suspected child abuse, whereas other states require mandatory reporting by certain professional, such as doctors, nurses, social workers, school officials, day care workers, and law enforcement personnel. In some states, failing to report instances of child abuse is considered a misdemeanor punishable by fines, jail time, or both.

Examples of warning signs of abuse of a child may include:

- Physical abuse - unexplained burns, bites, bruises, and broken bones or parent's philosophy of harsh physical discipline

- Emotional abuse - extreme behavior, delayed physical or emotional development, attempted suicide, and belittling by a parent or caregiver

- Sexual abuse - difficulty walking or sitting, reports of nightmares or bedwetting, sudden changes in appetite, sudden refusal to change in front of others or participate in gym activities

- Neglect - frequent absences from school, obvious lack of medical or dental care, severe body odor, stays home alone

Child Sexual Abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent abuses a child for sexual stimulation.  Forms of CSA include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities  regardless of the outcome , indecent exposure of the genitals to a child, displaying pornography to a child, actual sexual contact against a child, physical contact with the child's genitals, viewing of the child's genitalia without physical contact, or using a child to produce child pornography.

The effects of child sexual abuse include depression,  post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety,  propensity to re-victimization in adulthood,  and physical injury to the child, among other problems.  Sexual abuse by a family member is a form of incest, is more common than other forms of sexual assault on a child, and can result in more serious and long-term psychological trauma, especially in the case of parental incest.

Sexual assaults on children are normally viewed far more seriously than those on an adult. This is because of the innocence of the child victim, and also because of the long-term psychological impact that such assaults have on the child.

Approximately 15% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children.  Most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims; approximately 30% are relatives of the child, most often brothers, fathers, mothers, sisters and uncles or cousins; around 60% are other acquaintances such as friends of the family, babysitters, or neighbors; strangers are the offenders in approximately 10% of child sexual abuse cases.

Studies have shown that the psychological damage is often particularly severe when sexual assault is committed by parents against children due to the incestuous nature of the assault.  Incest between a child or adolescent and a related adult has been identified as the most widespread form of child sexual abuse with a huge capacity for damage to a child. Often, sexual assault on a child is not reported by the child for several reasons:

children are too young to recognize their victimization or put it into words

they were threatened or bribed by the abuser

they feel confused by fearing the abuser but liking the attention

they are afraid no one will believe them

they blame themselves or believe the abuse is a punishment

they feel guilty for consequences to the perpetrator

Child Abandonment

In-depth explanation of what constitutes child abandonment in most states, consequences for physically or emotionally abandoning a child, safe-haven laws, mandatory reporting laws, and other matters related to child abandonment.

Child abandonment occurs when a parent, guardian, or person in charge of a child either deserts a child without any regard for the child's physical health, safety or welfare and with the intention of wholly abandoning the child, or in some instances, fails to provide necessary care for a child living under their roof.

While child abandonment typically involves physical abandonment - such as leaving a child at a stranger's doorstep when no one is home -- it may also include extreme cases of emotional abandonment -- such as when a "work-a-colic" parent offers little or no physical contact or emotional support over long periods of time.

Unfortunately, abandoned children (also called "foundlings") who do not get their needs met often grow up with low self-esteem, emotional dependency, helplessness, and other issues.

A person charged with child abandonment may face felony or misdemeanor penalties and other consequences.

The term "child abandonment" is broadly categorized and used to describe a variety of behaviors. Specific examples of child abandonment vary, but common actions that may lead to child abandonment charges may include:

- Leaving a child with another person without provision for the child's support and without meaningful communication with the child for a period of three months;

- Making only minimal efforts to support and communicate with a child;

- Failing for a period of at least six months to maintain regular visitation with a child;

- Failed to participate in a suitable plan or program designed to reunite the parent or guardian with a child;

- Leaving an infant on a doorstep, in trash cans and dumpsters, and on the side of the road;

- Being absent from the home for a period of time that created a substantial risk of serious harm to a child left in the home;

- Failing to respond to notice of child protective proceedings; 

- Being unwilling to provide care, support, or supervision for the child

Child abandonment laws vary from state to state. Many states include child abandonment within its child abuse laws and vice versa, while some states have laws specifically targeting the act of child abandonment.

Most states classify child abandonment as a felony, which may include situations where a parent or guardian physically abandons a child in any place with the intent of relinquishing all rights and responsibilities to the child.

Other states classify child abandonment as a misdemeanor (with lesser penalties), including situations that involve non-physical acts of abandonment.

In general, child abandonment occurs when:

- A parent, guardian, or other person having physical custody or control of a child;

- Without regard for the mental or physical health, safety, or welfare of the child;

- Knowing leaves a child (typically under the age of 13) without supervision by a responsible person (typically over the age of 14);

- Fails to maintain contact with the child or provide reasonable support for a specified period of time.

In the criminal context, child abandonment is defined as physically abandoning a child, but may also include emotional abandonment such as failing to provide the necessary needs to a child. For example, in some states, a parent may be guilty of abandonment if they fail to provide necessary clothing, food, shelter or medical care for their child. In other states, however, parents are only punished for deserting a child with the intention to abandon.

Because child abandonment is considered child abuse in some states, certain people may be required to report known or suspected cases of child abandonment to the proper authorities. Check your state's child abuse laws to see if you qualify as a "mandatory reporter".

Most jurisdictions have exceptions to child abandonment in the form of safe haven laws. Safe Haven Laws allow mothers to safely abandon their newborn infants in safe locations - such as churches, hospitals, and fire stations - without fear of being charged with the crime of child abandonment.

While it is necessary in some instances to leave a child at home alone, states typically offer age guidelines to help parents avoid child abandonment charges. Under some state statutes, leaving a child at home alone may constitute child abandonment, depending on a number of factors, including the age of the child, duration of time the child was left without adult supervision, and economic hardship or illness of the parent or guardian. Read tips on leaving a child home alone.

Depending on the state, a person charged with criminal child abandonment faces a wide range of penalties and sentencing options, depending on whether the state makes it a felony or misdemeanor. A court will take the factors listed above into consideration - but the penalties may include fines, termination of parental rights, supervised access to the child, and jail time.

In addition, a person may face reckless abandonment charges of a greater penalty if a child dies as a result of the abandonment.

Child Pornography

Including Description of laws prohibiting the production, possession, distribution, or sale of pornographic material involving a minor child, including links to state and federal laws related to child sexual exploitation.

Federal and state laws make it a crime to produce, distribute or sell pornographic materials that exploit or portray a minor. Increasingly child pornography laws are being utilized to punish use of computer technology and the internet to obtain, share and distribute pornographic material involving minors, including images and films.

Crimes against adults

Crimes against adults involve body harm, treat of body harm, and other crimes committed against an adult.

Assault / Battery

It includes definitions for the closely related offenses of assault and battery, which also are recognized as civil offenses, plus links to select statutes and additional, more in-depth articles about the crime.

In most states, an assault/battery is committed when one person: 1) tries to or does physically strike another, or 2) acts in a threatening manner to put another in fear of immediate harm. Many states declare that a more serious or "aggravated" assault/battery occurs when one: 1) tries to or does cause severe injury to another, or 2) causes injury through use of a deadly weapon. Assaults and batteries can also be pursued via civil (as opposed to criminal) laws. Assault and battery often bring up images of the typical fight or brawl, and some states combine the two offenses. However, the terms are actually two separate legal concepts with distinct elements. In short, an assault is an attempt or threat to injure another person, while a battery would be actually contacting another person in a harmful or offensive manner. Below is a more in-depth look at both offenses and their elements, which helps explain how these two offenses are so closely tied deadly.

The definitions for assault vary from state-to-state, but assault is often defined as an attempt to injure to someone else, and in some circumstances can include threats or threatening behavior against others. One common definition would be an intentional attempt, using violence or force, to injure or harm another person. Another straightforward way that assault is sometimes defined is as an attempted battery. Indeed, generally the main distinction between an assault and a battery is that no contact is necessary for an assault, whereas an offensive or illegal contact must occur for a battery.

Even though contact is not generally necessary for an assault offense, a conviction for assault still requires a criminal "act". The types of acts that fall into the category of assaults can vary widely, but typically an assault requires an overt or direct act that would put the reasonable person in fear for their safety. Spoken words alone will not be enough of an act to constitute an assault unless the offender backs them up with an act or actions that put the victim in reasonable fear of imminent harm.

In order commit an assault an individual need only have "general intent". What this means is that although someone can't accidentally assault another person, it is enough to show that an offender intended the actions which make up an assault. So, if an individual acts in a way that's considered dangerous to other people that can be enough to support assault charges, even if they didn't intend a particular harm to a particular individual. Moreover, intent to scare or frighten another person can be enough to establish assault charges, as well.

Although the statutes defining battery will vary by jurisdiction, a typical definition for battery is the intentional offensive or harmful touching of another person without their consent. Under this general definition, a battery offense requires all of the following:

- Intentional touching;

- The touching must be harmful or offensive;

- No consent from the victim.

It may come as some surprise that a battery generally does not require any intent to harm the victim (although such intent often exists in battery cases). Instead, a person need only have intent to contact or cause contact with an individual. Additionally if someone acts in a criminally reckless or negligent manner those results in such contact, it may constitute an assault. As a result, accidentally bumping into someone, offensive as the "victim" might consider it to be, would not constitute a battery.

The criminal act required for battery boils down to an offensive or harmful contact. This can range anywhere from the obvious battery where a physical attack such as a punch or kick is involved, to even minimal contact in some cases. Generally, a victim doesn't need to be injured or harmed for a battery to have occurred, so long as an offensive contact is involved. In a classic example, spitting on an individual doesn't physically injure them, but it nonetheless can constitute offensive contact sufficient for a battery. Whether a particular contact is considered offensive is usually evaluated from the perspective of the "ordinary person".

Some jurisdictions have combined assault and battery into a single offense. Because the two offenses are so closely related and often occur together, this should probably come as no surprise. However, the basic concepts underlying the offense remain the same.

Aggravated Assault / Battery

In-depth information on aggravated assault and battery, a more serious subset of the general assault and battery offenses, including general guidelines used by prosecutors to determine when aggravate charges are warranted.

Aggravated assault is an assault which criminal laws punish more severely due to its seriousness. Factors which raise an assault to an aggravated assault typically include the use of a weapon, the status of the victim, the intent of the perpetrator, and the degree of injury caused. Assaults which happen in the victim's home can also qualify as an aggravated assault. States classify certain assaults as aggravated assault under their criminal codes. They may also use more specific names such as assault with a deadly weapon. Often, aggravated assaults qualify as felonies, while simple assaults can be misdemeanors. Many states have multiple degrees of criminal charges for aggravated assault.

Assault with a deadly weapon

Use of a deadly weapon during an assault constitutes aggravated assault. This applies whether or not the weapon causes physical injury to anyone. Basic assault does not require physical harm, but rather that the perpetrator behaves in a way intended to put someone in reasonable fear for their safety. Someone who does this by threatening the person with a deadly weapon commits aggravated assault because the fear involved is fear of more grievous injury.

Weapons classified as deadly weapons typically include things which could cause death or serious injury. Some weapons fit this bill including guns. Whether or not other objects constitute deadly weapons depends on the manner in which they are used in the assault. For example, a pocket knife is generally not considered a lethal weapon, but if held to a victim's neck, it could be deadly.

Some assaults become aggravated assaults depending on the status of the victim. For example, many states punish assault on police officers, fire fighters and even teachers as aggravated assault. Typically, for such an assault to constitute aggravated assault the victim must have been performing his or her duty when assaulted and the perpetrator must have known of the victim's status.

In addition to possible punishment for aggravated assault, assaults on members of certain protected classes can constitute hate crimes. These can include assaults based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability of the victim.

The mental state of the perpetrator can also push an assault from simple assault to aggravated assault. If he or she acted with the intent to cause severe harm or fear of severe harm, an assault can become aggravated. Depending on the state, reckless behavior can also constitute aggravated assault for example when someone acts with reckless indifference to human life, but without the specific intent to injure any particular person. If a dangerous or deadly weapon is involved, an assault may become aggravated even without any specific intent to injure.

More serious injuries to the victim can cause an assault to become an aggravated assault. In most states, assaults causing serious bodily injury qualify as aggravated assaults. The seriousness of an injury will vary greatly from case to case. Injuries threatening death will qualify as a serious injury, as will those which maim or disfigure the victim. Some states specify by statute particular injuries that qualify as serious. If a method of assault which would normally cause death only causes more minor physical injury, some states will still punish it as aggravated assault (or even attempted homicide).

Sexual assaults usually qualify as their own type of assault, but depending on the state, could be charged as assault/battery, sexual assault, aggravated assault or rape.

A knowledgeable criminal lawyer should be able to help you navigate your states distinctions between the many forms an assault charge can take.

Domestic Violence

Includes a general overview of domestic violence, a distinct subset of crimes against individuals who also are part of a family or household.

Forms of Domestic Violence:

- Physical abuse can include hitting, biting, slapping, battering, shoving, punching (any type of violent behavior inflicted on the victim).

- Sexual abuse occurs when the abuser coerces or attempts to coerce the victim into having sexual contact or sexual behavior without the victims consent.

- Emotional abuse involves invalidating or deflating the victim's sense of self-worth and/or self-esteem.

- Economic abuse takes place when the abuser makes or tries to make the victim financially reliant.

Domestic Violence is a crime of power and intimidation. It relates highly to sexual assault. Not only can the abuse be emotional, physical, psychological, and financial, but it can be sexual. Some of the signs of sexual abuse are very similar to those of domestic violence.

Domestic violence refers to violent acts committed by a family or household member against another, such as child abuse or the mistreatment of one’s spouse. Domestic violence can refer to physical harm inflicted on a member of a household or family, by another member of the same household or family. The catch-all term domestic violence can generally apply to any partners -- married or unmarried, straight or gay, living together or simply dating.

Domestic violence (sometimes called "spousal abuse") usually involves repetitive physical and psychological abuse, and a "cycle of violence". Specific crimes charged vary based on 1) severity of the victim's injuries, 2) whether a minor was present, and 3) whether a protective or restraining order was violated.

