Some brief thoughts about crime and the media, following on from Tuesday's lecture and seminar.
First thought: the news media like some kinds of story more than others. Sometimes an event is so big that the media have to cover it - the phone
hacking scandal, the riots - but from day to day the media have a lot
of choice in what stories they do and don't cover. They particularly like simple, dramatic, immediate stories, where it's easy to see who's in the wrong. This means that some kinds of crime are more likely to be covered than others - as we saw in the seminar, murder and violent crime is much more 'newsworthy' than property crime.
A question to think about: apart from criteria of "newsworthiness", are there other reasons for selecting particular crimes to feature in the news?
Second thought: measuring how media coverage of crime affects people is very, very hard to do. We can reasonably assume that the media affect people's behaviour, but to actually measure the effect you would need to have two groups of people and isolate one of them from the media - which would obviously be rather hard to arrange.
Question: is it worth asking "how people's behaviour is affected by the media", or are the media so omnipresent that the question makes no sense - would it be like asking "how people's behaviour is affected by other people" or "how people's behaviour is affected by the English language"?
Third thought: if media coverage of crime does affect people's behaviour, presumably it affects different people in different ways. A pensioner might react to news of rioting by becoming more fearful and refusing to go out; an unemployed teenager might react by going out and joining in. The news has apparently caused an increase in fear of crime and an increase in crime.
Question: would this news have the same effect on any teenager - even one who has never been in trouble before - or on any pensioner - even one who has an active social life?
Final thought: the concept of a 'moral panic', developed by the late Stan Cohen, explained how public concern about unusual or 'deviant' behaviour could blow up very quickly, in a process of 'deviancy amplification'. In a moral panic, a novel form of deviancy - unruly or disturbing behaviour - is publicised, leading it to be 'amplified' in two ways: it makes more noise and causes more concern; and it attracts people to try it out, becoming a bigger social phenomenon. Punk, the rave culture, knife crime and rioting have all been the triggers for moral panic at different times. Moral panics take hold because a new form of deviancy arouses strong feelings - for as well as against - and seems to encapsulate people's feelings about how society is and how it ought to be.
Question: is the same true of crime stories in general? Is a moral panic just a heightened and accelerated version of people's normal reactions to reading about crime? Turning it round, is there a connection between the crimes that get covered in the news and contemporary anxieties about the state of society?
Wednesday 30 October 2013
Wednesday 23 October 2013
Week 4: Who are the criminals and why do they do it?
In this lecture I introduced one of the key questions for criminology, and three ways of thinking about an answer. (If you haven't heard this enough already, there really are no 'right answers' in criminology. Except to questions like "in what year was the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 passed?" or "how do you spell 'criminology'?", of course.)
The question is deceptively simple: who commits crimes? To put it another way, can we know who is likely to commit crimes? By the end of the day, a certain number of crimes will have been committed that hadn't been committed when we all got up this morning. If, this morning, you'd had a complete profile of every individual in the country, would you have been able to predict who would commit a crime today?
The two oldest and best-established ways of thinking about criminology are Classicism and Positivism (I'll get to the third approach I mentioned later). One of the key differences between Classicism and Positivism is how they answer that question - can we know who is likely to commit crimes?
Classicism says: No, we can't. According to the classicist view, anyone could commit a crime at any time. Everyone is more or less the same: we're all rational beings, we're all motivated by pleasure and pain, and we all calculate rationally what we can do to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. Laws are rules that societies put in place to make them run better; crimes are committed when people rationally calculate that they can get more pleasure than pain by breaking those rules. It follows that the way to deal with criminals, and the way to deter potential criminals, is to raise the cost of crime. People steal handbags, on the classicist view, because their desire for the pleasure of acquiring money outweighs their fear of the pain of getting caught and going to prison. Sending a bag-snatcher to prison will make that person more afraid of prison in future and make the less likely to do it again.
In short: the classicist view focuses on crimes rather than criminals; it sees everyone as equally rational, equally driven by pleasure and pain, and equally likely to break the law; it regards laws as arbitrary rules, which should be enforced for the sake of social order; it sees the job of punishment as enforcing the law by increasing the cost of crime; and its ideal is a law-abiding society in which everyone can participate freely.
