Essay about How the Media Uses an Ideal Victim in Portrayals of Crime

In addition, all discussions boards agree that the media makes victims looks vulnerable, weak, defenseless, and in need of compassion and sympathy (Greer, p.22)

❖ Leadership: When doing a high profile investigation many problems arise in leadership. They are faces with pressures from victims’ families, media as well as political executives. The main goal is to catch the offender and arrest and prosecute them. They all agree that the cases should be handled by homicide investigators who know how to work the case and that supervisor need to intervene with higher up personnel.

Media coverage of news events can be disseminated to the general public in any number of different ways and media biases often “reflects certain organizational and/or professional preferences or values” (Bennett 2011, 173). In fact, Lundman (2003) points out “that journalists assess the newsworthiness of homicides occurrences using the relative frequency of particular types of murders and how well specific murder occurrences mesh with stereotypical race and gender typifications (357).” In addition, Johnson (2012) felt that the real job of media was to “create a message that…grabs public attention (62).” In other words, can the media grab the public’s attention and hold it?

This essay will discuss the ways in which gender influences patterns and processes of victimisation, identifying key victimological perspectives and typologies. It will consider key authors in the discipline and offer definitions of terms used. The essay will identify three issues which may impact on gendered victimisation before acknowledging the argument that radical victimology offers a more balanced approach to gendered victimisation than positivist or critical viewpoints.

Lisa Barnes Lampman's book "God And The Victim: Theological Reflections On Evil, Victimization, Justice, And Forgiveness" discusses the concept of crime and how it can be seen from a spiritual perspective. The writer is concerned about having people adopt a theological attitude in trying to understand crime and what triggers it. Victimization is also a principal concept in the book, as the writer relates to it in regard to crime and apparently wants to emphasize the fact that it is common for some people to consider themselves vulnerable to crime. The writer basically wants her readers to acknowledge that crime can have damaging consequences for society as a whole.

Nils Christie explains that there are certain characteristics that make a victim an ‘ideal victim’. These characteristics are, young, old, weak, doing something respectable and legal,

The introduction of Nils Christie’s ‘Ideal victim’ theory (1986: 18) refers to victims of crime who can attain the status of a legitimate victim in the eyes of the public. Christie outlines a criteria which needs to be followed in order to gain this full status of a ‘legitimate victim’. Christie’s ‘ideal victim’ however is not the same as a legal victim and often real victims of crime deviate far from the concept of the ideal victim (Beck & Janbakhsh 2010). This therefore means that using Christie’s ideal victim theory to give someone the title of a legitimate victim is often detrimental. Male victims of sexual assault often deviate from the ‘ideal victim’ criteria set out by Christie, this means that when they encounter the justice system, their experiences are often marginalised or discounted entirely.

In the article, Abuser & Victim…Alike, the author argues that both the abuser and the victim share responsibility for their situations. This is only true if we choose to believe that such people voluntarily stay and allow the abuse to continue. In this sense, some truth might exist, however, we must remember the lack of control felt by each victim, as well as the emotional torment they experience that serves to trap them in their current situations. Alternatively, it would be difficult for the author to validate such a claim of shared responsibility if the abused were a child, disabled or mentally handicapped person. To a certain degree, the author himself contradicts his previous statement when he comments that “abusers have all the power”.

Most people use second hand information as their core source of information about crime, this source of information usually being the media. When carrying out sample research in Birmingham, Susan Smith (1984) discovered that 52% of people obtained most of their information about crime from the media, 36% obtained it from hearsay or alleged experiences of friends and neighbours, 3% from their own experiences, and 1% from the police service themselves (cited in Jones, 2001; 8). However the media tend to exaggerate upon areas of criminal activity causing a moral panic. ‘A moral panic is a semi- spontaneous or media generated mass movement based on the perception that some individual or group,

In America, violence has always been an integral part of national culture. Crime and bloodshed, euphemized through use of “action” (this has a source) plots, are glorified both on and off screen. The more disturbing the act of violence, the more enthralled the public seems. The most prolific of crimes, those committed by infamous serial killers, inspire the most attention. As said by Jeff Lindsay, creator of the book series that inspired the wildly-popular television program, Dexter, “We’re sickened and disgusted, but we need to know. And the more we know about the scene, the more we really are horrified” (“Sympathy for the Devils”). Violence, especially committed by this special class of felons, is enthralling. News reports play a role in this strange attraction, as it is through the news that people even have knowledge of such killers, but the evolution in the “serial killer genre” (Lindsay, “Sympathy for the Devils”) of film and television helps to desensitize people to the gruesome murders that are committed. This begs the question of whether this disturbing trend should be stopped, lest the American “culture of violence” (this has a source) continues to grow stronger. Through news reports, film, and television, criminals are constantly romanticized through use of sympathetic characterization and gratuitous depictions of their crimes, which lends to peoples’ incr

Also, “Feminist researchers have criticised the above approaches, suggesting that examining victims’ behaviour for its role in the perpetration of a crime may constitute blaming the victim, thereby holding them responsible for their plight.” (Spalek, B 2006). Feminist would also criticize the way in which the positivist approach uses victim perception to address rape victims. They would argue that this leads to victim blaming and lack of trust within the criminal justice system, this could then results in secondary victimisation.

These quotations demonstrate that over the past fourteen years the head of State has called for the government to increase attention to the treatment of victims of crime in England and Wales. This would imply that the needs of victims’ of crime have consistently been on the political agenda and that the system is recognising that improvements need to be made to promote victims’ interests. What however is the reality? This essay will explore how an advocate for the criminal justice system (CJS) would argue that victims of crime are not being failed. It will present the measures taken to improve the rights and interests of victims. It will discuss the commitment of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to victims by exploring ‘The Prosecutors Pledge’.

The mounting significance of the victim has stemmed from numerous influences. For example the revelations in studies and the media of crime against defenceless victims and victims’ ill-treatment by the criminal justice system, as well as the politicization by feminists of the issue of abuse which women face (Newburn, 2009). The construction of the ‘victim of crime’ is a social one, however there is too an undisputed separation amid those who are deserving and undeserving. The depiction of the ‘ideal’ victim consists of components of weakness, indifference and vulnerability. In addition, gender too is a main aspect and some feminists tend to discard the word victim as it is preferred to describe sufferers of domestic violence as ‘survivors’,

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.

Victimisation is the process of learning the various ways that authority figures determine who is a victim, while also educating the person on how to become the victim. Secondary victimisation, also known as double victimisation refers to the way the state responds to victimisation. The states response has the potential to add further burdens on to the victim. Three main components of the criminal justice system will be focused on in this paper; these are enforcement, adjudication and punishment. This paper will identify why the criminal justice system tend to commit secondary victimisation towards the victims. It will also discuss the pains of victimisation and how secondary victimisation has the ability to amplify these pains. The paper will also identify reforms that have been put in place in order to minimise the occurrence of secondary victimisation.