Anyone can become a domestic violence offender or victim. While rape and murder can be forms of domestic violence, most often domestic violence consists of lesser forms of physical abuse such as slapping and pushing. Stalking can also be a form of domestic violence.

Many states define domestic violence as a distinct crime. As a result, a suspect who strikes a significant other may be charged with domestic violence instead of (or in addition to) other crimes such as assault and battery. Recognizing that domestic abusers take advantage of their victims' trust and confidence, after a conviction for domestic violence prosecutors often push for sentences that are harsher than those that might be sought for assault-type crimes involving two strangers. Those sentences typically include special protections for past (and potential) targets of domestic abuse.

Stalking

Includes a General definition of stalking, a relatively new crime involving conduct in which the offender harasses or invades the personal space of another individual, often putting the victim in fear for his or her safety.

Stalking is the unwanted pursuit of another person, such as following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property. By its nature, stalking is not a one-time event.

The individual's actions must be considered in connection with other actions to determine if someone is being stalked. It includes repeated harassing or threatening behavior toward another person, whether that person is a total stranger, slight acquaintance, current or former intimate partner, or anyone else.

Stalking is a relatively new crime now on the books in every state. Stalking laws in most states pertain to a relatively new crime involving a clear pattern of conduct in which the offender follows, harasses, or threatens another person, putting that person in fear for his or her safety. An individual may be charged with stalking regardless of any pre-existing relationship with the victim. Stalking victims can range from celebrities to former spouses who have obtained a protective order against their ex.

In California, for instance, stalking is defined as: Any person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follow or harasses another person and who makes a credible threat with the intent to place that person in reasonable fear for his or her safety, or the safety of his or her immediate family.

Most notably, celebrities have frequently been the victims of stalking activity, when fans become obsessed with the object of their attention.

Some states have enacted specific laws against stalking someone online. "Cyber stalking" generally refers to stalking someone through the internet, email, text messages, or other means of electronic communication. Many states have revised their harassment and/or stalking laws to explicitly include harassing electronic communications. Some states also punish actions akin to cyber stalking under laws aimed at improper uses of computers or electronic communications networks.

Federal law makes it a crime to "transmit in interstate commerce" (which includes the internet) a communication containing a threat to kidnap or physically harm someone.

Interstate stalking is a federal crime.

Harassment

Includes the basics of criminal harassment, a crime distinct from civil harassment which can include stalking, violating restraining orders, harassing an individual via telephone or the Internet; with links to state laws.

"Harassment" refers to a broad number of behaviors that are subject to both criminal punishment and civil liability. On the criminal side, states have a wide variety of criminal laws forbidding harassment in many forms, including general harassment crimes as well as specific forms of harassment, such as stalking and cyber stalking.

Criminal harassment should not be confused with how "harassment" is often used in contexts such as workplace discrimination lawsuits. Federal and state laws ban discrimination against certain types of people in certain situations, such as at work or in housing decisions. In these non-criminal contexts, the victim can sue the harasser in a private civil lawsuit, alleging that the harassment constitutes discrimination.

On the other hand, criminal harassment is usually confined to state law. States vary in how they define criminal harassment. Generally, criminal harassment entails intentionally targeting someone else with behavior that is meant to alarm, annoy, torment or terrorize them. Not all petty annoyances constitute harassment. Instead, most state laws require that the behavior cause a credible threat to the person's safety or their family's safety.

Though state harassment laws vary, they often take different levels and methods of harassment into account. Separate penal statutes or a general harassment statute may list various ways to communicate harassment, including telephone calls, emails, and other forms of communication. Whether there was any legitimate reason for the communication becomes a factor under many states' harassment laws.

Harassment charges can range from misdemeanor to high level felony charges. In many states, people charged with harassment will receive a higher level charge if they have previously been convicted of harassment, of communicating a threat, or of a domestic violence offense. Harassment by someone in violation of a restraining order may also draw a higher level charge. Some states elevate the charge if the harassment targeted someone based on race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation.

In some states, "stalking" is specified as a separate offense from harassment. Other states include both harassment and stalking under a single general statute. Stalking generally refers to a clear pattern of conduct through which the perpetrator causes the victim reasonable fear for their safety or their family's safety.

Some states punish stalking as a form of "menacing." Menacing can often include ongoing actions, such as stalking someone, which cause reasonable fear in the victim. Menacing also often includes single acts which are purposefully intended to create a reasonable fear in someone, such as brandishing a weapon.

Whether and how states draw lines between harassment, menacing and stalking varies greatly. 

While prosecutors can charge someone with criminal harassment, victims of abuse or harassment may also petition the court for an order of protection or restraining order to prohibit someone from engaging in harassing behaviors.

Orders against harassment and restraining orders frequently come into play in situations involving domestic violence.

Such orders come from civil courts, but violation of these court orders may constitute a separate criminal offense and/or contempt of the civil court. Violating a protective order may also increase the severity of harassment, stalking or menacing charge.

Harassment refers to a wide variety of behavior which can violate both civil and criminal laws. What constitutes criminal harassment varies by state, but it generally entails targeting someone else with behavior meant to alarm, annoy, torment or terrorize, and creating reasonable fear in the victim for their safety or the safety of their family.

Hate Crimes

Brief definition and overview of federal hate crimes, a classification of offenses for which the motive is based on the victim’s race, ethnicity or some other characteristic protected by civil rights laws.

A crime that involves the use of force or threat of force may become a civil right violation if the perpetrator acted from an improper motivation. Hate crimes are violent actions intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Usually someone who is convicted of a hate crime faces a steeper penalty than someone who performed the some actions without discriminatory animosity.

Kidnapping

Brief definition and explanation of kidnapping, the forced capture and captivity of an individual, often with the purpose of extorting money in exchange for the victim’s safe return.

Under federal and state law, kidnapping is commonly defined as the taking of a person from one place to another against his or her will, or the confining of a person to a controlled space. Some kidnapping laws require that the taking or confining be for an unlawful purpose, such as extortion or the facilitation of a crime. A parent without legal custody rights may be charged with kidnapping for taking his or her own child, in certain circumstances.

Federal criminal code (18 U.S.C. § 1201) makes kidnapping a serious felony offense, with prison sentences of 20 or more years, depending on prior convictions and the circumstances of the case. Federal law prosecutes international parental kidnapping under a different code (18 U.S.C. § 1204), allowing for three-year prison sentences upon conviction.

In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority. This may be done for ransom or in furtherance of another crime, or in connection with a child custody dispute. When it is done with legal authority, it is often called arrest or imprisonment.

In some countries such as the United States a large number of child abductions arise after separation or divorce when one parent wishes to keep a child against the will of the other or against a court order. In these cases, some jurisdictions do not consider it kidnapping if the child, being competent, agrees.

In all cases where it is alleged that a child has been kidnapped, it is the absence of the consent of that child which is material. This is the case regardless of the age of the child. A young child will not have the understanding or intelligence to consent. This means that absence of consent will be a necessary inference from the age of the child. It is a question of fact for the jury whether an older child has sufficient understanding and intelligence to consent.  Lord Brandon said:

I should not expect a jury to find at all frequently that a child under fourteen had sufficient understanding and intelligence to give its consent.

If the child (being capable of doing so) did consent to being taken or carried away, the fact that the person having custody or care and control of that child did not consent to that child being taken or carried away is immaterial. If, on the other hand, the child did not consent, the consent of the person having custody or care and control of the child may support a defense of lawful excuse.

Bride kidnapping is a term often applied loosely, to include any bride "abducted" against the will of her parents, even if she is willing to marry the "abductor". It still is traditional amongst certain nomadic peoples of Central Asia. It has seen resurgence in Kyrgyzstan since the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent erosion of women's rights.

Express kidnapping is a method of abduction used in some countries, mainly from Latin America, where a small ransom, that a company or family can easily pay, is demanded.

Tiger kidnapping is taking a hostage to make a loved one or associate of the victim do something: e.g. a child is taken hostage to force the shopkeeper to open the safe. 

Kidnapping for ransom is a common occurrence in various parts of the world today. As of 2007, that title belongs to Iraq with possibly 1,500 foreigners kidnapped.  In 2004, it was Mexico,  and in 2001, it was Colombia.    Reports suggest a world total of 12,500-25,500/year with 3,600/year in Colombia and 3,000/year in Mexico around the year 2000.  However by 2006, the number of kidnappings in Colombia had declined to 687 and it continues to decline.  Mexican numbers are hard to confirm because of fears of police involvement in kidnapping. "Kidnapping seems to flourish particularly in fragile states and conflict countries, as politically motivated militias, organized crime and the drugs mafia fills the vacuum left by government."

In the past, and presently in some parts of the world (such as southern Sudan), kidnapping is a common means used to obtain slaves and money through ransom. In less recent times, kidnapping in the form of shanghaiing (or "press ganging") men was used to supply merchant ships in the 19th century with sailors, whom the law considered unfree labor.

Kidnapping on the high seas in connection with piracy has been increasing. It was reported that 661 crewmembers were taken hostage and 12 kidnapped in the first 9 months of 2009.

Homicide

By definition is taking the life of other human being. Homicide is not always a crime. For example, self defense or state executions are not crimes.

Criminal homicide takes several forms and includes certain unintentional killings. The crime committed in a criminal homicide is determined by the state of mind of the defendant and statutes defining the crime. Murder, for example, is usually an intentional crime. In some jurisdictions, certain types of murders automatically qualify for capital punishment,  but if the defendant in a capital case is sufficiently mentally disabled in the United States he or she may not be executed, for reasons described in Atkins v. Virginia, similar to those utilizing an insanity defense.

Varying by jurisdiction, a homicide that occurs during the commission of a felony may constitute murder regardless the felon's mental state with regard to the killing. This is known as the felony murder rule. Much abbreviated and incomplete, the felony murder rule says that one committing a felony may be guilty of murder if someone, including the felony victim, a bystander or a co-felon, dies as a result of his acts, regardless his intent—or lack thereof—to kill.

Criminal homicides also include voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. The mental state of the perpetrator of these crimes differs from that of one who commits murder.

Although suicide is not a form of homicide, assisting in another's suicide may constitute criminal homicide.

Includes overview of the types of criminal homicides as well as killings which do not constitute crimes.

To begin with, not all homicides are crimes. Homicides include all killings of humans. Many homicides, such as murder and manslaughter, violate criminal laws. Others, such as a killing committed in justified self-defense, are not criminal. Illegal killings range from manslaughter to murder, with multiple degrees of each representing the gravity of the crime.

Murder

First degree murder is the most serious criminal homicide. Typically, first degree murder is both intentional and premeditated. Premeditated can mean anything from a long time plan to kill the victim, to a shorter term plan. The intent of the accused murderer does not need to be focused on the actual victim. If someone planned on killing one victim, but by accident kills someone else, the murder is still intentional and premeditated meaning a first degree murder charge. 

When there is a lack of premeditation but the killer intended to kill for example, in homicides commonly described as occurring "in the heat of passion" the homicide may draw second degree murder charges or perhaps voluntary manslaughter charges, depending on the state. 

Manslaughter

Manslaughter generally means an illegal killing that falls short of murder. The lowest form of manslaughter is involuntary manslaughter. This means that the perpetrator did not intend to kill anyone, but still killed the victim through behavior that was either criminally negligent or reckless. One common example is a DUI accident which kills someone. Someone driving drunk is behaving in a criminally reckless manner, even if they had no intent to kill anyone.

Voluntary manslaughter usually means that the offender did not have a prior intent to kill such as when the homicide occurs "in the heat of passion" and without forethought. Depending on the state, this crime may fall under a variant of murder charges, instead of manslaughter.

Legal homicides

Some homicides are not illegal. Criminal laws carve out exceptions for some killings which would otherwise fall under criminal laws against manslaughter or murder. These are referred to as "justified homicide". One primary example is a killing in justified self-defense or defense of someone else. Such a homicide is deemed justified if the situation called for self-defense and state law allows lethal force in that type of situation. Most state laws allow justified homicide to defend oneself or another from credible threat of serious crimes such as rape, armed robbery and murder.

Related Wrongful Death claims

No matter where a homicide falls on the criminal spectrum, it may also bring a civil lawsuit for wrongful death. In the case of a homicide, the family of the victim may sue the alleged perpetrator to collect damages for that person causing the death of their loved one. While wrongful death lawsuits offer monetary results rather than criminal punishment, they also have a much lower standard of proof than the criminal standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

First Degree Murder

The highest level of criminal homicide typically reserved for willful and premeditated killings.

In most states, first-degree murder is defined as an unlawful killing that is both willful and premeditated, meaning that it was committed after planning or "lying in wait" for the victim.

Most states also adhere to a legal concept known as the "felony murder rule," under which a person commits first-degree murder if any death (even an accidental one) results from the commission of certain violent felonies -- such as arson, burglary, kidnapping, rape, and robbery.

State laws categorizing murders into first, second and possibly third degrees generally require that first degree murders include three basic elements: willfulness, deliberation and premeditation. Some states also require "malice aforethought" as an element, though sates differ as to how malice must be shown and whether this is a separate requirement from willful, deliberate and premeditated taking of human life. Most states also enumerate certain kinds of killings as first degree murders without need to prove intent, deliberation and premeditation.

no all states break murder into degrees. In some places the top level murder crime is called by another name such as "capital murder".

In terms of willfulness, first degree murderers must have the specific intent to end a human life. This intent does not necessarily have to have been focused on the actual victim. A murder in which the killer intends to kill but kills the wrong person or a random person would still constitute first degree murder. Furthermore, under many state laws, killing through action showing a depraved indifference to human life can qualify as murder in the first degree.

Whether a killer acted with the deliberation and premeditation required for first degree murder can only be determined on a case by case basis. The need for deliberation and premeditation does not mean that the perpetrator must contemplate at length or plan far ahead of the murder. Time enough to form the conscious intent to kill and then act on it after enough time for a reasonable person to second guess the decision typically suffices. While this can happen very quickly, deliberation and premeditation must occur before, and not at the same time as, the act of killing.