Positivism, by contrast, says: Yes, we can predict who is likely to commit crimes. According to the positivist view, some people are much more likely to commit crimes than others. Some people are more rational than others; more importantly, some people are less attached to society's values than others. Laws are based on society's values; crimes are actions that violate those values, and which most of us find repugnant. Crimes are committed (mostly) by people who don't share those values and don't care about violating them. The way to deal with criminals is to educate the ones who can be reformed (rehabilitation) and lock up the ones who can't (incapacitation). Positivism can be either personal/biological or social: biological positivism says that offenders are just wired differently, social positivism says that offenders have been brought up with anti-social value systems. People steal handbags, on the positivist view, because they haven't adopted society's norm against stealing.
In short: the positivist view focuses on criminals; it sees values as fundamental, and sees some people as less committed to society's values than others; it regards laws as expressions of society's values, which should be enforced so as to uphold them; it sees the job of punishment as reforming or confining anti-social people; and its ideal is a safe society for the law-abiding majority.
Social positivism is related to a third and very different group of explanations, which can be grouped together as social explanations of crime. According to these perspectives, some people are less attached to society's values than others, and they may have good reasons for this: society's values may reflect injustices which run through society (class divisions, extremes of wealth and poverty, sexism, racism, etc). Crimes are actions which violate society's values, but they may not be particularly repugnant; society's values may be wrong, or the offender may have values which outweigh them. A social explanation of bag-snatching would be that people steal handbags because an unjust society has deprived them of the money they need to live - and not starving is a higher value than not breaking the law.
In short: the social view focuses on crimes, and questions whether they should be crimes. Like the positivist view, it recognises that some people are less committed to society's values than others; however, it regards society's values as arbitrary, and questions whether its laws need to be enforced. It sees material factors as fundamental in deciding whether someone who breaks a law should be seen as a criminal. Its ideal is a just society, in terms of wealth and power as well as crime and punishment.
Suppose that burglars rob a jewellers' shop, taking the diamond-encrusted Rolexes which had been on display in the window. A classicist would say, "Something like that was bound to happen sooner or later - anyone would be tempted." A positivist would say, "People like that want locking up." Someone taking the social view would say, "It's a shame for the shopkeeper, but it's disgusting that they were asking people to spend that kind of money."
Hope that helps. Good luck with the essay - the questions are on Moodle, in case you haven't spotted them.
The question is deceptively simple: who commits crimes? To put it another way, can we know who is likely to commit crimes? By the end of the day, a certain number of crimes will have been committed that hadn't been committed when we all got up this morning. If, this morning, you'd had a complete profile of every individual in the country, would you have been able to predict who would commit a crime today?
The two oldest and best-established ways of thinking about criminology are Classicism and Positivism (I'll get to the third approach I mentioned later). One of the key differences between Classicism and Positivism is how they answer that question - can we know who is likely to commit crimes?
Classicism says: No, we can't. According to the classicist view, anyone could commit a crime at any time. Everyone is more or less the same: we're all rational beings, we're all motivated by pleasure and pain, and we all calculate rationally what we can do to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. Laws are rules that societies put in place to make them run better; crimes are committed when people rationally calculate that they can get more pleasure than pain by breaking those rules. It follows that the way to deal with criminals, and the way to deter potential criminals, is to raise the cost of crime. People steal handbags, on the classicist view, because their desire for the pleasure of acquiring money outweighs their fear of the pain of getting caught and going to prison. Sending a bag-snatcher to prison will make that person more afraid of prison in future and make the less likely to do it again.
In short: the classicist view focuses on crimes rather than criminals; it sees everyone as equally rational, equally driven by pleasure and pain, and equally likely to break the law; it regards laws as arbitrary rules, which should be enforced for the sake of social order; it sees the job of punishment as enforcing the law by increasing the cost of crime; and its ideal is a law-abiding society in which everyone can participate freely.
