Fiction
atching "First 48," the real crime show, is not nearly as entertaining as watching a fictional show like CSI or NCIS. Although of course it is factual and real, and shows the viewing audience how things really work during interrogations and investigations, it doesn't have the characters' sometimes edgy dialogue, and it doesn't have the energy and tension of fictional programs. This paper reviews examples of both real crime shows and fictional crime shows.
The shortcomings of real crime stories from an entertainment aspect
There are impressive moments in "The First 48" shows when the camera zooms in on faces of people who have lost loved ones, or who have been emotionally devastated by an untimely event.
In the "Betrayal of a life-long friend" episode of "The First 48" (the killer is "Yellowman") the woman who cared for an accused killer recounts bringing him home from the hospital and taking care of…...
mlaWorks Cited
NCIS Los Angeles 7x22 Souvenir
NCIS Los Angeles 7x23 My Girl
After the First 48: A Mother's Struggle of Trying to Move On.
After the First 48: The Betrayal of a Life-Long Friend
Crime Journal
"They picked up their fists instead of guns" was how a reporter noted the outbreak of a gang fight in the city of ichmond, California, on Friday afternoon, October 14, 2011. What was unique about this crime story was that the fist fight broke out inside the City Hall complex within the Office of Neighborhood Safety. The seven people involved in the incident were in that office to collect some incentive payments as part of a privately funded initiative called Operation Peacemakers, the purpose of which is, curiously enough, to engage young people in mental health, anger management and other productive efforts to keep them out of trouble. On the day of the altercation, members of rival gangs showed up at about the same time and the confrontation occurred, spreading blood about the office, breaking furniture, and causing concern for many. The police received numerous 911 calls. When they…...
mlaREFERENCES
ABCNews7 (2011), Gang fight erupts at Richmond City Hall. Viewable at http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=8396462.
Lee, H. And Kane, W. (2011), Witnesses mum on gang brawl at Richmond City Hall. Viewable at http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-10-23/bay-area/30322974_1_gang-brawl-power-drill-gang-members .
Most of these products have not been scientifically tested. Yet consumers continue to waste their money on such products rather than go to the gym. hus, there is a fascinating sociological aspect of this crime story.
o conform to the prevailing social standards of beauty, women like the victims in this case are willing to go to extreme lengths. he story therefore raises difficult questions related to victims' roles in crime. Criminologists should still question what is essentially a controversial slant in cases like these: victims sometimes do play important roles in enabling crimes to take place. hankfully, the victims in this case survived but they are no doubt scarred emotionally and physically by the experience. We cannot blame the victims entirely, but must acknowledge the importance of personal responsibility in cases such as these. o use a possibly inappropriate analogy, a person who leaves their laptop alone in the…...
mlaTo conform to the prevailing social standards of beauty, women like the victims in this case are willing to go to extreme lengths. The story therefore raises difficult questions related to victims' roles in crime. Criminologists should still question what is essentially a controversial slant in cases like these: victims sometimes do play important roles in enabling crimes to take place. Thankfully, the victims in this case survived but they are no doubt scarred emotionally and physically by the experience. We cannot blame the victims entirely, but must acknowledge the importance of personal responsibility in cases such as these. To use a possibly inappropriate analogy, a person who leaves their laptop alone in the school library can only blame herself or himself if the machine is stolen.
Another issue at play is that of medical malpractice. In this story, neither of the suspects appears to have been licensed physicians at any time. They were both posing as doctors to scam consumers into receiving butt implants. However, had the two suspects been licensed physicians, the story would have been appreciably different. The main difference would be the violation of professional codes of ethics. Doctors who knowingly scam their patients are committing a crime far more severe than scam artists pretending to be doctors. This is mainly because patients imbue doctors with their trust; doctors who are licensed to practice medicine are responsible for the health and well being of their patients. Scam artists are expected to commit crimes such as the one in question in this case.
Ovalle, D. (2011). "Second person in 'toxic tush' case posts $5,000 bond." November 24, 2011. Retrieved online: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/24/2517469/second-person-in-toxic-tush-case.html#ixzz1eriaMVIa
Crime in Literature and Film
"Red Dragon" by Thomas Harris and "Manhunter" by Michael Mann
The original version of the novel red dragon was written by Thomas Harris in 1981. In the words of est, only few authors have risen to the level of relevance and success as Thomas Harris, who authored just five novels, beginning from 1975. The Red Dragon, with other fictional works in the same series, is a famous fictional book built around a crime thriller. The book was later adapted in the 1986 Michael Mann movie, Manhunter. Some key actors that played key roles in these movie series are Brain Cox, the first ever actor to play the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the manhunter antagonist, who became the Red Dragon's protagonist. However, some other actors like Anthony Hopkins in the movie, the Silence of the Lamb and Red Dragon, Hannibal's Mads Mikkelsen and Hannibal Rising's Gaspard Ulliel,…...
mlaVest, Jason P. "Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris." Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts (2009): 297-300.