Under many state laws, perpetrators of first degree murder must have acted with malice or "malice aforethought." Malice generally includes an evil disposition or purpose and an indifference to human life. States treat the concept of "malice" differently. Under some laws, malice aforethought essentially means the same thing as acting with a premeditated intent to kill or extreme indifference to human life. Other states require a showing of malice distinct from the willfulness, deliberation and premeditation generally required for first degree murder.

State laws often categorize specific types of killings as first degree. In these cases, the typical elements of specific intent to kill, deliberation and premeditation may not be required. These often include:

- the killing of a child by use of unreasonable force;

- certain killings committed in a pattern of domestic abuse;

- the murder of law a law enforcement officer;

- homicides occurring in the commission of other crimes such as arson, rape, robbery or other violent crimes.

This list merely illustrates some of the enumerated first degree murder.

Many states also categorize certain methods of killing as murder in the first degree. These include intentional poisonings, murders resulting from imprisonment or torture and murders in which the killer "laid in wait" for or ambushed the victim.

Second Degree Murder

Is most often voluntary but without premeditation -- often seen as the middle ground between voluntary manslaughter and first degree murder charges.

Second -degree murder is ordinarily defined as: 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable "heat of passion"; or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life. Second-degree murder may best be viewed as the middle ground between first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

Some jurisdictions make a distinction between different situations that constitute murder and prosecute the charges differently. These states usually break the crime of murder into first degree murder and second degree murder.

The exact definition of second degree murder varies between jurisdictions, but there are a few common elements that second degree murder shares across jurisdictions.

The essential elements of second-degree murder differ from those of first degree murder. The criminal act for both crimes is the same: the killing of another person. What separates the two is the perpetrator's mental state at the time of the car accident.

First degree murder involves a premeditated killing. In other words, the killer made a plan to kill the victim and then carried that plan out. Second degree murder does not require premeditation, however. Instead, there are three typical situations that can constitute second degree murder:

- A killing done impulsively without premeditation, but with malice aforethought;

- A killing that results from an act intended to cause serious bodily harm;

- A killing that results from an act that demonstrates the perpetrators depraved indifference to human life.

These sorts of killings occur in the heat of the moment, and don't involve any premeditation on the part of the killer. At the moment the murder occurs, the killer definitely intends to kill the victim, but up to that moment, the killer had no intent or plan to commit murder.

A second category of acts that constitute second degree murder are acts where the perpetrator intends to cause serious bodily harm with the full knowledge that death is a possible result of the act. The killer might not necessarily intend to kill the victim, but knows that death is a likely outcome.

The third main type of second degree murder occurs when a victim dies as a result of the perpetrators depraved indifference to human life. Depraved indifference to human life can mean different things in different jurisdictions, but in general it signifies that the perpetrator had an utter disregard for the potential damage to human life that their actions could cause.

Some states also classify killings that occur during the commission of another felony as second degree murder, although other states characterize these felony murders as murder in the first degree. An individual can be found guilty of a felony murder even if they did not actually kill anyone and only intended to commit the original felony.

Whether this felony murder would constitute a first or second degree murder, however, depends on the law in the state in which it took place.

Voluntary Manslaughter

Is generally a killing which was voluntary, but done in the heat of the moment.

Voluntary manslaughter is commonly defined as an intentional killing in which the offender had no prior intent to kill, such as a killing that occurs in the "heat of passion." The circumstances leading to the killing must be the kind that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed; otherwise, the killing may be charged as a first-degree or second-degree murder.

On the spectrum of homicides, this offense lies somewhere in between the killing of another with malice aforethought (aka, murder) and the excusable, justified, or privileged taking of life that does not constitute a crime, such as some instances of self-defense.

Voluntary manslaughter is a separate concept from involuntary manslaughter and has several definitions depending on what state the crime occurs in. Involuntary manslaughter, on the other hand, occurs when someone dies as a result of the defendant's non-felonious illegal act or as a consequence of the defendant's irresponsibility or recklessness.

Federal law defines voluntary manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.

The exact meaning of the heat of passion varies depending on the situation, but the term generally refers to an irresistible emotion that an ordinarily reasonable person would experience under the same facts and circumstances. This idea of an irresistible impulse contrasts with the idea of premeditation present in first degree murder, and a showing of one necessarily negates the other.

States sometimes also define voluntary manslaughter as a homicide that occurs with the mistaken belief that the killing was justified. For instance, if the defendant kills in self-defense, but was the original aggressor in the situation that led to the homicide, the state could potentially charge the killing as voluntary manslaughter. In addition, voluntary manslaughter can also encompass a homicide that occurs based on the defendant's honest but unreasonable belief that a situation requires deadly force.

Involuntary Manslaughter

It's A killing that is not on purpose, but results from criminally reckless or negligent behavior, or from low level criminal activities.

Involuntary manslaughter usually refers to an unintentional killing that results from recklessness or criminal negligence, or from an unlawful act that is a misdemeanor or low-level felony (such as DUI). The usual distinction from voluntary manslaughter is that involuntary manslaughter (sometimes called "criminally negligent homicide") is a crime in which the victim's death is unintended.

Three elements must be satisfied in order for someone to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter:

- Someone was killed as a result of act by the defendant;

- The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life;

- The defendant knew or should have known his or her conduct was a threat to the lives of others.

Charges of involuntary manslaughter often come in the wake of a deadly car crash caused by a motorist under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. While the motorist never intended to kill anyone, his or her negligence in operating a car while impaired is enough to meet the requirements of the charge.

Activities that are entirely legal can also result in involuntary manslaughter charges when carried out irresponsibly or recklessly. For example, if the operator of a dangerous carnival ride recklessly fails to ensure that all passengers are strapped in and people die as a result, a prosecutor may decide to bring involuntary manslaughter charges against the operator.

As noted above, involuntary manslaughter is the unintentional killing of another human. This differs from first or second degree murder in that the killing is accidental -- resulting from recklessness, criminal negligence or in the commission of a misdemeanor or low-level felony. However, an unintentional killing committed in the commission of an "inherently dangerous" felony, is treated as first degree murder in most states.

Similarly, involuntary manslaughter often is defined as the unlawful killing of a human without malice aforethought, which is just another way of saying "without criminal intent." Acts leading up to this charge, but not falling into the category of murder, range from running a red light and accidentally killing a pedestrian to cases of more serious negligence, such as a building manager's failure to install smoke detectors before the occurrence of a deadly fire.

Property crimes

Property crimes are related to the destruction or theft of someone else's property regardless the methodology. Because of the vast verity of property crimes there is a spectrum of degrees in punishment.

Theft

Theft is the act of intentionally depriving someone of his or her property. Many states use the term to describe a wide number of property crimes, such as larceny and robbery.

The term theft is used widely to refer to crimes involving the taking of a person's property without their permission. But theft has a very broad legal meaning which may encompass more than one category, and multiple degrees, of crimes. Theft is often defined as the unauthorized taking of property from another with the intent to permanently deprive them of it. Within this definition lie two key elements:

- taking of someone else's property;

- the requisite intent to deprive the victim of the property permanently

The taking element in a theft typically requires seizing possession of property that belongs to another, and may also involve removing or attempting to remove the property. However, it is the element of intent where most of the complex legal challenges typically arise in theft-related cases.

While some states have merged larceny with general theft statutes, other states have kept larceny as its own separate offense. Larceny is an offense that developed through the common law and encompasses behavior that most people consider common theft: the taking of someone else's property without permission. States that still have retained larceny have usually codified the common law definition within the state's penal code.

Most states that still recognize the crime of larceny have codified its elements into their penal code. The exact definition of larceny varies between states and most of them incorporate the following elements in some form. Larceny is:

- The unlawful taking and carrying away of

- Someone else's property

- Without the consent of the owner and with

- The intent to deprive the owner of the property permanently

The taking element in a theft typically requires seizing possession of property that belongs to another, and may also involve removing or attempting to remove the property. However, it is the element of intent where most of the complex legal challenges typically arise in theft-related cases. In order for a theft to be proven, it often must be shown that the accused acted with the specific intent to take someone else's property and to keep it or otherwise convert it. Some of the most common defenses in theft cases reflect this challenge, as a defendant may claim that they thought certain property was theirs or that they were just borrowing it.

Other key questions in theft cases are: 1) what type of property was stolen; and 2) how much the property was actually worth. This determines the category and/or degree of theft charges that an accused could face. Many jurisdictions create degrees of theft crimes. For example, a third degree theft might be a misdemeanor involving property with a relatively low market value. On the other hand, a first degree theft could be classified as a felony with stolen property valued above a limit established by law. Alternatively, some states categorize their theft (or related offenses) as "petty" or "grand".

Petty or "petit" thefts typically occur when someone steals property below a certain value specified by law. The amount at which a theft is classified "petty" varies depending on the jurisdiction, but a couple of examples would be property worth less than $500 or $1,000. Petty thefts are usually categorized as relatively minor crimes, also known as misdemeanors.

Grand theft, on the other hand, occurs when property is stolen that is worth more than the limit for petty theft. Typically the market value for the property at the time it is stolen is used to determine that property's value for purposes of petty or theft charges. Grand theft or comparable violations, such as grand larceny, are classified as felonies in all states. This is the most serious category of offenses and can have severe consequences for individuals convicted of such crimes.

Jurisdictions may create additional classes or categories of theft to address a particularly troublesome types of theft. Probably the most well-known example is "grand theft auto", which of course refers to stealing a car. Typically, these more narrowly-categorized types of theft receive harsher punishments than standard, comparable theft-crimes.

Larceny

One commits larceny by taking something of value without consent and with the intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner of the object. Most states use the term theft in place of larceny.

The crime of "theft" has gradually become a catch-all term for all kinds of common-law property crimes, including larceny. Several states and the Model Penal Code organize larceny and certain other property crimes under the classification of theft; other states retain the traditional common-law distinctions, however.

In those other states, larceny remains its own crime, separate from other property crimes such as embezzlement, robbery and the acquisition of property through false pretenses.

Larceny is what most people think of as common theft: it is the taking of someone else's property without the use of force from a location other than inside their home. Car theft forms a typical instance of larceny. The offense developed under the common law, but most states that still recognize the crime of larceny have codified its elements into their penal code. While each state has its own definition of larceny (or theft), most of them incorporate the following elements in some form.

In order to support a charge of larceny, the state must prove each element, so it's important to have an understanding of what they mean, as explained below.

The first stage in a larceny involves the unlawful taking of another's property. Note that the taking must be unlawful, so the removal or appropriation of property for a lawful purpose will not constitute a larceny.

Some states also require that the taker must carry the property away, but other states have eliminated that requirement in order to broaden the scope of the crime. Certain property is immovable, for example, but as long as the perpetrator has taken control of it and removed its use and enjoyment from the owner, the first element of a larceny is present.

In order for a larceny to occur, the property in question must belong to someone else. If the property belongs to the person taking it, then they have not committed larceny, even if the property was in the possession and control of someone else at the time it was taken.

Larceny can happen even when the owner of the property doesn't have possession of it. The only thing that matters is whether the person in control of the property had a better legal claim to the property than the person who took it.

People who co-own property can also commit larceny if they deprive their co-owner(s) of their right to the property. Thus, if three friends jointly purchase a computer and one of the friends moves away with the computer without the consent of the other friends, he has committed larceny.

if someone intends to steal a piece of property, no larceny occurs if the owner consents to the transfer of ownership of the property. If the owner approves of the removal of the property, then no unlawful taking has occurred, thus no larceny.

Separate crimes exist to cover situations where the owner approves of the transfer because of the other party's deceit or fraud, but for the purposes of basic larceny all that matters is that the owner must not give consent to the taking in order for a larceny to occur.

The final element of larceny involves the taker's intent to permanently deprive the owner of the use and enjoyment of the property. In other words, if the person who took the property intended to give it back eventually, the taking doesn't amount to larceny.

Larceny is a specific intent crime, which means that the person taking the property must specifically intend to commit larceny there can be no larceny by mistake. In addition to the example above, a person could have a reasonable belief that they own the property they are taking, thus they would not have the specific intent of taking someone else's property that would be required for a larceny.

States usually separate larceny into different categories based on the value of the item stolen. "Grand" larceny applies to higher-value items, and "petit" (or "petty") larceny applies to items of lesser value. Each state legislature decides the amount that divides a grand larceny from a petty larceny. For example, one state could make grand larceny apply to larcenies above $2,000, while another state could decide that grand larceny only occurs when the value of the stolen property exceeds $3,000. Anything below those amounts would constitute petit larceny.

States treat some larcenies as felonies, and others as misdemeanors. Again, states can set their own rules for what divides a felony larceny from a misdemeanor.

A common question that arises in larceny prosecutions is whether one larceny has occurred, or several. Generally, multiple items stolen from the same owner at the same time will form one larceny, but some states either give prosecutors the discretion to, or require that they, charge such a situation as multiple larcenies.

Courts will look at the timing and locations of larcenies to determine whether they formed part of a single activity or multiple activities. If part of a single activity, only one larceny has occurred. If there were multiple activities, however, then there were also multiple larcenies.

The determination of the number of larcenies affects the number and severity of the larceny charges. For example, if multiple takings form one instance of larceny, the amount of the items taken could push the larceny into the realm of a felony. On the other hand, if the multiple takings each formed a single occurrence of larceny, the defendant may face multiple lesser misdemeanor counts. In the end, this determination could have a great impact on the punishment the defendant receives.

Burglary

Burglary is the unlawful entry into a home or other closed structure, often by force or coercion, with the intent of stealing property from another or committing some other crime.

Burglary is typically defined as the unlawful entry into almost any structure (not just a home or business) with the intent to commit any crime inside (not just theft/larceny). No physical breaking and entering is required; the offender may simply trespass through an open door. Unlike robbery, which involves use of force or fear to obtain another person's property, there is usually no victim present during a burglary.

The crime of burglary has been around for a long time. It originally developed under the common law, but states have incorporated the basic idea of burglary into their penal codes, albeit with some slight modifications. For instance, under the common law definition of burglary, the crime had to take place in the dwelling house of another at night. Most states have subsequently broadened the definition of burglary to include businesses and illegal entries during the day.

