ABSTRACT
In order to help clarify the relationship between media and social control—between how the mass media, law enforcement bureaucracies, and popular culture interact—and in order to appreciate how the news media in particular construct and reconstruct criminal events between the crime waves and moral panics (Cohen, 1972; Cohen and Young, 1973; Hall et al., 1978; Best, 1990; Jenkins, 1992; 1994), I will focus on three themes of the crime news business that have evolved in the USA during the 20th century: the predator criminal as a media icon; the depiction of sexually violent crimes against women; and the portrayals of high profile police-citizen encounters.