Vlastelica, Ryan. Tracking Hannibal Lecter, from Manhunter to Red Dragon. 25 August 2015. 17 February 2016 .
Williams, Nicholas. "Eating Blake, or an essay on Taste: The Case of Thomas Harris's Red Dragon." Cultural Critique (1999): 137-162.
Crime
On March 9th, 2013, two New York City police officers shot and killed a sixteen-year-old Kimani Gray, and claimed afterward that he had brandished a handgun at them after being told to show his hands (Goodman, 2013). More remarkable than the New York Police Department's killing of a young black male, however, was the outpouring of community grief and anger that followed the shooting. The following Monday, March 11th, saw what started as a nighttime vigil turn into a mob, parts of which ended up looting a ite Aid chain store and a local bodega, and by Wednesday night of that week, forty-six people had been arrested, a bricks had been thrown at both a police officer and a police van (Goodman, 2013). The explosion of disorder and discontentment took some in the media and policing community by surprise, but these evens could only be surprising to someone lacking a…...
mlaReferences
Alanezi, F. (2010). Juvenile delinquency in kuwait: Applying social disorganization theory.
Domes, 19(1), 68-81.
Borg, M.J., & Parker, K.F. (2001). Mobilizing law in urban areas: The social structure of homicide clearance rates. Law & Society Review, 35(2), 435-466.
Brisman, A. (2011). Advancing critical criminology through anthropology. Western Criminology
Crime eporting
What Do You Think?
Crime eporting: UC and NCVS
The Uniform Crime eport is a compilation of offensives collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from all police stations in the United States. Data collected is divided into two groups, Part I and Part II. Part I data includes violent and property crimes such as aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder, robbery, arson, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Part II offenses include simple assault, curfew offenses and loitering, embezzlement, forgery and counterfeiting, disorderly conduct, driving under the influence, drug offenses, fraud, gambling, liquor offenses, offenses against the family, prostitution, public drunkenness, runaways, sex offenses, stolen property, vandalism, vagrancy, and weapons offenses ("Uniform Crime eports.," 2012).
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is conducted by telephone and collects information on nonfatal crimes reported and not reported to the police against persons age twelve and older from a nationally representative sample of U.S.…...
mlaReferences
"Crime rates are down." (2012, June 11). Crime in the United States 2011. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved April 21, 2013, from http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/june/crimes_061112/crimes_061112
Schmalleger, F. (2009). Criminolology today: An integrative introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.
Truman, J.L. & Planty, M. (2012, October). Criminal victimization, 2011. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved April 21, 2013, from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv11.pdf
"Uniform crime reports." (2012, October). Crime in the United States 2011. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved April 21, 2013, from http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/index-page
Crime
As Schmalleger explains, the American juvenile-justice system was designed a century ago to reform kids found guilty of minor crimes, but more and more, the system has to cope with more violent crimes committed by younger people. The response on the part of lawmakers has been largely to siphon the worst of these young people out of the juvenile system by lowering the age at which juveniles charged with serious crimes can be tried in adult courts, a trend that seems to increase around election time. The underlying philosophy of early juvenile courts was parens patriae, which means that the courts took the role of parent and protected the rights of the child. Shifting the child to adult court reduces his or her rights rather than increasing them and also bring son harsher punishments. As Daniel P. Mears notes, the creators of the juvenile court system thought it would be…...
mlaWorks Cited
Eskridge, Chris W. Criminal Justice, 4th edition. New York: Roxbury, 1993.
Schmalleger, Frank. Criminal Justice Today 8th edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005.
Crime, Punishment & Justice in Great Expectations
Crime, Punishment and Justice in Great Expectations
In his novel Great Expectations Charles Dickens' characters often seem to be operating outside or just outside the law in gray areas where what is legally correct clash with what is morally the right thing to do. The theme of crime in Dickens' novels is used as a focal point to explore his deep concern for the pervasive array of social problems that permeated England in the nineteenth century (Ford 82-83).
