Crime Misconceptions In The Media

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Conclusively, the media’s obsession to report on rare and abnormally violent crimes, has led members of the public to conclude that three major misconceptions exist, relative to the Canadian Criminal Justice System. Canadians perceive crime rates as steadily rising, during periods of low crime; they underestimate the severity of punishments imposed by the CJS, and misjudge parole release and recidivism rates (Griffiths, 2015, pg.54). These misconceptions have led to the politicisation for increasingly more punitive sentencing procedures. The media’s reluctance to present information based on current crime statistics has played a major role in this problem. In other words, the media oversimplifies the details pertaining to a crime, and only

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