Summary
The news article discusses the case surrounding Luka Magnotta and the challenges that the court is facing in deeming him criminally responsible or not. Luka Magnotta has admitted to the murder of Jun Lin on May 2012. His lawyer, the defense is stating he was not criminally responsible for the crime at the time due to his schizophrenia. However, the Crown will try to prove otherwise during the court case (Andre Mayer and pear 2014).
Main message of the article
To begin with, the news article describes two perspectives of Magnotta’s case which could render him as a guilty or innocent man. As Magnotta has been charged with 5 criminal offences, he is still pleading as not criminally responsible due to his claimed mental illness, schizophrenia. Along with that, the defense is
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According to Stephen L. Muzzatti, news and media “have become central in the production and filtering of crime ideas. The selective nature of crime news, for example, with its emphasis on violence and sensationalism essentially crime as a product, playing to the fears, both imagined and real, of viewers and readers - has produced a distorted picture of the world of crime and criminality”( L. Muzzatti 2006, 03). In order to sensationalize this news, visual symbols like the title bold at the top of the page have been used. “Luka Magnotta case: The challenges of a ‘not criminally responsible defense”, gives a clear indication of what the article is about and sends a “fearful” message to the reader of Magnotta. With that, a large picture of Magnotta is placed directly below title with a defiant expression, giving readers a feeling of hostility. Thus, combinations of these visual tools are used in order to send a message to the reader of the issue at
Nimi Feghabo is an Atlanta-based consultant in Capgemini’s Custom Software Development service line. She has worked and acquired knowledge in many different industries spanning from Accounting to the Legal Industry. She brings significant leadership experience along with a proven track record. Prior to Capgemini, she has had experience in various industries which include legal, manufacturing, and international professional services. Her contributions include software implementation, ERP development, and facilitating changes. Through these projects, she has gained valuable insight and is able to develop transformative solutions into an effective facilitation strategy.
Over recent years high profile cases have brought to the forefront, questions of ethics in journalism. The purpose of this thesis will be to investigate the significance and context of a past case in which a journalist and news organization engaged in questionable operations to report the news. The issue being discussed is the considerable attention gained by the local media for the negative role they played in the Sept 27th 1990 “Henry's Publick House” incident. This thesis will address ethical questions within journalism from the viewpoint of the news organization of this case study and their breach in ethics.
Robert Baltovich was wrongly convicted of the murder of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, in Scarborough, Canada. He was arrested on November 19, 1990, and charged for first-degree murder. On March 31, 1992, he was convicted of second-degree murder. Finally, on April 22, 2008, he was found not guilty of the murder.
Most people use second hand information as their core source of information about crime, this source of information usually being the media. When carrying out sample research in Birmingham, Susan Smith (1984) discovered that 52% of people obtained most of their information about crime from the media, 36% obtained it from hearsay or alleged experiences of friends and neighbours, 3% from their own experiences, and 1% from the police service themselves (cited in Jones, 2001; 8). However the media tend to exaggerate upon areas of criminal activity causing a moral panic. ‘A moral panic is a semi- spontaneous or media generated mass movement based on the perception that some individual or group, frequently a minority group or subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses menace to society. These panics are generally fuelled by the media, although not always caused by, media coverage of social issues… These panics can sometimes lead to mob violence… (newsfilter.co.uk).
The social construction of myths of crime and criminal justice seems to follow a series of recurrent patterns. These patterns allow for an unprecedented amount of social attention to be focused upon a few isolated criminal events or issues. This attention is promoted by intense, but often brief, mass media coverage of a select problem. Intense social concern of an issue is achieved by a variety of means from the mass media, government, law enforcement officials, interpersonal communications, and the interests of reform groups whom all play major roles in focusing the publics attention on select so...
Raskolnikov’s article “On Crime” offers insight to the inner workings of his brain. Porfiry, a police inspector, calls out Raskolnikov for the shortcomings in his article, contesting that the argument presented was not one that was thought out completely and underdeveloped. It could be inferred that the viewpoints of Raskolnikov are a reflection on the “new word” that has plagued his thoughts for so long.
Many people in London are not willing to accept murder as a form of justice as previous research reports and most especially the family of Mark Duggan. Duggan’s family together with many other people opposes the lawful killing arguing that the killing was not properly justified. On the other hand, the state of London carried out investigations and found out that the killing was vindicated and thus it was a lawful killing according to the metropolitan police. The report given by the government to mark the accountability of the killing of Mark Duggan lawfuly took a period of three and half years to be written and had been announced to the public and the family of Mark Duggan. The mother of Mark Duggan, Pamela Duggan said that the state’s report was just like a slap in the face because it took much time to come up with the report and thus Pamela as the mother of Mark did not trust the report. To some extent, Pamela Duggan was right because it is impossible for a state of a nation to carry out investigations for the killing of one person for a period of more than three years meaning that the investigations had been interfered with by government officials in the fear of being blamed of having murdered someone. At each and every stage of the investigation, the state has been seen to avoid the blame of having murdered Mark Duggan and
Criminal justice through “moral panic” is “a condition, episode, person or groups of person emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are managed by editors, bishops, politicians, and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and become more visible.” (Kraska, 2004) Thus by creating this moral panic, which is an emotion, by involves media, government officials, public, politicians and interested parties that exaggerate the problem from how big the problem really is. “The idea of emotion as a kind of cognitive shortcut explains why jurors, like children are more likely to make emotional judgments than judges.” (Bandes, 311, 1999) Society alone has many emotions towards criminals and victims ranging from hate, anger, fear towards ...