Positivism, by contrast, says: Yes, we can predict who is likely to commit crimes. According to the positivist view, some people are much more likely to commit crimes than others. Some people are more rational than others; more importantly, some people are less attached to society's values than others. Laws are based on society's values; crimes are actions that violate those values, and which most of us find repugnant. Crimes are committed (mostly) by people who don't share those values and don't care about violating them. The way to deal with criminals is to educate the ones who can be reformed (rehabilitation) and lock up the ones who can't (incapacitation). Positivism can be either personal/biological or social: biological positivism says that offenders are just wired differently, social positivism says that offenders have been brought up with anti-social value systems. People steal handbags, on the positivist view, because they haven't adopted society's norm against stealing.
In short: the positivist view focuses on criminals; it sees values as fundamental, and sees some people as less committed to society's values than others; it regards laws as expressions of society's values, which should be enforced so as to uphold them; it sees the job of punishment as reforming or confining anti-social people; and its ideal is a safe society for the law-abiding majority.
Social positivism is related to a third and very different group of explanations, which can be grouped together as social explanations of crime. According to these perspectives, some people are less attached to society's values than others, and they may have good reasons for this: society's values may reflect injustices which run through society (class divisions, extremes of wealth and poverty, sexism, racism, etc). Crimes are actions which violate society's values, but they may not be particularly repugnant; society's values may be wrong, or the offender may have values which outweigh them. A social explanation of bag-snatching would be that people steal handbags because an unjust society has deprived them of the money they need to live - and not starving is a higher value than not breaking the law.
In short: the social view focuses on crimes, and questions whether they should be crimes. Like the positivist view, it recognises that some people are less committed to society's values than others; however, it regards society's values as arbitrary, and questions whether its laws need to be enforced. It sees material factors as fundamental in deciding whether someone who breaks a law should be seen as a criminal. Its ideal is a just society, in terms of wealth and power as well as crime and punishment.
Suppose that burglars rob a jewellers' shop, taking the diamond-encrusted Rolexes which had been on display in the window. A classicist would say, "Something like that was bound to happen sooner or later - anyone would be tempted." A positivist would say, "People like that want locking up." Someone taking the social view would say, "It's a shame for the shopkeeper, but it's disgusting that they were asking people to spend that kind of money."
Hope that helps. Good luck with the essay - the questions are on Moodle, in case you haven't spotted them.
Wednesday 16 October 2013
Week 3: How much crime is there?
Statistics on crime were one of the topics that divided opinion when we talked about the rest of the unit in the first week: some people definitely wanted to learn about them, others definitely didn't. I hope this week's teaching included enough information about stats for the first group and didn't scare the second group off.
I kept the Highly Technical Statistical Concepts to a minimum. In fact there were only two, which I'll quickly go over again now.
HTSC 1: Administrative vs Survey-Based Statistics
Some statistics are administrative: they're produced as a kind of by-product of the administration of an institution of some sort. Every time a pupil starts at a new school, a police officer makes an arrest or a Job Seekers' Allowance claimant signs on, somebody does some paperwork (or screenwork) and updates a total: the total number of pupils/arrests/claims in that year/month/week has just gone up by one. Administrative statistics are nothing more or less than a summary of all these updates. Usually administrative statistics record people's interactions with some kind of authority.
Administrative statistics are usually a very accurate record, but it's important to keep in mind what they're a record of. For example, hospital records can tell you exactly how many people were admitted to A&E on a particular Friday night after a bad reaction to dance drugs, but they can't tell you how many people had a bad reaction to the same drug and decided not to go to hospital - let alone how many people took that drug overall (most of them may have been fine).
Survey-based statistics, as the name implies are produced as a result of carrying out a survey: you go out in the street, or send out emails, or phone people up, and ask them a set of questions. Opinion polls are one example of a survey that produces statistics, but surveys aren't just for finding out what people are thinking; they're useful for finding out all sorts of things which can't be caught by administrative statistics. Surveys can tell you how many people are out of work (not just how many have succeeded in claiming JSA), or how many people have committed offences (not just how many have been arrested for it).
Survey-based statistics can be accurate or inaccurate: it depends how well the survey has been designed and also how well the sample has been designed. (Usually* you don't want to ask everyone in the country, so you ask a sample of people; if you've designed the sample properly it'll be representative of everyone else.)
The British Crime Survey is a survey (clearly), and the figures it produces are now accepted as being a much better record of the level of crime than police recorded crime figures.