Burglary developed to protect a person's interest in their home and to prevent violence, not to protect against theft. Other laws criminalize the taking of property; instead, burglary is meant to safeguard the sanctity of a person's home and to protect against the possible violence that could arise if someone discovers a burglar in their house.

The definition of burglary arises out of state law, and thus, the components of the crime may differ slightly depending on the state. Federal criminal law incorporates the meaning of burglary used by the state that the crime occurred in.

Most states and the Model Penal Code use the same basic definition of burglary, however. In those states, burglary is:

- The unauthorized breaking and entry;

- into a building or occupied structure;

- with the intent to commit a crime inside.

Each of those elements must be present in order to convict a defendant accused of burglary, so it's important to examine each of them a little more closely.

Breaking and Entry

The first element of burglary involves the burglar breaking into and entering a structure. The breaking-in can occur in two ways: actual and constructive.

Actual breaking involves physical force: picking a lock or kicking a door in, for example. It could even be a very slight use of force, such as pushing open a door that's been left ajar.

Constructive breaking, on the other hand, entails means of gaining entry that don't use physical force: threats, blackmail or fraud, for example.

However a burglar breaks in to the structure, they must also enter the structure in order to satisfy this element. The entry can be minimal; the burglar doesn't have to actually walk into a building in order to commit a burglary. The simple act of sticking a hand through a window counts as an entry sufficient to support a charge of burglary.

It is also important to note that the entry has to occur without the consent of the person occupying the property.

Building or Occupied Structure

As mentioned above, under the common law crime of burglary, the accused burglar had to break into someone else's home. Under the modern definition, a person commits burglary if they break into almost any type of building or structure, so long as the structure meets certain requirements.

Usually, states require that the structure be capable of either housing people or animals, or sheltering property. Houses certainly qualify under this definition, as do their outlying structures, such as garages and sheds. Stores and office buildings also qualify.

Breaking into a fenced-off area may not qualify as burglary, however, since such areas generally do not act as a shelter for people, animals, or property. For example, breaking into an amusement park after hours probably wouldn't meet the requirements for a charge of burglary, but breaking into a building on the amusement park property probably would.

The structure must also be closed to the public at the time of the burglary. If a person enters a store during its normal retail hours and steals an item, the person has committed a shoplifting crime, and not a burglary. If, on the other hand, the person waits until after the store has closed, picks the lock on the front door and steals the same item, then a burglary has occurred.

Abandoned buildings generally do not qualify as buildings or structures for the purposes of burglary charges. Breaking and entering into an abandoned building may result in other criminal charges, but most likely not a burglary charge.

In order for a break-in to constitute a burglary, the person breaking in must have the intent to commit a crime inside the building. Usually, this crime is theft, but other crimes can render a break-in a burglary as well.

The crime has to exist separately from the break-in itself. For example, if an individual uses fraud - which is a crime - to gain after-hours entrance to a building to view a piece of art, no burglary has taken place since the only crime that occurred was the fraud used to gain entrance to the building. Of course, taking the art would elevate the crime to one of burglary.

The timing of the intent also becomes important when determining the degree of a burglary charge. For instance, if a person intended to commit the crime in question before they broke in to the building, then most states will consider this to be a burglary of the first degree (more serious). If the person broke into a building and only subsequently formed the intent to commit a crime, most states will classify the burglary as second degree

Robbery

One commits robbery by using force or the threat of force to take money or property from another individual, such as pointing a gun at a bank teller and demanding cash.

Many states define robbery as theft/larceny of property or money through the offender's use of physical force or fear against a victim. Where a deadly weapon such as a gun is used or the victim suffers injury, the robbery may be charged as "armed" or "aggravated." Unlike burglary, the crime of robbery almost always requires the presence of a victim who suffers actual injury, or is threatened with harm.

United States law regarding robbery has its roots in the common law that we inherited from the English legal system. While most states have codified their robbery laws in their penal codes, in the absence of such a statute the common law definition would still apply.

The penal codes of each state define robbery in different ways, but the definitions contain the same basic elements. Robbery generally consists of:

- The taking, with the intent to steal, of:

- the personal property of another:

- from his or her person or in their presence:

- against his or her will:

- by violence, intimidation or the threat of force.

Essentially, robbery is theft accomplished by violence or the threat of violence. Since this element of force sits at the core of robbery, a vital question in a robbery prosecution concerns the timing of the violence. If, for example, the violence only occurs as the robber attempts to escape from the discovered scene of a theft, the charges brought might include larceny and resisting arrest, but not necessarily robbery.

The use or threat of force can also be slight, and the amount required to turn a theft into a robbery depends on the parties involved and the situation. If a small amount of violence or intimidation is enough to force the victim to turn over their property based on the natures of the victim and the assailant (if, say, the assailant is large and powerful and the victim is slight and elderly), then a robbery has occurred.

While the thief doesn't have to use very much force in order to commit a robbery, a certain amount is still required. Purse snatchings, for instance, require some resistance by the victim before the theft rises to the level of a robbery. If the robber can remove the purse without any force in excess of what is required to simply take the purse off the victims person, then a jury may determine that no robbery has taken place.

States commonly separate robbery into different degrees based on the severity of the crime. Normal robbery is usually a second degree felony in most states, but can become a first degree felony if the robber uses a dangerous weapon or attempts to kill anyone or inflicts or attempts to inflict serious bodily injury. Some states designate this latter type of robbery as aggravated robbery.

Robbery is a state crime for the most part, but certain types of robberies fall under federal jurisdiction. The first kind of federal robbery is a bank robbery. Any robbery or attempted robbery of a bank, credit union or savings and loan institution constitutes a federal crime.

The federal government also has jurisdiction over robberies that affect articles in the stream of interstate commerce. The most common example of this is the hijacking of a truck full of goods being shipped from one state to another.

Shoplifting

Shoplifting is the theft or concealment of merchandise from a retail establishment without the intent to pay for it, such as placing items in one’s pocket and walking out of a store.

"Shoplifting" generally refers to the theft of merchandise from a store or place of business. Shoplifting is a type of larceny, which simply means taking the property of someone else without their permission, and with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property taken.

states may punish shoplifting under their general larceny or theft statutes, many states have enacted statutes to specifically address shoplifting. States may refer to the crime by different names, including "retail theft" and "concealment of merchandise".

Though these state laws vary widely, but generally, shoplifting offenses includes two elements:

1. Willfully concealing or taking possession of items being offered for sale;

2. The intent to deprive the items' rightful owner (typically the store) of possession of the items, without paying the purchase price.

Crucially, this means that in most states, one can break shoplifting laws without attempting to get out of a store with stolen goods. Simply concealing merchandise, inside or outside the store, will often be enough. One must have the intent to take the item from the store; however, many states consider the act of concealing merchandise to be evidence of intent.

In addition to hiding an item to avoid paying for it, shoplifting laws also make it illegal to take actions to avoid paying the full purchase price for an item. This can include altering price tags, manipulating merchandise, and putting goods into different containers or packaging to avoid paying all or part of the purchase price.

Severity of shoplifting charges

Like charges for other types of theft, the severity of shoplifting charges generally depends on the value of the goods involved. If firearms, explosives or incendiary devices are shoplifted, the severity of charges increases in many states.

States laws often include a range of charges, and can allow prosecutors discretion in deciding which charges to pursue in a given case. In many states, the range of shoplifting charges runs from a low level "infraction," to misdemeanor, up to differing degrees of felony charges. In some states, any shoplifting offense will be charged as at least a misdemeanor.

Often, the prosecutor will be able to choose between multiple levels of charges. Prior criminal convictions, specifically prior theft convictions, regularly play a large part in the prosecutor's decision of which charge to pursue. In some states, prior theft convictions automatically result in a more severe charge.

Typically, infractions result in a fine. Depending on the state, misdemeanor charges may result in jail time (less than one year), probation and/or a fine. Felonies may result in a longer jail sentence, probation and/or a larger fine.

State laws vary widely in the severity of shoplifting charges. In some places, any shoplifting offense may result in a jail sentence.

In-Store Detention of Shoplifters

Because shoplifting poses a large threat to retailers, the issue of how far they can go in attempts to stop shoplifters has a long history.

Private citizens generally may not legally hold people against their will. Doing so opens the door to civil and even criminal liability for false imprisonment. However, many states have enacted statutes specifically authorizing stores and their employees to detain suspected shoplifters in certain circumstances. These laws serve to protect the stores from lawsuits claiming false imprisonment or false arrest.

Though these laws vary, store owners and their employees generally are allowed to detain an individual when they have probable cause to suspect shoplifting. However, any such detention of a suspected shoplifter must be reasonable in length and manner.

Detentions without probable cause, for an unreasonable amount of time, or in an unreasonable manner may leave the store open to liability for false imprisonment and possibly other claims.

What constitutes probable cause to suspect shoplifting comes down to case by case specifics. Mere suspicion typically will not suffice. Most states require that the store or its employees have evidence which would lead a reasonable person to believe that shoplifting had occurred or was in progress. If the store bases its detention of a suspected shoplifter on information from a non-employee informer, that informer must have a reasonable basis for suspecting shoplifting.

The appropriate length of detention also comes down to case by case specifics. However, detention continued for the purpose of securing a confession from the suspect, or for the purpose of getting the suspect to sign a waiver of store liability, would be considered unreasonable under many states' laws. Such detentions could leave a store open to liability for false imprisonment.

In terms of the manner of detention, the use of excessive force may be deemed unreasonable. An unreasonable manner of detention could leave the store and its employees open to liability for false imprisonment and possibly other claims, such as assault or battery.

Shoplifting is a type of theft involving the taking or concealment of items being offered for sale. Depending on state law and factors including the value of items shoplifted, it may be charged as an infraction, a misdemeanor or a felony, and may result in incarceration, probation and/or a fine.

Arson

Arson is the intentional burning of almost any type of structure, building or forest land, with more severe degrees recognized if it causes bodily injury, or involves an inhabited building or intent to defraud insurers.

Arson – it’s a crime in the pursuit of personal, monetary or political gain.

Arson is defined as the willful and malicious burning or charring of property. There are many types of arson crimes, including setting fire to one's property with fraudulent intent--such as to collect insurance money. While the majority of arson crimes involve damage to buildings, arson can also be committed by a person who sets fire to forest land or a boat. Arson statutes typically classify arson as a felony due to the potential to cause injuries or death.

Many states recognize differing degrees of arson, based on such factors as whether the building was occupied and whether insurance fraud was intended. Less serious arson cases may result in minor punishments, while other arson cases may result in the death penalty. Arson is handled in various courts throughout the U.S. in many different ways.

Many states classify arson crimes into different categories or degrees. More serious categories or degrees of arson will result in stricter punishments. Setting fire to an occupied building, for instance, can result in a more severe arson charge than setting fire to an abandoned barn in the countryside.

Arson is investigated by elite law enforcement units using the most advanced chemical analyses to locate the point of origin of a fire. Law enforcement can take months or years to fully investigate before a case is charged. Law enforcement looks at the motivation behind the crime of arson. Arson occurs in domestic violence cases, to hide another crime including murder and for financial gain.

In many instances, people will engage in arson to commit insurance fraud and get quick money. Indeed, a person who sets fire to their own property can face arson charges. For example, assume Alice has a $1 million fire insurance policy on a falling apart building that would be worth half of that if she tried to sell it. If Bob burns the warehouse down and then tries to collect the proceeds of the insurance policy, Bob can be found guilty of both arson and insurance fraud.

There are four types of arson and Pyromania is one of them. The other three are: profit, to cover up an act of crime, for revenge, and pyromania, with pyromania being the second most prominent category.    Pyromania is a rare disorder with an incidence of less than one percent in most studies; also, pyromaniacs hold a very small proportion of psychiatric hospital admissions (The Arsonist's Mind 2006). Pyromania can occur in children as young as age three, though such cases are rare. Only a small percentage of children and teenagers arrested for arson are child pyromaniacs. A preponderance of the individuals are male;  one source states that ninety percent of those diagnosed with pyromania are male. Based on a survey of 9,282 Americans using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, impulse-control problems such as gambling, pyromania and compulsive shopping collectively affect 9% of the population (Alspach 2005). A 1979 study by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration found that only 14% of fires were started by pyromaniacs and others with mental illness (Smith 1999). A 1951 study by Lewis and Yarnell, one of the largest epidemiological studies conducted found that 39% of those who had intentionally set fires had been diagnosed with pyromania.

Pyromania is an impulse control disorder  in which individuals repeatedly fail to resist impulses to deliberately start fires,  in order to relieve tension or for instant gratification. The term pyromania comes from the Greek word "fire". It's important to notice that Pyromania and pyromaniacs are distinct from arson and arsonists. Pyromania is multiple, deliberate and purposeful fire setting rather than accidental.  Pyromaniacs start fires to induce euphoria, and often fixate on institutions of fire control like fire stations and firefighters.

Common causes of pyromania can be broken down into two main groups: individual and environmental. This includes the complex understanding of factors such as individual temperament, parental psychopathology, and possible neuro - chemical predispositions.  Many studies have shown that patients with pyromanias were in households without a father figure present.

Individual factors that can lead to pyromania mainly deal with personal issues in someone's life. This category includes adolescents who have committed crimes in the past. For example, 19% of adolescents suffering from pyromania have been charged with vandalism and 18% are non-violent sexual offenders. Other causes may include the seeking of attention from authorities or parents and resolving social issues such as bullying or lack of friends (Frey 2001). Another cause may be that the patient is subconsciously seeking revenge for something that has occurred in the past. Individuals with pyromania have also been prominent in having antisocial traits. These include truancy, running away from home, and delinquency. Childhood and adolescent individuals are usually associated with ADHD or adjustment disorders. Pyromaniacs have also been associated with abnormal cravings of power and social prestige.

Environmental factors that may lead to pyromania include an event that the offender has experienced in the environment he lives in. Environmental factors include neglect from parents and physical or sexual abuse in earlier life. Other causes include early experiences of watching adults or teenagers using fire inappropriately and lighting fires as a stress reliever (Frey 2001).