The media, both in the mainstream and alternative sources, determine how the community view crime and how it represents the victims of crime, criminals and law enforcement officials. Media organisations have arguably become the main source of news, entertainment, recreation, and product information in society. For many people, media outlets such as newspapers, magazines, social media and television broadcasts informs viewers about events that affect their everyday lives. This essay it will explore the many variations of how crime is mispresented to society through mass media organisations.
In recent years, the subject of crime has become an increasingly important theme of political, academic, and public debate. In particular, the media today is more focused on victims than it has ever been before. Through media representations of the ‘ideal victim’, this essay will subsequently show how the media are able to construct and re-affirm pre-existing traditional ideologies within the public realm. In effect, this assignment will critically assess the concept of an ‘ideal victim’ and show how the media have used this when describing crime.
Throughout society there are both individuals and groups of people with a wide range of perceptions about crime and justice. These perceptions are influenced by the media and what the media presents. Media presents crime stories in ways that selectively distort and manipulate public perception, thus creating a false picture of crime. Therefore the media provides us with perceptions and social constructions about our world. Firstly I will be discussing the role of the media in constructing knowledge about crime. I will begin by explaining why the media is important, and go further to explain that media representations construct knowledge of crime and since knowledge about crime is constructed it does not necessarily capture reality in fact crime stories are often sensationalised. I will then link this to my central argument that the media shapes people’s perceptions of crime and how this is important as it can lead to changes in the law. I will then explain what it is that the public or society needs to be aware of when reading and watching media reports about crime. We need to be aware of bias and moral panics that are created by the media and how the media shapes or influence’s public perception through this, it is important for us to be aware of misleading or false crime stories so that we are not swayed by the media in believing what they want us to believe.
This demonstrates that the media obviously over represents in violent crimes such as street crimes compared with other crimes such as property crimes (Moston, 2012). The media use this method to report crime in order to heighten the impact of crime and to gain the mass audience’s attention, which alternatively will result in more sales for media products. This approach is known as ‘postmodernism’ where the media report crime on the notion of ‘entertainment’ for consumers. Postmodernism approach rejects the causes and consequences of crime but instead focuses on impacts to the society to create fear within the community (Jewkes, 2010). Hence lead to crime wave reporting on issues like assaults, homicide and street crimes to allow for attention grabbing headlines providing maximum entertainment to consumers. Crime wave increases the public’s awareness of particular crimes due to extensive media coverage provided for crimes revolving around violence (White and Perrrone, 2015). As a result, this has lead to moral panic where the media coverage influence the public’s perception in believing that they are in physical threat from violent crimes. This is prime example of the media using discretionary powers to insert values and dominant interests into the community. Criminologist Gramsci developed
Taking the paper to another perspective public fear of crime might influence individual behaviors. The fear of crime is a psychology of risk perception, and this is due to impersonal communication and the media. Therefore, the fear of crime is only the fear of becoming a victim to a crime. Moreover, this very well may be the reason for the public fear on crime, and it does affect their behaviors. Females are in fear of crime, and becoming a victim.
The dark, ominous alleyways of London’s East End divulge a very gruesome history of women “ripped up like [pigs] in a market” (Grose). The area, once littered with the torn up remains of brutally murdered prostitutes, looms over the city as symbol for the story of one of the most notorious serial killers: Jack the Ripper. The case enthralls and captivates people’s minds even today, over 100 years later (BBC). This begs the question of how serial killers become part of history, an answer found in extensive media coverage. Time Magazine describes the phenomena Jack the Ripper left behind as a “rich legacy” and a “multi-million dollar industry,” eerily analogous to today’s coverage of serial killings (Grose). Jack the Ripper’s case provides an early example of the issues that arose with the advent of the serial killer—issues that still exist. The press has a unique role to play in serial killer investigations, but the line between helping and hurting society is often blurred. While the press has a responsibility to inform society of such serial killings in order to keep them informed and safe, publishing killer communiqués crosses ethical boundaries concerning the investigations and society.
Insanity, automatism and diminished responsibility all play a significant role in cases where the defendant’s mind is abnormal while committing a crime. The definition of abnormal will be reviewed in relationship to each defence. In order to identify how these three defences compare and contrast, it is first important to understand their definition and application. The appropriate defence will be used once the facts of the cases have been distinguished and they meet the legal tests. The legal test of insanity is set out in M’Naghten’s Case: “to establish a defence…of insanity it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.” To be specific, the defect of reason arises when the defendant is incapable of exercising normal reasoning. The defect of reason requires instability in reasoning rather than a failure to exercise it at a time when exercise of reason is possible. In the case of R v Clarke, the defendant was clinically depressed and in a moment of absent-mindedness, stole items from a supermarket...