Fear of Crime and the Media:
from perceptions to reality
Derek Chadee summarises research findings on how crime news
affects the public's perception of crime.
"Perceptions are the solid facts of reality." The
media in both industrialised and many non-
industrialised countries is a potent force in
influencing the public's perceptions on important
issues: politics, culture, environment and social
issues such
as
unemployment
and
crime.
In the case
of
crime
news reporting, the final news output is a
result of a social process which involves the
collection of information, the interpretation of that
information, the writing of a news-worthy report,
and the editing by news producers. After such
refinements of the initial information gathered,
which
in
itself
is a
subjective
process,
the
final
crime
news
report
is
quite often
not
reflective of the social
reality from which it was constructed.
Ferraro (1995) defined fear of crime as an
emotional response of dread and anxiety
to
symbols
associated with
crime.
Though fear
has a
protective
and adaptive
element,
fear of crime can lead
to
many
negative social responses including excessive
spending on protective devices (car alarms, guns,
gates),
suspicion of other social groups, decreased
were 1040 crimes with the following break-down by
crime
type:
six
per cent fell
within the
murder category,
two per cent wounding/assault, six per cent rape, 21
per cent robbery, 26 per cent larceny and 44 per cent
burglary. The study found that front page articles on
crime over-reported crimes against the person and
under-reported crimes against
property.
For example,
of
all
the front page crime items reported (59 per cent
in the
Express,
59 per cent in the Trinidad
Guardian
and
45
per cent in
Newsday)
were related to murders
when
this crime type
constituted
less than one per cent
of all serious
crimes
reported for the
month
of January.
Wounding/assaults constituted two per cent of all
serious crimes, however, 32 per cent of
all
front page
crime reports in the
Express,
15 per cent
Guardian
and 20 per cent
Newsday
reported crimes related to
wounding and assaults. Where rapes constituted six
per cent of all serious crimes committed, 35 per cent
of front page crime reports in the
Newsday,
15 per
cent in the
Guardian
and 5 per cent in the
Express
were
related
to
rapes.
Burglaries constituted
the
largest
proportion of all serious crimes yet in all three
75 per cent said
"television
was the main
source
of
crime news most of the time", 45 per cent that
"newspapers
were the main
source most
of the time",
35 per cent that "radio
was
the main
source
most of
the time"
community interaction, people or communities
taking criminal justice into their own hands and
decreased interaction between the community and
the
police.
The
social,
psychological,
economic and
political effects of fear are numerous. Hence the
study of this phenomenon
is
justified.
This short article presents a summary of some
of the major findings from a number of research
projects on fear of crime being conducted at the
Ansa McAl Psychological Research Centre at the
University of
the West
Indies,
Trinidad.
The
findings
from this research have cross-cultural relevance to
other fear of crime and media researchers.
A research project supervised by the author
and
conducted by Khan, Ramlogan and Hardy (1999)
assessed the reporting of front page crime news in
the three daily newspapers
(Guardian,
Express
and
Newsday)
in Trinidad during the period January 1-
31,
1999. The actual number of serious crimes
reported to the police during this same time period
newspapers there were no front page reports related
to burglary.
The
study
also
found similar
results when the
crime
news lead items in television prime
time news
reports
in January 1999 for the two major television stations
were assessed. A crime
news
lead item
is the
very first
news item reported on prime time
news.
On average,
69 per cent of all crime news lead items reported for
January 1999 on the two television stations were
murder related, 11 per cent wounding, eight per cent
rape,
eight per cent robbery, three per cent larceny
and zero per cent burglary.
In a fear of crime study on high and low crime
areas,
randomly selected, conducted
by the Ansa McAl
Psychological Research Centre in February
1999,
the
findings showed that 51 per cent of the sample
indicated that they were fearful of being a victim of
crime (Chadee
&
Ditton,
1999).
More specifically, 43
per cent indicated they were fearful of being a victim
of rape, 48 per cent murder, 47 per cent wounding/
10
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43 Spring 2001
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assaults, 47 per cent robbery, and 59 per cent burglary.
Similar findings of fear were found in both high and low
crime areas
(these
areas being
determined
from
official police
statistics of serious
crimes).
Further, victimisation questions
showed that residents
in the
low crime area experienced less
victimisation yet displayed similar fear levels to residents
living in the high crime area.
In another study using the same methodology as the
February
1999
study and conducted
by
the Centre
in
August
2000,
728 respondents were asked to rate each of the
following media as the main source of crime news. The
results showed that
75
per cent said "television
was
the main
source of crime news most of the time", 45 per cent that
"newspapers were the main source most of the
time",
35
per
cent that "radio was the main source most of
the
time". On
an average, 16 per cent of respondents said they read the
newspapers seven days
a
week compared
to 60
per cent who
said they view prime
time
news seven
days a
week.
Further,
the survey also consistently found that television, followed
by the newspapers, was the main source of crime news for
the last three crimes respondents heard/read.
The
findings from
these three
studies are very suggestive
that the media is a major source in influencing perceptions
of
crime.
Clearly crime news reports, especially front page
and lead news items on television, place heavy emphasis on
sensational stories such as murder, wounding and rape and
less emphasis on crimes against property which constitute
over
80
per cent of
all
serious crimes committed in any one
year. The findings clearly show that over forty percent of
respondents were afraid of being victims of both property
and personal crimes.
At present, the Ansa McAl Psychological Research
Centre is undertaking a content analysis of
crime
reporting
in the three major newspapers in Trinidad for the period
January-December,
2000.
The next
stage
of the fear of crime
research programme will be to undertake experimental
studies to assist in clearing up some of the questions about
causality between the media and fear of crime.
Both social psychologists and criminologists
idealistically hope, through their research findings, to give
the
public
a
more
accurate picture of social
reality.
However,
we should
remember
that such information finds its way to
the masses through the media.
Dr
Derek Chadee
is
Unit Coordinator
of
Psychology
at
the
Ansa McAl
Psychological Research
Centre,
University
of
the
West
Indies,
Trinidad.
References:
Chadee,
D.
andDitton,
J.
(1999).
'Fear of Crime
in
Trinidad:
A
Preliminary Empirical Research
Note',
Caribbean Journal
of
Criminology
and Social
Psychology,
Vol 4, (1/2), 112-
129.
Ferraro, K.
(1995).
Fear of
Crime:
Interpreting Victimization
Risk.
New York: State University of
New
York, Albany.
Khan, K., Ramlogan, K. and Hardy, R. (1999). Is Crime
Realistic? Trinidad: University of the West Indies, St.
Augustine. (Unpublished)
no.
43 Spring 2001
11
