Criminology in the UK and How Media Shapes it

¶ … Violence

Becker, S, Tinkler, J (2015) 'Me Getting Plastered and Her Provoking My Eyes': Young

People's Attribution of Blame for Sexual Aggression in Public Drinking Spaces, Feminist Criminology, 10(3): 235-258.

This article is about how "unregulated" barroom aggression that is sexual in nature can lead to questions of hostile conflicts that are confused and not very well studied by researchers. So this study examines this environment to better understand what causes this activity. The researchers show that alcohol, gender, and contextual setting affect the way that blame is placed when sexual aggression happens in public barrooms.

This article is helpful because it shows how many different factors play a role in shaping the way that opposite sexes view conflict and sexual aggression in public drinking environments. It shows that alcohol is a big factor in flirting and causing rows and that genders are identifying different actions and reactions to joking or touching or looking or talking in different ways, some like it and want more and some do not mean it to be a sign of anything but others think it is an invitation. Also when peers are around and encourage unwanted behavior there can be problems, so all of this is discussed by these researchers who give sexual aggression in bars more study and focus than others have done in the past. This study deepens my understanding of aggressive behavior between sexes when alcohol and friends and setting is considered. For the purpose of my study, this research is helpful because it shows that men and women will view the same scene in different ways, which is also discussed by other reasearcheres from this class and other readings, so this finding is consistent with what I have learned. That is helpful for me because it reinforces the idea that I have learned.

Brown, S. (2004) Crime and Law in Media Culture, Open University Press

This book is about the real relationship between crime, law and media. It shows how the three intersect and put meaning on each other. It shows that all of what is popular media culture embraces everything in society and that includes crime and the study of crime which is criminal justice. Media circulates and recirculates visions and revisions of crime and law and culture so that culture is constantly shaped by media and so is what is perceived as crime and what is lawful. That is how laws are changing because of media influence in culture and new crime and criminal activities including cyber crime. So this book ties traditional sense of crime together with new changing sense of crime and media.

This book is helpful because it looks at crime through the lens of a media culture. What is a media culture? This is the culture of society as influenced by media. Or it is the way that media acts. So it can be both and both can be impact on each other. This is a fluid culture that flows into everything else because the media covers everything and is everywhere in society, in news magazine, print, picture, television, advertisement, film, radio. Media has major influence on culture and that is a two-way relationship. So this book heps to define that relationship and make ti have sense for the student of crime and media. It aslos shows that with a better understanding of media culture we can see how crime is related to what we view and read about and hear in media because this affects our awareness.

Carter, C. & Weaver, C.K. (2003) Violence and the Media, Open University Press.

This book is about the ways that violence is represented in media. The media does sensationalize violence in society because this attracts people to the media, to purchase it, and this attracts advertisers for the media. So the violence is portrayed in the media to attract buyers and sellers. It is like seeing an accident on the road, everyone wants to stop and look. This is just human nature. The media capitalizes on this part of human nature.

This book is helpful because it shows how human nature is taken advantage of by media that looks to capitalize on this human weakness. It also shows that people can be desensitized by violence as it is put in the media too much. There is too much violence shown in the media, wether news or sports or film or television. Violence becomes part of the culture and this affects the way people view wars and foreign policy of the government too. They become desenstitzed to it. This is seen in war coverage on the news and in "slasher" films of cinema, and in genres which or like "torture pornography," and on the Internet. There is a relationship between sex and violence in media too because both are sensational and are like electric to the senses of human nature, so human nature is constantly being electrified by this stimulus in the media. It is basically like a type of control over people in a way because they cannot help themselves to stop and not look. This book looks at the causes of why there is so much violence in the media, but these causes (social or economical or political) are complex and underlying is a cultural problem that is like a culture of death rather than a culture of life.

Clarke, A, Wydall, S (2015) Creating a safe space? Criminal Justice Matters, 99(1): 20-

21.

This article is about why victims of domestic violence should be allowed to stay in their own homes. It discusses this idea because often women who are victims of domestic abuse have to leave their homes to be safe. This makes them feel more like victims and makes them homeless too. So why should they have to leave their homes if they are victims? This article discusses this question and shows that there are some models in UK for dealing with this question of how to make victims feel safe and not take away their home. The Sanctuary model of 2003 is an example of this.

This article is helpful to my study because it looks at how victims of crime can go on being victims when they should be supported. This suggests that there need be new policy for helping vitims of domestic abuse because otherwise they are left without help and forced to go somewhere else to escape abuse. But this researchers show that there need to be consideration for how to let women stay in homes after suffering abuse because this would be better than making them move. The offender or abuser should have to go is what these researchers discuss. This perspective is helpful in understanding better what victims of crime endure and how the system for dealing with this is not always the best but can be improvdd in some ways. So this reading is good fro me to read.

King, R, Wincup, E (2008) Doing research on crime and justice, UK: Oxford

This book is about criminological research and everything connected to it. It begins by explaining what the process of criminological research is and then it discusses the politics behind it. The section after that discuss theory and empirical observations about criminology. There is an essay about cause and reasons for crime and how to evaluate crime and how to do research in areas that are diverse with ethnicity and cultures. It also discusses how criminology compares across nations. There are essays about different types of crime, organized crime, street crime, victims, police, courts, penalties, prisons, cybercrime, bullying, and methodology. This book covers every area connected to criminology.

This book is helpful because it discusses so much and uses essays from different people for each chapter. So that makes it good because there are many variety of voices here. It also gives lots of good perspectives on how to think about crime and criminology. What is best about this book is that gives some answer on many topics so that you can see how prisons, or criminals or courts or classrooms or other countries are part of this study of crime.

