Crime and Deviance: The Media and Globalisation

Question 1

media representations of crime: the media over-represent violence and sexual crime

Answer 1

Difton and Duffy: 46% of reports are about violence/sexual crimes. only 3% of these crimes are reported to the police.
Marsh: studied news reports in USA and found that violent crimes were 32x more likely to be reported than property crime.

Question 2

media representations of crime: the media portray criminals and victims as older and more middle-class than those found in the CJS

Answer 2

media coverage exaggerates police success in clearing up cases: police = a major source of information for crime stories and they want to portray themselves in a good light. media reports violent crime more and this is a high clean-up rate.
media overplay extraordinary crimes: Ferson: dramatic fallacy
people enjoy reading about drama that is unusual.

Question 3

what are news values?

Answer 3

the criteria by which journalists and editors decide whether the news story is worthy enough to make the papers or a news bulletin.

Question 4

list 8 key news values

Answer 4

immediacy: is it breaking news? if you can break the news, = more money
dramatisation: is it exciting? dramatic?
personalisation: does it impact peoples lives? would people follow the story?
higher-status: is there a celebrity/higher profile involved?
simplification: how clear is the story?
novelty or unexpectedness: a unique story/telling a story from a new perspective
risk: victim-centered reporting; hear personal experiences
violence: visible and spectacular acts

Question 5

fictional representations of crime

Answer 5

criminals and victims follow what Surette calls the ‘law of opposites’: they are opposite of the official statistics - and strikingly similar to news coverage.
- property crime is under-represented, while violence, drugs, and sex crimes are over-represented.
- while real-life homicides mainly result from brawls and domestic disputes, fictional ones are the product of greed and calculation
- fictional police usually serve time

Question 6

the media as a cause of crime: the influence of media on children

Answer 6

Schramm: “for most children, under most conditions, most televisiom is probably neither particularly harmful nor particularly beneficial”. however, as Livingstone says, people continue to be preoccupied with the effects of media on children.

Question 7

the media as a cause of crime: 3 ways the media causes crime and deviance

Answer 7

imitation: by providing deviant role models, resulting in ‘copycat’ behaviour
arousal: e.g. through viewing violent or sexual images
desensitization: e.g. through repeatedly viewing images of violence

Question 8

the media as a cause of crime: fear of crime

Answer 8

due to the over representation in the media, the public have an unrealistic impression of crime and so an exaggerated fear of crime.

Question 9

the media as a cause of crime: media, relative deprivation and crime

Answer 9

Lab-based research has focused on whether media portrayals of crime and deviant lifestyles lead viewers to commit crime themselves. an alternative view is to consider how far media portrayal of ‘normal’ rather than criminal lifestyles might help to encourage people to commit a crime. e.g. left realists: argue mass media help to increase the sense of relative deprivation.
the result is to stimulate the sense of relative deprivation and social exclusion felt by marginalised groups who cannot afford consumer goods.
Merton: pressure to conform to the norm can cause deviant behaviour when the opportunity to achieve legitimate means is blocked.

Question 10

moral panics: define moral panic

Answer 10

an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society.

Question 11

moral panic: what happens in a moral panic?

Answer 11

• the media identify a ‘folk devil’
• the media presents a group in a stereotypical, negative way and exaggerates the scale of the problem
• moral entrepreneurs, editors, politicians, and the police condemn the group and its behaviour
• this then leads to a crack-down on the group

Question 12

moral panic: AO3

Answer 12

moral panics assume that society’s reaction is an over-reaction - who decides this?
it is argued that moral panics are now routine and have less impact. as in modern society, there is less consensus over what is deviant.

Question 13

cybercrime: Thomas and Loader

Answer 13

The internet has meant that the chance of victimisation/perceived victimisation is higher as computer-enabled crime is increasingly engaging in illegal activities

Question 14

cybercrime: Wall’s 4 types of cybercrime

Answer 14

cyber-trespass: crossing the boundary into someone’s space e.g. hacking, spreading viruses
cyber-deception and theft: taking someone’s identity or bank details
cyber-pornography: using the internet to spread illegal images of individuals which can include minors.
cyber-violence: likely to be psychological harm to an individual, and can also threaten physical violence.

Question 15

cyber crime: 3 key statistics

Answer 15

$190,000 a second
$16.4 billion a day
4115.4 a week

Question 16

cybercrime: what is cyber crime

Answer 16

identity and data theft
internet fraud
hacking
infecting devices with viruses
denial of service attacks
3D printing of illegal products
cyberwarfare
child pornography

Question 17

cybercrime: what is cyber-dependant crime?

Answer 17

refers to crimes which can only take place over computer networks e.g. hacking, viruses, and e=denial of service attacks. these are new as they are only possible since the internet.

Question 18

cybercrime: what is cyber-enabled crime?

Answer 18

refers to almost all cybercrime and includes old types of crime that have been made easier with the internet e.g. internet theft and fraud.

Question 19

Globalisation and crime: what is globalisation?

Answer 19

Globalisation is the increasing inter connectedness and interdependence of the many peoples of the world who all live and work on one large planet.

Question 20

Globalisation and crime: what has caused globalisation?

Answer 20

Technology
Transportation
International cooperation
Migration

Question 21

Globalisation and crime: what crimes have been caused by globalisation?

