Prior to 1994 I had little interest in the activities of the police. As a mass media consumer I was aware of the prominence of crime in the daily news agenda and I watched, read and listened to potted summaries of rape, mayhem and murder. Frequent too, were stories of police malpractice, incompetence and corruption. Police stories were also a significant part of television drama with programs like the long running British series The Bill, and a range of Australian productions: The Feds, Halifax f.p, Rafferty's Rules, Blue Heelers, State Coroner, and Water Rats. The police also featured at the cinema with crime genre movies Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, USA), Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, New Zealand) and Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, USA) becoming box office hits. My interest in the portrayal of police change dramatically when on the 7th of October 1994, I was appointed Officer-in-Charge of the Media and Publications Branch of the Australian Federal Police (AFP). I was responsible for all aspects of the communication function including: media liaison, crisis management, media management, publications and internal communication. My branch dealt with media inquiries from local, national and international media across the gamut of issues facing the AFP. These ranged fiom industrial issues about budgets and overtime, allegations of corruption and incompetence, and operational matters as diverse as burglaries, alleged Nazi war criminals, peace-keeping operations and drug 'busts'. Needless to say my police stakeholders did not always see things the same way as my media colleagues. I was seeing at a practical day-to-day level the complex taxonomy of police/media relations outlined by Putnis (1996). Putnis noted the ubiquity of the police and the media as social institutions and observed that their daily operations involved a complex, dynamic, relationship constructed out of many thousands of interactions, across all levels of the organisations, in many different settings. My experiences in dealing with the media became the genesis of this study. My aim is to expand our understanding of the police/media relationship by exploring characteristic forms of print news-media reports about policing, the impact these reports have on police, and on law and order policy. The possibility of bias towards police in this study is acknowledged given I was a member of a police service fiom 1994 until 2002 and the research relies heavily on 'participant observer' techniques (Kay 1997; Potter1 996; Schofield 1993). Every effort has been made to maintain a critical perspective on the subject matters raised and it should be noted my association with police ended prior to the writing-up phase of the research. In addition to comments fiom my supervisory panel, ongoing discussions with media colleagues were another strategy adopted to ensure balance in the writing-up of this study. This is a unique study in that it offers an insider's perspective of police/media relations and at a time that represented a watershed for police. The early 90s was a period of straightened finances for public sector agencies and police, like other agencies, were under pressure fiom governments to demonstrate the efficient use of public monies (AFP 1995; Grieve 2000). Reform programs swept through policing with many, like the AFP, being organised along business lines (Palmer 1995; Etter 1995; Rohl 1999; WAPOL 1999). The 90s were also a watershed for criminal organisations with the emergence of transnational criminal syndicates, such as drug traffickers, that had the potential to impact on crime at a local level without even entering the country, let alone the jurisdiction, in which the crime took place (Bliss and Harfield 1998; Palmer 1995; McFarlane 1999). In order to combat these syndicates, police began to work in a more cooperative fashion and formed loose coalitions, often across countries, in a manner similar to the criminal syndicates they were trying to combat (Palmer 1995). The 90s also saw the continuation of committees of inquiry and royal commissions into police malpractice (Landa and Dillon 1995) and the inevitable bad press for police (Wood 1996; Munday 1995). The media and police have a symbiotic relationship and it is a critical one as most members of society have little direct contact with the criminal justice system. Information about crime, and the efforts of police to combat it, is obtained second hand through fictional accounts from such vehicles as television dramas, and from the news media. As aptly described by Hall et al. (1975), nearly thirty years ago, the media is the link between crime and the public. The police are therefore heavily reliant on the media to provide a balanced account of the panoply of issues surrounding the criminal justice system (Cowdery 2001). At its most fundamental, police require the support of the communities they serve in order to be effective, and the news media can have a major impact on perceptions about police performance (Reiner 1997; Surette 1992). As organisational entities, police need to compete with other bureaucracies for public hnding, and the media is an essential tool in generating positive publicity about successful operations and policies. The media is, therefore, critical to the maintenance of positive relationships with the two most important stakeholders in the policing function: the community and the government. McGregor (1993) provides a useful summary of the literature relating to print media coverage of policing issues: there are substantial discrepancies between official accounts of criminal activity and press reports of crime; the media tends to homogenise crime by concentrating on a limited range of crimes (mainly violent crime) and drawing facts from a limited range of sources (police/court reports); the media over-report serious crimes, especially murder and crimes with a sexual element; and, the press concentrates crime reportage on events rather than issues, so crime incidents and specific crimes form the bulk of crime news as opposed to analyses of the causes of crime or remedies, trends or issues. McQuail (1994, p.256) reminds us that assessing media performance on the basis of media content, measured against the extent to which content relates to reality, is open to question. He argues that there is no general answer to questions of meaning construction, but media research has pointed to several elements in a more general framework of social and personal meanings including clues as to what is more or less important, salient or relevant in many different contexts (1994, p. 379). An important research question concerns the impact of news media practices, particularly given the significant costs to the community flowing from the commission of crime, its investigation by police, and the processing of offenders through the criminal justice system. The Australian Institute of Criminology estimates the cost of crime in Australia is approximately $19 billion, while the cost of dealing with crime is another $13 billion (Mayhew 2003). The news media, articulated through radio talk-back hosts, are seen as having undue influence on how public funds on crime control are spent (ABC, The Media Report, 1 August 2002; Chan 1995; Cowdery 2001; Dixon 2002; Weatherbum 2002). These commentators have pointed to the serious public policy issues arising from the contribution made by the media towards what Weatherburn describes as an irrational public debate about law and order (2002, p. 12) and Hogg and Brown have coined 'the uncivil politics of law and order' (1998, p. 4). As Hogg and Brown (1998, p. 4) observe: crime is depicted as a problem of ever-increasing gravity set to overwhelm society unless urgent, typically punitive measures are taken to control and suppress it. The influence of the media on public policy has long been recognised. As Paletz and Entmann (l981, p. 6) observe: they influence the decisions and actions of politicians; they are open to manipulation by the powerful which insulates the powerful fiom accountability to the public; they reallocate power amongst the already powerful; they decreased to a marked extent the ability of ordinary citizens to judge events; they foment discontent among the public; and they preserve the legitimacy of the political, economic and social system. Ethnomethodological approaches (Ericson and Haggerty 1997) underpin the research in this study. The ethnomethodological approach was used because of its wider scope, employing as it does, observation, interviewing, and document-analysis techniques (Ericson et al. 1987, p. 77) and its ability to provide meaning and context to the phenomena under observation (Hall 1978; Willis l981). Ethnomethodological approaches are complemented by news framing analyses (Barkin and Gurevitch 1987; Blood, Putnis and Pirkis 2002; Capella and Jamieson 1996; Coleman 1995; Entman 1993; Kitzinger 2000; Keely 1999; Darling-Wolf 1997; London 1993; Pan and Kosicki 2001; Miller and Riechert 2001; Pirkis and Blood 2001; Reese, Gandy and Grant 2003; Scheufele 1999) to explore the news media frames employed in the genre of print crime reporting. What emerges from the study is evidence of a one-sided, highly negative, discourse about policing implemented through a range of media frames centred on conflict and broader xenophobic and egalitarian narratives. Despite the advantages police have as information gatekeepers, their attempts to manage the media environment have met with little success (Hughes 2004; Williams 2002) and the need for police to restrict access to police communications is being challenged (Crime and Misconduct Commission 2004, Inquiry into the effects of a Queensland Police Service decision to adopt digital technology for radio communications). There are exceptions, of course: the news media are not all bad. Routine reporting of crimes, where details of offenders are publicised, greatly assists the work of police as reflected in the case of 43-year-old Mr Colin George Dunstan which is discussed in Chapter Eight. Dunstan sent a series of explosive devices through the mail system in Canberra and police provided the media with photographs of the devices, Mr Dunstan (who was the main suspect), and his vehicle. The media coverage restricted Mr Dunstan's movements and led to his early arrest. Similarly, publication of the details of missing persons, warnings about lethal batches of drugs and crimes such as drink-spiking, enable police to reach a mass audience efficiently and quickly. And at a more abstract level, as noted by McQuail (1994, p. 34), modem communication vehicles can make a positive contribution to cohesion and community. The emergence of the 'yapping pack' form of journalism (Tiffen 1999, p. 207) has resulted in elements of the media exercising a worrying degree of influence over what should be a broader and better informed debate about criminal justice issues. An illustration of this process occurred toward the end of this study with the widely reported spectacle of the Premier of New South Wales presenting his replacement police minister before radio presenter Mr Alan Jones for his endorsement; the subsequent involvement of that minister in operational police matters (Williams 2002); and the departure of the state's police commissioner as a result of sustained media attack (ABC, The Media Report, 1 August 2002; Weatherburn 2002). These incidents say much about the influence of the news media in relation to police matters and makes this study a timely one. What follows is a literature review examining contemporary trends in policing and the media; a detailed analysis of two major case studies involving complex police operations; an analysis of a number of examples of print media reports about policing, to identify typical, or characteristic, media frames; the findings from nearly 50 interviews with senior people involved in the policelmedia interface; and an examination of changes in the milieu in which media reports about policing occur.

