Media coverage of youth crime and moral panic in Canada

¶ … youth crime in Canada and how the media promotes fear in the way it presents the problem to the public. The writer explores several academic journals on the topic and concludes that part of the nation's fear of juveniles with regard to crime is caused by the media's decision to over-cover crimes in which juveniles are involved. There were three sources used to complete this paper.

For the past several years it has appeared that youth crime is on the rise throughout Canada. Whether it is an increase in truancy, shoplifting or more violent crimes including school shootings, the nation seems to be faced with a significant rise in the number of juvenile offenders willing to commit illegal acts. Recently the Canadian legislators have moved toward increasing the punishments for juvenile offenders in the hopes that it will deter future young people from deciding on a life of crime, however, the media continues to report issues involving teens. Several recent studies concluded that child-dear and child hating can be directly traced to the media's coverage of juvenile crime, primarily focused on single mother households and minority headed households (Schissel, 1997). While crime is something that most Canadians are cautious of the time has come for the media to act more responsibly in the way they portray the problem to the Canadian public.

THE TREND

The nation appears to be in something commonly referred to as a "moral panic" (Schissel, 1997). It is a time in which the citizens are concerned that crime is becoming out of control. Many Canadians are eyeing the United States and hoping the Canadian crime rate does not approach the numbers that the U.S. has been facing for many years. Canada, a nation typically softer on crime and a nation that uses a more holistic rehabilitative approach to criminals that its southern neighbor does, recently realized an increase in media coverage of its criminal issues. That media focus has created a sudden interest by the public in many different types of crimes and criminals, and at the same time the media coverage has created an atmosphere of fear among the peaceful people of the nation.

Today, with the added fuel of media hype in the arena of crime, juveniles are no longer considered a precious commodity, but a dangerous threat to the safety and peace of mind of adults.

The media focus on crime has created a moral panic throughout the country, a panic in which people believe that Canadians have lost the moral fiber that has made it such a peaceful nation to reside in since its inception (Schissel, 1997).

The media is largely responsible for the perception of crime and criminals. Much of what one believes or understands about the crime rate and criminal element of Canada is seen through the filters of the media companies.

THE LITERATURE

To understand how the nation is changing its view of juveniles and becoming fearful of crime because of media portrayal one only needs to turn to local newspapers for evidence of the strength and power the media has with regards to creating that fear. In the newspapers in Toronto a study found that 94% of stories involving youth crime involved stories about violence. While the rational mind is fully aware that for every violent crime committed by a teenager there are hundreds of smaller less offensive crimes being committed by other teens, however, the media does not do stories about the shoplifters, the teens who do not stay at school during the day or the teens who are rebellious by painting spray paint on buildings (Sprott, 1996).

The newspapers focused largely on the crime, the charge laid against the young person, and the impact of the crime on victims. Legal reports of youth court dispositions, on the other hand, focused more on characteristics of the youth. Although readers of Toronto newspapers receive almost no information about youth court dispositions, a survey of Toronto residents demonstrated that most people believe that youth court dispositions are too lenient. When asked to indicate what kinds of cases they were thinking of, most of those who thought that youth court dispositions were too lenient were thinking of a minority of cases: those involving serious violent repeat offenders. Respondents also had very little accurate knowledge of the operation of the youth court in Canada, underestimating the severity of dispositions available to the court under the law. They also believed that the courts were much more constrained than they are in their ability to transfer cases to adult court (Sprott, 1996)."

The way the public views youth crime is linked to the way that it is educated in the media. The media creates a fear of crime because it rushes to cover the events that include violence and fails to put those crimes and statistics in perspective by comparing it to the crimes that are not violent or are minor. Teenagers and crime are becoming a serious concern for Canadian residents as the news continues to pipe into living rooms each day and report the horrible isolated events so often that they begin o feel common place.

Studies have shown that the media actually shapes the thinking of society by what it chooses to cover and explore (Sprott, 1996).

The media focuses on aspects that it chooses to share. Therefore if the media focuses on youth crime and its basic facts only include the act and the violence without talking about the criminal's characteristics, or the elements of his life that made him that way, it is easy for the general public to determine that all juveniles are capable of crime therefore are to be feared.

CONCLUSION

As Canada continues to grow and its focus on crime continues to change, it is important to understand the freedom that the media has when it comes to what to cover and how to do it.

Crime is rising in Canada in areas that should be a concern to the general public but part of the seeming significant increase is really only increased media coverage for the purpose of getting ratings.

Across the nation teenagers are performing good deeds, getting good grades, becoming Eagle Scouts and moving on to college and careers, yet the public never hears about those teenagers. The media focuses only on what will bring in ratings and that unfortunately includes violent exciting events.

Fear of crime is absolutely media driven at least when it comes to juvenile crime. One only has to study the literature and one will see how blown out of proportion the juvenile crime issue is in this nation.