Crime and deviance as a social construct and the role of the media Flashcards
How may crime be a social construct?
Newburn suggests that crime is a label that’s attached to certain forms of behaviour which are punishable by the state and have some legal penalty against them.
An act only becomes a crime when a particular label of ‘crime’ has been applied to it and similar acts can be interpreted differently by law enforcement.
Changing social attitudes can mean that acts once seen as criminal are no longer seen that way.
It’s down to the police and criminal justice agencies to interpret whether an act is prohibited or not.
How may deviance be a social construct?
Downes and Rock suggest that ambiguity is a key feature of rule breaking, as people are frequently unsure whether a particular activity is truly deviant or what deviance is.
Plummer discussed ‘societal deviance’, referring to forms of deviance that most members of society regard as deviant because they share similar ideas about approved and disapproved behaviour.
Situational deviance refers to the way in which the act can be seen as deviant or not, based on context and location.
Non-deviant crime refers to illegal acts such which most people don’t regard as particularly deviant, such as speeding.
Definitions of crime and deviance change over time in the same society as standards of normal behaviour change e.g, views on gay marriage.
Deviance is culturally relative – what’s regarded as deviant in one society is not necessarily so in the other e.g, views on alcohol consumption in Islam countries and the UJ.
Deviance is different in different social groups; what may be acceptable in one group may be deviant in wider society e.g, smoking cannabis.
Deviancy changes with place or context; it’s seen as deviant to have sex in public but not in private.
How does the media affect the perception of crime?
Some see crime as a consumer spectacle, with fictional and non-fictional crime stories being major themes in popular culture.
In fiction, TV shows and films often have acts of crime and violence such as murder and theft.
In non-fiction, the news often portrays images of crime in an entertaining way.
Cohen theorised a ‘moral panic’, where the media would exaggerate acts of crime and deviance that makes people question whether society is crumbling.
He identified two types of young people: ‘the mods’ and ‘the rockers’ who were identified as being a part of the moral decline for from the younger people.
Initial small-scale clashes were exaggerated by the national press, setting an agenda that was clamped down on by politicians and police.
Hayward and Young argue that advertisers have turned images of crime and deviance into selling tools for selling tools into the consumer market.
Greer and Reiner point out that the media are always seeking out newsworthy stories of crime and deviance.
They exploit the possibilities for a ‘good story’ by dramatizing, over-reporting and sensationalising some crimes to encourage audiences to consume their products.
How does the media affect crime?
Surveys, such as the CSEW, show that the majority of people base their knowledge of crime and the CJS on the media, rather than on their own direct experience.
However, Surette suggests that there is what he calls a ‘backwards law’, with the media constructing images of crime which are a backwards version of reality.
Greer and Reiner suggest that this is shown through:
- By hugely over-representing serious, violent crime and under reporting more common, property crimes.
- By portraying property crime as far more serious than most recorded offences.
- By over-exaggerating police effectiveness in solving crimes.
- By emphasising individual incidents of crime, rather than analysing crime patterns or the causes of crime.