Dickens frames this novel as an individual's struggle to rise above the social and political conditions of that time. Criminality, punishment, and a perverse sense of justice are some of the themes Dickens surfaces to explore this world. At several points throughout the novel convicts come into the story, Pip encounters Magwitch on the marshes in the first chapter (Dickens 2), Magwitch and Compeysen are recaptured by the…...
mlaWorks Cited
Davie, Neil. "History Artfully Dodged? Crime, Prisons and the Legacy of 'Dickens's England'." Dickens Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 28, December 2011: 261-272. EBSOC Web. 6 December 2012.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Janice Carlisle (Ed.) New York: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1996. Print.
Ford, George H. Dickens & His Readers. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1965. Print.
Lucas, John. The Melancholy Man: A Study of Dickens's Novels. London, UK: Methuen & Co. LTD., 1970. Print.
Once inmates were encouraged to complete an education while in prison and gain skills to get a paying job so they could be self-supporting once they got out, but that is no longer so. The public attitude was, "Why should criminals get a free education? Law abiding citizens have to pay for college." The overcrowded conditions, caused by long mandated sentences for non-violent drug offenses put an end to social programs in the prisons aimed at preparing prisoners to live as law-abiding citizens when they got out.
Privatization of prisons, which makes them cheaper to run, has had negative effects. Some researchers contend that by putting private companies in charge of prisons, we have created a market economy for crime with a market demand for prisoners. More people in prison provide more business for these companies. These companies have strong lobbies that pressure for harsher and longer sentences. For example, the…...
mlaBibliography
Beaudoin, Jack. "Does the U.S.Abuse Human Rights," Scholastic Update. 8 Dec. 1997.
Bohm, Robert. "Crime, Criminals, and Crime Control Policy Myths," Justice Quarterly,
Chavez, Linda. "One of the Keys to Reducing Crime is Ridding our Prisons of the Crimes Committed There," Enterprise/Salt Lake City, May 15, Vol 29, Iss. 46,
Green, Bonnie L.; Miranda, Jeanne; Daroowalla, Anahita; and Juned Siddique. "Trauma
Crime vs. Sin
A criminal justice agency, specifically the police department relies very heavily on its organization to fulfill its duties to society, which is to protect from crime and to serve justice (Kenney & McNamara, 1999). The justice which is to be served depends on the severity of the offense or crime. Crime is quite a complex subject which can be divided into two different categories: natural crime and legal crime. Only legal crime can be processed/punished by the Criminal Justice System. These are acts which are the direct violation of the law which varies from state to state and country to country (Finnis, 2007). This is known as Mala prohibita, or something which is known as a legal crime which is punishable by the law (Vila & Morris, 1999). Natural crime is something which is not written; it is determined by the society you live in and most of…...
mlaReferences
Bronsteen, J., Buccafusco, C., & Masur, J.. (2010). Retribution and the Experience of Punishment. California Law Review, 98(5), 1463. Retrieved February 7, 2011, from Criminal Justice Periodicals.
Conlon, B., Harris, S., Nagel, J., Hillman, M., & Hanson, R. (2008). Education: Don't Leave Prison Without It. Corrections Today, 70 (1); 48-49, 51-52.
Davis, M.S. (2006). Crimes Mala in Se: An Equity-Based Definition: Criminal Justice Policy Review, 17 (3) 270-289. Sage Publications, 2006.
Finnis, J. (2007). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Natural Law Theories. Retrieved February 4, 2010, form web site: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-theories/
Many people using illicit and illegal drugs often have no impulse control and may turn violent or to another form of crime. Once an individual's mind is altered from the constant use of drugs, he or she will often steal, lie, and cheat to make the next dollar to obtain more drugs.
Many people could share family related drug stories that have led to criminal activities. About 10 years ago, several acquaintances under the influence of cocaine robbed a pharmacy and stole thousands of narcotics. The man and women then stole a car and cocaine from a dealer and drove across the country; several days later they were both apprehended and sent to jail for a long time. This example illustrates that one impulsive behavior after another can lead to a series of crimes committed. Freud's Psychoanalytical Theory offers a rationale to why individuals would use illegal drugs -- impulse…...
mlaReferences
Bureau of justice statistics- drug use and crime. (2009, October). Retrieved from http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=352
Crime. (2011, June). Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/crime
Freud, S. (1961). The Complete Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 19). London: Hogarth.
