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Craig A. Harper University of Lincoln

Representations of Sexual Offending: The British Press, Public Attitudes and Desistance from Crime. Craig A. Harper University of Lincoln PsyPAG Annual Conference – Lancaster University – 18 th July 2013. PRESENTATION STRUCTURE. Background and rationale Methodology Key Results

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Craig A. Harper University of Lincoln

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  1. Representations of Sexual Offending: The British Press, Public Attitudes and Desistance from Crime Craig A. Harper University of Lincoln PsyPAG Annual Conference – Lancaster University – 18th July 2013

  2. PRESENTATION STRUCTURE • Background and rationale • Methodology • Key Results • Implications for public attitudes/responses to sexual crime, reintegration of ex-offenders, and public policy

  3. CRIME STORIES IN THE PRESS • Hypodermic injection vs. the active audience • ‘Seeking out the sex fiend’ (Soothill and Walby, 1991) • Corporate motivations in press reporting (Greer, 2003)

  4. PUBLIC ATTITUDES AND DESISTANCE FROM CRIME • Access to community rehabilitation • Brown (1999) – ‘not in my backyard’ • Attitudes as a hindrance to desistance • Willis, Levenson and Ward (2010) • The Pygmalion Effect • Marunaet al.(2001; 2009)

  5. Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders by Population (from Hogue, 1993) Scores can range from 0-144 (high scores indicate more positive attitudes)

  6. STUDY METHODOLOGY • Newspaper articles from 8 national newspapers • Sexual crimes • Rape, Sexual Assault, Child Molestation • Violent crimes • Murder, Manslaughter, ABH, GBH • Acquisitive crimes • Theft, Burglary, Robbery • Immigrant groups as control • Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Analysis (LIWC) (Pennebaker et al., 2007)

  7. PRESS ARTICLES SAMPLE

  8. REPRESENTATIONS OF CRIME • 9x over-representation of sexual crime within the sample of press articles than in official crime statistics • 2.4x over-representation of violent crime within the sample of press articles than in official crime statistics • 4.5x under-representation of acquisitive crime within the sample of press articles than in official crime statistics

  9. LINGUISTIC PROPERTIES OF ARTICLES - 1 • Negative emotions (p<0.001) • Sex Offenders – Violent Offenders (p=0.07, ns) • Sex Offenders – Acquisitive Offenders (p<0.001) • Sex Offenders – Immigrant Groups (p<0.001) Social effects of prevalence misrepresentation?

  10. LINGUISTIC PROPERTIES OF ARTICLES - 2 • Anger-related words (p<0.001) • Sex Offenders – Violent Offenders (p<0.05) • Sex Offenders – Acquisitive Offenders (p<0.001) • Sex Offenders – Immigrant Groups (p<0.001) Exaggerated social effects of prevalence misrepresentation?

  11. HEADLINE ANALYSIS • Four types of ‘sex offender’: • Monsters, beasts and perverts • Those in positions of trust • Celebrities • Others (“Man convicted of…” or link to offender-victim relationship).

  12. IMPLICATIONS OF PRESS REPORTING • Stranger danger and community notification • Reintegration and desistance from crime

  13. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING Email: craigaharper19@gmail.com Web: http://craigharper.weebly.com Twitter: @CraigHarper19

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