Heath, L 1984, 'Impact of newspaper crime reports on fear of crime: multi-methodolical ivestigation', Journal of personality and social psychology

Aim

To examine the effect of newspaper reporting on fear of crime

Method

Content analysis and telephone interviews 

Participants

62 local newspapers, representing all the local press in 42 us cities for one week. 335 participants were selected randomly and interviewed by phone. participants were aged 16-83 years

Procedure

Content analysis - the researchers analyzed the crime reports in the newspapers in terms of proportion of the following :

• local crime - did the crime occur in the geographical area served by the newspaper or not?

• random crime - did the report contain any information that suggested that the victim took any action that made him or her more vulnerable? (if not, this is categorized as a random crime)

• sensationalist  crime - was the crime extremely violent or bizarre?

telephone interviews - these covered newspaper reading habits and various aspects of fear of crime

Results

Those participants who read newspapers that printed a high proportion of local crime reported higher levels of fear if the crime was described as a random or sensationalist. The researchers also conducted a follow up experiment in which 80 students read fictional accounts  of crimes. if these were local and random participants expressed higher levels of fear. interestingly, if the crimes were non local, but random and sensationalist, participants expressed lower levels of fear. the author suggests that this is due to the reports making people feel safer in their own area.

The Great Moon Hoax of 1835, Tabloid Journalism is Born

Richard Adams Locke an amateur  astronomer  was working for the sun in 1835.

he created a story saying telescope images showed creatures on the moon and put the story in the sun, everyone believed it and created a moral panic

this shows that people believe most things they read in the newspapers if its good or bad press.

Crime Statistics x2

crime statistics

Does The Film Clockwork Orange Portray Bad Vibes About Teenagers

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Youth crime

Youth crime harms communities, creates a culture of fear and damages the lives of some of our most vulnerable young people.

Reducing youth crime and improving the youth justice system is a central part of our effort to build safer communities and to tackle the problem of social exclusion.

What causes youth crime?

These are some of the major risk factors that increase the chances of young people committing crimes:

• troubled home life
• poor attainment at school, truancy and school exclusion
• drug or alcohol misuse and mental illness
• deprivation such as poor housing or homelessness
• peer group pressure

What we’re doing about youth crime

Stopping it before it starts

We’ve introduced several intervention programmes to treat the broader social problems that are risk factors in increasing the chances of youth crime, including:

Sure Start

This programme aims to improve community health and well-being by providing services such as childcare to families in disadvantaged areas. 

Connexions

This school-based programme provides support and advice to young people to improve behaviour and reduce truancy. 

Neighbourhood Renewal

This programme aims to improve community services in areas that struggle economically.

Rehabilitation and sentencing

Sentences and interventions designed to prevent offending and reoffending include:

• Referral Orders – the young person is required to agree a contract of behaviour with their parents/guardians and the victim (where appropriate), to repair the harm caused by the offence and address the causes of the offending behaviour.
• Action Plan Orders – three-month, intensively supervised community service programmes focusing on education and involving the young person’s parents/guardians
• Reparation Orders – court orders requiring a young person to repair the harm caused to an individual or the community, for example, through mediation or community service work
•  a requirement for parents to attend counselling and guidance sessions where they receive help in dealing with their children
• Electronic Tagging, as part of an Intensive Supervision & Surveillance Programme (ISSP) – for the most persistent offenders aged 12-16 year olds, on bail or on remand in local authority accommodation

For more detail on youth sentencing and a complete list of sentences 

Dedicated Youth Offending Teams

Youth offending teams (YOTs) are an important part of our strategy to deal with youth crime. YOTs include representatives from the police, social services, health, education and housing. Their job is to identify the needs of each young offender and identify the problems that make the young person offend, as well as measuring the risk they pose to others. This enables the YOT to identify suitable programmes to address the needs of the young person, so they can be rehabilitated, through:

• education, training or employment
• drug rehabilitation
• mental health assessment and treatment
• provision of accommodation

Plan

I will Gather my research from sources such as 

• the internet
• media magazines
• Library Sources