HTSC 2: Validity and reliability
Remember the slide with the two targets? Keep it in mind. Reliability is the 'shots close together' picture. It means that, if you take a survey and take it again a year later - or if you look at an institution's records and look at them again a year later - you'll get the same results unless the reality has changed. Reliability means that the survey - or the records - doesn't produce wide variation in results for no good reason. Of course, if we only know about the underlying reality from the statistics, we can't always tell whether there is a good reason or not - but we can often make a good guess. If, for example, a political opinion poll tells you that support for Labour is at 38% one week, 44% the next week and 38% the week after that, it's not likely that there will really have been such a large and short-lived change; the chances are that you're looking at an unreliable poll.
A reliable survey isn't necessarily accurate: it may be consistently giving the same kind of inaccurate answers. Validity is the 'shots in the right area' picture; it measures the extent to which the statistics are an accurate representation of reality. Once again, if we only know about the underlying reality through the statistics, this is hard to measure - but again, we can make a guess, usually with the help of other statistics. Imagine that you had these three opinion poll readings for successive weeks:
Poll 1: 38%, 42%, 38%, 34%, 38%
Poll 2: 38%, 38%, 38%, 39%, 38%
Poll 3: 34%, 33%, 33%, 32%, 34%
Putting the three together, we can make an educated guess that poll 2's results are both reliable and valid, poll 1's are valid but unreliable and poll 3's are reliable but invalid. We can't be certain, though - the underlying reality could be closer to poll 1 or poll 3.
We looked at some fairly controversial statistics in the seminar. I hope you didn't feel that you were being set up to give the wrong answer. The idea was to draw attention to some areas in which the official statistics are out of line with what almost all of us think. The 'true' figures were all from official government statistics, including immigration figures from the Census and asylum figures from the Home Office; they're probably pretty accurate. Of course, we don't know for certain that they are accurate - but if anyone suggests that the real figures are very different, it's worth asking them where they get their figures from.
*The Census is a survey in which you do want to talk to everyone in the country.
I kept the Highly Technical Statistical Concepts to a minimum. In fact there were only two, which I'll quickly go over again now.
HTSC 1: Administrative vs Survey-Based Statistics
Some statistics are administrative: they're produced as a kind of by-product of the administration of an institution of some sort. Every time a pupil starts at a new school, a police officer makes an arrest or a Job Seekers' Allowance claimant signs on, somebody does some paperwork (or screenwork) and updates a total: the total number of pupils/arrests/claims in that year/month/week has just gone up by one. Administrative statistics are nothing more or less than a summary of all these updates. Usually administrative statistics record people's interactions with some kind of authority.
Administrative statistics are usually a very accurate record, but it's important to keep in mind what they're a record of. For example, hospital records can tell you exactly how many people were admitted to A&E on a particular Friday night after a bad reaction to dance drugs, but they can't tell you how many people had a bad reaction to the same drug and decided not to go to hospital - let alone how many people took that drug overall (most of them may have been fine).
Survey-based statistics, as the name implies are produced as a result of carrying out a survey: you go out in the street, or send out emails, or phone people up, and ask them a set of questions. Opinion polls are one example of a survey that produces statistics, but surveys aren't just for finding out what people are thinking; they're useful for finding out all sorts of things which can't be caught by administrative statistics. Surveys can tell you how many people are out of work (not just how many have succeeded in claiming JSA), or how many people have committed offences (not just how many have been arrested for it).
Survey-based statistics can be accurate or inaccurate: it depends how well the survey has been designed and also how well the sample has been designed. (Usually* you don't want to ask everyone in the country, so you ask a sample of people; if you've designed the sample properly it'll be representative of everyone else.)
The British Crime Survey is a survey (clearly), and the figures it produces are now accepted as being a much better record of the level of crime than police recorded crime figures.
HTSC 2: Validity and reliability
Remember the slide with the two targets? Keep it in mind. Reliability is the 'shots close together' picture. It means that, if you take a survey and take it again a year later - or if you look at an institution's records and look at them again a year later - you'll get the same results unless the reality has changed. Reliability means that the survey - or the records - doesn't produce wide variation in results for no good reason. Of course, if we only know about the underlying reality from the statistics, we can't always tell whether there is a good reason or not - but we can often make a good guess. If, for example, a political opinion poll tells you that support for Labour is at 38% one week, 44% the next week and 38% the week after that, it's not likely that there will really have been such a large and short-lived change; the chances are that you're looking at an unreliable poll.
