Preview

Essay On Fear Of Crime

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1975 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On Fear Of Crime
Since the 1960s the fear of crime has created dominant parts of the criminological landscape and it has also created a major role in crime policy. Over the past half-century there has been an increasing concern internationally when it comes to the fear of crime. Ferraro (1995) says that the definition of fear of crime is simply ‘an emotional response of dread or anxiety to crime or symbols that a person associates with crime’. Talking about fear of crime raises questions like ‘what does it mean’, ‘how do you measure it’ and ‘how does it start’. Fear of crime is so important that about 300 scholarly books and articles base their focus on it also ‘one of the strongest reasons to study fear of crime is the impact it has on the quality of life or what Conklin (1975) calls the indirect cost of crime in society. ‘Findings from the 2003/04 BCS showed that two key factors associated with increased levels of worry about crime …show more content…
In television world there is said to be more violence than there is in the real world and it is said that the TV world increases fear amongst its viewers.
Annenberg public policy centre at the university of Pennsylvania conducted a study comparing annual changes in the amount of violence portrayed on popular primetime dramas from the early 70s through 2010 and the study shows that “Incidents of TV violence on broadcast television have increased since the late 1990s and has the public’s fear of crime, the study also says that its findings suggest that TV drama may “transport” viewers emotionally into the imagined world of TV shows in a way that creates fear of crime beyond the influence of the national violent crime rate or the reported perception of local crime”. For example programmes like ‘crime watch’ on BBC one, the show features around three to four cases and each case has its own reconstruction of the crime, they usually show the audience key evidence from the crimes, the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Mean World

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Television violence is argued to propagate violent behavior in society. “The Mean World Syndrome” refers to what cultivation analysis…

    • 1027 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The effectiveness of crime prevention strategies has increased in recent years and many sociologists believe that this is the result of society instilling tougher punishments upon its’ members. Despite this, there are many other approaches that attempt to reduce crime. However, they also have their limitations.…

    • 784 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Jury Annotated Bibliography

    • 2432 Words
    • 10 Pages

    It also says that people who watch television often fear the world is more frightening than it is. It goes on to say that when people see all the violence going on they often do the same. It explains that the media exaggerates many of the things that go on. On a positive note they say that the media on court cases help educate people about what is going on.]…

    • 2432 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Most individuals would agree that the media has an influence on us, although they themselves claim to not be influenced by its effects. The representation of crime and criminals has provoked consternation. It has been suggested that such representations inflate our fear of crime far beyond our actual risks of becoming victims. Those who are least at risk of being a victim of crime, old people and females, are those who live in most fear because it is young men that are more likely to be victims of crime (Hough and Mayhew, 1983; cited in Muncie 1996, p.56). Moral panics are also a topic worthy of discussion as some, such as Stan Cohen, suggest that their origins are within the media and are the root of our ‘fear’ of crime.…

    • 1270 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    This essay will offer different definitions of crime, suggesting that it is a social construction as it varies across culture, time and belief. It will examine the role of social construction, through interpretation and meaning, in the identification, reporting and legal consequences of criminal acts. After illustrating how fear, escalated by the media, can directly affect crime, it will conclude that crime and its consequences are socially constructed.…

    • 765 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this paper, I will be providing a prediction of how strangers will describe a criminal and whether those descriptions would be likely to focus on street criminals, corporate, white-collar, or state crime. An insight of how society defines crimes and how decides what to define as a crime will also be provided. A statement about a particular crime will be presented and used in order to illustrate how we as a society know that it is an accurate statement. At last, an example of a widely held myth or misconception about crime and society will be provided explaining how society determines that it is a myth and…

    • 1234 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ditton, J. and Farrall, S. (2000) ‘Introduction’, in Ditton, J. and Farrell, S. (eds) The Fear of Crime, International Library of Criminology, Criminal Justice and Penology, Dartmouth: Aldershot.…

    • 1825 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Social harm

    • 929 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Not only has ‘crime’ received a very limited meaning in the past, in terms of variety, but also the concept was categorized simply as a physical or emotional injury to the individual. ‘Crime is not a self-evident and unitary concept. Its constitution is diverse, historically relative and continually contested. As a result, an answer to the question ‘what is crime?’ depends upon which of its multiple constitutive elements is emphasized. This in turn depends upon the theoretical position taken by those defining crime’.Therefore, crime is a process of negotiation and constant struggle over time, but there are some crimes that have been omitted only because society never took into consideration those other crime related problems that can affect an entire population, crimes that have come to be known as a new concept, that of ‘social harm’.…