<p>The object of this project is to investigate people’s fear of crime. By means of three studies, the dissertation illustrates how the fear of crime is understood in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic research, by a group of interview subjects and also how this fear is depicted in Stockholm’s daily press.</p><p>In the research, fear of crime is viewed as an individual problem that is not linked to exposure to crime. Instead the fear is explained by reference to individual factors, situational factors and societal conditions. The views described in the research have changed over time, with inter alia an increasing number of groups being described as experiencing fear.</p><p>The interview study is based on 28 in-depth interviews with persons living in different areas of Stockholm. In summary, the interview subjects are not afraid of crime, and they say they do not think about crime in the course of their daily lives. They may perceive fear in certain situations, in specific locations and when faced with unknown people. These situations are characterised by a lack of control, which tends to be linked to the fear of crime. This fear also appears clearly to be influenced by the media.</p><p>In the press, the fear of crime is not only depicted in relation to public places, but also in the home and at the workplace. The absence of police is described as one of the reasons for this fear. It is also acceptable for men to express a fear of crime in the newspaper articles. The descriptions expressed in the interviews and in the press reflect some of the theories propounded on the risk society. Risk appears to be perceived as separate from fear. A reduction in crime would therefore be likely to lead to a reduction in the risk of exposure to crime, but not always in the fear of crime. This fear may instead probably be reduced by measures that increase people’s sense of control.</p>

