'A nation stalked by FEAR' (The Sun, 17th July 2002). What can the study of newspaper coverage of official crime statistics tell us about the problem of crime?

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Sharon Ebanks        T274910X        TMA01

‘A nation stalked by FEAR’ (The Sun, 17th July 2002).  What can the study of newspaper coverage of official crime statistics tell us about the problem of crime?

The official statistics used to determine the crime rates and the problem of crime are based on the recording by the police of notifiable offences.  The media then relate these statistics to the public.  By studying newspaper coverage of official crime statistics would allow the public to determine for themselves the problem of crime, but is this a true picture of crime?  I will in this essay explain the complexity of studying crime statistics through media coverage by using two newspaper articles one taken from The Sun, a tabloid newspaper and the other The Guardian which is a broadsheet, they are both daily newspapers.

The media can generate fear; people read about crimes that happen and take it as it may happen to them.  Different newspapers word and categorise crime differently according to who is reading it.  Left realists believe that in inner city areas the media’s coverage of crime reinforce what people already know.  The majority of people that fear crime have never experienced crime, but read about it daily in newspapers and television.

‘A nation stalked by FEAR’ (The Sun, 17th July 2002) is an article written by Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun newspaper, a tabloid newspaper whose audiences are working-class families living in inner city areas, that have been a victim or a witness to crime.  Within the headlines it highlights that rape cases are up by 27%, violent crime up by 22% and drug offences up by 16%.

The Sun states that its readers were fearful of becoming victims of crime; this was reinforced by the disturbing statistics shown.  Murder had risen by 18%, violence against another up by 28%, sex offences 17%, gun crime was up by 35%, wounding 11%, child abduction 45%, death by drink or reckless driving 12%, immigration offences 31%, obscene publication offences 151%.  All these statistics have high percentages  and it may seem to the public reading it that we have a criminal society that is totally out of control especially in inner city suburbs such as Birmingham, Manchester and parts of London.

An explanation of the murder rate increasing was down to the fact that the murderer GP Harold Shipman murdered 172 people allowing for the distortion in the figures.

Some crimes had decreased such as robberies that were down by 11%, vehicle theft had decreased and burglaries remained the same.

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Classification and the recording of crimes have changed, allowing police to record and report minor offences even if there were no physical damage to another person or if a minor scuffle had occurred, the crime still had to be recorded as a violent crime, all crimes are now recorded even if there were no police action.

David Blunkett, The Home Secretary was convinced that the crime rate had fallen, the figures seemed distorted because of the new system of the National Crime Recording Standards, forcing police forces and law agencies to report and record all incidents, even if no police ...

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