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Sources of crime statistics
Common strengths and weaknesses for crime statistics
Common strengths and weaknesses for crime statistics
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Crime and the Media
The public depends on the news media for its understanding of crime. Reportedly three quarters (76%) of the public say, they form their opinions about crime from what they see or read in the news (Dorfman & Schiraldi, 2001). After reviewing five hours of reality crime television shows, one is left with a very dismal look on society and a prejudice towards minorities as they are largely depicted as the perpetrators of crime. This new genre commonly referred to as reality television appears to be sweeping the nation by storm. Opinions vary, depending on whom you ask, to what extent reality plays a role versus the selling of a product. Sensationalism, advertising, ratings hype, profiling and fear all comprise the mass medias’ marketing strategy to America. Sadly, what we see portrayed by television shows such as “COPS” have contributed largely and in some cases unjustly to the prejudices that are present today.
The predominant races of the suspects portrayed in the episodes of COPS were African Americans (Langley, 2005). The predominant genders of the suspects were male. However, the May 5, 2005, episode of COPS featured an exclusive on COPS: Bad Girls (Langley, 2005). Combining the special episode with the four and a half hours of regular viewing of COPS the numbers still reflect the predominance of suspects featured are African American males (Langley, 2005). In two cases out of the nineteen viewed, the suspects were Caucasian, and the reason for the stop was expired tags. This stop was handled much differently than the previous stop. The officers were not aggressive when they approached the car, and the incident proceeded in a civilized manner. Ironically, in the scene prior to the present, the officers had observed an African American suspect in a drug area with expired tags, and the encounter was very different. A car chase ensued, an ultimate arrest with the suspect forced to the ground in an aggressive manner, searched, and hand cuffed. The officers suggest to the audience their suspicions that drugs may be involved. Ultimately, their suspicions prove correct when the cameras capture the crack cocaine hidden in the pants of the suspect.
Of the crimes, featured 90% were drug related and 10% were associated with domestic crimes. On the COPS episode aired on May 6, 2005, the suspect, African American observed in an undercover sti...
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...stice system. Dr. West points out “The urgent problem of black poverty is primarily due to the distribution of wealth, power, and income-a distribution influenced by the racial caste system that denied opportunities to most "qualified" black people until two decades ago.” (West, 1994. p. 93-5). Clearly, economics contributed to the criminal propensities of the suspect viewed. The African American suspects compared to their counterparts, appeared scary, drug crazed and out of control. While it is unfortunate, people still believe, if it is on television it must be true. Reality crime television provides a false sense of legitimacy. Those that watch the show, often forget that in the final analysis, it is television, and the main point of television programming is to entertain, sell advertisement and achieve the best ratings possible.
References
Dorfman, L, & Schiraldi, V. (2001). Off balance: youth, race & crime in the news. Building Blocks for Youth Law Center. Retrieved May 5, 2005, from www.buildingblocksforyouth.org
Langley, J. (Producer). (2005). COPS. (Television series). New York: Fox.
West, C. (1994). Race matters. New York: Vintage Publishers.
The Cocaine Kids focuses on the lives of eight Latino and black young cocaine dealers in New York City from 1982 to 1986. This...
Stratification in general is the formation of classes or categories. “Racial and ethnic stratification refers systems of inequality in which some fixed groups membership, such as race, religion, or national origin is a major criterion for ranking social positions and their differential rewards” (Social Stratification). An example of this would be someone who is African American may not be able
Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.
New Century Foundation. (2005). The Color of Crime: Race, Crime and Justice in America. Retrieved from http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf
They were of course stopped and police, assuming they were drug dealers, used a narcotics-trained police dog to search the car. The young men were then taken to jail and held until police were convinced that their car was clean of any contraband. To justify their ill treatment of the young men police issued a “warning” stating that the windshield was obstructed (because of a piece of string that was hanging down from the rearview mirror). Then, when the young men questioned the officer about the stop, he told them it was because they were black, with a nice car, driving through a high drug trafficking area (Rudovsky, 2001). Russell L. Jones states in his article, A More Perfect Nation: Ending Racial Profiling (Jones,
The general public of Australia has a common aspect when associated with their sources of knowledge of crime. Many would agree the media, especially newspapers and television, are their most frequent and well known source of crime activity. The media updates society with data about the extent, frequency and types of crimes committed (Moston and Coventry, 2011, p.53). Studies highlight our grasp of crime is majorly derived from the media, with a lack of exposure to police statistics or victimisation surveys. There is a concern in correlation to this fact since the media has inconsistency and inaccuracy in reporting crime. Due to this, the media can misrepresent victims and perpetrators, downsizing them to recognisable stereotypes (Moston and
Overall, the study paints a very clear picture: Black people are disadvantaged within the criminal justice system, leading to massive disparities even among those who are entirely innocent. The causes we have identified run from inevitable consequences of patterns in crime and punishment to deliberate acts of racism, with many stops in between. the researchers found that some of the disparity is driven in large part by higher homicide rates in black communities.
