Defining Crime

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From the 1960’s up until present time crime has been defined and measured in many ways, this is because of what at the time period was and was not classified as a crime and the crime trends, swell as medias representation of crime. Defining crime is merely impossible as it means different things to different people. If crime is her to define then its even hardened to measure. Medias representation of crime shows incorrect figures of what crime trends are and who is being effected by the crimes, causing the public to be misinformed and close to clueless about crime in general.

Crime is defined In many ways, yet is difficult to define in one simple way. Simply crime is forbidden by law, punishable by state and causes or has the poetical to …show more content…

Measuring crime is determined by the crimes seriousness and it determines the length of the sentence. Crime has a multi-dimensional nature. that consists of offenders, offences and victims. Criminal law then then is jurisdictional which is state based law, so the measuring of the crimes will vary from sate to state depending on laws. Crime is measured using 3 main techniques in the Criminal Justice System, Crimes recorded by police, crime experience surveys, which are surveys filled out anonymously by the randomly selected public and finally other sources like security reports, hospital admissions and insurance claims. However these forms of recording and measuring crime can not be completely perfect as not all crimes are reported to police, creating a dark figure of crime.According to Gold (1966) relying solely on offical reports, especially in regards to the effects of measurement and relative theory. ((C.Sullivan & J.McGloin, 2014) Since the 1960’s criminologists were aware that the police reports as the only measurement of crime was an inaccurate way of measuring so victim surveys were created. Crime victimisation surveys can be ineffective in some ways as fro example if a domestic violence victim is filling out the survey next to their abuser they will not answer the survey truly, again creating a dark spot in crime. ‘Victimisation …show more content…

Australia learn about the majority of crimes through the use the media. Whether it be Tv, movies, newspaper or the internet, it is giving the viewer of the media a altered view of the truth. News reports on television focus on reporting on violent crimes like murder and rape, rather than the crimes the take up the majority like white collar crimes, as serious crime are what take the audiences interest. According to Criminologists Hayes & Prenzler (2015, p.6) The over reporting of violent crimes is done so to reflect what is important to the viewers. Violent crimes are a majority concern in most communities when the real concern is less serious white collar crimes. Media stereotypes criminals, so that if a news reports on a mass shooting or a tragic event, general public are like to jump to a certain person or persons. Criminologists Hayes & Prenzler (2015, p.9) said that petty crimes and assaults are unlocked to be ‘newsworthy’ unless they involve someone famous, as well as victims and offenders are more likely to be mentioned if the victim is white and the offender is black, stereotyping that black people are more likely to be criminals. Another example of stereotyping id whenever a criminal mass event occurs the media aways makes terrorism the first possible answer to why it happened, making the public a paranoid about the terror attack. These actions the media companies take

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