    • 929 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    More than 1,000 studies on the effects of television and film violence have been done over the past 40 years and the majority of these studies have the same conclusion: television and film violence leads to real-world violence (United States 2). The average 7th grader watches about 4 hours of television per day, and 60% of those shows containg some violence (United States 4). A prime source of these violent images is TV news, which happens to be America 's number one sourse of news and information (Steyer 73). Most local television newscasts are dominated by killings, assaults, kidnappings, terrorist attacks, and other stories designed to provoke a strong emotional reaction from viewers (Steyer 73). In the recent years, Hollywood 's growing taste for grotesque, graphic fare has upped the stakes, from Friday the 13th to Creepshaw and Scream (Steyer 73). Even though these movies are not meant for small kids, it is a fact that young children are often regularly exposed to them in the company of unthinking par-…

    • 1483 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear of crime is when people believe they are more likely to be a victim of a crime as opposed to the probability of being victimized. This perception of crime is generally influenced by the media as it is the main source for knowing what is happening around us (Roberts & Indermaur, figure 4, page 9). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the rate for has decreased over the years, however according to the survey in Roberts & Indermaur majority of respondents believed that the rate of crime in the sociality has increased. This is due to the information received to the public though media. Media tends to display the four major categories of crime (homicide and related offences, kidnapping and abductions, unlawful entry with intent, motor vehicle theft and other theft) excessively as these types of crime are more dramatic and gains public’s awareness therefore portraying a higher risk of crime when in reality it’s the opposite. Minor crimes such as robbery and blackmail/extortion or even success stories are usually either ignored or not as widely exposed.…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Zuckerman, Mortimer B. "The Victims of TV Violence." U.S. News & World Report. 115.5 (Aug93) 64. Academic Search FullTEXT. EBSCOhost. Columbia Basin Coll. Lib., Pasco WA. 5 Feb. 2002. http://www.epnet.com/ehost/login.html.…

    • 2019 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Fear Of Crime

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page

    An investigation of current evidence concerning the fear of crime in society seems to imply clearly that the elderly stand the heaviest psychological costs of crime. It is clear the elderly are more concerned and fearful about crime than any other age group within society. It was showed throughout numerous studies when asked how safe they feel within their community, anywhere between 40 and 60 percent responded feeling “very unsafe”. Additionally, in particular, arguments from a gerontology psychological perspective disclose that older people are by no means irrational but, on the contrary, act in an effectively cautious way as they know about their higher physical defenselessness. It is due to their carefulness that older people are in fact…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Tv as a Shaper

    • 1300 Words
    • 6 Pages

    I agree that television shows influences our behaviors even without our knowledge of it. Although television seems like a great thing to have, it has many drawbacks. Television can have negative impacts on people, especially kids. People learn new skills by observing, then utilizing it, such as when we were kids and learn to walk by seeing our family walking around or learning a new subject in school. Therefore, when watching television it may influence our fundamental social dispositions; no matter if it is good or bad. Almost ninety nice percent of households possess one television. Television is today’s source of news, stories, legends, and characters from previous centuries; the reason why it is so influential. However, only “0.7 percent is used for public service announcements and news”(Sex, violence, profanity...). The other 97.3 % consists of television shows with violence, crime, advertisements and mainstream blandness. Many studies and research has been done to demonstrate that heavy television viewing may lead to serious health consequences. Television is great for entertainment but has grown into a major problem.…

    • 1300 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear of crime affects many citizens, in fact, fear tends to affect more people than crime itself. An important problem today; several citizen 's of our society enable his, or her own anxiety and fear in…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear Of Crime Case Study

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As a South African citizen the probability of not being directly or indirectly exposed to crime is brutally slim (Harris & Radealli, 2007). In other countries, conversations in and around the households are fairly universal (Von Klemperer, 2009). Sadly the same can’t be said for South Africa. In South African households, conversations relate to crime (Von Klemperer, 2009). Fear of crime can be defined as an inclusion of unclear emotional states, perceptions of risk and viewpoints, which in essence will be different for each and every individual (Wynne, 2008).…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays