Aspects Of Crime Flashcards
Mass Media and Crime
We live in a media saturated society, the media are obsessed with crime
Representations of Crime:
- over represent violent and sexual crime
- victims are YT, middle class
- exaggerates police success
Crime and the News:
Jock Young - the news is manufactured
Green - the news sensationalise crime
Mention NEWS VALUES
Fictional Representations of Crime:
Property crime is underrepresented in movies whereas murder is over represented due to creating excitement
Crime is a consumer spectacle:
Crime is used to entertain the Youth
Hayward - identified GTA as cool
Bandura:
His lab experiment
Moral Panics:
Media causes Fear Of Crime by labelling
Hall - Policing the Crisis
Cohen - Folk Devils
Official Statistics and Victimology
(focus on Official Stats in this one)
Statistics: Social Fact or Social Construction:
Stats accurately measure people who are most likely to commit crime
(We can theorise why crime happens)
Vs
Crime measurement depend upon the person dealing with law breaking
(Cicourel - Typifications)
(Must investigate why lower class are arrested more)
Crime Stat sources:
- Police Recorded Crime
- Victim Surveys
- Self Report from criminals
- Court and Prison Records
Changes in reporting:
- Mass Media - crimes can be reported online
- Changing Police Attitudes
- Changing Norms and Values
Dark Figure of Crime Statistics
- unreported crime
- shows crime is a social construct
(Reference patterns within CAGES)
- Functionalists + subcultiral theories see crime stats as Fact
- interactionist sand Marxists see stats as a social construct
Left and Right Realists see crime stats as Fact
Croal - British Crime Survey:
This crime survey is unreliable as:
- results are limited to memory
- sample doesn’t include those under the age of 16 (but youth commit crime?)
Official Stats and Victimology
(Focus on Victimology in this one)
Christie - Victims are socially constructed
The stereotype that has been created has show victims as weak, innocent and blameless individuals
Perspectives of studying Victimology:
Positive Victimology - they study the concept of characteristics that make you prone to being a victim
Critical Victimology - structural factors such as social class which makes you more likely to be a victim
Patterns of Victimisation:
- w/c, young black male
Inverse Victimisation Law:
Those who have the least power and are the most deprived are the victims of crime
- those who steal from the poor are the poor themselves
Crime Prevention and Punishment
(Criminology)
Maintaining Social Control:
- Deterrence
- Public Protection
- Retribution
- Rehabilitation 
Garland - since the 70s focus has been put on retribution
Left Realists - the environment leads to crime
Right Realists - rational choice of crime
Types of Crime Prevention:
1) Situational - designing out crime -‘d target hardening measures - (CPTED)
AO3: - This causes displacement where crime simply moves to somewhere else
2) Environmental Crime Prevention
Due to Broken Windows Theory, we know crime takes place when an area is neglected so we take a…
Zero-Tolerance Approach
E.G: New York clean car programme
Every time a subway car was graffitied it was taken off service and returned only when they were clean, this reduced vandalism
3) Social and Community Crime Prevention
Left realists we must tackle deprivation within communities
We must focus on community cohesion and social services
E.G: Perry Preschool Project
For disadvantaged black children
They were offered a two year intellectual enrichment program and found for every $1 spent on the program, $17 dollars were saved on welfare provisions
Does Prison Work?
- high rates of recidivism
- 2/3 prisoners reoffend after 2 years
“Universities of Crime” - Matthews
“Prisoners accept their label as a master status” - Goffman
Restorative Justice - used instead of prisons
Self Surveillance - Foucault
Panopticon shows self surveillance
- The Media and CCTV are modern forms of this idea