Lerner, L., Lerner, B.L., & Cengage, G. (2006). Criminology. World of forensic science, Retrieved from http://www.enotes.com/forensic-science/criminology
Less dramatically, in my own personal experience I have known people who have engaged in minor acts of delinquent behavior, for no apparent reason, and I have (successfully, I believe) had to deal with peer pressure to engage in antisocial acts.
In this course I would like to learn more about the juvenile justice, theories of why young people commit crimes, and how someone's family influences the likelihood that they will commit a crime. On a persona level, I am interested in family law in general, since so many of my friends come from divorced homes and have had to deal with the family court system. I think the course would prove useful in many fields I might choose to enter, including education, social work, the law, or law enforcement....
Poe and Fowles
Detective stories and novels were first created in the 1800s. eaders continue to enjoy them. Even today, 150 years later, millions of people across the world want to read the newest detective books. Many people call Edgar Allen Poe the inventor of the detective story, because he developed a formula that is still followed. An example is his "Murders in the ue Morgue." Many authors later created their own style. John Fowles' "The Enigma" shows one way that a writer can experiment with the crime story. This paper will compare and contrast these two works to explain Poe's formula and to show how it was altered by Fowles, to let the reader have more freedom of choice.
"The Murders in the ue Morgue" was story was so different from others that were popular at the time that Poe's usual publishers did not want to print it. Instead Poe published…...
mlaReferences Cited
Daniel, Robert. "Poe's Detective God." Furioso VI. Summer, 1951, 45-52.
Edwards, Samuel. The Vidocq Dossier: The Story of the World's First Detective. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977.
Fowles, John. The Ebony Tower. Boston: Little Brown, 1974.
Martinez, Maria Jesus. "Astarte's game: variations in John Fowles's 'The Enigma.' Twentieth Century Literature, Spring, 1996 .
The film version of the 'GodFather' became famous. The reason is that it was essentially a portrayal more on the family and emotional side rather than the gun toting violence. Thus the viewer shows the discernment between a good and bad movie by analyzing the depth of the portrayal rather than stunts. The argument that violence in cinema begets violence in real life falls flat. The viewers are not imbeciles, although many film producers take that for granted. Scarface 1932 version was all about the real gang rule of America. However the film not only depicted the violent lives of these people but also examined the psychology of the gangster and challenged the administration and there was depth in the portrayal. The viewer was absorbed in the passions of Tony to which they could relate, if not with the violence. Could that film have goaded viewers to become criminals? It…...
mlaReferences
Youtube. (2011) "Scarface movie that released in 1932" Retrieved 11 June 2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qx6DhjaAP8
Youtube. (2011) "Scarface" Retrieved 11 June 2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3jin2t_sJM&feature=related
Pells, Richard H. (1998) "Radical visions and American dreams: culture and social thought in the Depression years" University of Illinois Press.
Lyons, Charles. (1997) "The new censors: movies and the culture wars"
Sociology of Crime
Sociologists claim that crime is a social construction
The term "crime" refers to various forms of misconduct that are forbidden by the law (Eglin & Hester, 2013). There are different justifications as to shy sociologists classify crimes as a social construction. All social problems are the product of social construction; defining, naming and labeling them into place through which people can make sense of them. It is evident that crime is formed socially. The constructionist angle draws on a varying sociological inheritance, one that looks at the society as a matrix of meaning. It gives a primary role to the procedures of constructing, generating and spreading meanings. Under this perspective, it is impossible to understand reality in a direct and unmediated manner. People will often mediate reality by meaning. Proponents of this school of thought believe that what people experience is the "social construction of reality." How someone…...
mlaReferences
Eglin, P. & Hester, S (2013). A Sociology of Crime. Toronto: Routledge
1. The Role of Revenge in Shaping Criminal Behavior
2. The Ethics of Seeking Revenge in the Criminal Justice System
3. The Psychological Impact of Holding onto Revenge in Criminal Cases
4. Revenge as a Motivating Factor in Criminal Acts
5. Exploring Revenge as a Theme in Literature and Film about Crime
6. Revenge and its Effects on Social Relationships and Community Dynamics
7. The Enduring Appeal of Revenge as a Narrative Device in Crime Stories
8. Revenge as a Form of Justice in the Eyes of the Victimized
9. The Cycle of Violence and Revenge in Criminal Acts
10. The Consequences of Seeking Revenge in Cases of Crime....
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