After reading the article Prime suspects by Gilliam and
Iyengar it is clear that The crimes that dominate public consciousness and
policy debates are not the common crimes, but the unusual (Gilliam &
Iyengar, 2000). This is because the news media has done an inadequate job of
reporting on and analyzing the justice system, including corrections policies. Why? Because the daily news media rarely pay attention
to ideas. Instead they concentrate on incident rather than condition, and in
reporting on incident they focus mainly on conflict, rarely on solutions. It
has become evident to me to realize my own viewing habits as well as that of my
peers especially after this reading article during this course. Its obvious
that Western society is fascinated with crime and justice. From films, books,
newspapers, magazines, television broadcasts, to everyday conversations, we are
constantly engaging in crime talk. The mass media plays an important role in
the construction of criminality and the criminal justice system. The public’s
perception of victims, criminals, deviants, and law enforcement officials is
largely determined by their portrayal in the mass media. It should be taken
into consideration that the majority of public knowledge about crime and
justice is derived from the media. Crime portrayed on television is
significantly more violent, random, and dangerous than crime in the "real"
world. I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t agree or argue the fact that viewers such as you and I
internalize these images and develop a "mean world view" or a scary
image of reality. This view is characterized by mistrust, alienation, and
perceptions of higher than average levels of threat of crime in society. Its obvious the
relationship between media presentations and crime is dependent on
characteristics of the message and the audience. There is an overemphasis
on crimes of violence and offenders are often portrayed in stereotypical ways.
For example just food for thought, murder and robbery dominate prime time news
while property crimes are rarely presented, aren’t they just as important?
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