A reliable survey isn't necessarily accurate: it may be consistently giving the same kind of inaccurate answers. Validity is the 'shots in the right area' picture; it measures the extent to which the statistics are an accurate representation of reality. Once again, if we only know about the underlying reality through the statistics, this is hard to measure - but again, we can make a guess, usually with the help of other statistics. Imagine that you had these three opinion poll readings for successive weeks:
Poll 1: 38%, 42%, 38%, 34%, 38%
Poll 2: 38%, 38%, 38%, 39%, 38%
Poll 3: 34%, 33%, 33%, 32%, 34%
Putting the three together, we can make an educated guess that poll 2's results are both reliable and valid, poll 1's are valid but unreliable and poll 3's are reliable but invalid. We can't be certain, though - the underlying reality could be closer to poll 1 or poll 3.
We looked at some fairly controversial statistics in the seminar. I hope you didn't feel that you were being set up to give the wrong answer. The idea was to draw attention to some areas in which the official statistics are out of line with what almost all of us think. The 'true' figures were all from official government statistics, including immigration figures from the Census and asylum figures from the Home Office; they're probably pretty accurate. Of course, we don't know for certain that they are accurate - but if anyone suggests that the real figures are very different, it's worth asking them where they get their figures from.
*The Census is a survey in which you do want to talk to everyone in the country.
Wednesday 9 October 2013
Week 2: What is crime?
This week we looked at ideas about crime, and the way that our ideas have changed over the years.
Crime in popular culture is a good place to start. Right from the earliest days of crime fiction, people have been telling stories about horrible and unusual crimes; about criminal masterminds who commit whole strings of crimes and outwit the police; and about the dogged, sometimes tedious reality of police work.
It's not a coincidence that these stories started becoming popular at a time - the middle of the 19th century - when British society was changing rapidly: with the expansion of the cities, life seemed to be getting more complex, harder to understand and more risky. Crime fiction enabled the Victorians to indulge in a sense that society was out of control and made no sense, safe in the knowledge that the detective would come along and set things right by the end of the story.
Perhaps that's still what we want from crime fiction - what do you think?
What has changed, fairly dramatically, is the kind of crime that gets written about - from the forged wills and blackmailers of the original Sherlock Holmes stories to the serial killers and paedophiles of Luther. This change can be related to the question of why we call some things crimes and not others. As you'll remember, we looked at three main perspectives on "what makes a crime a crime":
All these perspectives on crime are valid: if you lean towards the legal view you'll take an interest in the details of how crimes are defined; if you sympathise with the radical view you'll be interested in 'crimes' which aren't necessarily against the law, e.g. white-collar crime. The moral perspective explains the huge differences in crime fiction over the years. It also tells us a lot about the way the law changes over time: new laws are passed to criminalise actions that society has started to worry about, while laws against behaviours that we no longer worry about fall into disuse.
Can you think of any examples?
Crime in popular culture is a good place to start. Right from the earliest days of crime fiction, people have been telling stories about horrible and unusual crimes; about criminal masterminds who commit whole strings of crimes and outwit the police; and about the dogged, sometimes tedious reality of police work.
It's not a coincidence that these stories started becoming popular at a time - the middle of the 19th century - when British society was changing rapidly: with the expansion of the cities, life seemed to be getting more complex, harder to understand and more risky. Crime fiction enabled the Victorians to indulge in a sense that society was out of control and made no sense, safe in the knowledge that the detective would come along and set things right by the end of the story.
Perhaps that's still what we want from crime fiction - what do you think?
