How To Lose Crime In Canada

CSI, Law and Order, Fox News, Making a Murderer, Nancy Grace and Cops: these shows have large audiences and high ratings, showing that western society is obsessed and mesmerized with crime and criminal activity. Crime and media go hand in hand, as the media frames crime as a major social problem, due to the lack of policy and policing certain behaviors. The media and the criminal justice system go together, like peanut butter and jelly, a sandwich of chaotic fruits and nuts. The media is quite concerned with policing, but much less about the court system, consequences, and the punishment received by the offender, devising misconceptions of the judicial processes. There are several different sociological perspectives pertaining to the media

A specific issue that made me angry was finding out the writers of television shows and movies use violence to attract viewers and to sell tickets. This made me angry because most of the knowledge I learned about crime was mostly learned from the media. Although this made me angry it also helped me realize the media’s misrepresentation of crime has several consequences. For example, Canadians over estimate the amount of violent crime and have a fear of crime that is higher than the actual risk of victimization, the media also provide a distorted stereotype of offenders. Crimes are most often committed by relatives, friends, and acquaintances-not by the mysterious stranger most of us fear.

Throughout crime in Australia, a noticeable increase in crime occurred between the 1970’s to the 1990’s but has declined to a stable rate of crime which is similar trend in America. However, crime itself is often complex to define due to the variety of crime. Therefore, it is difficult to accurately measure crime and if crime cannot be measured efficiently and it proposes concerns of whether crime in Australia is stable or not. Although Australia’s system of collecting crime data is striving to be as accurate as possible, the media will often manipulate the data which misleads the Australian public of crime stability. Inclusively, through gaining an understanding of defining crime, accurately measuring data and comparing Australia’s crime data

Pop culture media, like Law and Order, has a way of showing people how crime is portrayed. Case (2013), mentions that past studies about the representation of crime in the media has increasingly shown fear to the public and portraying unrealistic standards of how crime is in the real world. Media likes to exaggerate how things truly are in the real world, which is why people believe what the media portrays. People will believe that everything they see in a television show can truly happen in the real world, which certain things can happen but not everything. If people end up believing in how the media portrays crime then people will be living in fear of their society being more violent than it actually is (Case, 2013).

Weatherburn, Matka and Land (1996) reported that there is a extensive difference between the actual levels of violent crime within society and societies observations about the nature of this crime. In Australia, within the period of 1990 to 2007, the rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide incidents decreased from 1.9 in 1990-91 to 1.3, in 2006-07 (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2012) despite the public’s perception of a crime increase. This study found there were several inconsistencies between the crime television reported and the crime that actually occurred within society. Very serious crimes such as homicides, abductions, armed robbery and sieges were over-represented in the news reports. Children and the elderly were over-represented

According to the 2015 and 2016 Uniform Crime Reporting Survey, the overall Canadian Crime rates appear to be gradually increasing, as of 2016 (Allen, 2016; Keighley, 2017). In 2015, the police-reported crime rate in Canada raised for the first time since 2003, with the volume of police-reported crime increased for 3% from 2014 to 2015 (the crime rate

Criminal cases being more publicised will cause the viewers to be distressed about the number of murders and robberies occurring in Canada. The media will catch fire over these felonies causing many people to talk and spread the news making it seem like there is an epidemic of crimes even though the police-reported crime rate in Canada has been decreasing for over 2 decades. However, since the news stations and media will be broadcasting to the public about all these scandals and modify some of the facts to make it more “entertaining”, many people will believe it and think there are many criminal acts committed in Canada than there really are. The point here is that what the media chooses to focus on often times becomes the facts regardless of what the actual facts

Violent crime in Canada isn’t too big of a problem in comparison to other countries. In Canada citizens are generally happy to see the police. Rates of corruption are nowhere near what they are in other countries. It is reasonable to say violent crime isn’t as prevalent as it is in America because of the strict gun laws Canada imposes. Also, United States of America has a serious gang problem in comparison to Canada, part of the reason being the shipment of drugs from the southern border. Some examples of violent crimes are assault, aggravated assault, sexual based offences, murder (first and second degree), kidnapping, and robbery. In recent years violent offences has been on the rise in Canada. The types of individuals who commit violent crimes range from gang members to substance abusers. A lot

Violent crimes present in British Columbia seemed to be decreasing between 2012 and 2014 with a 96.04 index in 2012 leading to a 11.58% drop in 2013 however by 2015 there was an increase of 7.43% still only putting the index at 82.99 from 77.25 the previous year (Statistics Canada, 2016). Throughout Canada there has also been a decrease between the years 2012 and 2014 for violent crimes with an 85.72 index in 2012 then going down to 70.50 by 2014 (Statistics Canada, 2016). The biggest drop in those years was again in 2013 with a 9.76% drop though by 2015 it started to increase to a 74.48 index making it a 5.65% change (Statistics Canada, 2016).

(Australian Institute of Criminology, 2009, p. 6) The media’s representation of a rapidly increasing violent crime rate is not supported by statistics which reflect that while the crime rate is rising, the rate is steady and it is believed that this number could even be fluctuated by the increase of victims reporting these types of crime to the police. According to the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2007, 74% of the respondents had quite a lot/a great deal of confidence in the police to solve crime. (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2007 p. 16-17) Although the statistics show the general trend of violent criminal offences is static, a significant proportion of our population still has the perception that our crime rates are increasing (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2010) due to media influence. Another way the media misrepresents Australia’s crime rate is by selectively reporting violent crimes whilst under reporting other offences, which are more prevalent in society.

Many times, the media is the main cause in contributing and encouraging the creation of crime myths. The mass media have responsibilities to update the public on the activities occurring domestically and internationally. Stories or reports have to grab the attention of viewers and often times this is accomplished through methods of dramatizing and sensationalizing stories. Instead of stating solely fact, mass media reports have become bias opinions, allowing for it to evolve into more of an entertainment business rather than news.

There is a plethora of crime related movies, TV shows, video games, etc. Violent portrayals of crime are everywhere. As most Americans do not have any personal experience with the criminal justice system, public knowledge of how it operates comes mostly from the media. Dowler (2003) did a study on the relationship between consumption of such media and fear of being victimized by crime. He found that there is, in fact, a relationship and people who consume more of this media are more afraid of crime. “Regular viewers of crime shows are more likely to fear or worry about crime. Similarly, regular crime drama viewers are more likely to hold negative attitudes toward police effectiveness.” (Dowler,

Where we read these articles, what they chose to include and how they express the crimes are all aspects of the media that can impact how crimes are presented. The tenant fraud and robbery crime were both published ion Toronto focused platforms, however one was a daily newspaper while the other a monthly magazine. The Toronto Star is said to lean more toward the be more left wing by supporting Liberal views, which can cause their stories to focus more on the community and individuals, rather than the more political business side of a conservative platform. We saw this in the article through statements such as “terrorized their victims”, “plagued the city with the most gun violence this year” and “spreading like a bad smell”. The strong emphasis on how the community was impacted and with an ending that focused on a goal from police on how to solve this problem, proves it was casted as a problem frame. Problem frames interest and affect many

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

The importance given to certain crimes in the daily newspapers and other media sources shows us proof to the fact that crime is a topic that has the public’s interest and is a focus of their worries (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001). It goes on to discuss the fact that crime as reported on by the media increases the public’s levels of fears and that there is little or no correlation to actual levels of violent crime in our society today.