“Research has disclosed that most serious crimes such as (homicide, rape, robbery ,and assault) in inner cities are committed by a very small proportion of African American youth, some 8% by estimates.”(Balkaran)”. Also African American males are 4 times more likely to be featured on the news when committing a crime, unlike their white counterparts. Susan Smith who had kidnapped and killed her two children, told the police that an African American male had committed the crime. This led to police searching for African American males, looking for the culprit. But after nine days she confessed, that incident itself changed the perception of African American males to being criminal in nature. Movie blockbusters such as “Menace II Society and “Boyz In The Hood”, although entertaining portray black males as hood’s and brutes.”
In the criminal justice field, many studies are focused on the effects of media’s portrayal of crime. The definition of media has included TV news, TV dramas (Law and Order,NCIS, etc), and newspapers. Chiricos. Padgett, and Gertz (2011) and Romer, Hall Jamieson, and Aday (2003) included local versus national TV news watching in their study. Both studies found that increase in viewership of news media increased fear of crime. One found that local news had more of an influence on fear of crime than national news (Chiricos, Padgett, & Gertz, 2000).
Social stratification means division of society into different strata or layers. It divided people into different groups and their lives are structure according to these groupings. In one word, when individuals and groups are ranked, members of a particular layer have a common identity and they possess a similar life style. Life-styles include such matters like the residential areas in every community which have gradations of prestige-ranking, mode of housing, means of recreation, the kinds of dress, and so on. It denotes a style of life which is distinctive of a particular social status. In a caste-divided society, for example- in India ‘the ancient Aryas’ a special type of stratification in the form of caste is found: the Brahmins, Kshatriyas,
In a social stratification system, the Elite class is at the apex of it. Families and individual belonging to social status, power, or wealth deemed unusual makes up this small group.
“The 138 stories centrally involving blacks for the three-network sample fell into the categories depicted in Table 1. The most frequent classifications were crime (blacks committing and/or victims of violent, drug, and non-violent crime) and politics (activities of black politicians and community leaders), as was true of local news. The third most common topic was blacks as victims of social misfortunes other than crime, such as fires, poverty, bad schools, and racial discrimination. The crime plus the victim categories account for 46.4% of the stories; thus nearly half the coverage depicted blacks as threats to or non-contributing victims of American society”( Entman, 1994). The assignment of Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian and even African American police officers to police poor, predominantly black neighborhoods who have had little or no social contact with members of this group or specific training in how to effectively interact in such environments is an ongoing recipe for disaster (Edwards, 1999). A study conducted by the Open Society Foundation has shown a positive correlation between African American life expectancies and media portrayal of minorities as troubled youth (Shah, 2015). The same study also discusses some unconscious reactions to African Americans. The
Slavery is the first social stratification system we are going to discuss. In many countries in present time slavery is illegal, however, it is still occurring in many parts of the world. Slavery is the most extreme form of legal or condoned social inequality (Larkin, 2015). In the slavery stratification system, there are two roles. They are slave owner and slave. A person
In society today the media’s has an extensive influence on the public by mediums such as the internet, television news, newspapers and radio. In addition, crime is often considered both a source of news and entertainment with such programs as CSI, NCIS and Criminal Minds being some amongst many others that also influence public perception on crime (Hayes & Levett, 2013). Evidence shows that the medias portrayal of crime can indeed affect the public’s perception although evidence will demonstrates that crime perception can be unique to each individual. Evidence shows that media reports have the potential to strongly influence people’s daily activities (Weatherburn and Indermaur, 2004). When the media reports on a crime it triggers an effect
Social stratification is a system in which a society ranks categories of in individuals and divides them into layers according to their relative property, power, and prestige. The three systems of social stratification include slavery, caste, and class. First, the most closed system is slavery, defined as the ownership of people. In slavery, every slave had an owner to whom they were subjected to. Slavery had an economic basis because the most common causes of slavery were to pay off debt, punishment for crime and defeat in war. Slavery was not necessarily passed to one's next generation because it could be permanent