2.2 Current Crime Categories
As explained in Chapter 1, criminologists are concerned with criminal behavior, trends in criminal offending, and the impact of the justice system’s response. Such study of harm does not necessarily require close attention to the nitty gritty details of criminal laws. However, before diving into crime data sources and criminological theories, we should look at some of the common categories and definitions of crime. There are a variety of ways to classify different types of crime, but one common method distinguishes between crimes against people, property, or society.
Crimes against people include assaults, murder, and other types of violence. Crimes against property include burglary, theft, and vandalism. Crimes against society usually include behavior that is considered harmful to society, such as disorderly conduct, illegal gambling, or even drug offenses. Some violent crimes are referred to as “street crimes” when they are committed in public settings. Additionally, crime categories may be further distinguished as victimless or public order crime, domestic violence (DV) and intimate partner violence (IPV), white collar crime, cybercrime, terrorism, state crime, sexual crime, environmental crime, organized crime, and more. See figure 2.3 for brief examples of these categories. Keep in mind, these categories are not all mutually exclusive, meaning they may overlap. For example, stalking is a crime against a person that may be part of intimate partner violence and may be committed via the internet (cybercrime).
| Crime Category | Description/Examples |
|---|---|
| Crimes against people | Crimes that have direct human victims; will typically include violent crimes like assault |
| Property crime | Crimes that do not have direct human victims, but rather are against property; can include motor vehicle, burglary, and property theft |
| Crimes against society | Crimes that do not have direct human victims or target property and are also often considered victimless; can include sex work and drug violations |
| Violent crimes | Crimes that include violence against human victims; can include crimes such as homicide, rape, sexual assault, robbery, and physical assault; many are often referred to as “street crimes” |
| Victimless or public order crimes | Crimes that disrupt public order and do not have a direct victim or the “victim” is the self; a controversial category for many reasons, but tends to include crimes like sex work, drug use, and gambling |
| Domestic violence (DV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) | DV: crime in a domestic setting; may include violence between those who live together or have familial relationships, such as crimes against children, partner(s), or other members of a household IPV: violence specifically between intimate/romantic partners |
| White collar crime | Crimes that typically involve economic exploitation by individuals or organizations/corporations; can include occupational crime, corporate crime, financial crime, political crime, health-care fraud, and intellectual property theft |
| Cybercrime | Crimes that are sophisticated and focused on computer hardware and software or crimes that are made possible through the use of the internet; can include network infiltrations, launching computer viruses, cyber-stalking, child pornography, and phishing |
| Terrorism | Crimes that involve the completed or threatened use of coercion and/or violence against a population of people with the goal of highlighting/changing political, religious, or ideological positions |
| State crime | Crime committed by states and governments; may include the breaking of a law by the government or the harming of citizens due to government action |
| Sexual crimes | Crimes that are sexual in nature; may include sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse of children, and rape |
| Environmental crime | Crimes that impact the environment; can include poaching, illegal fishing, illegal logging, wildlife smuggling, trash/chemical dumping, water theft/contamination, and food crime |
| Organized crime | Crimes committed by criminal enterprises that engage in continued conspiracy, use of fear and corruption, and immunity from the law with the goals of profit and power; may include illegal trafficking of firearms, drugs, protected species, cultural property, falsified products, counterfeit money, and humans (sex and labor trafficking) |
Understanding these crime categories will help you better grasp what crime data sources do and do not capture. Additionally, these broad categories are important because some theories may attempt to explain an entire category while ignoring another. For example, a theory may apply to all property crimes but not apply to crimes against people. Other theories may focus only on one type of violent crime or only on those that are enacted against certain populations (e.g., domestic violence against women). Crime categories are helpful when exploring different data sources and theoretical explanations.
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Licenses and Attributions for Current Crime Categories
Open Content, Original
“Current Crime Categories” by Jessica René Peterson is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Figure 2.3. “Common Crime Categories” by Jessica René Peterson is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
“Current Crime Categories Question Set” was created by ChatGPT and is not subject to copyright. Edits for relevance, alignment, and meaningful answer feedback by Colleen Sanders are licensed under CC BY 4.0.
legal term describing the violation of a criminal law
violence that is physical, sexual, emotional, or financial in nature and often patterned that takes place between people in a family setting; often used interchangeably with the term intimate partner violence, although domestic violence is not limited to intimate partners
violence that occurs between people who are or were in a romantic and/or sexual relationship; can include physical, sexual, or emotional violence perpetrated by a partner or ex-partner
an umbrella term that refers to essentially all crime that is committed via the internet or the use of computers
a statement that proposes to describe and explain why facts or other social phenomenon are related to each other based on observed patterns