Crime and Violence: Forces for Good or Evil?

1. Crime and Violence: Forces for Good or Evil? The impact of the media

2. Why do the media report on crime? Steve Chibnall (1977) ‘newsworthiness’ criteria: immediacy; drama; personalisation; simplification; titillation; conventionalism; novelty; formal access to ‘experts’. The ‘extraordinary’ becomes the focus (Carter, 1998) Marian Meyers (1997 in Carter 1998:223-4) ‘hierarchy of crime’

3. Political Responses • Populist punitiveness

4. Depictions of Victims Pull factors • young, female, white, middle-classed and ‘attractive’ Push factors • in care, has connections with drug problems or has been victimised by a close relative Other pull factors • compliance of the victims family in giving press conferences • willingness to provide photographs or video footage of the victim.

5. Sarah Payne, • MillyDowler, • Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman

6. Case Study – Stranger danger? Sarah Payne • 1st July 2000 Disappearance • 3rd July Television appeal – ‘our little princess’ • July 4th Three Guardian reports • 6th July video footage of Sarah shown on national television • 14th July over 10,000 calls had been received by the police • 17th July a girl’s naked body was found – Sussex police confirmed it was the body of Sarah Payne. • 23rd July News of the World launch their ‘Name and Shame’ campaign.

7. Jade Austin • Murdered by her father two days after Sarah Payne disappeared • The Times 23rd March 2001 – Philip Austin killed his wife and two children • sentenced to three life sentences after admitting the murders

8. Stranger danger v family safety? • 90 children murdered every year in Britain, more than 80 are killed by parents or carers

9. Case Study – What colour is invisibility? Damilola Taylor - murdered in Peckham, South London, November 27th 2000 • Concern was more for the geographical area: • “the national image is of Peckham as a desolate estate and the focus has been on troublesome gangs … As one 15-year-old boy explained: "They portray Peckham to be a really, really bad place. I have lived in Peckham all my life and I don't think it's a bad place. Young boys don't die every day here and that's the image they try to portray. Gangs exist everywhere but they are making out these Peckham gangs are a brand new revelation." Damilola's death is hanging over Peckham … People are fighting to beat exclusion and fragmentation here - factors so clearly manifest in a place where 25% of the people have an income of less than £100 a week and where 52% of those in employment earn less than £150.” The Guardian (28 December 2000)

10. Courtney Griffiths QC told the jury that Damilola's story hit the headlines because it came to stand for society's fear of street crime, inner city estates and mobile phone theft (Guardian 13th April 2002)

11. May 2004 (28/05/04) Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, blamed systemic racism for the failure to protect Victoria Climbié, supposedly on the grounds that intervention might have been culturally inappropriate.

12. Summary • Chibnall - ‘newsworthiness’ criteria - criteria present in the case of Sarah Payne • Jade Austin - also young, female and white but only had murderous father • Damilola Taylor did not fit the ‘princess’ role • Nor did Victoria Climbie