The given paper will primarily focus on property crime rates in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The national trends indicate that there is a gradual decrease in property crime rates in the United States. It is also true in the case of the selected city and state, where the decline is present. However, North Carolina still remains as one of the high-crime regions of the country. The majority of victims and offenders are White, but taking into account low report rates and high victimization of people of color, it is evident that African Americans and Hispanics might be more vulnerable to the crime.
The study addresses the rise of online property crime rates, which indicates that the overall decrease in the offline area is partially due to shifting to cyberspace. Property theft in cyberspace is increasing, which shows the opposite trend compared to property crime data from national statistics (Tcherni et al., 2015). The clearance rate and overall reporting measures are difficult to identify because, in most cases, the victims might not be aware that some form of sensitive information was stolen (Tcherni et al., 2015). Cybercrime often transcends state boundaries and is cross-border, and for cyber criminals operating on a global scale, there are no borders between states.
Cybercrime has international roots, and without international cooperation, exchange of information, assistance in identifying the source of an attack, and countering these attacks, it is impossible to fight cybercrime. Thus, it is important to understand that in order to counteract crimes committed using modern information technologies, the state should constantly improve the security of information systems and develop modern information technologies (Tcherni et al., 2015). It is necessary to improve legislation in the field of information crimes, develop competitive means of cybersecurity, expand international cooperation in the field of safe use of information resources.
The given report mainly addresses the national statistics of property crime in the United States. In 2019, there were about 6,925,677 property-related crimes, which is a decline of 4.1% compared to the data from the previous two years (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020a). The majority of these crimes are larceny-thefts, which include pickpocketing, shoplifting, and motor theft. In general, the situations in which property crimes are committed do not differ from the everyday ones faced every day. However, whatever the method of theft is, the role of the victim in the mechanism of committing a property crime deserves special attention. This is a type of increased human ability, due to a number of spiritual and physical qualities, under certain objective circumstances, become a target for criminal encroachments. The mechanism for committing a property crime consists of a number of basic blocks (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020a). This includes the identity of the perpetrator, the identity of the victim, and the situations of the crime as a link determined by the typical worldview of the subject and the object of criminal encroachment.
The UCR report focuses on the clearance rate statistics in the United States. In the case of property crimes, the rate is estimated to be 17.2%, which is significantly lower compared to violent crime rates of 45.5% (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020b). Clearance, in its most general form, is the knowledge of objective reality, that is, events that took place in the past. Each event, including a crime, due to its relationship with the environment, necessarily leaves its traces or imprints of the event in this situation.
The very concept of clearance is not defined in the criminal procedural legislation, however, within its meaning, it can be defined as a stage in the criminal process. In the course of disclosure, the bodies of inquiry and preliminary investigation carry out the actions provided for by the criminal procedure law, and decisions are made. The main purpose is to collect and verify evidence and quickly and completely solve crimes. In addition, it is important to include the factor of attracting the perpetrators as accused. In the course of the investigation and achievement of clearance, measures are taken to prevent and suppress crimes, to clarify and eliminate the causes and conditions conducive to the commission of a crime (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020b). In addition, efforts are important to ensure compensation for material damage caused by the crime. As follows from this statement, the investigation of a crime is part of the evidence in the criminal process.
The reference includes a table of all crime rates in the state of North Carolina, which is also categorized by cities. The property crime rate in Fayetteville is 9201, among which the larceny-thefts account for 6942 (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020c). All this leads to an understanding of property crimes as a phenomenon that covers a wider range of acts. In principle, in the environment of property encroachments, a group of unlawful acts arises and develops, which are subsequently integrated into economic crimes. The concept of property crimes proceeds from the fact that a person committing a crime in this area grossly violated the subjective rights of citizens to things, where the subject of such encroachments was someone else’s movable property in the sense of a physical thing.
However, it is not limited to the given concept, and subsequently from the property sphere of the person as objects subject to protection, where property rights and property, in general, can be distinguished. Thus, when the ownership of property began to be understood not only as a fact but also as a right, and the concept of property includes not only the possession of objects of the material world but also subjective rights. Criminal liability in North Carolina is designed to differentiate depending on whether the owner lost his property or all other powers.
The report is primarily based on the victimization statistics in the United States in 2019. The main offenders are White people who commit half of all crimes, whereas the victims are also mostly White at 62% (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020d). The overall victimization rate for property crimes revolves around 101.4 per 1000 households, and the burglary rate is equal to 11.7 per 1000 households (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020d). However, these estimates might not be accurate because the report rate for victimizations is the lowest among White people, and the total police reporting rate is 41% (U.S. Department of Justice, 2020d). In other words, people of color are more likely to become victims, and they are also less likely to report the crimes, which means that there are more property crimes occurring.
The better way to collect data can be conducted by increasing surveillance in African American neighborhoods. The peculiarity is due to the motivational sphere and the type of the person’s criminal reaction to other people’s property, based on the stable characteristics of the activity. In addition, more than different types of crime, a victim-logical role is expressed in the formation of a specific favorable situation in the commission of a crime.
References
Tcherni, M., Davies, A., Lopes, G., & Lizotte, A. (2015). The dark figure of online property crime: Is cyberspace hiding a crime wave? Justice Quarterly, 33(5), 890-911.
U.S. Department of Justice. (2020a). Property crime. UCR. Web.
U.S. Department of Justice. (2020b). Offenses cleared. UCR. Web.
U.S. Department of Justice. (2020c). North Carolina. UCR. Web.
U.S. Department of Justice. (2020d). Criminal victimization. Web.