Answer 21

Cyber-dependant crimes such as denial of service attacks
Made cyber-enabled crimes easier such as fraud and identity theft
Human trafficking
Drug dealing

Question 22

Globalisation and crime: global risk consciousness

Answer 22

Globalisation creates new insecurities and produces a new mentality of risk consciousness, in which risk is seen to be global rather than tied to a particular place. E.g the increase in migration of people seeking work or trying to flee persecution is leading people in the western world to fear the risk of crime and disorder and the need to protect their own border.
Much of our knowledge about risks come from the media which often give an exaggerated view of the dangers we face. In the case of immigration, the media create moral panics. Negative news of immigrants - portrayed as terrorists - has led to hate crimes against minority groups

Question 23

Globalisation: globalisation, capitalism and crime

Answer 23

Globalisation has allowed transnational cooperations to move to low-wage countries producing job insecurity, unemployment, and poverty. Marketisation encouraged people to buy into cheap fashion etc

Widening inequalities and insecurities meant that people especially the poor would turn to crime. The lack of legitimate job opportunities destroys self-respect and drives the unemployed to look for illegitimate jobs e.g drug trade

Question 24

Globalisation: Patterns of criminal organisation

Answer 24

Hobbs and Dunnigham: the way that crime is organised is linked to the economic changes bought around by globalisation.
Glocal organisation: new forms of organisation emerge that have international links
Hobbs and dunnigham suggest that globalisation has led to new opportunities for crime
McMafia: refers to an organisation in Russia and Eastern Europe following the fall of communism. Deregulation of global markets meant that goods could be sold to make huge profits
New mafia were not like the traditional fighting, family led, heirarchal groups of Italy. They were economic groups that were only interested in self-betterment.
Global risk culture: beck - developments in society and production. This leads to an increase in the risk to society.

Question 25

green crime: what is the definition of green crime?

Answer 25

a form of green criminology which looks at the damage caused to the environment

Question 26

green crime: what is traditional criminology?

Answer 26

not concerned with behaviour if no written law is broken. crimes include murder and theft

Question 27

green crime: what is green criminology?

Answer 27

focus on the notion of harm, rather than breaking a written law. also known as transgressive criminology: meaning It looks at more than crimes that are illegal by law, it looks at harm being in significant factor on whether we should act on something or not.

Question 28

types of green crime: primary green crime

Answer 28

crimes of air pollution: Walters states 2x more people now die from air pollution-induced breathing compared to 20 years ago.
crimes of deforestation: between 1960-1990, 1/5 of the world’s forests have been destroyed.

Question 29

types of green crime: secondary green crime

Answer 29

hazardous waste and organised crime: disposal of toxic waste from chemical nuclear and other industries is highly profitable. because of the high costs of safe and legal disposal, businesses may seek to dispose of such waste illegally.
environmental discrimination: describes the fact that poorer groups are worse affected by pollution. for example, black communities in the USA often find their housing situated next to tips or polluting industries.

Question 30

green criminology: evaluation

Answer 30

it recognises the growing importance of environmental issues and the need to address harms and risks of environmental damage, both to humans and animals.
by focusing on the much broader concept of harms rather than simply legally defined crime, it is hard to define the boundaries.

Question 31

state crime: what is state crime?

Answer 31

green and ward define state crime as illegal or deviant activities perpetuated by or with the complicity of the state. state crimes refer to any crime committed by or on behalf of national states to achieve their individual policies.

Question 32

state crime: what are the 4 categories according to McLaughlin?

Answer 32

crimes by the security and police forces e.g. gross misconduct
economic crimes e.g. tax evasion
social and cultural crimes e.g. institutional racism
practical crimes e.g. corruption

Question 33

state crime: the spiral of Denial - Cohen

Answer 33

stage 1: the first reaction is often to deny that anything happened. this lasts until international bodies produce evidence that it did occur.
stage 2: once evidence has appeared, the next stage is often to question a particular version of events, instead claiming that others carried out the atrocity or the evidence pointed to something different occurring.
stage 3: the final stage is to admit the abuse took place, but to justify it. to suggest it was the fault of the victim, or there was no other way.

Question 34

state crime: neutralisation theory

Answer 34

denial of victim: the offender believes the victim deserved the crime committed against them.
denial of injury: the offender plays down their actions; doesn’t recognise it as immoral.
denial of responsibility: the perpetrator perceives themselves as a victim of unfavourable social conditions or circumstances.
condemning the condemners: the perpetrator accuses the police and other state controls of being corrupt, flawed, selfish and unjust.
appeal to higher loyalty: the offender claims to have acted in the interest of others, or on the basis of orders or peer pressure, but not according to his own will.

Question 35

state crime: the social conditions of state crime

Answer 35

Kelmand and Hamilton studied ‘crimes of obedience’ and identified 3 features:
authorisation: this is where individuals are acting according to orders approved by those of higher authority, and their moral principles have been replaced by a duty to obey.
routinisation: the crime is being carried out as part pf a regular routine, a common practice that can be carried out in a detached manner.
dehumanisation: the ‘enemy of the state’ is portrayed as a sub-human, where normal rules apply behaviour don’t apply - taking away their name.