The object of this project is to investigate people’s fear of crime. By means of three studies, the dissertation illustrates how the fear of crime is understood in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic research, by a group of interview subjects and also how this fear is depicted in Stockholm’s daily press. In the research, fear of crime is viewed as an individual problem that is not linked to exposure to crime. Instead the fear is explained by reference to individual factors, situational factors and societal conditions. The views described in the research have changed over time, with inter alia an increasing number of groups being described as experiencing fear. The interview study is based on 28 in-depth interviews with persons living in different areas of Stockholm. In summary, the interview subjects are not afraid of crime, and they say they do not think about crime in the course of their daily lives. They may perceive fear in certain situations, in specific locations and when faced with unknown people. These situations are characterised by a lack of control, which tends to be linked to the fear of crime. This fear also appears clearly to be influenced by the media. In the press, the fear of crime is not only depicted in relation to public places, but also in the home and at the workplace. The absence of police is described as one of the reasons for this fear. It is also acceptable for men to express a fear of crime in the newspaper articles. The descriptions expressed in the interviews and in the press reflect some of the theories propounded on the risk society. Risk appears to be perceived as separate from fear. A reduction in crime would therefore be likely to lead to a reduction in the risk of exposure to crime, but not always in the fear of crime. This fear may instead probably be reduced by measures that increase people’s sense of control.

