The Perpetual Prisoner Machine by Joel Dyer, 2000, Excerpts
The majority of Americans now base their worldview more on the mediated messages offered by television than upon their own firsthand observations. As a result, nearly 80 percent of the public now believes crime to be one of the biggest problems confronting
The anxiety over crime that is driving a hard-on-crime direction is not based in reality. The war on crime is not rooted in rising crime rates but is rather the result of the rise in the public’s concern over crime, which has been wrought not by the criminals in the real world but by the images of the criminals who now break into our living rooms nightly through the window of television.
Distorted Crime Coverage
The news business makes a lot of money by increasing its ratings with sensationalized news coverage of violent crime. Sex- and violence- filled media offerings have become the second largest
Using violence to increase revenues in television and newspapers has been implemented across all media genres. Violent-crime coverage increases the number of viewers and readers for a TV station or newspaper. Ratings skyrocketed during the sensationalized Columbine barrage, and a single rating point can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to a station. Sensational murders draw far more viewers/readers than the “usual” murder of a transient, a dope dealer, or a typical working stiff.
Based upon the chasm that now exists between what we believe about crime as a society and the facts regarding crime, America has entered into a new and dangerous age where communications technology has become more powerful than reality itself when it comes to shaping our attitudes and beliefs.
Societal Impact
There is a consensus in the scientific and public health fields that there are three primary harmful effects of viewing violence: [1] Learning aggressive attitudes and behaviors; [2] Emotional desensitization toward real world violence; and [3] Increased fear of being victimized by violence, resulting in self-protective behaviors and mistrust of others.
News and entertainment programming present a false image of the overall character and quantity of crime. In response to this constant and misleading crime message, the majority of Americans have been persuaded they are living in a much more dangerous and crime-infested world than they really are, and such an attitude is causing the nation to alter its behavior in a variety of ways.
Our growing fear – fear generated as a result of technologically experiencing crime on a daily basis –destroys the opportunity for justice by way of our endorsing hard-on-crime politics at the ballot box. Desiring to toughen the laws and increase the punishment for criminals is an understandable response for people living in a place where they witness dozens of heinous crimes every day – a place like, say, your living room, your den, or wherever you keep your television.
