Crime & Media: Shaping Perceptions in Criminal Justice System

This essay examines the significant role media plays in shaping public perception of crime and deviance, focusing on agenda-setting and the selective reporting of criminal incidents. It discusses how media influences societal views on crime, the criminal justice system, and related policies, while ...Read More

Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice 1
INTRODUCTION TO CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
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Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice 2
Introduction
This article will scrutinize the role the media plays in agenda scenery about crime and
deviance. Agenda setting refers to the mass media’s weight over the issues that public believe
about crime. The mass media evidently can’t account every single criminal that happens and the
media workforce are essentially very discriminating in the incidents that they choose either to
report disregard the purpose of this essay paper is to find out how this happens and it affects the
public (Crowther-Dowey 2007).
This article is based on an exploratory population and the news audience’s attitude
towards crime. The public is only capable of talking about and shape opinions concerning the
crime that they have been informed about. This is provided by the mass media program setting
which results in public perceptions of crime and in society being subjective by what media
persons decide to take account of or leave out of their journalists, television, pictures or websites
(Robinson 2011). Media depiction tremendously as a result influences what the society considers
about crime in spite of whether these parodies are real or not (Barak 2013). The paper will talk
about the position that the media plays in changing the society’s take on of crime, the particular
circumstance of the criminal justice procedure, and criminal justice guidelines. It also takes in to
account the irregular management given to convinced minorities in our group of people as per
the Australian criminal law.
Media’s role in influencing the people’s perception of crime
Media houses assign essential editorial liberty and airtime to information about crime and
criminality. The mass media dedicate enormous contract force to casing crime. The violation of
the social norms is the common constituent in what makes news worth reporting. Media houses
and press do not merely decide to distribute or transmit stories based on predictable readers and

Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice 3
audiences. However, they also do obtain a dynamic role in the building of such stories. The news
covering process is one that has been subjected to many analysis from studies, numerous critical
of the way in which the media tell the truth about the reality of crime and criminology. Media
information gathering does not reflect crime and control relatively, they affirm, the media
dynamically create their information by choosing exacting kinds of actions and presenting them
to their unspecified spectators in stipulations of what they think will make such actions
comprehensible.
The media coverage of crime is filtered in the course of journalist intellect of what makes
and occasion that is newsworthy, an excellent account that general public wants to know about.
The idea is motivated by what is known, newsworthiness and assumptions held by editors and
journalists who steer the selection what is worth telling, and consequently what to report on and
what to abscond and how to package information for public consumption. This concept clarifies
that journalist tends to accept and play up that element of the story that makes it more exciting
and the stories that are the best part to be broadcasted are those with outstanding aspects. The
assessment of crime news manufacturing recognized rules that argued that creation and coverage
of crime news stories, including adaptation, personalization, structured access and uniqueness.
The distinction and reliability of crime from all corner of the media, starting with
entertainment, to factual information, the concern and dispute in intellectual and familiar circles.
Various original theories of media possessions explained that public was exposed to media
influences glamorizing crime. Such perceptions may well be as naive as audiences uncritically
appealing with media content, the audiences openly subjected by the media account of crime and
aggression. Maybe one of the principal concerns at the end of the scale has been the majorly
manipulate of mass media representations of crime. Almost everybody in the world owns a

Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice 4
smartphone or some a laptop and the access to violent video games and that enable people to
develop the need to be violent can be blamed on in the intention.
The media are in a tremendously confidential situation when it comes to matters of crime;
they grip a lot of authority in the distribution of news. As much of the journalism on the role and
force of the media on crime matters expunge, it is not unusual for the media to abridge and
exaggerate matters of crime, most important to much truth readings of what are relatively tricky
issues (Hipp and Kim 2017).
The media can not only stimulate moral panics over crime, potentially change law and
order policy, but also give to fatality and criminal stereotyping, all of which have the aptitude to
give to conveying the misleading truth of the picture of crime. Indeed as indicated before mass
media might be the primary source of information to the society on issues of crime it is also
worrying that this knowledge may not be entirely accurate since the editors decide on what they
want you to which might be not the case.
Stages of the criminal justice system are
One analysis of a crime by the law officers is to collect verification to name a supposed
perpetrator that can support an arrest. An analysis may necessitate an exploration of all possible
leads, exploratory inspection of an individual or material goods. Credible grounds is the type of
evidence necessary to investigate; Credible basis means there are specifics or apparent facts
signifying that confirmation of criminality can be found in a particular place (Crowther-Dowey
2007).
The taking into custody by the law officers involves arresting an individual for the
principle of holding the supposed individual till the court decides. Hearing of criminal case of the
accused by the district attorney is done to try and find out the extent of the crime and give justice

Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice 5
to the accused (Reiner, Livingstone and Allen 2012). In the court, the defendant is guilty until
proven culpable and this is done by weighing many options including the significance of the
crime and the power of the proof (Hayes and Prenzler 2014).
Condemnation by a jury of information by a prosecutor under the centralized system of
unlawful practice is compulsory when prosecuting a capital felony (Reynald 2016). A prosecutor
has the alternative of denunciation or information in cases involving crimes liable to be punished
by detention. A half the government system and judge decides whether to bring charges against
an individual in a closed trial in which only the prosecutor presents facts (Surette 2016).
The unequal treatment accorded the minority group in the Australian community
The ethnic starting point may occasionally manipulate police decisions about the
formation of an arrest. In the case of alleged youthful offenses, the study revealed that for slight
offenses, law enforcement officers might take into consideration the behavior of a young
offender in deciding if to make detention (Surette 2016). If the police recognize the delinquent
as presetting disregard, this may amplify the probability of arrest (Barak 2011). IT has been
established that the background of a precise locality also prejudiced law enforcement officers
choice about an arrest or the need to use force since police were more probable to arrest,
intimidate, or use power, not in favor of suspects in ethnically mixed or minority neighborhoods.
In comparison people of African descents tend to be convicted less than whites (Hipp and Kim
2017).

Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice 6
Conclusion
The connection between the media and crime is very composite; a comprehensive one is to a
great deal to be discussed in criminology and other areas. Media houses tend to exhaustively
highlight criminal activities as compared to other information that would fall in place of the
crime airtime. They consider crime more newsworthy with majority of the audience having
interest in knowledge of the perpetrators or the heinous acts committed. A contemporary
example of such a case is illustrated where an event is considered significant or dramatic enough
to be in the news; where a killing case of an individual may not make a headline, but a serial
killer or cannibalism might become worldwide news within seconds. Crime becomes more
critical when it can be presented as a grave, chance, and adequate impulsive so that an ethical
alarm might happen in the logic that we all get frightened of being the next fatality. The most
important issue that stands out is that thing that can be recognized is that the media plays an
essential role in the broadcasting of crime information to the society.
The conviction of the defendant by an arbitrator if the accused is found guilty, a
moderator metes out the verdict. Probable sentences contain a fine and trial of imprisonment in a
correctional body, such a penitentiary or detention center, or some mixture of regulation in the
society and internment.
There is no reliable substantiation that exits of ethnic intolerance at the point of illegal
confidence. The study on sentencing, though, has generated the majority interest among those
studying ethnic and tribal difference.

Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice 7
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