Media_Portray_of_Youth_Crime_and_Deviance

Media portrayal of youth crime and deviance One of the main forms of social control in our society is mass media. The public learn from television newspapers and books what is going on in the world and how to interpret it. However most of what we see and hear is not a true representation of what is happening. Within my essay I will be discussing different ways in which the media focus on certain crimes and deviance. I have chosen to look in to the ways that youth crime and deviance is portrayed and ways in which public perceptions regarding young people have been affected by this. The media play an important role in influencing public perceptions and opinions, and sometimes cause moral panics. The media sometimes create the distorted image of youths that, we the public perceive. Most of these images emphasize problems like crime, drug use, and teen pregnancy. Media broadcasters often see youth as a threat. Far too often, the media portrays young people in a negative light. Constantly focusing on youth crimes, particularly those crimes committed by minority men, creates the false impression that youth crime is rising, and that all minority men are criminals. Not only is this a completely false, racist and stereotypical, it also detracts from all the youth who are well adjusted, intelligent and accomplished. The skewed coverage in today's media results in the belief that youth crime is on the rise. BBC news, For example, claimed UK violent crime is "spiralling" (BBC1, 14/3/05). Violent crime by youths is at its lowest point in the 25-year history of the National Crime Victimization Survey, yet 62% of poll respondents felt that juvenile crime was on the increase. The majority of this percentage stated that they received their information from the media. The news on television and in newspapers causes moral panics. The most famous moral panic is “The Mods and Rockers” The Mods and Rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early-mid 1960s. These two groups would often engage in violent conflict against each other. The Mods and Rockers conflict led sociologist Stanley Cohen to coin the term moral panic in his study Folk Devils and Moral Panics, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s. Although Cohen admits that Mods and Rockers had some fights in the mid-1960s, he argues that they were no different to the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, both at seaside resorts and after football games. He claims that the UK media turned the mod subculture into a negative symbol of delinquent and deviant status. The way the police record crimes has now changed. Certain "yobbish" behaviours e.g. minor scuffles have been reclassified as crime; a violent crime with many victims is no longer recorded as a single crime. One incident with 5 victims is now recorded as 5 crimes. In previous years carrying a knife was not recorded as a crime, now it is (with good reason). This obviously gives the effect of doubling recorded violent crime. This could be another reason why people think crime is on the increase. Up on reading the census for Redcar dating back to the 1800’s, I found that not a lot has changed regarding crime and anti social behaviour. The census also mentions that a petition was created to ban another public house being built in Redcar as there were already 16 public houses and several outdoor beer licences in the town which had a population of just 12,000. Could this be a reason why drinking alcohol and going to pubs is a big part of our culture' 10/04/1915. The landlord of the Royal Standard was fined £2 charged with having a man on his premises drunk. Stated that the man was not served whilst on his premises 10/04/1915. The landlady of the Clarendon Hotel was fined £2 charged with having a man on her premises in a helpless condition. She stated that she would not have served him with a glass of rum in front of him had she known he was so drunk. Still to this day landlords are not allowed to serve people thought to be too drunk yet, I know a lot of people thought this only came to be a law recently ( last few years or so), the reason they thought; everyone are binge drinking these days. They hear this of the news on television and in newspapers. 18/08/1916. A heavy court was held at the Redcar Courts recently, with a total of 49 defendants appearing for varying offences such as, 22 for lighting after dusk offences. 