A scan of today's television programming reveals numerous media stories, factual and fictional, featuring some aspect of crime. These depictions can stray far from reality, with the effect of creating and reinforcing distorted impressions. This collection offers a sociological analysis of race, class, and gender stereotypes within crime media. Essays discuss particular examples of inequalities and stereotypes, consider the implications of such portrayals, and demonstrate how they influence the public's expectations and beliefs about real-world crime.

In today's society, the public perception of crime has been skewed by how the media depicts it. People use the media for enjoyment, companionship, surveillance, and interpretation. The problem is that it becomes hard to separate fact from entertainment. This raises several questions. How are we consuming media? Are we consuming reality within the news? And are we consuming harmless pleasure from entertainment media? In Crime, Media, and Reality: Examining Mixed Messages about Crime and Justice in Popular Media, Venessa Garcia and Samantha Garcia Arkerson focus predominantly on the social constructions of crime and justice and how we absorb them. They look at the influence of crime news and true crime television series that prevent the public from understanding pure entertainment from the realities of crime and justice. They bring to light the social science knowledge missed by media "infotainment," which has blurred the line between information and entertainment. Throughout, all different forms of media are discussed, news media, crime dramas and true crime television series. In doing so, they keep all of its fascinating coverage while uncovering the reality of crime and justice. This book adds significant information to the constructs held by the general public by placing media depictions into historical, legal, and social context.

A campus shooting. A gang assault. A school bus ambush. With each successive event, fingers are pointed at the usual suspects: violent films, bloody video games, explicit web sites. But to what extent can—or should—the media be implicated in youth crime? And are today's sophisticated young people really that susceptible to their influence? Adolescents, Crime, and the Media critically examines perceptions of these phenomena through the lens of the ongoing relationship between generations of adults and youth. A wealth of research findings transcends the standard nature/nurture debate, analyzing media effects on young people's behavior, brain development in adolescence, ways adults can be misled about youth’s participation in criminal acts, and how science can be manipulated by prevailing attitudes toward youth. The author strikes a necessary balance between the viewpoints of media providers and those seeking to restrict media or young people's access to them. And the book brings scientific and intellectual rigor to culturally and politically charged issues as it covers: Violence in the media. Media portrayals of crime and youth. Research on violent television programs, video games, and other media as causes of crime. Effects of pornography on behavior. Public policy, censorship, and First Amendment issues. Adolescents, Crime, and the Media is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, professionals, and clinicians across such interrelated disciplines as developmental psychology, sociology, educational policy, criminology/criminal justice, child and school psychology, and media law.

Why are newspapers and television programs filled with stories about crime and criminals? Is their portrayal of crime accurate? How do the media transform our attitudes to crime? Is fear of crime, for example, really created by the media? The book introduces the different ways in which relationships between crime and the media have been understood, including classic debates about the media's effects, news production, and moral panics, as well as more cutting-edge studies of the representation of crime in the contemporary media.

Succinct, accessible, and comprehensive, this book is the first to provide definitions and explanations of key terms and concepts from the expanding field of crime, harm, and victimization. Contributions from a wide range of experts investigate theories, ideas, and case studies relating to victims of conventional crime and victims outside the remit of criminal law. The book explores both the domestic and international nature, extent, and measurement of crime and harm as well as responses to victims and victimization in connection with conventional, corporate, and state crimes and harms. As part of Policy's Companions series, entries are presented in a user-friendly, quick-reference A‒Z format that clearly notes related sections and provides suggestions for further reading.

Sponsored by the Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), this volume features social science research that examines the practices, patterns and messages related to representations of crime in mass media around the world.