The aim of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of how young people's current identity is affected by their criminal background. We also want to understand the impact of resources in these young people’s social networks (that is their social capital) on their life course and formation and reformation of their identity. The theoretical frameworks used (as a tool to be able to analyze the empirical data) are theories of stigma, identity and social capital. The empirical study was conducted using semi-structured interviews that focused on questions about the life-story of informants. The empirical data is divided into different themes such as the informants' family relationships, neighborhood, friendship as well as their schooling. Further described is the informants’ first offense and the time spent at the prisons / "youth homes". We also discuss the informants’ distance from crime, the informants’ self-images at present and their idea about the future. Finally, we discuss how various factors during the life course shape and reshape the young criminal's identities, the factors that contributes to a break from criminal acts and the difficulties they encounter while dissociating from previous networks and life style.

Criminal justice researchers and crime geographers have long recognized the importance of understanding where crimes happen as well as to whom and by whom. Although past research often focused on violent crimes, calls for research into non-lethal white-collar crimes emerged in the 1970s. Today, identity theft is among the fastest growing white-collar crimes in the United States, although official recognition of it as a criminal act is a relatively recent development. Remaining largely unmet, the need for white-collar crime research has greatly intensified considering the escalating identity theft problem. Furthermore, many studies conclude that identity theft will continue to rise due to increasing technology-driven offenses via the Internet and widespread use of digital consumer databases. Utilizing theoretical framework established in crime geography, GIS mapping and spatial statistics are employed to produce a spatial analysis of identity theft in the U.S. from 2002-2006. Distinct regional variations, such as high rates in the western and southwestern states, and low rates in New England and the central plains states, are identified for identity theft as reported by the FTC. Significant spatial patterns of identity theft victims alongside social demographic variables are also revealed in order to better understand the regional patterns that may indicate underlying social indicators contributing to identity theft. Potential social variables, such as race/ethnicity and urban-rural populations, are shown to have similar patterns that may be directly associated with U.S. identity theft victims. To date, no in-depth geographic studies exist on the geographic patterns of identity theft, although numerous existing studies attempt basic spatial pattern recognition and propose the need for better spatial interpretation. This thesis is the first empirical study on the geographies of identity theft. It fills in a void in the literature by revealing significant geographical patterns of identity theft in the digital age, attempts at understanding the social factors driving the patterns, and examines some of the social implications of identity theft.

Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime (1990) has received a great deal of empirical examination in the criminology, yet the application of this theory to white-collar crime offenders has not received a great deal of attention. Research that has been conducted in the realm of white-collar crime has yielded mixed support for low self-control in explaining such offenses (Simpson and Piquero, 2002; Reed and Yeager, 1996; Langton et al., 2006; Blickle, 2006). The current study seeks to supplement the literature by focusing not simply on the direct causal links between self-control and white-collar offending, but also exploring how attitudes play a role between self-control and intentions to engage in white-collar crime. Specifically, this study examines whether attitudes towards environmental offending mediate and moderate the relationship between self-control and intentions to engage in environmental white-collar crime. The results indicated that attitudes toward environmental offending did have a mediating effect, but the effect of attitudes did not significantly vary as a function of self-control. Subsequently, simple slopes analysis found that the effect of attitudes was only significant among those with average and high levels of self-control. Implications for the general theory of crime and future directions for white-collar crime research are discussed.

