Does television affect crime?
Thesis: Television has a big impact on crime. There should be censorship.
Copycat crimes
- Excessive sex and violence in the media can lead to similar behavior in viewers (studies in the USA have shown this). There is a very real risk of copycat crimes inspired by depictions of criminal activity in the media, even if no criminal act was committed during the creative process. This alone should be justification for censorship
- Tylenol tampering incidents of 1982, the assassination attempt depicted in the 1976 film Taxi Driver http://www.criminology.fsu.edu/crimtheory/learning.htm
- Censorship helps to protect society for the possibility of copycat behavior.
- Ray Surette has done extensive research on copycat crimes since the mid-1980s. He argues that copycat crime is a persistent social phenomenon, common enough to influence the total crime picture, but mainly by influencing crime techniques rather than the motivation to commit a crime or the development of criminal tendencies. A copycat criminal is likely to be a career criminal involved in property offenses rather than a first-time violent offender. The specific relationship between media coverage and the commission of copycat crime is currently unknown, and the social-context factors influencing copycat crimes have not been identified.
Does the “CSI effect” exist
- Reality and fiction becoming blurred
- 70 million people watch one of the 3 CSI shows http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/journals/259/csi-effect.htm
- “Mode” copiers were those who already intended to commit a crime and who received a method from the media event. For example, a potential car thief copies the techniques seen on a television police drama for breaking into and hot wiring a car.
- Jurors and victims come in with pre-conceived notions from tv
- TV shows affect real life forensics-http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,15611917-1702,00.html
- Example
- Robert Blake murder trial, people testified that he asked them to kill his wife but people wanted more than that
- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/21/earlyshow/main681949.shtml
- “Many attorneys, judges, and journalists have claimed that watching television programs like CSI has caused jurors to wrongfully acquit guilty defendants when no scientific evidence has been presented. The mass media quickly picked up on these complaints. This so-called effect was promptly dubbed the "CSI effect," laying much of the blame on the popular television series and its progeny.”
4 comments:
Based on the shows on tv crimes are not always copied but often altered to fit the criminal. Also, I agree censorship will help the situation of copy-cat crimes because it leads to a better since of individualism maybe.
Based on all the crime shows on tv censorship will be a big help to protect the people who view the show and even viticms. I agree that censorship can prevent these copy-cat crimes even though they can be altered to fit the criminal.
Points that I disagree with:
• I disagree with the fact that just because there is a risk of copycat crimes that crime television should be censored. Before the increase in crime television the news was one of the only ways to inform the public of crime. The news can’t be censored therefore copycat crimes will never go away. Also in a sense, there is no original or new way to commit a crime that completely relies on the mind of the criminal.
• Your focus is on stopping the criminal from getting ideas from television but even with the censorship of television crime will never stop. My focus is using crime television to inform the viewer on how not to become a victim because crime will always be there. This makes crime television a necessary evil.
• Also as far as jurors go, if there is proper prosecution then the jurors will see suspects guilt, with or without forensic evidence
It looks like you are on the right track. Make sure to have solid evidence to support your reasons. Also, remember who your audience is for this argument: both tv execs and the viewing public.
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