There are specific symptoms that separate pyromaniacs from those who start fires for criminal purposes or due to emotional motivations not specifically related to fire. Someone suffering from this disorder deliberately and purposely sets fires on more than one occasion, and before the act of lighting the fire the person usually experiences tension and an emotional buildup. When around fires, a person suffering from pyromania gains intense interest or fascination and may also experience pleasure, gratification or relief (Frey 2001). Another long term contributor often linked with pyromania is the buildup of stress. When studying the lifestyle of someone with pyromania, a buildup of stress and emotion is often evident and this is seen in teens' attitudes towards friends and family (Gale 1998). At times it is difficult to distinguish the difference between pyromania and experimentation in childhood because both involve pleasure from the fire.

The appropriate treatment for pyromania varies with the age of the patient and the seriousness of the condition. For children and adolescents treatment usually is cognitive behavioral therapy sessions in which the patient’s situation is diagnosed to find out what may have caused this impulsive behavior. Once the situation is diagnosed, repeated therapy sessions usually help continue to a recovery (Frey 2001).  Other important steps must be taken as well with the interventions and the cause of the impulse behavior. Some other treatments measures include parenting training, over-correction/satiation/negative practice with corrective consequences, behavior contracting/token reinforcement, special problem-solving skills training, relaxation training, covert sensitization, fire safety and prevention education, individual and family therapy, and medication.  The prognosis for recovery in adolescents and children who suffer from pyromania depends on the environmental or individual factors in play, but is generally positive. Pyromania is generally harder to treat in adults, often due to lack of cooperation by the patient. Treatment usually consists of more medication to prevent stress or emotional outbursts (Oliver) in addition to long-term psychotherapy (Frey 2001). In adults, however, the recovery rate is generally poor and if an adult does recover it usually takes a longer period of time (Frey 2001).

Vandalism

Vandalism occurs when an individual destroys, defaces or otherwise degrades someone else’s property without their permission; sometimes called criminal damage, malicious trespass, or malicious mischief.

Vandalism is an offense that occurs when a person destroys or defaces someone else's property without permission. Effects of vandalism may include broken windows, graffiti, damage to vehicles, and even damage or destruction of a person's website. The results of vandalism may be found on billboards, street signs, and building structures, as well as near bus stops, tunnels, cemeteries, and many other public spaces.

While vandalism may be considered "art" by some, it is nonetheless a crime against property that is punishable by jail time, monetary fines, or both.

Vandalism is a broad category crime that is used to describe a variety of behaviors. Generally, vandalism includes any willful behavior aimed at destroying, altering, or defacing property belonging to another.

Common behaviors that may lead to a vandalism charge include:

Spray painting another's property with the purpose of defacing;

"Egging" someone's car or window;

Keying (or scratching) paint off of someone's car;

Breaking someone's windows;

Defacing public property with graffiti and other forms of "art";

Slashing someone's tires;

Defacing park benches; and

Altering or knocking down street signs;

Kicking and damaging someone's property with your hands or feet; and several other behaviors.

In addition, a person who possesses the means to commit vandalism, including possession of a drill bit, glass cutter, or other substance, may also face vandalism charges under certain circumstances (for example, a person under eighteen who carries a can of spray paint at a park or on school grounds).

Vandalism is covered by state statutes, and varies by state. Some states refer to vandalism as "criminal damage", "malicious trespass", "malicious mischief", or other terms. In an effort to control the impact of vandalism, many states have specific laws that may decrease certain forms of vandalism. For example, some states have local "aerosol container laws" that limit the purchase of spray paint containers or other "vandalism tools" which could be used for graffiti or vandalism purposes.

In addition, some states have laws that prohibit vandalism to certain types of property, such as autos, churches, school property, and government facilities.

Moreover, some states have laws that prohibit specific acts of vandalism, such as breaking windows, graffiti, and using man-made substances to destroy property.

Vandalism laws exist to prevent the destruction of property and public spaces, and may also exist to protect against hate crimes and other behavior that is directed at religious or minority groups, such as ransacking a church or synagogue, writing racist or sexist graffiti on school property, or etching a swastika in a car.

Vandalism, on its own, is often considered a non-violent crime that generally affects ones "quality of life", but may escalate to more serious crimes typically involving juveniles including theft/larceny, burglary, drug possession, disturbing the peace, and other random acts of violence.

Vandalism has the potential to cost states millions of dollars each year in clean-up efforts and other program costs, and may cause psychological or emotional damage to property owners as well. When a person defaces, alters, or otherwise destroys someone's property, he or she may be required to clean- up, repair, or replace the damaged property or, more substantially, face criminal penalties in the form of jail time, fines, or both.

Sex crimes

Crimes that involved illegal or coerced sexual conduct against another person are considered sex crimes.

Indecent Exposure

It is illegal for a person to expose their genitals in public. Here's a basic description of the indecent exposure laws, with links to related topics and state penal code section.

Indecent exposure laws in most states make it a crime to purposefully display one's genitals in public, causing others to be alarmed or offended. Indecent exposure is often committed for the sexual gratification of the offender or committed to entice a sexual response.

In California, for instance, to be convicted of indecent exposure, the prosecution must prove an intent to sexually arouse, or sexually insult or offend. The California statute broadly and vaguely makes it a crime to willfully expose your genitals to someone else, motivated by a desire to sexually gratify yourself or offend or insult the other person.

Exposing one’s genitals means just that - to show your bare genitals. Showing a bare female breast is not considered exposing one’s genitals (otherwise breastfeeding mothers might face indecent exposure charges). Similarly, flashing someone your under wear, no matter how revealing or skimpy, is not indecent exposure for purposes of most indecent exposure statutes, including California's.

That said, an indecent exposure charge reach the level of a sexual assault if any physical contact is made.

So what about urinating in public? If one is urinating behind a dumpster, for example, outside direct view of the public (i.e. especially at night), that person likely would have a good argument that the act was not done with the purpose of sexual arousal, gratification or offending another.

In most cases, a first indecent exposure conviction subjects you to misdemeanor penalties like a few months in county jail and a fine. A second offense likely would rise to a felony and can lead to a state prison sentence. But perhaps worst of all, in some states any indecent exposure conviction subjects you to a lifetime duty to register as a register as a sex offender. This often makes plea bargaining for an alternative charge vital.

Prostitution

The crime of offering or engaging in sexual acts for payment. Sometimes called "the oldest profession," prostitution can take many forms, from streetwalkers and brothels, to sophisticated call-girl or escort services. Prostitution laws make it a crime to offer, agree to, or engage in a sexual act for compensation.

Prostitution is illegal in most countries and in all states of the United States except certain parts of Nevada where it is strictly regulated. Some state statutes punish the act of prostitution, and other state statutes criminalize the acts of soliciting prostitution, arranging for prostitution, and operating a house of prostitution. As for federal statutes, the Mann Act makes it a crime to transport a person in interstate or foreign commerce for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose.

Depending upon applicable state law, the stages of a typical prostitution "transaction" can involve charges against the provider of services (for "prostitution"), the customer paying for the services (for "solicitation of prostitution"), and any middleman (for "pandering" or "pimping").

In most states offering sexual services or agreeing to provide those services in exchange for money is considered prostitution whether or not the services are provided. In most jurisdictions, the person offering sexual services is not the only one who can be charged with a crime.

Solicitation on prostitution

The person who pays for the sexual services, sometimes called "Johns," can face charges of solicitation of prostitution. Solicitation of prostitution is a crime involving a person's agreement to exchange money for sex. The agreement does not have to be explicit. A person's actions can be enough to demonstrate agreement. The solicitation charge can be enhanced by solicitation of prostitution to a minor, which will often result in the misdemeanor charge becoming a felony

The crime of solicitation of prostitution occurs at the moment you agree to pay for sex, and take some action to further that agreement. Solicitation is simply encouraging someone to commit a crime. It does not matter if the crime ends up being committed or not. An action to further an agreement can be most any act demonstrating a willingness to go through with the agreement, like withdrawing money from an ATM.

Rape

Highlights situations that may constitute the crime of rape, including date rape and statutory rape, and contains links to state penal codes and federal laws against sexual abuse.

The crime of rape generally refers to non-consensual sexual intercourse that is committed by physical force, threat of injury, or other duress.

Common law defined rape as unlawful intercourse by a man against a woman who is not his wife by force or threat and against her will. However most states have refined and broadened the statutory definition of rape so that marriage, gender, and force are not relevant. The victim's lack of consent is the crucial element. A lack of consent can include the victim's inability to say "no" to intercourse, due to the effects of drugs or alcohol. Rape can occur when the offender and victim have a pre-existing relationship (sometimes called "date rape"), or even when the offender is the victim's spouse.

To convict an offender for rape, some form of sexual penetration, however slight, must occur. Each instance of penetration can serve as a count of rape, as well.

The most common form of rape is forcible rape, in which an offender uses violence or threats of violence to force a victim into sexual intercourse. In most states, however, rape can also occur in a number of other ways, including posing as a public official and threatening to arrest or punish the victim.

Outside of law, the term rape ("an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with another person without that person's consent") is often used interchangeably with sexual assault,  a closely related    form of assault typically including rape and other forms of non-consensual sexual activity.

Female victims are much more likely to be assaulted by an acquaintance such as a friend or co-worker, a dating partner, an ex-boyfriend or a husband or other intimate partner than by a complete stranger.  In a study of hospital emergency room treatments for rape, Kaufman et al. state that the male victims as a group sustained more physical trauma, were more likely to have been a victim of multiple assaults from multiple assailants, and were more likely to have been held captive longer.

Statutory Rape

Statutory rape refers to sexual intercourse with a minor (someone below the "age of consent"). People below the age of consent cannot legally consent to having sex. This means that sex with them, by definition of the strict liability statute, violates the law. Statutory rape laws vary by state, with states setting the age of consent differently, as well as using different names to refer to this crime. Many states punish statutory rape under laws addressing sexual assault, rape, unlawful sexual intercourse or carnal knowledge of a child. In many states, statutory rape is a felony only if one of the participants (usually a male) is at least three years older than the other; otherwise, it is a misdemeanor. There are very few federal laws dealing with statutory rape. Basics overview of statutory rape, which does not require the victim to have been forced into having sex with an adult, only that the victim was below the age of consent. Statutory rape refers to sexual relations involving someone below the "age of consent." People below the age of consent cannot legally consent to having sex. This means that sex with them, by definition, violates the law. Statutory rape laws vary by state, with states setting the age of consent differently, as well as using different names to refer to this crime. Many states punish statutory rape under laws addressing sexual assault, rape, unlawful sexual intercourse or carnal knowledge of a child. There are very few federal laws dealing with statutory rape. Statutory rape differs from other types of rape, and from child molestation, in that the act would not be a crime if all participants were above the age of consent. Unlike "forcible rape," statutory rape can involve underage participants who willingly engage in sexual relations. However, because those under the age of consent cannot give legal consent to sex, the act is a crime whether or not force is involved. If the act involves force or coercion, many states prosecute the offender under the separate statutes punishing child molestation or aggravated rape. The age of consent varies from state to state. Many states set the age of consent at 16 years old, while others set it at 17 or 18. Historically, statutory rape has been a "strict liability" offense, meaning that it does not matter whether what the perpetrator believed the victim was old enough to consent to sex. Some states now allow the defense that the perpetrator had reason to believe, and did believe, that the minor was above the age of consent. In many states this defense is not allowed, meaning that the act was a crime regardless of what the perpetrator believed the victims' age to be. In states that do allow such a defense, it often cannot be used if the victim was particularly young, commonly under the age of 14. To address sexual relations in which all participants are below the age of consent, or which involve an offender close in age to the minor, some states have enacted what have been called "Romeo and Juliet laws." These laws carve out different treatment of statutory rape offenses involving individuals close in age. Not all states have adopted "Romeo and Juliet" laws, and such laws operate differently in many of the states which have adopted them. In some states, they allow a defense against criminal charges for statutory rape. In other states, they shift the offense to a lower level, such as a misdemeanor. In some places, Romeo and Juliet laws reduce the level of punishment for the offense - imposing only probation or a fine, or eliminating the requirement to register as a sex offender, for example. Some states require certain classes of professionals to report knowledge or suspicion of statutory rape to authorities. Types of professionals required to report statutory rape often include teachers, medical professionals, public employees, and clergy, among others. Statutory rape is a state sex crime that can be charged as a felony or misdemeanor offense and may be punishable by incarceration, fine, probation, and/or registry as a sex offender, depending on the state and circumstances of the incident.  Statutory rape refers to sexual relations involving someone below the "age of consent." People below the age of consent cannot legally consent to having sex. This means that sex with them, by definition, violates the law. Statutory rape laws vary by state, with states setting the age of consent differently, as well as using different names to refer to this crime. Many states punish statutory rape under laws addressing sexual assault, rape, unlawful sexual intercourse or carnal knowledge of a child. There are very few federal laws dealing with statutory rape. Statutory rape differs from other types of rape, and from child molestation, in that the act would not be a crime if all participants were above the age of consent. Unlike "forcible rape," statutory rape can involve underage participants who willingly engage in sexual relations. However, because those under the age of consent cannot give legal consent to sex, the act is a crime whether or not force is involved. If the act involves force or coercion, many states prosecute the offender under the separate statutes punishing child molestation or aggravated rape. 

Historically, statutory rape has been a "strict liability" offense, meaning that it does not matter whether what the perpetrator believed the victim was old enough to consent to sex. Some states now allow the defense that the perpetrator had reason to believe, and did believe, that the minor was above the age of consent. 

Laws punishing statutory rape often include a spectrum of offenses, ranging from misdemeanors to high level felonies. In general, two main factors affect the level of offense for an act of statutory rape: (1) the age of the victim; and (2) the age difference between victim and perpetrator. Other factors, including any prior sex offenses committed by the offender, whether drugs or alcohol were involved, and whether pregnancy resulted, can also affect the level of charge imposed.

For example, in some states sexual relations with someone less than 12 or 14 years old constitutes a first degree felony, while sex with someone older but still below the age of consent, might be a misdemeanor or lower level felony. In other states, any act of statutory rape constitutes a felony, with serious and sometimes mandatory jail sentences resulting.

