The media plays a major role within society as an indicator of crime and in the representation and misrepresentation of crime in society. It is the communities first response for gaining information of incidents that have occurred and whether those events will affect them directly or indirectly. However, at times the media can release inaccurate images or descriptions, but keep in mind the media are unable to give the wholly objective view of any incident. This is defined by social scientists as “framing”. This allows the media to communicate large amount of information in short periods of time. Although, media bias can occur through reporters, editors, producers and even politicians use their power to manipulate and shape crime images within
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Butterworths concise Australian Legal Dictionary described it as ‘a wrong punishable by the state’ (Butt 2004). Other expressions like, “crime is an act committed or an omission of duty, public welfare leading to bodily harm, violation of human law (serious) (Macquarie Dictionary 2013). These definitions supplied by these two dictionaries provide some similarities within the common elements that could define crime as an act or omission that cause public harm, forbidden and punishable by law (Ransley & Prenzler Year).
Although dictionary meanings don’t always acknowledge the concepts and the harm vary across society, another alternative path is to consider what the law defines as crime. A common legal definition states crime is an ‘act or omission that are prohibited under penal provisions by authority of the state’ (Lord Atkin in Proprietary Articles Trade, Association v Attorney-General (Canada) {1931} AC p. 310 at 324). The previous statement closely shadows Queensland’s Criminal Code (1899), that refers to crime as ‘an act or omission which renders the person…liable to punishment’ (Section 2). That is, conduct becomes criminal when law-makers, make it punishable as a crime (Bronitt & McSherry …show more content…
Keeping in mind statistics are very contentious in many areas including time series data which enable criminologist to discern important trends. It 's important to remember that the extent of crime can never be completely measured. Crime is measured when crime is reported, from police, victims, concerned members of the community. Therefore, it is important people acknowledge that no one set of data collected and provided will show the complete picture of crime. The trouble with statistics is that certain areas of crime are more difficult when it comes to gathering enough data to make more accurate readings than others. This underlines the meaning of 'Dark figures of crime '. It is referred to as the volume of crime unreported. An example of 'dark figure of crime ' is sexual assault, one of the only major crime that women are more affected. In 2012 it was found that 83% of those victimised by sexual assault and was reported to authorities were women (Australian Bureau of statistics 2013b). However, sexual assault was found to be one of the most troubling crimes to gain reliable data for due to the fact that victims don 't report this offence to police (Lievore 2013). For that reason, in recent years there has been significant effort within society to increase the level of reporting
Butterworths concise Australian Legal Dictionary described it as ‘a wrong punishable by the state’ (Butt 2004). Other expressions like, “crime is an act committed or an omission of duty, public welfare leading to bodily harm, violation of human law (serious) (Macquarie Dictionary 2013). These definitions supplied by these two dictionaries provide some similarities within the common elements that could define crime as an act or omission that cause public harm, forbidden and punishable by law (Ransley & Prenzler Year).
Although dictionary meanings don’t always acknowledge the concepts and the harm vary across society, another alternative path is to consider what the law defines as crime. A common legal definition states crime is an ‘act or omission that are prohibited under penal provisions by authority of the state’ (Lord Atkin in Proprietary Articles Trade, Association v Attorney-General (Canada) {1931} AC p. 310 at 324). The previous statement closely shadows Queensland’s Criminal Code (1899), that refers to crime as ‘an act or omission which renders the person…liable to punishment’ (Section 2). That is, conduct becomes criminal when law-makers, make it punishable as a crime (Bronitt & McSherry …show more content…
Keeping in mind statistics are very contentious in many areas including time series data which enable criminologist to discern important trends. It 's important to remember that the extent of crime can never be completely measured. Crime is measured when crime is reported, from police, victims, concerned members of the community. Therefore, it is important people acknowledge that no one set of data collected and provided will show the complete picture of crime. The trouble with statistics is that certain areas of crime are more difficult when it comes to gathering enough data to make more accurate readings than others. This underlines the meaning of 'Dark figures of crime '. It is referred to as the volume of crime unreported. An example of 'dark figure of crime ' is sexual assault, one of the only major crime that women are more affected. In 2012 it was found that 83% of those victimised by sexual assault and was reported to authorities were women (Australian Bureau of statistics 2013b). However, sexual assault was found to be one of the most troubling crimes to gain reliable data for due to the fact that victims don 't report this offence to police (Lievore 2013). For that reason, in recent years there has been significant effort within society to increase the level of reporting