Peculiarities of Crime in London - Research Paper Example

Crime in London s Submitted by s: London’s Demographic background London has an immense range of cultures, religions,nationalities and people that you may get in a city as large as London due to the migration of people looking for greener pastures, (White, and Avalon, 2012, p. 41). It is thought that a third of the population that is living in London is of ethnic minorities (Butler and Hamnett, 2011, p. 57); living together too are people from all over British Isles plus other numerous nationalities of UK origin. Some groups have their own slums that are popularly known as Ghetto based near the national school such as the French, Spanish. Other areas such as Golders Green and Stanford Hill in north London both have large Jewish populations while on the west of London you will find a large population of people from Asian background, such as those whose family originated in India or Pakistan There are other areas of the town that are well known for certain groups who are not exclusive, and people from a wide background can live almost anywhere in the town. A closer look reveals that in a single street, there are people from various origins such as other areas of England and the UK, India, Jamaica, Greece and America. There are an amazing cluster of people and culture in London and this can be seen by the vast languages spoken and the various dialects observed at various spots such as entertainment venues. Experienced in London too is class divisions such that the people from the lower class find it hard for them to rise to the upper class or high in the social ladder. Although this is still evident, it is less prevalent as it was back in 50 or 20 years ago, but the barriers to social class are still noticeable at times. There has been population growth from a million people back in 1800 to over 8 million people currently. The larger part of this population is Christians as compared to the other religions evident in this area. Process involved in collecting data collection According to Pawar, (2004, p. 66)All researchers will look for the data which will help them get he answers they expect to have at the end of the research and have the issue under consideration answered fully. Often, the quality, quantity, adequacy and appropriateness of the data determine the quality of research under consideration and to a great extent the data collection methods come into play. The data collection methods and processes are a key aspect of the success of a research and since there are a variety of ways of doing this, the most appropriate is chosen by the researcher for optimum results. For the purpose of this research, the data collection processes will take into account the practical considerations such as the nature of the research problem, costs in terms of time and money as well as the availability of data and access to it. The choice of a data collection method for convenience will not be accepted here irrespective of whether or not the methods are appropriate to the research problem. This research will leave the choice of the nature of the research to choose the research instruments to use and the design it should take when considering the collecting instruments. This paper looks into exploring the nature of crime and the crime rate in London and hence the most appropriate date instrument to use is the police records. These records fall under the secondary data instruments where by the materials to be used are already in possession of another party which have been recorded in advance. Other records to be used are the journals are well as published magazines which are centred on the crime levels in London. Overview of your data and trends or patterns evident within the data The issue around reporting and recording crime means that police recorded crime over the long term is problematic and has been so for a long period of time. Although over the last century there were large increases in police figures, it is not possible to be sure of the actual scale of crime increases as what has increased appears to be substantial. The advent to technological advancement has enabled the tracking of crime against victims living in private households on a consistent basis, (Dijk, Tseloni, and Farrell, 2012, p. 150). The principle sources of information on crime trends is the British crime survey and police recorded crime as it avails a breakdown of the types of crime. At the start of the 20th century the numbers of crime recorded by police was much lower than today, running at around 80,000 crimes per annum for the whole of England, (Levitas, & Guy, 1996, p. 198). It is also of essential to note that there was an exponential growth of crime averaging 5 per cent per annum, culminating in recorded crime reaching a little under 5.6milliom crimes in 1992; over that period of just under a century, the crimes that have been recorded by police have increased more than seventyfold. The phenomenal growth reflects a rang e of factors, including changes in public reporting, police recording and offence coverage as well as increases in population size and changes in offending levels. The 20th century has also seen significant changes in the mix of offences recorded as theft and handling offences at the start of the century has accounted for more than three quarters of recorded offences as compared to 1992 where this accounted for half of the recorded offence during this time period. In attempting to interpreted historic trends, it important to understand that over much of this time there had been little consistency between police forces and how crime is recorded, (Sullivan, 2000, p. 99) The advent of the British crime survey first conducted in 1982 providing details for 1981has shown the existence of shortcoming in the police figures; the survey results indicated that for the crime types the survey covered, there were close to as four times many figures or theft of a motor vehicle being similar to the numbers recorded in official police records. The important and critical reason for this entire shortfall could be attributed to the offences never having been reported to the police, and finding a way that repeated and subsequent sweeps of the British crime survey, (Walklate, 2006, p. 12). Crime in London Media is often the core means through which cases of crime in London city are communicated to the public. According to Dowler (2003), the media people often communicate on crimes issues such as fire arms and drugs seizure, forged identification documents, police assaults, investigation cases, crime prevention campaigns and drugs and cash crimes among others. Therefore, the media plays a significant role in the fight against crime (Newburn and Neyroud, 2008, p. 