State laws vary widely on these factors, with almost each state using a different calculation method to classify the level of offense. The range of offenses within a single state can involve multiple factors and include a broad range of charges.

Some states impose harsher penalties when the offender is a certain number of years older than the victim. Other state have statutes in which the age of the perpetrator alone (over 21, for example), pushes the act into a higher level of offense.

Punishment for statutory rape can include mandatory prison or jail sentences, probation, fines, and mandated treatment services. Many states require those convicted of statutory rape to register as sex offenders.

To address sexual relations in which all participants are below the age of consent, or which involve an offender close in age to the minor, some states have enacted what have been called "Romeo and Juliet laws." These laws carve out different treatment of statutory rape offenses involving individuals close in age.

Not all states have adopted "Romeo and Juliet" laws, and such laws operate differently in many of the states which have adopted them. In some states, they allow a defense against criminal charges for statutory rape. In other states, they shift the offense to a lower level, such as a misdemeanor. In some places, Romeo and Juliet laws reduce the level of punishment for the offense - imposing only probation or a fine, or eliminating the requirement to register as a sex offender, for example.

Professionals Required to Report

Some states require certain classes of professionals to report knowledge or suspicion of statutory rape to authorities. Types of professionals required to report statutory rape often include teachers, medical professionals, public employees, and clergy, among others.

Statutory rape is a state sex crime that can be charged as a felony or misdemeanor offense and may be punishable by incarceration, fine, probation, and/or registry as a sex offender, depending on the state and circumstances of the incident.

Emotional effects: Traumatic events such as rape and sexual assault have, aside from obvious physical traumas, profound long-term psychological effects on all victims including but not limited to children who are assault victims. These include: denial, helplessness, dislike of sex, anger, self-blame, anxiety, shame, nightmares, fear, depression, flashbacks, guilt, rationalization, mood-swings, numbness, promiscuity, loneliness, social anxiety, difficulty trusting oneself or others, difficulty concentrating. Being the victim of sexual assault may lead to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder, addiction, major depressive disorder or other psychopathologies. Family and friends experience emotional scarring including a strong desire for revenge, a desire to "fix' the problem and/or move on, and a rationalization that "it wasn't that bad".

Prevention of Sexual harassment and assault may be prevented by secondary school,  college, workplace  and public education programs. At least one program for fraternity men produced "sustained behavioral change."

Several research based rape prevention programs have been tested and verified through scientific studies. The rape prevention programs that have the strongest empirical data in the research literature include the following:

The Men's Program, also known as the One in Four programs, was written by John Foubert. Its focus is on increasing empathy toward rape survivors and motivating men to intervene as bystanders in sexual assault situations. Published data show that high risk men who saw The Men’s Program committed 40% fewer acts of sexually coercive behavior than those who didn’t. These treated men also committed acts of sexual coercion that were 8 times less severe than a control group.  Further research also shows that men who saw The Men’s Program reported more efficacy in intervening and greater willingness to help as a bystander after seeing the program. Several additional studies are available documenting its efficacy.

Bring in the Bystander was written by Victoria Banyard. Its focus is on who bystanders are, when they have helped, and how to intervene as a bystander in risky situations. The program includes a brief empathy induction component and a pledge to intervene in the future. Several studies show strong evidence of favorable outcomes including increased bystander efficacy, increased willingness to intervene as a bystander, and decreased rape myth acceptance.

Sexual Assault

Describes the catch-all crime that encompasses unwanted sexual touching of many kinds, with links to state penal code and federal law on related crimes.

Specific laws vary by state, but sexual assault generally refers to any crime in which the offender subjects the victim to sexual touching that is unwanted and offensive. These crimes can range from sexual groping or assault/battery, to attempted rape. All states prohibit sexual assault, but the exact definitions of the crimes that fall within the category of sexual assault differ from state to state. The laws share some basic elements, but the structures, wording and scope of sexual assault offenses vary considerably, so always check your local statutes for specific questions.

In general, sexual assault is involuntary sexual contact that occurs through the actors use of force, coercion or the victim's incapacitation. The law will consider the victim incapacitated if they do not have the mental ability to understand the nature of the sexual acts, or if they are physically incapable of indicating their unwillingness to participate in the sexual conduct. Common examples of these charges may arise from the use of alcohol or date rape drugs, both of which can make it impossible for a victim to legally consent to sexual conduct.

Modern sexual assault laws cover nonconsensual sexual contact that occurs between any sex and between people of any age. For example, most sexual assault laws cover involuntary sexual contact occurring between two men, two women or two children, etc., not just an adult man and woman.

Most states have made sexual assault the umbrella term for other crimes, such as rape and unwanted sexual contact. Some states distinguish between crimes involving penetration and crimes involving coerced or involuntary touching, making the former an aggravated or first-degree sexual assault and the latter a lower-level sexual assault.

Most states have also extended sexual assault laws to cover spousal sexual assault. States typically accomplished this in one of three ways: by removing the specific exemption for spousal assaults that existed in many sexual assault laws; by removing marriage as a defense to the sexual assault charge; or by creating a separate law prohibiting sexual assault on a spouse.

The federal statute outlawing sexual assault tracks the general principles of sexual assault discussed above, and prohibits any sexual act that occurs as a result of the actor threatening or placing the victim in fear. It also prohibits sexual acts occurring when the victim is incapacitated.

 Sexual assault is any involuntary sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced  or forced to engage against their will, or any non-consensual sexual touching of a person. This includes rape (such as forced vaginal, anal or oral penetration or drug facilitated sexual assault), groping, forced kissing, child sexual abuse, or the torture of the victim in a sexual manner.

In legal terms, sexual assault is a statutory offense in various jurisdictions, including United States, Canada, England and Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. The legal definition of the crime of sexual assault is determined by each jurisdiction. 

Elderly sexual assault is victimization of persons over the age of 60, most of who suffer from decreased functionality, frailty, and weakness and therefore are reliant on caretakers. Only 30% of people age 65 or older who are victimized report it to the police. The most common assailants are caretakers, adult children, spouses and fellow facility residents. Signs that an elder is being assaulted include increased vaginal tearing, bleeding, bruising, infection, pelvic injury, soft tissue or bone injury. Also, an altered mood might be an indication of sexual assault. These symptoms include extreme agitation, post-traumatic stress disorder, withdrawal, panic attacks, STDs, exacerbation of existing illness, sleep disturbances, longer recovery times.

Sexual harassment is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors.    The legal and social definitions of what constitutes sexual harassment differ widely by culture. Sexual harassment includes a wide range of behaviors from seemingly mild transgressions to serious forms of abuse, and some forms of sexual harassment overlap with sexual assault.  Sexual harassment may include leering, pressure for dates, pressing or rubbing against a person, obscene phone calls, bra snapping, wolf-whistles, lip-smacking, indecent exposure, sexual discrimination, displaying explicit materials, sexist jokes, unwanted grabbing, comments about person's body, soliciting sexual services.

Groping: touching or fondling of another person in a sexual way (including through clothing) using the hands, without that other person's consent.

Sexual harassment Statistics (REMEMBER? STATISTICS!)

Age

15% are under the age of 12

29% are age 12-17

44% are under age 18

80% are under age 30

12-34 are the highest risk years

Girls ages 16–19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.

By Gender 

9 out of every 10 rape victims were women

1 out of every 6 women have been victims of attempted (2.8%) or completed (14.8%) rape in their life span

17.7 million women have been victims of attempted or completed rape

3% of men have been victims of attempted or completed rape

1 in every 10 victims of rape were male in 2003

In the U.S. 2.78 million men have been victims of sexual assault or rape

Effects

3 times more likely to suffer from depression.

6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.

26 times more likely to abuse drugs.

4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.

The reporting of sexual assault:

on average 60% of sexual assaults go unreported

only 3% of rapists serve time in prison 

The assailants: According to the U.S. Department of Justice 1997 Sex Offenses and Offenders Study

A rapists age on average is 31 years old

52% of offenders are white

22% of rapists imprisoned report that they are married

Juveniles accounted for 16% of forcible rape arrestees in 1995 and 17% of those arrested for other sex offenses

11% of rapes involved the use of a weapon

3% used a gun,

6% used a knife, and

2% used another form of weapon

84% of victims reported the use of physical force only

According to the U.S. Department of Justice 2005 National Crime Victimization Study

About 2/3 of rapes were committed by someone known to the victim

73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger

38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance

28% are an intimate

7% are a relative 

In the United States, several studies since 1987 have shown that one in four college women have experienced rape or attempted rape at some point in their lifetime. 

Solicitation

It's illegal to entice someone else to commit a crime (such as prostitution). This article explains the elements to prove solicitation, as well as defenses and penalties.

Criminal solicitation is requesting, encouraging or demanding someone to engage in criminal conduct, with the intent to facilitate or contribute to the commission of that crime. Most commonly, solicitation refers to solicitation of prostitution the crime of soliciting someone to engage in prostitution.

Though state laws vary, to be guilty of solicitation, one must:

- request that someone else engage in criminal conduct;

- have the intention to engage in criminal conduct with that person.

States vary as to whether the other person must receive the request, or whether the act of making the request (along with criminal intent) is enough to constitute solicitation. Some require that the other person actually receive the request.

Regarding solicitation of prostitution, this generally means that the person must communicate a request that another person engage in sex acts for compensation, and must have the intention to follow through with the request.

It's important to remember that the subsequent crime the actual prostitution for example need not be committed. Someone can still be guilty of solicitation even if their request is not accepted, or the subsequent crime simply never happens. For example, if an undercover police officer receives a request to engage in prostitution, the alleged client can be convicted for soliciting even though no prostitution did or will actually take place.

As in all criminal cases, a solicitation defendant can challenge that they did not commit the act, or that they did not have a criminal intent if they did commit the act. For example, someone charged with solicitation of prostitution might argue that he or she was not the person who did it, or that there was no offer or intent to compensate the other person for performing sex acts.

In some cases, a person is not liable for solicitation if he or she recants their intention to commit the subsequent crime, and notifies the other person that their request is off the table. Depending on what type of criminal behavior the person was soliciting, recanting might also require notifying the police in order to prevent subsequent criminal conduct from unfolding.

Often evidence in addition to any testimony from the person propositioned is required in order to convict someone of solicitation.

Since one can solicit the commission of a variety of crimes, punishment for solicitation can vary widely, and vary by state as well. Solicitation charges escalate depending on the degree of felony which was allegedly solicited. For example, solicitation of murder is punished as a much higher degree of felony than solicitation of prostitution.

Punishment for solicitation of prostitution can also vary. If the person has prior convictions, they are more likely to be sentenced to jail time. First time offenders may often avoid jail time, and receive fines, community service, or other alternative sentences. Some states now require HIV testing and HIV classes for those convicted of soliciting prostitution.

As a felony, a conviction for solicitation can have huge consequences. An experienced criminal attorney can help someone charged with solicitation find the best possible solution available.

Mentors in Violence Prevention

The MVP program was written by Jackson Katz. This program focuses on discussing a male bystander who didn’t intervene when woman was in danger. An emphasis is placed on encouraging men to be active bystanders rather than standing by when they notice abuse. The bulk of the presentation is on processing hypothetical scenarios. Outcomes reported in research literature include lower levels of sexism and increased belief that participants could prevent violence against women.

The Green Dot program was written by Dorothy Edwards. This program includes both motivational speeches and peer education focused on bystander intervention. Outcomes show that program participation is associated with reductions in rape myth acceptance and increased bystander intervention.

The city of Calgary, CA initiated a public education campaign aimed at potential perpetrators. Posters in bar bathrooms and public transit centers reminded men that "It's not sex when she's wasted" and "It's not sex when he changes his mind." The campaign was so effective that it spread to other cities. "The number of reported sexual assaults fell by 10 per cent last year in Vancouver, after the ads were featured around the city. It was the first time in several years that there was a drop in sexual assault activity."

Another Chapter

Correlation of Crime

Several different correlates of crime have been proposed with varying degrees of empirical support. The causes of crime are one of the major research areas in criminology. Yet, one needs to remember that correlation does not imply causation.

The Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009) is a systematic review of worldwide empirical studies on crime publicized in the academic literature.   In order to identify well-established relationships to crime consistency scores were calculated for the factors which many studies have examined. The scoring depends on how consistent a statistically significant relationship was found in the studies. The authors argue that the review summaries most of what is currently known of variables associated with criminality.

Following is a concentration of relationships:

Biological

Age

Crime is most frequent in second and third decades of life.

Gender

Males commit more overall and violent crime. They also commit more property crime except shoplifting, which is about equally distributed between the genders. Males appear to be more likely to recidivate.

Arousal

Measures related to arousal such as heart rate and skin conductance are low among criminals.

Body type

Mesomorphic or muscular body type is positively correlated with criminality specifically of the sexual nature.

Hormones

Testosterone is positively correlated to criminality.

Biochemical markers

Low monoamines oxidize activity and low 5-HIAA levels are found among criminals.

Race, ethnicity and immigration

There is a relationship between race and crime.

Ethnically/racially diverse areas probably have higher crime rates compared to ethnically/racially homogeneous areas.

Most studies on immigrants have found higher rates of crime. However, this varies greatly depending on the country of origin with immigrants from some regions having lower crime rates than the indigenous population.

Early life

Pregnancy

Maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with later criminality. Low birth weight and prenatal trauma/birth complications may be more prevalent among criminals.

Family

Child maltreatment, low parent-child attachment, marital discord/family discord, alcoholism and drug use in the family, and low parental supervision/monitoring are associated with criminality. Larger family size and later birth order are also associated.

Enuresis

Nocturnal enuresis or bed wetting correlates with criminality.

Bullying

Bullying is positively related to criminal behavior.

School

School disciplinary problems, truancy, low grade point average, and dropping out of high school are associated with criminality.

Lead Poisoning

Childhood lead exposure of a population correlates with criminal activity approximately twenty years later.

Alcohol and illegal drug use

High alcohol use, alcohol abuse, and alcoholism, as well as high illegal drug use and dependence are positively related to criminality in general.

