The Cost of Fear and Misconceptions in Criminal Justice

This article discusses the cost of fear and misconceptions in the criminal justice system. It explores the impact of fear on children's freedom to explore and the high cost of emotional reactions to disturbing events. The article also addresses misconceptions about crime scene investigations portrayed in media and TV shows.

Running Head: CRIMINAL JUSTICE 1
Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice
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Question 1
Most Americans love to always live in fear about the safety of their children, ranging
from child kidnapping, vaccination to child poisoning among others. The media has filled the
society with children going missing every day, among other dangers facing them at every
turn they make. When you try to tell people that the world might be safer now than it was
years ago, most parents would look at you funny and assume that you might not know what
you are talking about. The video explicitly shows that, if we become afraid about the safety
of our children, we are technically teaching them to avoid exploring, and understand their
own individual ways of managing risks (Carl Christman, 2011)
The narrator in the video states that “I believe that children should be allowed their
time to explore the world in their own individual capacity, to fall down and hurt themselves.
This might allow them to deal with the challenges of life in their own way.” (Carl Christman,
2011). However, due to fears, parents go further to investigate whether their new
neighbourhood has a sexual predator nearby .Most parents view such freedoms to explore
alone as tantamount to endangering the safety of their children.
Question 2
The cost of fear to us and the society is great. As indicated in the video “emotional
reactions to disturbing events leads to an expensive and inefficient framework to create
solutions.” A good example is a phenomenon discussed in the video “Law and Disorder:
How the System Really Works”, which provides that , it requires all types of offenders even
if they had offended only once, to see a therapist before they are allowed back to the society.
The solution to high cost begins with acknowledging the situation. This requires accepting
our fears. It means allowing children to explore their life while at the same time speak out
about some of the unsafe situations facing them. Fear for the safety of our children begins

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limiting the available choices .Therefore parents should admit and own their feelings. The
narrator expresses that when we try to bury the feeling of fear for our children, we are
technically burying them alive. However, when we admit that there are problems that we
need to deal with, parents would be able to loosen the shackles of fear. As a result, children
become free and have an opportunity to delve into life with optimism.
Question 3
One of the major misconceptions according to the video, is the portrayal of crime and
crime scene personnel conducting detective works. According to the article “8 Ways Shows
like Law & Order Mess with Our Heads” The crime and crime scene investigators are two
separate functions. In most cases, crime scene professionals often process the crime scene,
package up all the evidence and send it to the lab. However, none participates directly in
investigating a crime (layle1, 2014).Unlike what we see on televisions, detective rarely
involves themselves in lab activities. On TV, we are used to seeing a fingerprint pulling up a
criminal from the database and lead the law enforcers to a secret location. However, this not
usually the case in real life. It has never happened.
The narrator indicates that “ crime is not that easy to fight , particularly due to its
fragile nature of how specific investigations are supposed to be conducted” Such
misconceptions push most of us to think that we are rational and understand the best way of
measuring risk as they pertain to us. However, we are not. This is the reason why we are in a
bad cultural climate; even if the fact that risk is done, people tend to consider that the risk is
higher based on what they see on the media and TV shows.

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References
Carl Christman (2011, July 11). Culture of Fear and Children Retried from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BllJsfm7FuE
layle1 (2014). 8 Ways Shows like Law & Order Mess with Our Heads Retrieved from:
http://www.tv.com/shows/law-order-special-victims-unit/community/post/8-ways-
shows-like-law-and-order-svu-mess-with-your-head-1416086226/