Assignment Nine Critical criminology is the idea that the media and the criminal justice system are the things that shape the publics view on crime. These sources influence our ideas of who commits crime and who is victimized by crime. These sources use their influence of crime to continue to control how the public sees crime and uses that to further their own agenda. Whereas, left realism is the idea that the depicted visions of crime are somewhat true. Some people are more likely to be victimized, however the media and criminal justice systems over exaggerate these crimes in order to instill higher levels of fear. This idea is based on the fact that the people controlling the media and criminal justice system may be right about some things, but the people that lean toward left realism base their perception of crime on everyday experiences and their personal lifestyle. I personally feel as if I lean more towards left realism. Yes, I see the tragic and horrible things that happen on the news and that are shared vigorously throughout social media, however, I live in a fairly nice neighborhood …show more content…
The media tends to focus on violent or extreme crimes as a large story. We have all heard some variation of “Someone broke into an elderly woman’s home and murdered her in her sleep to rob her of her possessions. More of the story at 5! (or 6, or 9, or even 10).” The media takes these crimes that occur very sporadically and mold them into a way to make people fearful of an occurrence that is incredibly unlikely to happen again, or to them. These heightened levels of fearful stories increase the anxieties of those who watch, listen, or read about the story. The people that have now heard of these heinous crimes are now more likely to create and uproar about what needs to be done about crime. The media is eliciting a response from citizens because then it is more news stories they can cover to keep the wheel