1 Drunk and Disorderly, 5 motor car offences, 4 for striking matches after dusk on the Esplanade, and 1 for cruelty to a donkey. Drunk and disorderly may now be called anti social behavior' 23/06/1917. Rowdy scenes had place on the Esplanade, Redcar, when it was revealed at Guisborough Court that a male person Mr. W.G. was fined at the court. It would appear that a struggled had occurred when a detective constable found the defendant playing 'pitch and toss' for which he was fined 10/-, for assaulting the constable fined 30/-, and for damaging his clothing 15/-. In newspapers today, this may be described as something like “Yob attacks police officer. No respect, what is this town coming to when the police get attacked” we see statements like this every day. 06/05/1916. Appearing before the court was between 18 and 20 people for lighting offences after dusk. (Black out due to war) Following the convictions, the bench desired it to be known, that they would seriously consider sending people to prison without the option of a fine in future. Could this be the start of “Zero tolerance”' These are just a few of all the incidents that have happened in the 1800’s and early 1900. The same things are happening today but just get described in different ways using over the top words to attract the public’s attention, why' To sell papers and make more money may be one explanation. The British Crime Survey measures the amount of crime in England and Wales. This includes crimes which may not have been reported to the police, or recorded by them. It provides an important alternative to police recorded crime statistics. Without the BCS the government would have no information on these unreported crimes. It is also used to assess people's attitudes to crime and towards the Criminal Justice System. It is one of the major sources of information about levels of crime, public attitudes to crime and other Home Office issues. Some question included in the BCS are about people’s fears and worries about crime. Even as the number of crimes drops the public are still worried about crime. The chances of becoming a victim are at the lowest since 1195. The BCS recorded the public’s perception of crime levels and despite crime levels falling, 65% of people thought crime in the country as a whole had increased. 51% of women aged 64 to 75 thought national crime levels had raised “a lot”. Readers of national tabloids were almost twice as likely to think that crime rates had increased. More than a third of people said that the fear of crime had a major or moderate impact on their life. The amount of people that think crime rates have raised is increasing each year. Some of the types of things that people generally worry about are, teenagers hanging around the street, vandalism and deliberate damage to property, people dealing/using drugs and people being drunk or rowdy in public places. The BCS also released a report on how confident the public are in the police and justice system. Only 43% of people thought that that their local police could be relied on to deal with minor crimes. Only 43% have confidence in the justice system being effective in brining juveniles to justice. The Iposos Mori social research institute published a report which tries to explore why the gap between actual crime and the public’s perception exists. Overall crime rates have fallen significantly, the report says there is a huge gap between measurable facts and people perceptions. The public still think crime rates are soaring and personal safety is declining, they blame the government for this, because of this, ways in which the government have tried to make the public feel safer was to put more police on the streets. Did this have the right effect' The sight of police patrolling certain areas may give the effect that there is something to fear. A group of Young NCB members and young people from the National Youth Agency's Young Researcher Network, have published a report based on findings from their research project looking at the portrayal of young people in the British media, and how negative images and stories affect young people’s lives. The National Youth Agency says that 3 out of 4 stories in the paper about young people are negative. In May 2009, I did a research project into the public’s perception of youth crime. I chose to do my research using questionnaires. In my surveys there was an option for the participant to write their own opinion or elaborate on their answers. My findings were that the majority of people that took part thought that youth crime had increased. A third of participants did not know that overall, crime has decreased. All who thought that crime had increased said they thought that because of what they hear on the new and what they read in newspapers. My results found that 85% thought that anti social behaviour had risen. Sensationalistic stories such as murders, war, gang problems and anti social behaviour attract readers and viewers which translates into money from sales. Most of the stories are to a degree based on truth but, bunching them all together in one newscast or one newspaper gives the viewer or reader a false impression that we are living in anarchy. However, the media outlets are aware that a detailed report on economic and policy issues will not attract ratings. Its a cold fact of media reality. The media feel pressured to have the “scoop” and sadly many do not verify the facts before going with the story. References http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs09/hosb1709.pdf accessed 7th April 2010 http://www.redcar.org/index.php'option=com_content&view=article&id=136&Itemid=142 accessed 8th April 2010 Greg Barak. (Eds). 1994/1995. Media, process and the social construction of crime. www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/hrb9701.html Accessed 8th April 2010 http://search.homeoffice.gov.uk/search'site=RDS&client=rds&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=rds