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Crime Pays Crime pays, but children grow up listening to news of violent acts committed by citizens in their communities. Television and movies picture interpersonal violence. Computer games feature realistic aggression and violence. Violence is part of American culture. Recent mass homicides on school grounds have intensified public concern over school violence, which includes an array of intentional or reckless behaviors that include physical harm, psychological harm and property damage. Seventy-six students were murdered or committed suicide in school from 1992 to 1994.
With the mass homicides, lethal violence in school is much higher since 1997. Dealing out death to the bad guys is as natural as good triumphs over evil. As the adults hoped, Lewis won the Tyson Lewis fight, Rumble on the River. Lewis winning made the fight possible to reconcile. At least, we do not live in a world where the bad guy wins. Homicide remains the second leading cause of death among teenagers and the leading cause of death among African American males.
Maybe the greatest lesson is that we sent conflicting messages to youth as we teach them that drugs and guns are bad, but we spend hours in front of the television watching crime shows, because we find them thrilling, suspenseful, and addictive. You watch the crime show a few times, and you need to watch it weekly to know what is going on or what happened to one of the main characters. We are showing that we value crime when we put countless hours into watching it. Crime holds our interest. It is somehow exciting on the television screen. We may be able to argue that the show is somewhat educational, but the truth is crime on television is not boring, it holds our interest, and by the number of viewers who watch the television crime shows, hour after hour, week after week, crime through television shows pays.
Crime shows capture a large audience. Dr. Podolski, in her article about childrens exposure to violence on television on the APA website, explains that some children, who identify with aggressive television characters, perceive the violence to be realistic and are at risk for later aggression. Most kids identify with the same sex characters in television programs. She studied 557 children from six to ten and studied them when they were at least 20 years old.
Her results demonstrate that children who watched violent television when they were young were significantly more likely to have committed a crime. Women who were high viewers of violence as children were more likely to have thrown something at their husbands. Police benefit from crime reality shows in at least four highly-rated shows because film crews pay for exclusive access behind the crime scene tape. The money helps the police pay staffing costs. The insatiable demand for television crime shows pays the police signing an increasing number of exclusive contracts with "true crime" style shows. Sarah Armstrong decided that crime has several beneficiaries.
The crime companies such as security services and contractors to corrections centers and prisons and their stock value has increased by almost 33 % each year. Such firms would not exist without crime. Prisons may now be privately financed, constructed, and managed creating a for profit prison population. The secondary beneficiary is the insurance companies.
Though they are in the business of taking risks, insurance companies not only try to reduce, avoid, or fear risk, they buy, trade, and make their money off of it. We invest in insurance because of a risk of crime, and we pay higher premiums if we need to use it. Richard V. Ericsons study of the global insurance industry after 9 / 11 made clear that insurance companies thrive on conditions of extreme uncertainty and use them to their financial advantage. Insurance companies pay a lot of money to lawyers. Crime pays in the media because crime sells.
Some crimes are more lucrative than others. Media representations of crime are consistent pattern with excessive coverage of violent and sex crimes in newspaper and television reporting as well as in crime shows. Crime-based TV shows, films, and books take up substantial amounts of our leisure time and spending. Finally, politicians are beneficiaries of crime, using tough on crime as political capital. A single horrific crime provides an opportunity to convey a message or desirable qualities that can not be portrayed with structural problems in the economy or global threats beyond our control. Building prisons, passing tougher sentencing laws, and promising to put more police on the street have won votes and elections.
Improving health care, ensuring stable pensions, or childcare for working parents are complex problems, but not as charismatic. In summary, crime pays with a minimum of $ 16, 000 required to house a prisoner for a year, but the devastating effects of crime and the effects of crime in the media on children who are exposed to it are greater losses than any financial deficit. Police are able to offset costs by giving access to crime scenes to media reality shows. We can not begin to spend the profit made on crime in the media on crime prevention or in training recidivists.
Finally, the message the media conveys with regards to crime is not the message that most of us in good conscience would want to portray. Armstrong, S. (2008). Crime pays but for whom? Scottish left review 48 retrieved on May 7, 2009 from web Hannon, L. , DeFronzo, J. , & Prochnow, J, (2001). Moral Commitment and the Effects of Social Influences on Violent Delinquency, Violence and Victims 16 (4), 427 - 439. Podolski, L. & Even, L. (2003).
Longitudinal relations between children's exposure to tv violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood: 1977 1992. Developmental Psychology 39 (2). Retrieved on May 7, 2009 from web
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