Realtionship Between the Media, Public Perceptions of Crime and Police

(Torres, S. 1998) Research indicates that fear of crime, whether self-imposed or realistic, can immobilize individuals, harm the local economy and negatively impact social interactions as well as the quality of life (Albanese, 1990 Skogan (1987) argues that crime victims believe that more crime exists, are worried about victimization and attempt to protect themselves. Parker and Ray (1990) as well as Krannich et al. (1989) revealed victimization to be a predictor related to fear of crime. Additional support for these findings was provided by Smith and Hill (1991), who showed that actual victimization appears to increase fear of crime by increasing the perception of vulnerability. (Torres, S. 1998) Research also shows that fear of crime among minorities and those of lower socioeconomic status is related to their vulnerability in the urban environment (Liska et al., 1982). The elderly who are physically vulnerable and less agile are more fearful of crime even though they are less likely to be victims. (Torres, S. 1998) The proliferation and presence of gangs in the United States is also linked to the concept of social incivilities and increased fear of crime. This problem of fear does not go away. The people not only have a constant fear, it continues to the next generation of people in

Assess sociological explanations of the role of the mass media in creating moral panics about crime and deviance:

Criminology is continuously changing and developing. Advances of technology have made media our primary news source for crime. We believe the stories told by our local news media, not doubting a word because these sources are supposedly reliable. Nevertheless, they sometimes do spread false information. It may be intentional or unintentional. According to Cohen, media presence amplifies a problem which did not previously exist (Steeves and Milford, 2015) thus creating a moral panic. As media influence increases, it is necessary for criminologists to study moral panics, such as the Columbine School shootings or the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

There are several ways that fear of crime has a relationship with violence. In many communities have experience higher fear of crime levels? Franklin (2009) in his current research he tested the vulnerability of female and male to indicated if fear of crime was increase by age. In his finding this facts are significant since there is a higher level among age for males while females tend to reduce fear. Age also plays a big role when fear of crime is concern in the communities.

on a person’s perception of crime, which can cultivate an unhealthy fear of crime that’s not warranted.

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).

According the to the authors, measuring the relationship between where people live and the fear of crime is one approach to specifying the race-specific crime threat hypothesis. Another method was to measure directly the extent to which people associate crime with blacks. People used to support their data were adults 18 years of age and older, 56.5 percent female 79.8 percent white, 11.4 percent black and 7.5 percent Hispanic. 44 percent of the sample had graduated from college. The median age was 46

Chiricos and his colleagues (1995) found that television news associated with crime was significantly related to higher fear of crime for white women between the ages 30-54 in particular. Other findings of their research, was that the only significant relationship between fear of crime and listening to Radio News is reported for both, white and black women. The TV news effects are found primarily for female, white, and the middle-age audience and those with recent victim experiences, low income, and living in disproportionately black neighborhoods. Regardless of being recent victims of crime or not and living in high income or low income neighborhoods, women showed the most significant television news effect, which concluded that other factors other than resonance was at play. Therefore, their data clearly indicate the relationship between television news and fear of crime is entirely exclusive to white women, despite the fact that they are at low victim risk, according to Chiricos (1995) and his colleagues’

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.

In the article “Crime rates have plummeted over the last 20 years. Why aren't we less scared?” author Christopher Beam explained how society continues to feel unsafe, even though crime rates have been decreasing. Many New Yorkers feel crime is getting worse and “ don't feel correspondingly safer” (Beam 2011, pg.1). The media plays a big part in making people believe crime is at its worst by highlighting the biggest most dangerous crimes to date.

In the United States, violent crime has been steadily declining since its peak in the early 1990s (Lott, 2013). Violent crime, as defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, includes four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault (FBI, 2012). These crimes are measured by the Justice Department in terms of number reported by victims as well as those tried and convicted in a court of law (FBI, 2012). Despite the steady decrease, the vast majority of Americans admit to possessing a very genuine fear of violent crime both in their local neighborhoods and in the nation at large (Lott, 2013). When surveyed over the last several years, nearly half of the American population consistently believed violent crime had increased from the year prior (Cohn, 2013). In reality, the instances of violent crime had been and continue to be deteriorating at a rapid pace (Cohn, 2013).

Fear, in this topic, can be defined as an anticipation of victimization, rather than fear of an actual victimization. This type of fear relates to how vulnerable a person feels. In his article, Fear of crime: A review of the literature, Hale suggests that the mass media frequently create

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.

It has been shown that “people’s opinion about crime and criminal justice is shaped by the indirect information obtained from the media” (Living). CSI was one of the first shows to display the forensics side of solving crimes. This was many peoples first look into what labs do and how they solve crimes and, unfortunately, it is not very accurate. In one article by Lisa A. Kort-Butler it was stated that, “the results [of the study] support the idea that program type matters when it comes to understanding people’s fear of crime and their attitudes about criminal justice,” showing that there is a correlation between what is shown on TV and what people believe (Kort-Butler 2011). This means that people become more fearful of crime or being a victim of crime if they watch crime shows.

“The worst crime is faking it.” (Kurt Cobain) We use media every day in different forms, younger audience prefers to use social media to stay updated and older audience prefers more reliable sources. Media goes hand in hand with a lot of different issues. It is heavily involved with sexism , objectifying women and also it is closely related to the public 's fear of crime. Miss Representation, the documentary, describes all the ways that media objectifies women. For instance, advertising companies use women’s bodies to sell different kind of products, for example AXE ads where women are practically naked because sex sells. Similarly, media blows details out of proportion resulting in public’s fear of crime. Crime has always been a part of our society, but how is it that it seems to be growing every day. Is crime really increasing or is it that people now are just more aware of it. In addition, does media exaggerate to get its point across and blow little details out of proportion to create public fear of crime? U.S. annual crime report from FBI’s 2014 edition estimated that the number of violent crimes decreased 0.2 percent when compared with data from 2013. Likewise, the number of property crimes decreased 4.3 percent from 2013 as well (2015, September 28). Despite all the statistics, all that media portrays is mass shootings, mass bombings, sexual abuse, murder, rape, kidnapping, child abduction,etc. Why is media and public’s fear of crime so closely tied together? Using