161); however, the media tends to have bias in the crime reporting processes which results in media misrepresentation. For example, past researches reflect the African American community members as the people involved in violent and sexual offenses that are overrated exceeding the official statistics. A good example of this is the concerns of over mugging cases in the 1970’s focusing on the African American and Caribbean men; additionally, they are also closely related to the inner riots of the 1980’s blamed on the black people in the London community (Muncie and Wilson, 2004). Further, media reports note that the overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, robbery and crimes on sexual violence in London are carried out by the by Africans and Caribbean communities in the society; and according to Dowler (2003), the media influences the consumption of fear of crime, punitive attitudes and perceived police effectiveness. The research report indicated that issues related to gender, education, income, age, perceived neighbourhood problems and police effectiveness relate to fear of crime. This is also related to income, marital status, race and perceived neighbourhood problems that are related to the police effectiveness. For instance, London is a multi racial city in which a vast range of people in different races reside in the city. Additionally, the people spread in the city is on their racial backgrounds; the Caribbean’s tend to concentrate on one area while the blacks concentrate on another and the same occurs to other races in the city. This influences the media and statistical reports in relation to crime. Where crime is prone in the areas with blacks, then the blacks are associated with the nature of the crime. An observation of the western media presentations, it is evident that they are fascinated by crimes and justice (Anthony and Cunneen, 2008, p. 19). This is evident from the contents of their films, books, newspapers, magazines, televisions and daily conversations as the people are engaged on crime talks and such like. The media further plays a crucial role in the shaping of criminality and the criminal justice systems; the media portrayal of the crime victims and criminals, deviants and law enforcement officials influences people’s attitudes towards media (Terrill, 2013, p. 308). Scholarly articles indicate that media exposure to large amounts of crime results in fear of crime on the individuals accessing the media presentations. For instance, the residents of a crime prone urban area are likely to fear crime related issues in comparison to those in a relatively low crime prone area. This is because the media presentation is taken as the gospel truth of the actual case of crime in the region. In addition, the media product consumers who frequently watch media either television on listening to radios have a high chance of victimization. As the individuals are constantly bombarded by information on crime, they get overwhelmed depending on the degree of exposure to the crime incidences. This in one way or the other influences the people’s perception on the crime issues occurring in their neighbourhood and their reactions towards the crime are strongly linked. For instance, the local media attention to crime related to the fear of sexual assaults, mugging, knife or shots and burglarized homes among other criminal cases (Flanagan and Longmire, 1996, p. 23). This is because the media version of the news items is often an exaggeration of the actual occurrence of the crime and other than informing the media tends to built fear on the information recipients. In addition, no concrete solution to the crimes are offered in the presentations and hence the news recipients are left with gaps to fill on what is likely to happen after the awareness of the crime occurrence. Other than the media presentation of crimes, the media presentation of the law enforcers is also crucial on the general perception of crime. It is noted that the police in the media are often over-dramatized or romanticised through the fictional crime dramas as in this case, the police are presented as heroic and professional crime fighters. In the television shows, crime cases are often successfully solved and the criminal suspects apprehended a contrary to the actual presentation of the same on the real life scenarios. However, some of the news accounts exaggerate the proportions of offenses resulting in the arrest and hence a projection on the police presentation. The reporting on the proactive police activities results in the creation of an image of the police effective and efficient investigators of crime and also reinforces the traditional approaches to law and order involving increased police presence, harsher penalties and increasing police power in the society. There is a symbiotic connection linking the news media staff and the police in the society and engage on a mutually beneficial relationship; for instance, the police provide the media with quick and reliable sources of crime information and the police need to promote a positive image to the public. Therefore, an exaggeration version on the occurrence of the crime incidence is likely to serve the parties on their secondary motives besides updating the public on the criminal issues taking place. This analysis indicates that the difference on the media presentation of crime and the actual occurrence of crime is due to the vested interest on the outcome of the news articles. The police want to keep a positive image to the public they protect while the media want to attract more viewers to the news channels. With these concepts in mind, the reality of the news item greatly varies from what the media presents to the viewers. Thus, the actual survey on crimes in many cases results in a more realistic presentation of the data related to crime as compared to the media presentation of the same. References Anthony, T. and Cunneen, C. 2008. The critical criminology companion. Leichhardt, N.S.W.: Hawkins Press. Butler, T. and Hamnett, C. 2011. Ethnicity, class and aspiration. Bristol: Policy. Dijk, J. J. M., Tseloni, A., and Farrell, G. (2012). The international crime drop: New directions in research. Dowler K. (2003). Media Consumption and Public Attitudes toward Crime and Justice: The Relationship between Fear of Crime, Punitive Attitudes, and Perceived Police Effectiveness. University at Albany Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10(2), 109-126. Flanagan, T. J. and Longmire, D. R. 1996. Americans view crime and justice. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. Levitas, R., & Guy, W. (1996). Interpreting official statistics. London: Routledge. Muncie, J. and Wilson, D. 2004. 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