searchfortruth.info > Crime > Crime | Media | Culture

Crime | Media | Culture

Runaway Juvenile Crime?: The Context of Juvenile Arrests in America

by

Introduction and Analysis

On a Saturday night back in 1984, Kathy Robbins, a 15-year-old girl from Glenn County, California, was arrested for being in her town after curfew. She was taken in hand-cuffs to a 54-year-old cell in Glenn County’s adult jail. Four days after she was arrested, at a juvenile court hearing, a judge refused to release her to a juvenile detention facility. On that day, still isolated and alone in an adult jail cell, Kathy Robbins twisted a bed sheet around her neck, and hanged herself from the rail of the top bunk bed.

Robbins was one of six teenagers who took their lives in California jails between 1979 and 1984. The controversy surrounding her suicide culminated in the passage of a California law in 1987 which forbade the detention of teenagers in the same jails as adults. Juvenile advocates at the time regarded the California legislation as “the most progressive law in the U.S. on this issue.”3 With the help of this California law and the 1973

Read More!

Psychological and Behavioral Effects of Bias and Non-Bias Motivated Assault, Final Report

by

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to determine if measurable differences exist in the psychological and behavioral sequelae of individuals who have experienced an aggravated assault differentiated by the offender motive (i.e., bias or non-bias). Obtaining more reliable information in this area would support the development of more informed law and policy relative to the extra-detrimental effects a specific type of criminal offense may have on citizens. The research was based on police department criminal incident reports, probation records and victim surveys. Records were collected and analyzed for victims of aggravated assaults in Boston during the 1992- 1997 period. The sample of 560 bias-motivated assault victims and 544 non-bias assault victims yielded 136 valid surveys. Sixteen psychological and 12 behavioral indicators were examined while controlling for the effects of 7 independent aspects between the two victim groups (i.e., bias vs. non bias motivated, s/e factors, medical treatment, family support, quality of police

Read More!

Super-Predators or Victims of Societal Neglect? Framing Effects in Juvenile Crime Coverage

by

An impressive array of scholarly research demonstrates that language has a profound influence on human thought (see Carroll 1956; Seidel 1975; Sanford, 1987; Rosch 1973; Lakoff 1987). In the realm of political communication, the use of particular forms of presentation or modes of discourse (also known as "frames") -- strongly influences perceptions of public issues, events, and leaders (Iyengar 1991; Neuman, Just, and Crigler 1992; Gamson 1992; Anderson 1996). For example, the public is more likely to endorse increases in government welfare spending when the beneficiaries are said to be "poor people" rather than "people on welfare" or "black people" (Bobo and Kluegel 1993; Gilens, 1996; 1999; Gilliam, 1999; Smith 1987). Of course, the most common forum for the presentation of public issues is broadcast news. The overwhelming majority of broadcast news reports are "episodic" or event-oriented, focusing on concrete acts or live events rather than general contextual material. Television...

Read More!

Seeing Beyond the Surface: Understanding and Tracking Fraudulent Cyber Activities

by

Abstract

The malaise of electronic spam mail that solicit illicit partnership using bogus business proposals (popularly called 419 mails) remained unabated on the internet despite concerted efforts. In addition to these are the emergence and prevalence of phishing scams that use social engineering tactics to obtain online access codes such as credit card number, ATM pin numbers, bank account details, social security number and other personal information[22]. In an age where dependence on electronic transaction is on the increase, the web security community will have to devise more pragmatic measures to make the cyberspace safe from these demeaning ills. Understanding the perpetrators of internet crimes and their mode of operation is a basis for any meaningful effort towards stemming these crimes. This paper discusses the nature of the criminals engaged in fraudulent cyberspace activities with special emphasis on the Nigeria 419 scam mails. Based on a qualitative analysis and...

Read More!

Crime, Media, Culture

by

Abstract

An unresolved research question regarding crime and justice policy is the relationship between an individual’s media consumption and their support for punitive and preventive criminal justice policies. The relationship between media, crime, and justice is under-examined in countries other than the United States and Britain and the relationship between media and criminal justice policy support remains less than fully understood in all locales. In response, an examination of a media policy relationship in a Western democracy not previously studied was conducted. Based on data from an October 2005 national telephone survey of Trinidad and Tobago residents, this study measured support for punitive and preventive criminal justice policies in association with crime and justice media consumption and worldviews. Multivariate analysis showed that, for Trinidadians, support for punitive policies was significantly related to perceiving television crime dramas as realistic and crime news as accurate. For preventive policy support, the same media factors plus the level of exposure to crime dramas on television were significant. Overall, media were found...

Read More!

Framing Homicide Narratives in Newspapers: Mediated Witness and the Construction of Virtual Victimhood

by

Abstract

This article identifies ways in which newspapers invite readers to identify with victims and victimhood as a route to engaging them in ‘human interest’ stories. Within this framing of homicide for readers as ‘mediated witness’, some of the authorial techniques are explored whereby newspapers engage readers in a stylized dialogue that contributes to the construction of public narratives about homicide. It is argued that researchers, as well as working at a macro level, need to research at the micro level of textual analysis when researching media (including visual media) in order to understand the framing that contributes to public narratives; hence there is analysis of techniques of (a) defamiliarization and (b) objectification of homicide victims. These are some of the means by which the reader is placed as witness, both apparently ‘experiencing’ crime for personal consumption yet, publicly, allowed to recover (unlike real victims of major crime). The recognition of a need for...

Read More!