Research has shown that criminal justice policy in Western democratic societies has become increasingly punitive (e.g. Wilson and Petersilia 2010), and that the public largely supports these policies, despite the fact that crime rates have been declining (e.g. Roberts 2003). However, few studies have attempted to explain this paradox in the context of neoliberalism, and within a Canadian context. Using the 2011 and 1997 Canadian Election Study, this project employs logistical regression and a comparative analysis to examine the extent to which neoliberal governance has produced prejudicial attitudes towards racialized “Others,” social and economic insecurity, and attitudes that individualize causes of poverty, and the extent to which these factors predict support for punitive treatment of violent young offenders. The results of this study show that the advent of neoliberalism has precipitated racialized “othering” towards Aboriginal people, which has increased punitive attitudes, but that insecurity and individualization, in relations to punitive attitudes, was present previous to 1997. / October 2015

published_or_final_version / Criminology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

The primary aim of h s research is to evaluate crime and its effect on people from a Reformative perspective. Furthermore to develop a social work support model, according to which co-ordinated services can be provide to all people that are affected by crime in the Northwest Province as an exemplar of a rural community. The thesis consists of three sections. Section A includes in the first place a reference to the actuality of the research. It is namely clear that the level of crime in South Africa, in some instances the highest in the world, requires extensive support for the survivors of these criminal acts. Therefore, the research aim, as given above, lead to four specific objectives. Section A also explains the research methodology. The research was structured according to the Intervention research model within the qualitative research approach. Data was collected by means of a literature study, comparison of the systems of victim support in the Netherlands and South Africa and interviews using a semi-structured interview schedule. Section B consists of the four articles that form the report about the research outcomes. Each article is a report about a particular sub-project of the research and each has, as self-contained units, an own research aim, research method and report Each of these is linked with the central aim, objectives and content of the over-arching research project. The four articles are: In Article 1, 'Crime and its impact on people - a Christian perspective', crime is turned down and it is argued that the survivor of crime should be cared for within the Biblical perspective. Article 2, 'A comparison between the support systems for victims of crime in the Netherlands and South Africa', provided clear guidelines for support systems in developing communities. The formation of a h e support network and the provisioning of compensation to victims are some of these guidelines. In Article 3, 'An investigation into support available to survivors of crime in the North-West Province' it was found that a lack of specialized and professional services is present as well as the lack of co-ordination in the provisioning of the support services. An effective support system of professional services is of the utmost importance and resources, especially h a n d resources, are required to develop an attainable and sustainable support system. The fourth article 'A model for support services available to crime affected people in the North-West Province' contains the model that was developed for support to crime affected people in a rural and deep rural area of our country. The model can be illustrated by a network consisting of four panels, each including particular institutions providing particular services. In Section C a summary of the findings and recommendations of the full research project is provided. Some short-comings, based on specific restraints, are explained and the contribution of the study is provided. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Social Work))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2004.

This thesis explains how some organized crime outlaws, such as anti-Prohibitionists, the North American Mafia or La Cosa Nostra, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and Aboriginal street gangs, come to exist and thrive in Canadian society. It sets forth the historical development and nature of criminal organization laws in Canada, and compares the definition of “criminal organization” in the Criminal Code with other criminal law concepts, such as corporate criminals and white-collar criminals; conventional criminality or garden-variety predatory crime; terrorists; and criminal conspirators, parties, and accessories. It uses various concepts and assertions within criminological, sociological and psychological theories to explain the formation and perpetuation of the identity of individuals who engage in organized crime and who are members of organized crime groups. Aspects of social constructionism, social control and bond theory, differential association in the context of subcultures of violence, deviance and labelling, and social psychology theories are discussed to explain why some individuals, or some individuals who are criminals, become organized crime outlaws. Some of these reasons or explanations overlap and some complement one another. From these theoretical reasons or explanations, this thesis extracts a list of requisites that anti-organized crime measures should address in order to effectively combat organized crime. The conflicts among some of these requisites are set forth and reconciled, and the requisites are used to evaluate the present Canadian criminal organization provisions in the Criminal Code and to suggest non-criminal law as well as non-legal ways to effectively combat organized crime. After the application and discussion of each requisite, this thesis makes recommendations as to what anti-organized crime measures should include and how they should approach the problems posed by organized crime outlaws in this country.