It has been suggested that the media influences criminal behaviour. Individuals can loose their normal inhibitions because what they see in the media becomes real life. Also when death and violence through media surrounds someone, the value of human life can diminish and the horror of violent death decreases. Drabman and Thomas showed children either violent or non-violent videos. The group of children then witnessed a staged fight. The children who had seen the violent video did not tell their parents about the fight because they had become desensitised, unlike the other group who did tell their parents.
In evaluating these theories, disinhibition and desensitisation can be initiated through exposure to the media; however it is more likely that they occur through the environmental situation that individuals are bought up in. Family studies also suggest criminal behaviour exists to a significant extent in a family. In 1979, Osborn and West reported that 40% of sons of criminal fathers will get a criminal record themselves, whereas only 13% of sons of non-criminal fathers will. There are also other studies have suggested that the media does not influence violence for example the St Helena study in 1995.
The research that has been done on the media influence on criminal behaviour has resulted in significant changes being made to certain laws. After the Jamie Bulger murder, police cracked down hard on those selling violent video games and films to underage children. The ratings on videos, DVDs and games in now far more stringent, and new categories for classification have been introduced. Now police can issue on the spot fines to those caught selling films and games to underage children, and repeat offenders can even be issued with a prison sentence.
There are many legal constraints on the media, which control what information they can and cannot disclose to the public. One of the most serious offences the media can commit is when they identify an individual who is supposed to remain anonymous. Reporters at one time were able to publish all information on a trail, however now the law has changed to give the right of anonymity to some individuals, mainly children, victims and suspects of sex crimes. Journalists should also not refer to previous convictions or report other information that carries a substantial risk of serious prejudice to a fair trial at crown court.
These changes in laws are positive, because before, there was no protection from the media for victims of crime, making victims less likely to report a crime. However they are also negative, because some information may be of concern to public interest. Also not revealing previous convictions to a jury may make them more likely to find a guilty individual innocent. Because of research into this, the laws in the UK are going to be changed shortly so that offender’s previous convictions will be disclosed to the court.
There are many methods of punishing, treating and preventing crime. Many studies have been done into how effective imprisonment is. Home Office statistics suggest that the reconviction rate of young males is 82%. This does not support the fact that imprisonment will prevent re-offending. Farrington in 1981 used first time offenders to compare reconviction rates for two conditions. The first condition being probation and the second being imprisonment. He found that the first condition were more likely to re-offend. This does support the fact that prison should put criminals off re-offending. However is must be suggested that different sub groups of criminals respond to prison in different ways.
In evaluating the failure of prisons, it can be suggested that the incapability to rehabilitate offenders is due to several factors such as the fact that there is material gain from committing crime and offenders see imprisonment as an occupational hazard. Also many imprisoned offenders do not decide to not recommit the crime; they just decide they need to take further steps to not be caught again. Imprisoning individuals also has ethical considerations. Dooley in 1990 found that the suicide rate in prisons is higher than that of the general population, as are symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Research into how effective the prison service is has influenced many changes to the legal system. Now other methods of punishment are administered such as fining, probation, community service and psychological intervention. Caldwell in 1965 has suggested that fining offenders is more effective. In evaluating fines, they cost little to administer, they generate income for the government and they do not stigmatise the offender. Unfortunately, fines may not be paid for by the offender and fines become routine and are seen as an operating cost.
Probation is where the offender remains in the community under certain conditions. In evaluating probation, it costs little to administer, and does not stigmatise the offender. Oldfield in 1996 found offenders assigned to a work programme re-offended only 41% of times.
Community service is where the offender repays society by conducting manual labour. In evaluating community service, it costs little to administer, and generates improvement in society; however offenders may be stigmatised as workmates are aware they are on community service. Again this is another method that may become routine and seen as an operating cost.
Psychological intervention can come in the form of behavioural and cognitive treatments, token economies, social skills training and anger management. Token economy works on the principal that criminal behaviour is learnt like any other behaviour, hence it can be unlearned. Acceptable behaviour can then be incorporated. Many studies show that token economies work, such as Milan in 1979 and Hobbs and Holt in 1976. However it can be suggested that token economies just prevent prisoners re-offending as quickly, as found by Cohen and Filipcjak in 1971.
By training offenders in social skills it is believed that they are less likely to re-offend. Positively, there is a range of evidence that social skills training does lead to an improvement in social skills, however it does not mean that criminal activity will decrease. Also it is not clear if social skills remain after long periods. This method appears no more effective than other interventions.
Anger management aims to improve offender’s ability to deal with feelings. Ainsworth in 2000 concluded that anger management is an effective may of reducing aggressive behaviour in offender populations, however are only likely to be successful if well managed, well funded and equipped and the right individuals are assigned to them. The main problem with anger management is that it is relatively new and the long term effectiveness is yet to be established.
Many improvements have been made to the criminal justice system due to research in these areas. Fining, probation, community service and psychological intervention have been introduced to replace imprisonment. This has a positive effect because many of these methods are cheaper that imprisonment and prisons are too overcrowded. There are studies that report that these methods can reduce that rate of re-offending, however many of these methods are relatively new and long term studies have yet to be completed. There does only appear to be minimal improvement through psychological intervention though.
Crime prevention is the removal of opportunities for crime to occur. Examples of crime prevention are CCTV surveillance, defensible space and the zero tolerance campaign. CCTV surveillance is where cameras are placed in likely crime areas to capture any offences. Studies indicate the CCTV surveillance has been successful in reducing crime. There are however ethical Implications of the use of CCTV as many see it as an invasion of privacy. Another criticism of CCTV is that it displaces crime to another location. However it can be said that not all crimes will be displaced, therefore it does prevent some crime.