What has changed, fairly dramatically, is the kind of crime that gets written about - from the forged wills and blackmailers of the original Sherlock Holmes stories to the serial killers and paedophiles of Luther. This change can be related to the question of why we call some things crimes and not others. As you'll remember, we looked at three main perspectives on "what makes a crime a crime":
- Legal: a crime is a crime if it's against the law and people are put on trial for doing it
- Moral: a crime is a crime if it's morally repugnant, even if it's not against the law
- Radical: social injustices should be criminalised, and crimes committed by victims of social injustice should be excused
All these perspectives on crime are valid: if you lean towards the legal view you'll take an interest in the details of how crimes are defined; if you sympathise with the radical view you'll be interested in 'crimes' which aren't necessarily against the law, e.g. white-collar crime. The moral perspective explains the huge differences in crime fiction over the years. It also tells us a lot about the way the law changes over time: new laws are passed to criminalise actions that society has started to worry about, while laws against behaviours that we no longer worry about fall into disuse.
Can you think of any examples?
Wednesday 2 October 2013
Week 1: Introducing the unit
Hallo world!
The unit got off to a good start this week: the lecture theatre was full, the lecture itself went well and we had some good discussions in the seminars. (Sorry about the early start, by the way - it wasn't my idea!)
I hope the unit is going to build on your existing interest in sociology and/or criminology - and, more importantly, that it will spark off new interests and get you thinking about questions you hadn't previously thought about. If you've got any concerns about the unit, or about Foundation Year in general, don't hesitate to let me know: p.j.edwards@mmu.ac.uk.
The main business of the seminar was talking about what you would like to see covered in the Criminology part of the unit - and what you don't want to see. Here's a quick run-down of the views expressed in all four seminar groups:
Yes please
Victims of crime
Sentencing: who gets what and why
Psychology of crime: why do offenders do it?
How the police force works (past and present)
Anti-social behaviour
Murder and crimes of violence
Gangs
Riots
Domestic violence
No thanks
White-collar crime
The law
Environmental crime
Petty crime
Traffic offences
Yes and No (topics that appeared on both lists)
Crime statistics
The media
Terrorism
Politics
So what does all that add up to? Well, I can guarantee that you will not have to learn about traffic offences - or about white-collar crime, environmental crime, terrorism, politics or the criminal law in general. We will be covering crime statistics and the media (which will please some of you more than others!). Other topics we will definitely cover are sentencing, victims of crime, criminal psychology, the police and anti-social behaviour.
The other suggestions on the 'Yes' list - murder, gangs, riots and domestic violence - are all really interesting topics. There might need to be a few tweaks to the unit to get some of these in - I'll see what I can do.
Many thanks for your ideas! Have fun with the homework task (on Moodle), and I'll see you next Tuesday (bright and early).
- Phil
The unit got off to a good start this week: the lecture theatre was full, the lecture itself went well and we had some good discussions in the seminars. (Sorry about the early start, by the way - it wasn't my idea!)
I hope the unit is going to build on your existing interest in sociology and/or criminology - and, more importantly, that it will spark off new interests and get you thinking about questions you hadn't previously thought about. If you've got any concerns about the unit, or about Foundation Year in general, don't hesitate to let me know: p.j.edwards@mmu.ac.uk.
The main business of the seminar was talking about what you would like to see covered in the Criminology part of the unit - and what you don't want to see. Here's a quick run-down of the views expressed in all four seminar groups:
Yes please
Victims of crime
Sentencing: who gets what and why
Psychology of crime: why do offenders do it?
How the police force works (past and present)
Anti-social behaviour
Murder and crimes of violence
Gangs
Riots
Domestic violence
No thanks
White-collar crime
The law
Environmental crime
Petty crime
Traffic offences
Yes and No (topics that appeared on both lists)
Crime statistics
The media
Terrorism
Politics
So what does all that add up to? Well, I can guarantee that you will not have to learn about traffic offences - or about white-collar crime, environmental crime, terrorism, politics or the criminal law in general. We will be covering crime statistics and the media (which will please some of you more than others!). Other topics we will definitely cover are sentencing, victims of crime, criminal psychology, the police and anti-social behaviour.
The other suggestions on the 'Yes' list - murder, gangs, riots and domestic violence - are all really interesting topics. There might need to be a few tweaks to the unit to get some of these in - I'll see what I can do.
Many thanks for your ideas! Have fun with the homework task (on Moodle), and I'll see you next Tuesday (bright and early).
- Phil
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