Main Points
The Office of National Statistics (ONS), part of Home Affairs Portfolio is UK’s national research and knowledge center on crime and justice. The data, research and policy that reflects in this report have been based on information provided on ONS website. The policy-relevant research conducted by ONS is of national significance and is a reliable crime and justice evidence base. This report has also drawn data, both qualitative and quantitative, from other sources including known scholars and researchers who bring their viewpoint to the public through mainstream newspapers and scholarly journals. Views expressed by the author of this report are largely influenced by these sources and the main purpose of this report is to assess links between Fear of Crime (FOC) and its most influential source – the newspaper.
Fear of crime (FOC) is a universal phenomenon and is considered as a problem in itself. A recent Home Office directive notified that, and I quote – ‘fear of crime will grow unless checked. As an issue of social concern, it has to be taken as seriously as … crime prevention and reduction.’ Unquote (Home Office, 1989: ii) (Williams & Dickinson, 1993). Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) has also argued that although reasonable fears with relation to crime can be harnessed for fighting the looming threat of crime, but, ONS emphasis that when such fears grow exponentially and become unreasonable they tend to become counterproductive responses and create social problems (Bosworth & Hoyle (ed), 2012). In this context, the research done by Paul Williams and Julie Dickinson and reported in their research paper titled FEAR OF CRIME: READ ALL ABOUT IT?: The Relationship between Newspaper Crime Reporting and Fear of Crime, published in The British Journal of Criminology, Vol.33 No. 1, highlights the same allegation and fears which many other sources have been reporting. The fear of crime, including being a victim (See Figure-01 in Appendix), the environmental characteristics such as living in an area having a high crime rate (See Figure-02 in Appendix) and their physical vulnerability (See Figure-03 in Appendix) have been well established by Williams & Dickinson (Finch & Fafinski, 2016).
But there does exist the other category of people, those who have neither been the victims and have never witnessed a crime in person. Why do these people get aggrieved by the reported crimes? How do they experience the catastrophic Fear of Crime? According to Williams and Dickinson, the perception of these individuals about the ‘crime problem’ is based on the indirect sources (Barak, 2009). Williams and Dickinson have also pointed to newspapers as the most influential indirect source and like many other scholars referred to in their essay, hold this indirect source responsible for creating this fear-psychosis in the society (Newburn, 2017). It is indeed the case with every media, be it audio, audio-visual or print, they are sensationalising the incidents without going into the merits of it and because the society is relies on them, they are successful in building their viewership/readership (Earle, 2016).
Overview of Crime
Thematic analysis is considered as the most common form of analysis in qualitative research. Its purpose is to emphasize examining, pinpointing and recording of patterns or ‘themes’ within the data (Simpson, Harrison & Martin, 2012).
ONS data states that crime has fallen on long-term basis, but the short-term basis crimes are more stable. These include less frequently occurring violent crimes and there figures are –
- 22% increase in crimes involving knives or similar sharp instruments.
- 11% increase in crimes using firearms.
CSEW has also stated that most people do not come across any type of crime. During the year ended December 2017, CSEW data showed that 8 out of 10 adults were never a victim of any type of crime.
Overview of Crime
According to CSEW, crime covers a wide range of offences, including the most harmful type as murder and rape and relatively minor incidents such as criminal damage or petty theft. Crime is always a hidden phenomenon and the different type of offences occur under different kind of circumstances, at different frequencies thus demonstrating that crime cannot be measured in its entirety using a single source (Williams, 2012).
Quality and Methodology
The quarterly releases of CSEW/ONS about crimes taking place in England and Wales are issued under the guidance of the Home Office. The National Statistics are produced keeping in practice the high professional standards set in the Code of Practice for Statistics.
An interview session with a common questionnaire was conducted with three people, first being a female, ‘A’ aged 53, second being a male, ‘B’ aged 42 and third being a female ‘C’ aged 45.
“Would you say that you are fearful of crime?” was the first question.
The female were more cautious when alone in a car park or if they were out after sunset but then believed that it was fate which was more powerful than being cautious. The male was echoing same sentiments but had a more pragmatic view of the situation in the society of elderly people. His idea of safety was not to go to places where you do not feel safe. However, both were fearful of the prevailing circumstances and the surge of crime in the society. Another common agreement was about the media. Both agreed that it was the newspapers which were getting judgemental about how people should live and what they should do and what they should avoid doing (Bosworth & Hoyle (ed), 2012).
The second question was – “You mentioned the media above. Could you say some more about that?”
Quality and Methodology
The female were more critical of the media as they believed that media has no right to dictate to the women in the society. Their point was valid when they raised the question – why does it have to be women only who have to be careful? Why don’t men behave in a civilized manner? Why the blame always rests with the women in the society? The elderly male was kind of sympathetic towards women being made victims (See Figure-04 in Appendix). Though he cited many stories being circulated in the newspapers about men being victims of knife-crime. He was not in favour of criminals or against the victims, but he was aghast at the way all these crime incidents were sensualized in the newspapers (Finch & Fafinski, 2016).
“Do you think that any other groups may be more fearful of crime than others?” Was the last question.
The female were of the view that yes, if one lives in a rough neighbourhood, one has fears about self and children. But both also agreed that sensationalising the crime created more fear of crime. The male thought that it was more about living among folks of your own community for safety. He was of the view that minorities were more vulnerable and feared the most (Simpson, Harrison & Martin, 2012).