Mooney, J. (2000) Gender, Violence and the Social Order. Macmillan This book is about different theories and expalanations for violence in society, and it uses a feminist perspective for this discussions. It uses theories like classicism, positivism, feminism, feminist realism, and male attitudes to the problem of violence in society. It also looks at how violence is impacted by gender and vice versa. Then it also talks about how to solve issues like domestic violence in society by taking these theories that are discussed and developing policies for government to use.

This book is helpful to the subject of violence because it provides some perspectives that are different that can help to see from sides like a woman's side or a man's side, things that are basically not really ever thought of in a way. For example, it asks, "What Do Men Say?" And this helps for different sides to come together to better understand one another. That is what makes this book helpful is that it has the goal of to help people understand the issues by talking about different sides and that way everyone can understand what each other thinks and go from there. So this book is not just about seeing the violence is a problem but also it is about doing something to stop the problem by starting a policy that is foundation on these theories.

Newburn T, Cooper K, Deacon R, Diski R (2015) Shopping for Free? Looting,

Consumerism and the 2011 Riots, British Journal of Criminology, 55(5): 987-1004.

This article is about what really caused the riots in England in 2011. It looks at why rioters might riot and loot and calls the idea that this is the result of a culture of consumerism too simplistic. It discusses this idea that there is an "expressive" and political nature to looting and rioting and that it is not just a result of consumerism. The researchers suggest that there is more to the activity of looting than mere greed or desire on the part of the looters.

This article is helpful because it offers a deeper psychological and sociological examination into the crime of looting and rioting. What seems at first to be a simple explanation for the action is made more complex after reading this article. This article shows how some participants in the UK riots had political motives and believed they were expressing themselves through this crimes because this was something that was a protest. So the protest was to act violently against a system and social order that they do not agree with and that is why the looting and rioting occurred. So this article may not be one hundred percent correct but it makes some important points for this study because it reminds the reader that there are complicated reasons for actions and crimes not just simple ones.

Riggs, S, Cook, C (2015) The Shadow of Physical Harm? Examining the Unique and Gendered Relationship Between Fear of Murder vs. Fear of Sexual Assault on Fear of Violent Crime, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 30: 2383-2409

This article is about how different genders view the fear of being murdered or sexually assaulted and how these fears affect their fear of violent crime. The researchers show that there is insufficient studies on this topic so they use survey method to find results on how these factors relate. What they find is that men have concerns about being robbed or assaulted or murdered or having a sexual assault in their house on their wife or children. They find that women have same fears and that there are no signficiant differences between the two. So this study shows what it is that men and women fear specifically when they say they fear violent crime.

This study is helpful for a number of reasons. First it shows how in this case men and women do not think too different on what they fear when it comes to fearing violent crime. They both think of the same possibilities and this is what makes them afraid, so the differences between the genders here is neutral. Second, it is helpful in that it gives better understanding of what it is about violent crime that makes people afraid when they think of it. It gives details and evidence of what men and women fear when they consider the psssibility of violent crime. This helps to deepen my understanding of what the sociology and psychology of fear is when it comes to violent crime. It also could be used to support other research that shows how media shapes way that men and women think and so that these men and women fear types of violent crime could be related to the idea that these possibilities are made popular in media and that is why they are fearful not because of any reason like it is a real possibility.

Stacey, C (2015) Looking beyond re-offending: criminal records and poverty, Criminal

Justice Matters, 99(1): 4-5.

This article is about how rehabilitation for convicts has to improve in UK because now there are not opportunities for convicts to rehabilitate so they become victims of this system that does not offer them ways out of their criminal past. The system is supposed to "punish and rehabilitate" but it does only punish and not give the access to the opportunity for to rehabilitate, that is the problem that this researcher finds in his study across UK and Wales.

This article is helpful to my study because it puts light on serious issue of criminal system in UK by showing that the system does not work. It is defective in one half of its aims, and this is only 50% success. So what does that mean? It means that convicts are not having the opportunity to find better work or jobs or homes or to make better environments for themselves but instead they are recycled into this system that never lets them rise above their past actions because of records and background checks and also the affect of poverty on this. This is because of discrimination that is put to people with bad records, former criminals. They cannot find good employment and have to battle with other people who may be on drugs or stealing because they cannot find way out of this bad environment without help from higher levels. But the higher levels say the cannot come out of this environment because of past background so it is repeating the cycle that does not end. This is helpful to know because it also shows light on how system needs reforming or laws that help to give chance for real rehabilitiaon.

Surette, R (2015) Thought bite: A case study of the social construction of a crime and justice concept, Crime, Media and Culture, 11(2): 105-135.

This article is about how copycat crime is socially constructed first as media meme then as criminology subject. The impact of media in the pervasiveness of copycat crime is a subject of investigation here. Crime and justice constructions, the researchers show are media constructions first that criminologists later take over after they have passed into the public lexicon. This means that the media shapes the way the criminologists research constructions and how crime and justice and discussed in academic circles. This also shows that the media have a big influence in the study of crime too.

This article is helpful to my study because it give more support to what other research shows. It shows that media have an impact on how public thinks about crime and justice and how criminiolgy also does think about crime and justice. This is important to note because of the distance that one should think there would be between criminiology and media constructions. But the construction of the copycat meme by the media and the later usage of that meme by criminology shows that the distance is not there. The media is influencing what the study becomes. So where is the focus and what should inform it? This question should be asked because media is very powerful but should researchers be subject to its conclusions and constructions or should they be to act independent and without this impact? So these are points that are helpful in my anaylsis of where media and criminology intersect.