Criminal Cases Should Be Treated As The Last Defense Against Good And Evil

Americans have given up some of their freedoms to be protected by the United States, so they have a right to be informed. In the majority of the all the discussion boards, the classmates agreed that the media creates problems. By giving stories more attention than others, the media creates problems. The media tends to focus more on seriously violent crimes more than missing, or kidnapping cases. According to Champion, in the portrayal of both offenders and victims of crimes in the media there is a "significant focus on high profile crimes as well as societal ills related to crime and victimization" (Champion 2007). In addition, the media reports stories that can make money, and to draw viewership. These are important to the media because without the funding the media wont be able to report from different places across the U.S., and without the support of the public looking them, the media will lose its only audience. The media plays a significant role in public safety by keeping the public aware of crime increase, violence, and fugitives. This allows the community to take action to promote their safety. Americans put a lot of trust into the media in hopes that everything they report is honest and fair.

It is no secret that the media is able to influence the general public’s opinion on most anything. Whether the subject is fiction or non, movies, documentaries, and the news especially, are capable of swaying the public’s opinions and perceptions one way or the other. Not even the world of law enforcement is safe from the media’s purview (Barlow, M. H. and Barlow, D. E. and Chiricos T. G., 1995), as media portrayals often romanticize law enforcement as a well oiled machine that always gets the bad guy, and has a perfect relationship with the public. On top of this, the media has displayed a poor habit of portraying crime as predominantly violent and racial, rather than showing the whole picture(Gilliam, F. D. and Iyengar, S. and Simon, A. and Wright, O., 1996). In this paper, the motives driving these depictions, as well as the scope and effect of the media’s influence on public perception of law enforcement, will be explored and discussed.

The media is an extremely powerful source in society today. Surprisingly, many are unaware of this and choose to believe everything they read in magazines, newspapers and online without actually understanding where this information is coming from. This is a monumental problem in our generation today because like Malcolm X said, the media has the power to make the innocent look guilty and the guilty look innocent. In other words, the media has the power to manipulate our views and perspectives on controversial issues to persuade us to believe their

One of the darkest moments for anyone is being the center of a criminal investigation. Many emotions can fuel statements that may not be in the best interest of the suspect. These statements can turn a suspect into a defendant relatively easy. Without proper, sufficient legal council, a defendant can be a convicted criminal. If the defendant was aware of his rights, the outcome could be inherently different. The United States is one of very few nations that will provide legal counsel for criminal matters. Every so often a person becomes a spectacle in our Judicial System and case law becomes of it. Sometimes, the case law is beneficial for the government such as Florence v Board of Chosen Freeholders of Burlington County, citing that strip searches of inmates regardless of the crimes they committed without probable cause is justified in the interest of inmate, staff, and jail safety. Other case law such as Miranda v. Arizona it reinforces constitutional rights for United States citizens. Miranda v. Arizona is case law that mandates the government to inform people of their constitutional rights during a criminal investigation. Many people often argue, so what. They are guilty, why do suspects have any rights anyway. Simply put, we are a Constitutional Democracy with established rules, norms and values. What makes our nation so wonderful is we are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Circumstantial evidence leading authorities to assume a person is

When an individual chooses a career in law enforcement they realize it can be a very rewarding, yet dangerous career path to take. Most people often hear about all the potential dangers such as officer involved shootings and physical confrontations before making the choice to join the ranks of the few who will always stand for what is right. However, today there is a new danger to law enforcement known as the mass media which adds a whole new realm of difficulty to an already taxing job. The negative effects of the media can be felt nationwide by law enforcement agencies and these effects include creating a divided community, unrealistic expectations, and the devastation of current and future law enforcement careers. This presentation

Often, the media is very quick to jump on a story as they want to be the “very first” to bring the news story since they compete with other news outlets. Add the issues of law enforcement sources who leak information to news sources, and you have the potential of someone being found guilty of public opinion. As was seen in the case of Richard Jewell, a man who acted heroically was scrutinized and ridiculed by the media all because law enforcement wanted to question Jewell further. Even though Richard Jewell was questioned and his rights were read to him, he was at no time arrested or detained, and it seems there never existed any probable cause for law enforcement to do so. However, the media painted Jewell as the bomber, called him a “fat,

The police and the media have been very closely related to one another for a very long time and they will always have to have a relationship with them. They are so closely related because crime itself is considered news that is valuable to the people of a community. Without the media and law enforcement working together, many people would not know what was going on and/or how to act about certain crimes if there are any within their communities. With that in mind, law enforcement must keep up with all the advancing technologies that involve any kind of media. This includes social media, print, internet, television, and cell phones as well. Keeping up with all these different media platforms, working together with the media, and staying on

Imagine a police chase being broadcasted on tv for millions of people to see, a man who is running now with a gun, money, and a disguise less than twenty four hours after his ex wife and new lover were murdered. Now he is being arrested and tried with their murders and against all evidence pointing towards the rest of his life in prison, he is released after 16 months of awaiting a verdict. Well this isn’t a soap opera and that isn’t Sonny Corinthos, that is your favorite athlete, former heisman trophy winner and celebrity, Oj Simpson. On October 3rd 1995, Oj Simpson was found innocent of killing Nicole Simpson and her believed lover Ron Goldman in one of the most controversial and corrupt court cases ever. Many people

High profile cases can receive a lot of unwanted media attention. As a result of this media attention, this can lead to an unfair advantage for the three components of the criminal justice system especially within police investigations. As high profile cases tend to get more media exposure, the pressure that the state enhances its authority over the police to solve the case tends to get swifter than they would any other investigation. This result can be disastrous because police investigators will try to work through a case quickly and efficiently to satisfy the media, victims, victims’ families as well as the state. Especially with high profile cases where appearances isn’t

The media plays the role as entertaining and a source of information to its viewers, however, with the current crime trends, most viewers have the perceptions that our criminal justice system is lacking in areas of proper sentencing and protecting the viewers. All this is based upon what we see in the media is the information reliable or not? I say this because of hearing about news personality lying about their experience only to booster the networks rating. When the criminal justice system has contact with the media, most will withhold information or give misleading information to justify the capture or conviction of a criminal. So not only are we questioning the efficacy of the criminal justice system but the media as well.

It seems like the media focuses more on being the first to address an issue instead of being accurate with the information being presented. This definitely had a negative impact on society in the various cases involving white policemen killing African American civilians. In my opinion, the problem with the media is that they only report on the things which will get them the most viewers. The media seems to make things appear worse than they really are because they don’t report on enough positive things. I’m sure there have also been African American police officers who killed white men, the media just doesn’t report on it because it won’t get as much attention.

Different forms of media, such as television, films, books, and newspapers, have similar ways of portraying the criminal justice system. The media constructs representations of crime and justice and in doing this, it presents an often dramatized representation of the criminal justice system; and this does not just influence on the public’s lay view of crime but also for criminal justice experts (Marsh, 2014). In the media it is commonly known that they are a business, and businesses need to make a profit. Because of this, the media’s portrayal of the criminal justice system has been very negative. With the news, their main purpose is to produce what sells. So many of them would edit the information they have gathered and make a story that will sell. Also the media does not show the full process of the criminal justice as a quick process, while in fact it is not. For example, last year, Netflix released a short series called “Making A Murderer”. Most people claimed that they feel like they can solve a crime when they finished watching a series. While that series is very factual, it does not hit every single step of the criminal justice process.

All things considered, what the media covers and how much they chose to cover has significantly changed over the years, the most apparent in crime coverage. This consistent coverage of crime gives the audience an opportunity to interact with the media. They can feel a part of the intensity of an investigation, cheer on the enforcers, become immersed in their stereotypes. On the other hand, they can appreciate deviance for its resilience to overcome and resist

No criminal situation should be treated the same. Consequences for crimes should be developed based on several factors. It is safe to say what works for one situation might not work for another. There are different concepts when it comes to dealing with juvenile offenders. Those concepts are treatment (rehabilitative) and punishment (punitive). The treatment or rehabilitative concept is defined as follows: The idea of rehabilitation lays on the presumption that criminal conduct is brought about by some component. This point of view does not deny that individuals settle on decisions to infringe upon the law, however it asserts that these decisions are not a matter of pure "free will." Instead, the choice to perpetrate a wrongdoing is held to be resolved, or possibly intensely affected, by a man 's social surroundings, mental improvement, or biological makeup. Individuals are not all the same—and along these lines allowed to express their will—but instead are distinctive. These "individual differences" shape how individuals carry on, including whether they are prone to infringe upon the law. At the point when individuals are portrayed by different "criminogenic risk factors, for example, an absence of parental love and supervision, peer pressure, antisocial values; they more likely to be included in wrongdoing than individuals not having these experiences and traits. “Punishment, in criminal law, any pain, penalty, suffering, or confinement inflicted upon a person by the

The rhetoric and positioning of crimes stories and their influence on the public is constructed in various ways. For instance Haney (2005) summarizes this interplay when he writes that much media output is incorrect, yet remains highly influential. He writes “(T)he mass media in our society play a central role in the creation of erroneous beliefs and preconceptions about crime and punishment that have real consequences for death penalty policies and practices” (Haney, 2005 p. 27). These erroneous beliefs and preconceptions arise from both scripted television, news reports, and print journalism.