Sex

Early age of first intercourse and more sexual partners are associated with criminality.

Friends

Few friends, criminal friends, and gang membership correlate positively with criminality.

Religion

On the individual level, most recent scientific studies have found a negative correlation between religiosity and criminality. A 2001 meta-analysis by Colin Baier and Bradley Wright found that, in general, "religious beliefs and behaviors exert a moderate deterrent effect on individuals' criminal behavior".  An individual with high religious saliency (i.e. with high importance of religion to their life) is less likely to be associated with criminal activities; similarly, an individual who regularly attends religious services or is highly involved in them will be less involved in criminality, with the possible exception of property damage.

General morbidity

Criminals probably suffer from more illnesses.

Epilepsy

Epilepsy appears to have a positive correlation with criminality.

Accidental injuries

Criminals are more frequently accidentally injured.

Conduct disorder and antisocial personality disorder

Childhood conduct disorder and adult antisocial personality disorder are associated with one another and criminal behavior.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder correlates positively with criminality.

Depression and suicide

Minor depression and probably clinical depression is more likely among offenders. Depression in the family is associated with criminality. Criminals are more likely to be suicidal.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia and criminality appear to be positively correlated.

Intelligence quotient and learning disabilities

There is also a relationship between lower IQ and crime. A learning disability is a substantial discrepancy between IQ and academic performance. It has a relationship to criminal behavior. Slow reading development may be particularly relevant.

Personality traits

Several personality traits are associated with criminality: High impulsivity, high psychoticism, high sensation-seeking, high aggression in childhood, and low self control, low empathy and altruism.

Higher total socioeconomic status (usually measured using the three variables income (or wealth), occupational level, and years of education) correlate with less crime. Longer education is associated with less crime. Higher income/wealth have a somewhat inconsistent correlation with less crime with the exception of self-report illegal drug use for which there is no relation. Higher parental socioeconomic status probably has an inverse relationship with crime.

High frequency of changing jobs and high frequency of unemployment for a person correlate with criminality.

Somewhat inconsistent evidence indicates that there is a relationship between low incomes, percentage under the poverty line, few years of education, and high income inequality in an area and more crime in the area.

The relationship between the state of the economy and crime rates is inconsistent among the studies; also for differences in unemployment between different regions and crime rates. There is a slight tendency in the majority of the studies for higher unemployment rate to be positively associated with crime rates.

Cities or counties with larger populations have higher crime rates. Poorly maintained neighborhoods correlate with higher crime rates. High residential mobility is associated with a higher crime rate. More taverns and alcohol stores, as well as more gambling and tourist establishments, in an area are positively related to criminality.

There appears to be higher crime rates in the geographic regions of a country that are closer to the equator.

Crime rates vary with temperature depending on both short-term weather and season. The relationship between the hotter months of summer and a peak in rape and assault seems to be almost universal. For other crimes there are also seasonal or monthly patterns but they are more inconsistent across nations. On the other hand for climate, there is a higher crime rate in the southern US but this largely disappears after non-climatic factors are controlled for.

Risk of being a crime victim is highest for teens through mid 30s and lowest for the elderly. Fear of crime shows the opposite pattern. Criminals are more often crime victims. Females fear crimes more than males. Black Americans appear to fear crime more. Black people are more often victims, especially of murder.

Media depiction of violence

Media violence research examines whether links between consuming media violence and subsequent aggressive and violent behavior exists.

Gun politics

The effect of gun politics on crime is a controversial research area.

Drugs

Both legal and illegal drugs are implicated in drug-related crime.

Being an unwanted child

Children whose parents did not want to have a child are more likely to grow to be delinquents or commit crimes.  Such children are also less likely to succeed in school, and are more likely to live in poverty.  They also tend to have lower mother-child relationship quality.  Children whose births were unintended are likely to be less mentally and physically healthy during childhood.

Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to explain crime and antisocial behavior by exploring both biological factors and environmental factors. While contemporary criminology has been dominated by sociological theories, biosocial criminology also recognizes the potential contributions of fields such as genetics, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology.

The field of psychology has been greatly influenced by the study of genetics. Decades of research has demonstrated that both genetic and environmental factors play a role in a variety of behaviors in humans and animals (e.g. Grigorenko & Sternberg, 2003). The genetic basis of aggression, however, remains poorly understood. Aggression is a multi-dimensional concept, but it can be generally defined as behavior that inflicts pain or harm on another.

Genetic-developmental theory states that individual differences in a continuous phenotype result from the action of a large number of genes, each exerting an effect that works with environmental factors to produce the trait.[1]This type of trait is influenced by multiple factors making it more complex and difficult to study than a simple Mendelian trait (one gene for one phenotype).

Aggression, as well as other behavioral traits, is studied genetically based on its heritability through generations. 

Heritability models of aggression are mainly based on animals due to the ethical concern in using humans for genetic study. Animals are first selectively bred and then placed in a variety of environmental conditions, allowing researchers to examine the differences of selection in the aggression of animals.

Research methods

As with other topics in behavioral genetics, aggression is studied in three main experimental ways to help identify what role genetics plays in the behavior:

Heritability studies – studies focused to determine whether a trait, such as aggression, is heritable and how it is inherited from parent to offspring. These studies make use of genetic linkage maps to identify genes associated with certain behaviors such as aggression.

Mechanism experiments – studies to determine the biological mechanisms that lead certain genes to influence types of behavior like aggression.

Genetic behavior correlation studies – studies that use scientific data and attempt to correlate it with actual human behavior. Examples include twin studies and adoption studies.

These three main experimental types are used in animal studies, studies testing heritability and molecular genetics, and gene interaction/environment studies. Recently, important links between aggression and genetics have been studied and the results are allowing scientists to better understand the connections.

Selective breeding

The heritability of aggression has been observed in many animal strains after noting that some strains of birds, dogs, fish, and mice seem to be more aggressive than other strains. Selective breeding has demonstrated that it is possible to select for genes that lead to more aggressive behavior in animals.[7] Selective breeding examples also allow researchers to understand the importance of developmental timing for genetic influences on aggressive behavior. A study done in 1983 (Cairns) produced both highly aggressive male and female strains of mice dependent on certain developmental periods to have this more aggressive behavior expressed. These mice were not observed to be more aggressive during the early and later stages of their lives, but during certain periods of time (in their middle-age period) were more violent and aggressive in their attacks on other mice. Selective breeding is a quick way to select for specific traits and see those selected traits within a few generations of breeding. These characteristics make selective breeding an important tool in the study of genetics and aggressive behavior.

Experiments designed to study biological mechanisms are utilized when exploring how aggression is influenced by genetics. Molecular genetics studies allow many different types of behavioral traits to be examined by manipulating genes and studying the effect(s) of the manipulation.

Molecular genetics

A number of molecular genetics studies have focused on manipulating candidate aggression genes in mice and other animals to induce effects that can be possibly applied to humans. Most studies have focused on polymorphisms of serotonin receptors, dopamine receptors and neurotransmitter metabolizing enzymes.  Results of these studies have led to linkage analysis to map the serotonin-related genes and impulsive aggression. In particular, the serotonin 5-HT seems to be an influence in inter-male aggression either directly or through other molecules that use the 5-HT pathway. 5-HT normally dampens aggression in animals and humans. Mice missing specific genes for 5-HT were observed to be more aggressive than normal mice and were more rapid and violent in their attacks.  Other studies have been focused on neurotransmitters. Studies of a mutation in the neurotransmitter metabolizing enzyme monoamine oxidize A (MAO-A) have been shown to cause a syndrome that includes violence and impulsivity in humans.  Studies of the molecular genetics pathways are leading to the production of pharmaceuticals to fix the pathway problems and hopefully show an observed change in aggressive behavior.

A rare genetic variant causing MAO-A deficiency has been associated with violent behavior in males.  In 2002 a study published by researchers at King's College London found a link between a genetic variant causing low levels of MAO-A and increased levels of antisocial behavior in people who were mistreated as children.  An American group studying monkeys called MAO-A a "warrior gene" in 2004.  A 2008 study found a similar result involving the rare 2-repeat variant of the MAO-A gene, as well as the genes DAT1 and DRD2. In all three cases, the variants of these genes were associated with an elevated risk of violent and delinquent behavior only in people who experienced certain stresses during childhood.

Anthropological Criminology 

Sometimes referred to as criminal anthropology, literally a combination of the study of the human species and the study of criminals) is a field of offender profiling, based on perceived links between the nature of a crime and the personality or physical appearance of the offender. Although similar to physiognomy and phrenology, the term criminal anthropology is generally reserved for the works of the Italian school of criminology of the late 19th century (Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri, Raffaele Garofalo). Lombroso thought that criminals were born with inferior physiological differences which were detectable. He popularized the notion of "born criminal" and thought that criminality was an atavism or hereditary disposition. His central idea was to locate crime completely within the individual and utterly divorce it from the surrounding social conditions and structures. A founder of the Positivist school of criminology, Lombroso hereby opposed social positivism developed by the Chicago school and environmental criminology.

Biosocial criminology is an interdisciplinary field that aims to explain crime and antisocial behavior by exploring both biological factors and environmental factors. While contemporary criminology has been dominated by sociological theories, biosocial criminology also recognizes the potential contributions of fields such as genetics, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology.

Environment

Environment has a significant effect on genetic expression. Disadvantaged environments enhance antisocial gene expression, suppress prosocial gene action and prevent the realization of genetic potential.

Genes and environments operating in tandem (interacting) were required to produce significant antisocial behavior, while neither was powerful enough to produce it independent of the other. That is, children genetically at risk for antisocial behavior reared in positive family environments did not display antisocial behavior, and children not at genetic risk did not become antisocial in adverse family environments.

Genetics

One approach to studying the role of genetics for crime is to calculate the heritability coefficient, which describes the proportion of the variance that is due to actualized genetic effects for some trait in a given population in a specific environment at a specific time. The heritability coefficient for antisocial behavior is estimated to be between 0.40 and 0.58.

Neurophysiology

Another approach is to examine the relationship between neurophysiology and criminality. One example is that measured levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine have been associated with criminal behavior. Another is that neuro - imaging studies give strong evidence that both brain structure and function are involved in criminal behaviors. The limbic system creates emotions such as anger and jealousy that ultimately may cause criminal behavior. The prefrontal cortex is involved in delaying gratification and impulse control and moderates the impulses from the limbic system. If this balance is shifted in favor of the limbic system this may contribute to criminal behavior. Terrie Moffitt's developmental theory of crime argues that "life-course-persistent offenders" make up only 6% of the population but commits more than 50% of all crimes and that this is due to a combination neuro - physiological deficits and an adverse environment that creates a criminal path that is very difficult to break once started.

Evolutionary psychology

Men can potentially have many children with little effort; women only a few with great effort. This is argued to contribute to males having more variable reproductive success than females. One argued consequence of this is that males are more aggressive, and more violently aggressive, than females, since they face higher reproductive competition from their own sex than females. In particular, low-status males may be more likely to remain completely childless. Under such circumstances, it may be have evolutionarily useful to take very high risks and use violent aggression in order to try to increase status and reproductive success rather than become genetically extinct. This may explain why males have higher crime rates than females and why status and being unmarried low is associated with criminality. It may also explain why the degree of income inequality of a society is a better predictor than the absolute income level of the society for male-male homicides; income inequality creates social disparity, while differing average income levels may not do so. Furthermore, competition over females is argued to have been particularly intensive in late adolescence and young adulthood, which is theorized to explain why crime rates are particularly high during this period.

The "evolutionary neuro - androgenic theory" focuses on the hormone testosterone as a factor influencing aggression and criminality and being beneficial during certain forms of competition. In most species, males are more aggressive than females. Castration of males usually has a pacifying effect on aggressive behavior in males. In humans, males engage in crime and especially violent crime more than females. The involvement in crime usually rises in the early teens to mid teens in correlation with the rise of testosterone levels. Research on the relationship between testosterone and aggression is difficult since the only reliable measurement of brain testosterone is by lumbar puncture, which is not done for research purposes. Studies therefore have often instead used less reliable measurements from blood or saliva. Some studies support a link between adult criminality and testosterone, although the relationship is modest if examined separately for each sex. A significant link between juvenile delinquency and testosterone levels has not been established. Some studies have also found testosterone to be associated with behaviors or personality traits linked with criminality such as antisocial behavior and alcoholism. Many studies have also been done on the relationship between more general aggressive behavior/feelings and testosterone. About half the studies have found a relationship and about half no relationship.

Many conflicts causing homicides involve status conflicts, protecting reputation, and seemingly trivial insults.[2] Steven Pinker in his book The Blank Slate argues that in non-state societies without a police it was very important to have a credible deterrence against aggression. Therefore it was important to have a reputation for retaliation, causing humans to develop instincts for revenge as well as for protecting reputation ("honor"). Pinker argues that the development of the state and the police have dramatically reduced the level of violence compared to the ancestral environment. Whenever the state breaks down, which can be very locally such as in poor areas of a city, humans again organize in groups for protection and aggression and concepts such as violent revenge and protecting honor again become extremely important.

Some cultures place greater emphasis on protecting honor than other cultures. One explanation is that protecting honor was in the ancestral past relatively more important for herders than for farmers. The livestock of herders were easily and quickly stolen. As a result, it was important to constantly show toughness as a deterrence, which may cause a higher level of violence. The prediction of the theory was confirmed in a cross-cultural examination of traditional farming and herding Spanish-American societies. However, the prediction that sedentary fishing societies would place a low emphasis on honor was not confirmed.

The degree of cultural collectivism is strongly associated with the burden of infectious disease. It has been argued that this is due to collectivism and associated characteristics such as out-group avoidance limiting the spread of infectious diseases. Other characteristics such as strong in-group–out-group bias and willingness to defend the in group's honor may promote violence. A study found strong associations between several forms of violent criminal behavior and both infectious disease rates across U.S states and degree of cultural collectivism across U.S. states. The associations remained strong after controlling for income inequality.

