Crime, Media and Policy

Crime, Media and Policy

Choose one of the topics below to write about:
1. Deconstruct recent new media coverage of an ongoing criminal case, listing the claim makers, their factual and interpretive claims, and any use of narratives, symbolic crimes, linkage and ownership. Note which of the five common crime frames the story best supports.
2. Write a paper about copycat crime. In writing your work, make sure that you define the issue, the research and explain who and why certain individuals are and are not likely to become criminals through media exposure.
3. Write a paper about who should have access to the video records and images produced by a public agency surveillance system and whether surveillance video should be released to news agencies, used in civil cases, or employed in infotainment programming.
4. Pick two components of the criminal justice system and explain how its media portrait reflects backwards law. Which component is least like its actual reality?
5. Discuss the relationship between the media and common stereotypes of offenders, the police, victims, attorneys or some other criminal justice actor. In your discussion, you will address whether the stereotype informed the media, or the media informs the stereotype.
1 Discuss how your topic may or may not inform our current policies, such as heavy reliance on penal institutions or other crime control policies.
2 In crafting your answer, you will provide concepts and ideas culled from the Surette text. You should define your terms.