Media And The Criminal Justice System

The media’s job is to entertain, inform, and educate society on what is going on around the world. The media entertains society by reporting stories that amuse people. The educational function of the media is about allowing society to know their legal rights. The informational aspect of the media does not need to be explained; it is self-explanatory. Within the last three decades, the media’s role has changed dramatically. The media went from using telegraphs, post offices, newspapers, magazines, radio, and television to using cell phones and tablets. In the modern era, which is also sometimes referred to as the information age, global networking and global communication have shaped modern societies. The majority of

Media is everywhere nowadays. Whether it’s billboards, radio, commercials, trailers, or product placement, the media has spent the better part of a century perfecting the ability to sway public opinion. How could this not have an impact on the Criminal Justice System? There is an old saying, perception is reality. This clearly applies to the narrative shaping abilities that the media poses. Although not explicitly resulting in an effect on Criminal Justice Policy, Communication Theorist George Gerbner proposed Cultivation Theory, also known as mean world syndrome, which refers to the phenomenon that a viewer experiences when they consume too much violent media content, where in that, they begin to perceive the world as more dangerous than it actually is.

Courts are established social, political, and judicial institutions necessary for the manifestation of justice and the maintenance of law and order. The courts are part of the judicial branch of government, as outlined in Article III of the United States Constitution. Courts are the arenas in which the law is tried and applied. Judges are the presiding officers of the court. The United States Supreme Court is the most fundamental court because has "the authority to decide the constitutionality of federal laws and resolve other disputes over them," (United States Courts, 2012). This is true even though even though the court does not expressly enforce that law; enforcement is the province of the executive branch.

Policing the Media: A literature review of the Role the Media Plays in the Public’s Perception of Law Enforcement and the Criminal Justice System.

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.

Since the policy was enacted in the early 1990s, three strikes laws have been one of the most controversial issues facing the American criminal justice system. In general, advocates believe that locking up criminals will protect society. Critics believe that three-strike policy can only be effective with offenders that are on their last strikes (Worrall, 2008). However, other critics explain how three-strike laws don’t significantly reduce crime because most criminals mature out of the criminal lifestyle (Worrall, 2004).

While at the station, the boy’s charges were related to the fight that was on the train. When the police questioned the two girls that were on the train, the girls said that they were raped; they said that in order to evade ethics charges. This was important because any African American male accused of raping or murdering whites would get lynched. The woman names

Across the United States, city and county governments seek to gain revenue through the illegitimate jailing of indigent defendants who cannot afford to pay the large and cumbersome fines that accompany committing (seemingly petty) crimes— such as missing court dates, a requirement for classes such as anger management, the list goes on. Indeed, the practice of debtor’s prison has long been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court within the United States, yet a contemporary form of debtor’s prison has begun to take form which targets vulnerable populations. When an individual commits a crime, they are to be justly punished. If this punishment consists of a fine, that fine is expected to be paid accordingly; if the fined individual simply does not have the time or money to pay these steep fines, however, they are sent to jail indefinitely. This rise of financial burden imposed upon the liberty of low income citizens through the fining, issuing of fees, and jail time sanctioned by the criminal justice system has resulted in new, illegitimate, and ostensibly unconstitutional forms of debtor’s prisons that permeate contemporary U.S. society. Jeopardizing the liberty of vulnerable populations, based upon material inequality and extraction of necessary resources, only does one thing within a society: continue the cycle of poverty and increase the poor’s dependence upon the rich for their liberty, equality and most importantly, survival.

A current most spoken issue among the public media is gun violence or mass shooting however the crime is not as many as it was twenty years ago. The term mass shooting does not have an official set of definition yet, but the term indicates crime which is killing as many people as possible in a short time frame. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines it as “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area” (Sam Brock, Rachel Witte, and Joe Rojas). A mass shooting can begin due to several reasons: it could be background history, media, despair, or something else. Nico Lang, the author of America’s White Masculinity Complex and The Myth of The “Senseless” Mass Shooting says, mass shooting can also be related to mental “functions like the specter of ‘mental illness.’” A number of mass shooters have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. Are the mass media addressing the basic issue clearly? Of course, the media address the issue more than the violence expects to be addressed, but it is not overt enough. ….. By examining a variety of news media coverage on the subject of mass shooting, this essay concludes that when choosing stories to cover, the news media must take the general audience into consideration. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the media exaggerate the crime and report it disproportionally, and the distortion of reality can have variety of effects on the viewer or the general audience.

Myths in the Criminal Justice system have plagued the public for years, and can be detrimental, even on a State level. In New York State, the myth that the state is more dangerous than it has ever been can lead to other myths being believed which can turn into poor policy such as the “get tough” approach. By comparing New York State data to data from Canada, the effectiveness of this myth can be debunked and disproven.

This report aims to analyse how the Australian media covers and reports crime. To accomplish this, the report will explore how The Australian covered the Cairns child murders, in the article entitled “Cairns deaths: A ‘good mum’ who concealed her demons” published on December 27th 2014. The report will provide insight into the explanation for the crimes occurrence, while investigating the prevalence of the crime type- murder, in Australia. It will also make reference to two of Chibnall’s ‘news values’: dramatization and personalization.

The Criminal Justice System consists of three main components; police, corrections, and the courts, which play a role in maintaining a proper and functional system. These three core functions have their own limitations and use of discretion. At times discrimination occurs within each individual function. Policing is law enforcement, which obtains the backbone and gatekeepers to The Criminal Justice System. This is where discretion takes place the most. Indeed, discrimination can start with policing, and that is what stands out to the eye of the public. To understand the community, our obligation, is to be aware of how minorities, policing, and society interact. It is important to realize what the community thinks and feels, for the sake

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.

Television has become a vital aspect of daily life, within modern society; every aspect of television exhibits, to a certain extent, a reliance on genre (Mittell, 2001). Industries rely on genre to produce programs, and audiences use genres as a means of organizing fan practices (Mittell, 2001). According to a 2006 Nelson Media Research study, ratings confirm that aside from prime time shows such as American Idol and Survivor, part-time crime drama’s have been classified as one of the most favoured genre (DeTardo-Bora, pg. 154, 2009). The relationship between the media and criminal justice system is delicate, where more often than not, crimes are portrayed in a false light (Graveline, pg. 1, 2015). These misconceptions lead to

The Inside Out program has provided much Xavier students positive chances to learn and delve into the prison system through the interactions and discussions between the local inmates or classified “Inside” students. When explaining the program to the average person, some would express interest and curiosity or having a class in a correctional institution; others were weary and even asked why one would decide to take a class full of “hardened” criminals. This is what I thought as well when first hearing about the course. From the media’s portrayal of criminals, bombarding news viewers with the same cases to make it seem like we live in a cultivating world of violence, I was one of the “sheeple” who would follow the media’s words, condemning criminals for the crime they committed, saying they deserve their time behind bars. Yet, after this course, I realized that the media’s portrayal of criminals and crimes is completely exaggerated and somewhat untrue. Being in the Inside Out program is basically an eye-opener to who criminals really are: humans. Over the course of the semester, I not only noticed change within myself about my perception of the prison system and inmates in general, I have noticed change within the Inside students towards Outside students and vice versa. I have also seen some individuals who have not changed over the course of the semester, which would could either show the program in a negative or positive light in terms of the program’s