Defensible space is an environmental approach to crime prevention. It basically means the layout and design of a building or area in terms of how it accommodates crime. Newman in 1973 presented data that indicated that there were fewer robberies in locations of defensible space. However this theory has been criticised by Feldman in 1993 who believed the number of robberies was in relation to the social status of an area e.g. how many people claim benefits. Consequentially this theory has success, however it is limited.
The zero tolerance campaign is a policing strategy whereby any crime is dealt with vigorously. Zero tolerance originated from work by Wilson and Kelling in 1982.They argued that areas where petty crime was not policed, invite more serious offenders to increase their activity. Statistics have proved that the zero tolerance campaign reduces crime significantly. Positively, zero tolerance is not only a quick fix solution, but can be applied long term. There is however always the risk that zero tolerance can lead to the targeting of ethnic minorities and stereotypes, resulting with no co-operation with the police.
Due to research in these areas, the government have introduced over seven thousand new police officers into our streets and in America each chief commissioner is now responsible for their own precinct, making low crime rates a personal reward. This can only be a positive outcome from such research.
Eyewitness testimony is where a witness to a crime testifies in court. Over the past few years; it has been suggested that eye witness testimony is not as accurate as first thought. In 2001 Henderson showed participant video surveillance of a mock bank raid. After watching the video participants were asked to identify the offender from a list of photographs. There was only 64% accuracy in the participant’s responses.
Psychological research alone has prompted significant change in eyewitness testimonies. In support of the research, laws have now changed and eyewitness testimony alone cannot be used to convict an offender, previously it could do. There has to now be corroborating evidence in addition to an eyewitness testimony to convict an offender.
Positively, research done has also identified many problems with eyewitness testimonies and ways of improvement have been derived. The first method of improvement psychologists tried was hypnosis, however leaves the subject too suggestible and also raised ethical concerns. Several studies on hypnoses have proved inconclusive so now psychologists have been able to develop the cognitive interview. This is where the testifier re-lives the situation mentally. Positively, this technique can break down biases and the testifier can try to remember more information by changing perspective or order of events.
There are many factors that can affect jury decision making, these include: pre-trail publicity, the evidence presented and the defendants characteristics. Also deliberation factors may affect the jury’s decision. Also eyewitness testimony has a great influence on whether the jury find and individual guilt of not guilty. As previously discussed, eyewitness testimony has been proven to unreliable.
Both conformity and obedience can occur within the deliberation room, between jurors. Saks in 1977 researched how the size of the jury affected the jury decision making process. Larger jury’s were found to be fairer. Saks believed that this is because a larger jury is more representative, larger jury’s deliberate for longer, they also show more accuracy in recall of the testimony and also the pressure to conform is not as extreme in larger groups as smaller ones. Individuals have a greater chance of finding allies in a larger group.
Research into this area has identified bias amongst the jury. As a result of this research, in Britain pervious convictions of a defendant were not disclosed. Soon previous convictions are going to be told to the jury. In the case of a guilty person, this has advantages, because they are more likely to be sentenced if the jury are aware that they have done it before, however in the case of an innocent person that has committed the offence they are accused of before, an innocent person is likely to be sentenced. Unfortunately it is not just previous conviction that causes bias though. Other factors such as gender, ethnicity, attractiveness etc also cause bias.
As a result of the research done on jury size, the majority of states in America now adopt the twelve juror option, however there are still some states that only use six jurors, this is because it is far cheaper and deliberation is quicker. On the whole a small jury is quicker to deliberate and cheaper, however they may not be as effective as a larger jury.
Offender profiling is where evidence is gathered from a crime scene and is analysed to determine the behaviour and characteristics of the offender. In the US a conclusion is drawn from previous knowledge, using statistics from previous crimes and evidence from the crime scene. British profilers gather evidence from the crime scene. Copson and Holloway in 1997 looked at 84 cases where profiling had been used and found that in 16% of cases profiling had helped and in 2.7% of cases it lead to the identification of an offender. Profiling is a helpful tool, but will never be used to replace a criminal investigation, unless more progress is made, this is because profiles are to general and lack individualism.
The main disadvantage to the police using a profiler is that they look for a specific type of person, but if the profile is wrong they have no other suspects. The profile of a criminal is only based upon the quality and accuracy of the evidence gathered. Also, innocent people get stereotyped because of profiling, if they fit the description of a criminal.
One positive influence of the research that has been done on offender profiling is that with the use of IT experts, the FBI have produced computer profiling. This is a database system that uses offender profiling to search for offenders based upon description, age, MO etc. It is called the Homicide Investigation Tracking System, first invented in America. The description, age and MO etc of caught offenders is input into a database, then when a crime occurs the FBI can search for know offender that have the same description, age or MO. The database produces a list of offenders with the same description, age or MO. The selection of offenders can then be narrowed down to a location or previous convictions.
The advantage to this system is that a list of suspects can be complied immediately. Information on all offenders across a wide geographical area is available immediately to all FBI and police departments. One disadvantage to this system is that it relies on data to be correct. Databases of know offenders only have information on criminals that have been caught. It could be suggested that that criminals that have not been caught may differ in characteristics than those that have been. Also convicted criminals may give false information to sensationalise their crimes.
Psychological research has certainly influenced changes in society, in law and in forensic science, however these changes have been limited. It can be suggested that psychological research may improve over time to make more advanced changes to our society, in laws and in forensic science services.
