Sociology 2253A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: New Media, Informal Social Control, Populism
12 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Popular crime shows oversimplify complex issues of crime and justice. New media focus on negative rather than positive criminal justice outcomes. Media tendency to focus on sensational cases. Television, newspaper, etc. most common way people are informed of crime. Media is a business that wants to make money so they focus on stories that will grab people"s attention. Plays a significant role in crime control. ~ violent crimes account for large proportion of crime. Public has limited knowledge of actual crime rates ex. When they do public opinion polls show that canadians think that crime is on the rise (even though it is not) Since the 90s crime has declined (lowest it"s been since 1972) Public overestimates the instances of violent crime (even though it makes up a small percentage of crime) Public think incarceration rates are too low (even though we have a relatively high incarceration rate)
