Theoretically Could Anyone Become Criminal? Discuss

Theoretically any one person can possess the ability to become criminal. Walking out ones door of a morning we are liable to see many acts of crime, whether it’s someone simply littering or failing to stop at stop sign. Crimes aren’t always as extensive as murder or rape. However, most programmes on television whether its news or a soap opera seem to portray the majority of crimes being burglary, rape or murder. This sets images in viewers minds that leaving the house or even being in your own house is potentially life threatening. Psychologists have studied the impact of television on the everyday average household, presenting the effect of violence exhibited in television programmes, such as soap operas and news to see how much this violence influences a person’s perception of crime. Psychologists came up with three ways of measuring how fear of crime impacts on a person’s perception of reality; these are the cultivation theory, which ‘builds on the assumption that the mass media, and television in particular, are means of cultural transmission’ (Gerbner, 1972), the availability heuristic theory, which ‘suggests that to the extent the media (or any other factor) create a vivid and readily accessible image of crimes in the mind of the individual’ (Shrum, 1996) and the cognitive theory, which ‘points out that a person is subject to more emotional vulnerability if they have the belief about the likelihood of risk at an event’ (Winkel, 1998).

The world of television is assumed to be full of crime and violence which systematically fails to capture the essence of crime in everyday authenticity. As stated above the cultivation theory builds on the assumption that mass media/television programmes transform the way a viewer sees the world of crime. Gerbner analysed American television and came to the conclusion that the information found from the ‘aggregate classifications of the content of programmes is one of a distorted world of crime’. Heavy programme watchers will have an increased perception that when they walk outside the house they are more liable to come in contact with some form of crime. However, lighter viewers that prefer to watch news or current affair type of programmes have a different perception, they walk out of their house with the slightest of worry that something can or will happen. Gerbner’s analysis showed a weak connection between heavy viewing and having a distorted perception of crime and violence. However another researcher reanalysed Gerbner’s findings, they found that ‘when the influence of variables such as type of neighbourhood and other demographic characteristics of the sample were removed statistically, the relationship between media and fear of crime became negligible or even reversed’. For Gerbner to get the information a large sample was needed to attain statistical importance, however he found that the relationship wouldn’t occur in every community. For example what one country