Perceiving Crime Flashcards
What is crime formerly presented as?
A problem of society and class
What is crime linked to?
Morality but also to conditions of poverty and lack of education
How is crime portrayed in the modern media?
Portrayed as being committed by ‘bad’ people on ‘good/innocent’ victims and strict enforcement is the only solution to crime
What determines a crime to be news worthy?
Whether the crime fits within prolific news values
What are the news values focused on by the media?
Threshold
Predictability
Risk
Sex
Celebrity
Proximity
Violence or conflict
Visual spectacle or graphic imagery
Children
Simplification
Individualism
What crimes are over-represented in the media?
Violent crimes
Sex crimes
Celebrity crimes
Crimes involving police
Crimes involving children or young people
Crimes that have been visually recorded
What crimes are under-represented?
White collar crimes
Domestic violence
Cyber crimes
Environmental crimes
Anything other than “street crime”
What characteristics make up the ideal victim?
Extremes in age
Ethnic/racial majority
Presentable/articulate/photogenic
Resist offender
Engaged in morally pure activity
What are signal crimes?
Crimes that tap into more broader held public concerns and tensions and result in extensive and continuing media interest in related issues & offences
What are the key elements of moral panic?
Concern over certain kinds of people and behavior
Hostility towards group identified as responsible
Consensus, substantial or widespread, that something ‘must be done’
Disproportionate response concerning the actual level of threat
What influences moral panic?
Moral panics are driven by the media and exploited by moral entrepreneurs, particularly politicians
What is the difference between public opinion and well informed public opinion?
Members of public much more likely to agree with a sentence the more they know about the circumstances of the offence
Who is responsible for recording raw statistical information about crime?
Police Officers
The Courts
Corrections Facilities
What are the different types of official statistics?
Emergency calls/police dispatches
Type of offence
Arrest rate
Police use of firearms
Location and time of offence
Conviction/clearance rates
Offender information
Victim information
Imprisonment rate
Sentencing rate
Parole and post release
Hospital emergencies
Family incident reports
Fine reporting
Drug seizures
What agencies are responsible for publishing the crime statistics?
Crime Statistics Agency Victoria
Australian Institute of Criminology
Australian Bureau of Statistics National Crime and Justice Statistical Centre
New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics
Western Australia Crime Research Centre
South Australia Office of Crime Statistics
What is the purpose of measuring crime?
Measurements of crime should help inform public debate about crime and criminal justice policy
What should be kept in mind when examining the crime statistics?
Rates of crime rather than absolute numbers
Prevalence – how common is the offence to begin with?
What time period are we examining?
What affects crime statistics?
Laws
Recording practices
Policing strategies
Improvements in crime technology
Displacement
What in society affects crime statistics?
Shifts in public priorities/sensitivity
High profile crime
Increased media reporting
Public awareness campaign
Attitudes to police and increasing/decreasing trust
Why do a large of amount of crimes end up not being represented on the statistics?
Under-reporting
Under-recording
Why do people not report crime?
Too minor or inconsequential to bother
Shame, embarrassment
Do not know their victims
No wish for the offender to be punished
Fear of reprisals
Lack of faith in the police
Fear of police
Involvement with crime
What should be considering before inferring change from the crime statistics?
What other factors may be involved?
Are ‘changes’ consistent with data from other sources?
Is the prevalence high enough?
What time periods are being covered?
What crimes aren’t we looking at
What should be kept in mind when viewing media printed crime statistics?
Always be skeptical of any crime statistic printed in the news or quoted by a politician