Specific forms

Evolutionary psychology researchers have proposed several evolutionary explanations for psychopathy. One is that psychopathy represents a frequency dependent socially parasitic strategy. This may benefit the psychopath as long as there are few other psychopaths in the community since more psychopaths' means increasing the risk of encountering another psychopath as well as non-psychopaths likely adapting more countermeasures against cheaters.

Socio-biological theories of rape are theories that explore to what degree, if any; evolutionary adaptations influence the psychology of rapists. Such theories are highly controversial, as traditional theories typically do not consider rape to be a behavioral adaptation. Some object to such theories on ethical, religious, political, as well as scientific grounds. Others argue that a correct knowledge of the causes of rape is necessary in order to develop effective preventive measures.

The Cinderella effect is the alleged higher rate of stepchildren being abused by stepparents as compared to genetic parents, observed in some, but not all, studies. An explanation of this affect has been attempted by application of evolutionary psychology theories. There have also been various criticisms of these theories.

Infanticide is one of the few forms of violence more often done by women than men. Cross-cultural research has found that this is more likely to occur when the child has deformities or illnesses as well as when there are lacking resources due to factors such as poverty, other children requiring resources, and no male support. Such a child may have a low chance of reproductive success, in which case it would decrease the mother's inclusive fitness to spend resources on the child, in particular since women generally have a greater parental investment than men.

Last Chapter

Following are my promised personal tips:

General

Remember - knowledge of law enforcement procedures by an offender does suggest a criminal record or a legal relationship with law enforcement institutes.

When in emotional stress our apocrine sweat gland releases secretions which are easily picked up by dogs.

If a crime is of a violent nature it suggests that the offender has previous criminal record, probably some petty crime as car theft. When an offender shoots from a vehicle and gets away quickly it means that he isn’t a sadist and doesn't want to see his victim suffer.

There are two typical torture categories: sadistic, is used to extract some sort of emotion and functional, which is used to extract information or as a punishment.

If a compulsive psychopath stops killing is because he's dead.

If an offender is committing his crimes during nights it means that he probably has a steady work during day time.

Serial vigilantes are extremely rare.

As a profiler psychoanalyze crime scenes in order to gain a better understanding of the offender.

Every time a person is killed, robed, raped or a victim to other crimes, the most important question a profiler should ask is "why?" Why the offender choose the specific victim' why he committed the crime at this specific time.

Profiles are formulated not just by what's present at the crime scene but also by what's missing.

Typically when a child loses his mother he sees her as a victim and as an adult he wants to protect women.

Spies are among the smartest liars in the world.

A guilty person will feign disgust faced with a criminal scene.

Being intelligent and aware doesn't always allow us to control our urges.

Admitting a problem doesn't meat controlling it.

Part of a sexual – sadist profile is the ability to mimic honesty and sincerity.

Hyper vigilance is common in post traumatic stress disorder.

Palilalia: voluntary repetition of words.

Erotomania = a personal belief that someone, usually of a higher social status but not necessarily a celebrity, is in love with the person. The "love" is transmitted through looks, gestures and glances. It's also known as "De Clerambault's Syndrome".

Tardive dyskinesia: severs facial tics, usually developed after years of taking anti-psychotic medication.

Psychotic minds are hard to predict.

Anthropophagi = cannibalism.

Hate crimes are like terrorism – they intend to increase publicity.

Hate crimes are politically.

Remember - Each time an addict needs a fix he needs more of the drug to get off.

Homeless generally stay in small and well-defined areas based on familiarity and what services are nearby.

Birders are extremely single-minded in their pursuits.

A psychopath is incapable of emotional bonding with anyone.

Behavior is determined by three factors: bio, psycho and social.

Water obliterates human body and destroys evidence

The direct use of "we" in a treat is always bogus – one individual trying to diffuse responsibility.

Hate crimes are political

Sexually motivated killers almost always kill within their own race.

Racial profiling is targeting suspects because their race – beware!

Emotionally, taupe is linked to loneliness and the desire to escape from the word

Militia members are almost always discharged military who resent the structure therefore they form their own paramilitary governments

There are 2 types of violent satanic criminals: type A – teen Satanists assume the satanic identity to rebel. They'll perform minor crimes, theft and vandalism to churches, schools and symbols of authority. Combined with drugs or alcohol they turn violent even deadly. Type B – the adaptive Satanist. He adapts satanic beliefs to his specific homicidal drives. He doesn’t kill because he believes in Satan – he believes in Satan because he kills. He's rationalizing his fantasies by blaming them on outside force.

The severely mentally ill have chaos around them. When institutionalized they're given order, thought to keep their room clean and neat. When discharged they stop taking medications. Their minds fall back into chaos but often they do one thing they learned while inside to keep some order back into it.

When a woman tells a man about her feelings she doesn't want him to fix her – she wants him to shut up and listen.

Remember – some criminals are smart enough to use forensic countermeasures like staging a scene to look like a robbery.

Bombing

About half of all bombing cases are actually acts of vandalism. Bombers are mostly male, loners with a criminal activity history. The first suspects of bombing are the victims of the bombing because the bombers are more often than not end up accidentally blowing themselves up.

Bombers usually do that for profit or to conceal another crime.

Douglas & Olshaker categorized bombers as criminal, cause, personal and psychologically disorganized.

Personal caused bombers are motivated by an underlying emotional conflict.

Rape

Only 20% of all rapes are reported.

Rape without penetration is probably due sexually inadequacy.    

A high proportion of female rape victims later in life are raped again.

When victims are dumped like trash it indicates that the killer is trying to demean the victims.

Most serial killers keep a area of control, where they kill their victims, triangulated between two points, the killing location and the location where the dead victims are dropped. They probably also live that area.

An offender with borderline personality disorder may disfigure female victims and throw them out like trash out oh hates.

Offenders with personality disorder think that all relationships revolve entirely around them. When they set their mind to something its absolute without gray area, it will manifest in their behavior such as intense bouts of anger and depression, drinking problems and highly sensitive to rejection.

Female serial killers typically stick to the same MO.

Psychopaths don’t apologize for their behavior.

Behavioral therapy's most effective in a natural setting.

Tortures without a sexual component are very rare.

When an offender is trying to demonstrate strength most probably has been abused as a child.

An impotent offender may try hiding his situation and keep up appearances by marrying and adopting children.

The fact that victims belong to the same family or other homogenic group suggests multiple offenders. The reason may be gang – related, revenge or personal business.

The destroying of a victim hands and face may indicate that the victim knew the killer and by destroying victim's ID making the connection to the killer will be deleted giving the killer time to go away.

43% of Predators tend to contact victims on the internet

When a written massage is left by a criminal look for patterns in the handwriting

The early age exposure to sexual violence may be a trigger that brings out certain desires

Most cross-dressers are heterosexual.

Anger excitation: when a criminal becomes sexually aroused by the suffering of his victims

Nobody remembers the victims – everybody remembers the killer

Homicide

Killers get a sense of power from the killing.

Organized killers usually have a skilled job like technological using their hands. They have a fascination with law enforcement. They will inject themselves into the investigation. They will come forward as witnesses to see just how much the police really knows, that makes them feel powerful and in control.

There are four types of poisoners:

-  The true believer, the political terrorist, the religious cult – he is motivated and driven by some sort of idea.

- The extortionist – his goal is money.

- The avenger - he has a personal vendetta and poison is his weapon.

- The prankster – usually a young offender who doesn’t mean any harm and it's basically just a big practically joke.

With the exception of the prankster all the other three types commonly test their poison on a small scale before appearing at a large attack.

The fact that the killing takes place in a major urban setting without detection indicates that the killer is highly intelligent.

Blindfolding a victim indicates that the killer doesn't want his victim to look at him as he kills.

Shooting a victim indicates that the killer needs a quick and effective means of controlling the situation. He may have a physical problem or just being small size.

Post mortem stab wounds almost always indicate sexual homicide.

There are 4 types of killers:

Type 1 – political assassins

Type 2 – egocentrics looking for recognition

Type 3 – psychopaths, cold blood killers who leave far messier scene

Type 4 – delusional, suffering from major mental disorder

When a serial killer is afraid to be caught he either goes hiding or on the run. 

A killer who murders by drowning wants to invoke fear.

A brutal killer who is also psychological attacking the victims family does it because the thrill of the kill isn’t enough to satisfy his sadistic needs and wants to spread the panic.

Sadistic killers are usually stranger to their victims.

It's easier for an offender to torture and kill someone he doesn't know.

It’s a characteristic of partner offenders to record their crimes so they can relive the fantasy later. It permits the dominant partner to keep the submissive one motivated, loyal, aroused and under control.

Most killing teams have a dominant personality that instigates plans and insist to kill and a submissive personality who's the eager accomplice. They share together a common delusion which is the bond that justifies their actions. As a reward for doing as he's told, the dominant partner makes the submissive partner feel invincible.

Snipers or columbine assassins probably met in childhood or are related. 

Psychotic killers are normally not so difficult to catch because they don’t try to hide.

Most serial killers prey upon specific type of victims to carry out their fantasies of revenge.

If a serial killer targets children he may be small himself.

A killer whose victims are prostitutes may lack confidence with women or have poor social skills. If the victim wasn’t raped he could be impotent.

Sex acts with dead bodies are rare occurrences.

Using a gun as the killing tool is giving the killer a sense of power while lets him maintain distance from the kill.

If a victim dies of blunt force head traumas, it indicates that the killer wants to be close and feel the life leaving the body.

If a killer covers the body very carefully is because he feels remorse for killing the victim.

Post – mortem stab wounds almost always indicate sexual homicide.

If the victim has no defense wounds it means most probably it was a blitz attack.

Sexual offenders kill for their sexual needs.

Children

Long term abductions of small children are rare but more likely to be fatal.

Most abducted children are murdered within the first hour. Virtually all of them are dead after 24 hours.

Offenders against children are likely to have menial or temporary jobs, be socially marginalized, frustrate and better related to kids than to adults. Probably had a recent stressor such as a job loss or other setback. He'll probably have extensive pornographic materials in his home or his computer.

First time child offenders hunt closer to home. Experienced one doesn't.

Pedophiles seek jobs which gives them as much access to children as possible and can be divided into two categories:

1. Situational offenders who rarely seek out children but take advantage of a situation when presented with it.

2. Preferential offenders who actively target children by age group or hair color for example.

The intimacy of strangulation suggest a personal attack literally and figuratively the need to kill in a hands-on manner. Crushing someone with a car presents as distance and removal from the kill.

Impulsiveness implies young and inexperienced.

Killing parental figures is based on killer's need for revenge and punishment.

Suicides don’t spike after a tragedy, quite the opposite.

Overkill means rage; rage means a close personal relationship.

Handwriting slanting uphill, consistent spacing and long t-bars are a clear sign of optimism and indicates an enthusiastic person.

Arson

Most serial arsonists are white males.

Female arsonists are far less likely and their motive typically being revenge.

There are two common stressors for a serial arsonist – loss of job or loss of love.

Pyromania is a mental disorder.

Serial arsonist drive pleasure from pathological fire setting, it gives them a sense of power and sexual satisfaction. They need to experience it so they won't just walk away from the fire.

There are four motives for arson:

1. Vandalism

2. Crime concealment

3. Political statement profit

4. Revenge

Arsonist are socially incompetent, they don’t date, don’t go to parties and don’t feel comfortable in groups.

Most serial arsonists don’t intend to inflict harm. Injuries or death are accidental.

Most of the time if wounds lack blood, they were inflicted post mortem.

Torture can be a substitute for a sex act.

Serial killers who move around fall into two types: A – itinerant homeless; B – the occupation allows him to travel.

Hybristophilia = is a paraphilia of the predatory type in which sexual arousal, facilitation, and attainment of orgasm are responsive to and contingent upon being with a partner known to have committed an outrage, cheating, lying, known infidelities or crime, such as rape, murder, or armed robbery. Aka as "Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome".

Peacocking= the adornment of some sort of flashy affect to sort of try to distract witnesses.

Killers working together, like gangs, can establish the same M.O.

Sexual sadists attack anonymously because they have to sever all personal connections and see the victim as object to perpetrate the level of torture.

Killing is not genetic – to kill or not to kill is a choice.

Any unusual crime scene may point to an obsessive compulsive or other mental derange criminal and possible past institutional.

Serial killers groupies usually are attractive, well educated, successful, reformers, sometimes suffering from Hybristophilia.

Ever heard of "EIER"?

E= Event

I= Interpretation

E= Emotions

R= Reaction

An event occurs either directly or indirectly involving you.

As a result you are giving it your own interpretation.

According to your interpretation emotions appear.

As a result to those emotions you react.

It's clear and easy to understand that the "I", the Interpretation is responsible for the rest, what emotions will appear, what will be the reaction. Also clear that if we will be able to control the interpretation we will be able to control the emotions and the reaction. Two ways to control interpretation are knowledge and perspective. A richer and vast knowledge will help stop the auto-pilot interpretation. The same will happen with a wider perspective.

This is a so called normal behavior. Any deviation is an un-normal behavior. By understanding the deviation you'll be able to understand the person. By understanding the person you'll understand the behavior. Following the logic, all criminals are mentally disturbed. RIGHT ? WRONG ! If E is followed by a normative I or E or R the behavior should be consider a normal one. Only if I, E or R aren't normative the behavior should be consider a un- normal behavior.

Afterword

Now once you have mastered all my tips, go out and be a better profiler.

All you have to do is listening, observing and thinking. And remember your statistics…

By now you must have understand my opening sentence. By instinctively using your knowledge you'll meet very few surprises in life. Except the good things…

Just one last and very important advice: never take your work back home.

What happens at work stays at work.

Appendix

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A. W. Combs and D. Snygg, "Phenomenal field theory - Individual behavior: a new frame of reference for psychology", 1949

Lee Ellis, Kevin M. Beaver, John Wright, "The Handbook of Crime Correlates", 2009

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Walter Mischel, "A Hot/Cool System Analysis of Delay of Gratification: Dynamics of Willpower", 1988

Gregg O. McCrary, "The Unknown Darkness: Profiling the Predators Among Us", 2004

Paunonen, S.V. & Ashton, M.C., "Big-five factors and facets and the prediction of behavior" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81,524-539, 2001

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