ABSTRACT
In this final and fairly brief chapter, we will look at the relationship between the news media’s representation of crime and justice and the public perceptions of and reaction to these issues.
It is well established that public knowledge of crime and justice is largely derived from the media and that the media play a key role in the public’s perception of criminals, victims and those who work within the criminal justice system. And it is widely accepted that the general public have a distorted and exaggerated view of the extent and the nature of crime. For instance, Hough and Roberts (1998) report that data from the British Crime Survey showed that the majority of respondents (78%) felt that at least 30% of crimes involved violence (while official statistics showed the figure to be only 6%). In discussing sentencing trends in Britain, Hough and Roberts (1999) point out that research on public opinion over the last three decades, and particularly the findings of the various British Crime Surveys, has consistently shown the public to be critical of those who sentence offenders for being overly lenient. However, they found that, although the public systematically underestimate the severity of sentences passed by the courts, when asked to suggest appropriate sentences for specific crimes they tended to be more lenient than the current sentencing practices. In terms of sentencing, then, it would seem that there is a discrepancy betweenwhat the actual situation is andwhat the public believes to be happening. Of course, we are making large generalizations here about the public and their response to the news media. In referring to recent British Crime Survey data, Green (2006) found that readers of tabloid newspapers were almost twice as likely as readers of broadsheet or ‘quality’ newspapers to believe that crime had ‘increased a lot’ over recent years – even though there was no statistical evidence of any increase.
In introducing their book,Understanding Public Attitudes to Criminal Justice, Roberts and Hough (2005) start with the statement that ‘Public opinion has always played a significant role in the administration of criminal justice, and information about public attitudes is clearly important to politicians and criminal justice professionals’. So it is not surprising that governments spend a good deal of effort conducting surveys and opinion polls and trying to find out the public’s attitudes to crime and criminal justice. And, given the arguments and findings we have put forward in this book, it is fairly clear that public opinions are strongly affected by the media representation of crime, criminals and criminal justice.