Nothing can be more fearsome than the thought of fear and nothing can be more heinous than the fear of crime. This is what can be derived from the interviews of four members of a youth group of which two are male, ‘D’ aged 16 and ‘F’ aged 18 and two are female, ‘E’ aged 17 and ‘G’ aged 16. A common set of questionnaire was put to all four, individually and results were recorded from their answers (Newburn, 2017).
“Would you say that the members of your community are fearful of crime?” was the first question.
There was consensus among all the four and they agreed that living away from one’s own community does create a sense of being unsafe. It also makes women prone to crime. Going out after dark was strictly avoided and women preferred moving in groups. The young males agreed that their elders felt more unsecure and were apprehensive about the safety of their children with the rising cases of hate-crime (Newburn, 2017).
“You mentioned the media above. Could you say some more about media influence?” was the second question.
Fear of Crime
The foursome were equivocal in their view that media was influencing the people with biased reports. It seems to them that mostly hatred was being promoted by the newspaper. They also thought that the youth was being distracted by the detective shows and it was creating a false notion of hero worship among them
“You mentioned earlier that older people and women are more likely to fear crime. Are there any other groups who are likely to fear crime more than others?” was the final question.
The young males agreed that although there was nothing wrong in creating groups of same-liking persons, there can be clashes because of different viewpoints. The females were scared of hate-crime which could rise because of racism being spread in the society by the newspaper (Earle, 2016).
A qualitative analysis was conducted of Personal Value Crimes (PVC) reported in each paper for measuring two more independent variables: (a) the fearfulness and (b) the sensationalism of the reporting styles (Case et al, 2017).
In total 290 respondents were interviewed for the questionnaire survey on Fear of Crime (FOC). Twenty were selected for judging the qualitative aspects of newspaper’s reporting style. Five each were randomly selected from categories consisting of readers of broadsheets, low-market tabloids and mid-market tabloids and five were non-readers. The sample was also adjusted by random selection for including equal number of males and females (Case et al, 2017).
A random selection of 50 PVC reports was done from the 10 newspapers used in the quantitative analysis. Provisions were made to have five reports from each newspaper and the twenty selected stories had two common from each of the ten newspapers (Finch & Fafinski, 2016). The headlines and the opening sentences, which were fixed for a maximum of eighty words, were transposed in the same typed format. Under each report were placed two short questions and respondents were asked to judge, on a scale of 1-7, the ‘Tearfulness’ and ‘sensationalism’ of newspaper’s reporting style (Bosworth & Hoyle (ed), 2012).
Total ten reports, one each from the ten newspapers, were given to each of the respondents, along with a letter that explained the requirements which consisted of judging the style of newspaper’s reporting. To report how frightening the style was, the respondents were asked to ignore if they had any personal interest in the victim (Tierney, 2009). As for sensationalism, the judges were asked to assess whether the newspaper’s report was portraying ‘plain facts’ or whether the newspaper had ‘emphasized, exaggerated, or dramatized in some way’. Respondents were asked to maintain anonymity and confidentiality (Williams, 2012).
Since there were differences among the groups of readers, a demographic analysis was carried out of the groups. Age had no relationship to the type of newspapers read and sex discrimination was also not there in the linear fashion across all groups. However, education and socioeconomic status (SES) being important, were incorporated (Williams, 2012). It was deduced that the readers of Broadsheet left their full-time education at a mean age of 17.35 years, the mid-market tabloid readers left at mean age of 16.22 years and the mean age of the low-market tabloid readers was found to be 15.54 years. This was found to be statistically significant (F(2,193) = 7.63, p<0.001). It was also established the readers of the broadsheet recorded the highest SES and the readers of the low-market tabloid recorded the lowest SES (F(2,195) = 10.05, />< 0.001) (Newburn, 2017).
The results of the survey showed that the broadsheet readers demonstrated lowest and the low-market tabloid readers showed the highest levels of FOC on all the given measures, except the behavioural one. A strong relationship was observed between newspaper readership groups and their socioeconomic status and the evidence confirmed that newspaper readership was related to FOC independently irrespective of the group’s socioeconomic status (Newburn, 2017).
Conclusions
Finally, the evidence proves that newspapers ‘construct’ news as is found in the differences between same news in two different newspapers. In conclusion, it can be safely stated that reporting of crime by the British daily press has shown enormous variation. The newspapers which reported most crime and in particular crimes related to personal violence in the most salient fashion, both visually and stylistically, have the readership which has the highest FOC levels.
References
Barak, G. 2009. Criminology: An Integrated Approach. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bosworth, M. and Hoyle, C. (ed). 2012. What is Criminology? Oxford: OUP Oxford.
Case, S., Johnson, P., Manlow, D., Smith, R. and Williams, K. 2017. Criminology.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Earle, R. 2016. Convict Criminology: Inside and Out. Bristol: Policy Press.
Finch, E. and Fafinski, S. 2016. Criminology Skills. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Newburn, T. 2017. Criminology. 3rd ed. Oxon: Routledge.
Simpson, M., Harrison, O. and Martin, E. 2012. Study Skills for Criminology. London: SAGE.
Tierney, J. 2009. Key Perspectives In Criminology. Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Williams, K.S. 2012. Textbook on Criminology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, P. and Dickinson, J. 1993. FEAR OF CRIME: READ ALL ABOUT IT: The Relationship between Newspaper Crime Reporting and Fear of Crime. The British Journal of Criminology, Vol.33 No. 1.
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