Media Influence On Criminal Justice Paper

The Criminal Justice system, created by governments in order to make sure that no laws are being violated and to penalize individuals that violate the laws. In the United States there are many criminal justice systems. Each system works based on their jurisdiction. For example; city, county, federal or state. Every jurisdiction is different. They all have different ways of regulating certain processes. They also have their own laws. In the criminal justice system there are two main systems; state and federal. These two systems consists of five parts; corrections, courts, prosecution, law enforcement, and defense attorneys. Each of these five parts hold an extremely important role. Prosecutions consist of prosecutors who are lawyers the represent

In the past years we have seen many riots and debates over the racism and inequalities in our criminal justice system. We have heard story after story, and watched video after video of police brutality and racism in America. We saw the unfair outcome of the Zimmerman and Treyvon Martin case. When George Zimmerman followed Treyvon Martin, a seventeen year old African American boy who was walking around the neighborhood, just because he looked suspicious to him. Even after notifying the police, Zimmerman followed Martin and ended up shooting him, after Zimmerman had hung up with the dispatcher who told him they did not need him

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.

It is my belief that the criminal justice systems portrayal in the media as racially bias. With the many shows that offer an insight to what law enforcement must endure in the apprehension and conviction of criminal some see as entertaining while other this the opposite. When you have news shows like Nancy Grace, who for the most part was a good prosecutor and this comes through in her commits. However, in order to increase their rating many of the shows will put the greatest emphasis on subjects that are lighting rods for controversy, and currently it happens to be race.

As far as time itself people have always committed crimes. We can find the first crime in the bible itself when Cain killed his brother Able. However what we did not have back then was the media coverage of the story. The media has been able to influence the criminal justice system by expressing strong opinions about different cases. In some of those cases, the media has picked a side. Generally, people tend to pick sides depending on whom they believe, there is always two sides to every story. However with the media it becomes different, because the media tends to pick one side over the other and some people are influenced by the media opinion and that makes the job of the criminal justice system more difficult, since they have to find

The field of Criminal Justice has so many different career paths that anyone can succeed in and it’s for that reason I have picked the Forensic Science path to explore. There are a number of reasons why I have chosen to explore and get an education in this career. The specialization of Forensic Science within the Criminal Justice is right for me because I feel that families should have closure, I feel that people who don’t deserve to be in prison should have a fair trial, I like watching crime shows all the time, and last but not least it’s a more challenging field of work and I love

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.

Throughout the long and sordid history of news media, there have been many times where I believed the news media to have made questionable decisions, and nary a week goes by where that isn't the case. A particular example of this from the past week of news is something I have seen time and time again, a racial discrepancy in the reporting of suspects in the media. Recently, Stephen Paddock took to his Mandalay Bay hotel room and brutally massacred 58 people, maiming countless others. After the proverbial dust settled from this atrocity, a characterization emerged of the shooter. Rather than a "thug" or a "terrorist", he was described as a "lone wolf", a grandfather, and a quiet man who didn't cause problems. This is absurd to me (although not especially surprising) when contrasted with the media's portrayal of a suspect who happens to be black, Latino, or Muslim.

Most Americans, white and black think black people are dangerous and police are quicker to shoot black people. It is believed that the media is the blame. For instant society believes the majority of people arrested for violent criminal offenses are black. Almost all of the news reports focus on black crimes. The media portrays black people in ways that make them seem threatening than white people. For example, when a white male commits a crime the images that are portrayed are usually of them in suits and graduation pictures. When the media report a crime a black male commits their pictures are negative and the positive things they have accomplished in life are never shown. This also takes place when a murder victim is black. The media will

The public depends on the news media for its understanding of crime. Reportedly three quarters (76%) of the public say, they form their opinions about crime from what they see or read in the news (Dorfman & Schiraldi, 2001). After reviewing five hours of reality crime television shows, one is left with a very dismal look on society and a prejudice towards minorities as they are largely depicted as the perpetrators of crime. This new genre commonly referred to as reality television appears to be sweeping the nation by storm. Opinions vary, depending on whom you ask, to what extent reality plays a role versus the selling of a product. Sensationalism, advertising, ratings hype, profiling and fear all comprise the mass

The processing of a crime scene is the most important step in beginning the investigation into a crime. While the majority of crime scenes are very routine, there are many factors that can present unique challenges to investigators and detectives. Some of these challenging factors include outside forces such as, the media and public. This challenge also ties into the media’s presentation on law enforcement and forensics. The media is at times only concerned about their viewers and increasing their ratings, instead of reporting on the full story and facts that are provided by law enforcement and the investigators. The media presents an extreme challenge when they report information that could compromise the investigation or interview witness before detectives have the opportunity to take official statements. (Seddon & Pass pg.65)

Perception is defined by Merriam Webster (2016) as: “a result of perceiving: observation; a mental image; awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation; quick, acute, and intuitive cognition” (Webster, 2016) Reality is defined as “the quality of being real; something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily; in actual fact” (Webster, 2016) Our text tells us that our individual perceptions are formed by our “culture, tradition, and our overall upbringing” (text pg188)

Your perception is how you see things, and basically what you think about them when you see them. For example, two people might see the same thing visually like for an example two individuals see an older man with a beard and ragged clothes on the street with a sign asking for money. Person one might perceive him as a lazy human being, and think he needs to get a job. And the other individual, on the other hand, might perceive him to be a guy who, through no fault of his own, needs help, and still deserves respect. Our perceptions are shaped by our upbringing mostly, and by what we are taught by others. Racism is another example of perception. It's all about what your "opinion" is when you see something.

Perception is how you can see the world around you, how you experience the world around. There are two things that are included in perception. The first is the environment that you are in and how that stimulates the senses of recognition. The second is how you respond to the environment and what action is taken in and how you respond to the information you are taking in.

Over the course of the semester, I have learned about numerous aspects of Mass media and crime. We have broken these aspects into nine major topics based on what they focused on. The nine major topics includes theorizing media and crime, construction of crime, media and moral panics, media construction of children, media misogyny, police, offenders, and victims in the media, crime and prison films, role of the internet in crime and crime and surveillance culture. The topics that I found most interesting to me would be media and moral panic, construction of crime news and children and police, offender and victims in the media. I chose these four topics, because they play a role to the overall information that I have been paying close attention to in regards to how the media presents the information and how our Criminal Justice system addresses the concerns in the media. For our final exam, were asked to pick and discuss a topic that interested us, because of my curiosity of those four major topics I decided to pick a historical case that touched basis with all four topic areas. My topic being the historical case of Brown v. Board of Education. My goal of this essay is to give you the back story of the case, explain why I chose this case, discuss how the case is considered newsworthy and how it links to broader social structures.