Post by SoulTrainOz on Jun 19, 2006 1:05:45 GMT -5
The 'cascading of images' sways public more than stats, experts say
The stock market is down. Consumer confidence is down. The president's approval ratings are down, and hopes for an end to the Iraq war are falling.
Noticeably up, however, is crime. The FBI's annual report of crime
statistics collected from across the country and released last week revealed a 2.5 % increase in violent crime in 2005 - news not only because crime is always a big topic but because the jump bucks a decadelong trend.
In Houston, the rising total of homicides and robberies is getting
noticed. The carnage - including a midafternoon gang killing in Montrose, the horrifying death of a little girl in a carjacking and the gunning down of 6 teenagers in the past 3 weeks - has dominated the front page for weeks.
Recalling early '90s
So steady has been the barrage of violent incidents that many residents are getting the impression that we are sliding toward the bad old days of the late 1980s and early '90s, when waves of young gangsters and the horrors they inflicted received constant attention.
The most recent Houston Area Survey, conducted annually under the direction of Rice University sociology professor Stephen Klineberg, reported crime as the public's biggest concern for the city, rising from 13 % in 2005 to 31 %.
Klineberg saw the jump as part of "a broader national fear," reflecting a pessimistic general mood. But he acknowledged there may be more to it, especially the media attention that has been paid to some specific crimes and to the unavoidable fact that the city's homicide total jumped 22 % last year and is up by a similar margin thus far in 2006.
Recent months have seen a handful of well-chronicled atrocities: the aggravated sexual assault of a teenager in Spring in which 2 skinheads have been charged; an engaged couple's slaying inside their West End townhome; the shooting death of two Bellaire High School students in separate incidents; and the killing of an elderly Pasadena woman - allegedly by a trio of hurricane evacuees she had befriended.
The last of these may be the most crucial, at least in terms of public impact. It sat at the crest of a wave of news reports about crimes committed by Hurricane Katrina evacuees, leading to a general perception that Houston's criminal ranks have grown significantly thanks to the New Orleans exodus. Local Internet blogs sizzle with denunciations of Louisiana expatriates.
"The fear of crime - 'How worried are you that you or a member of your family will be the victim of a crime?' - did not increase at all from last year to this," Klineberg said via e-mail. "This suggests that the mentions of crime (in poll results) are more a reflection of media coverage, especially connected with the Katrina evacuees, than of any new and pervasive preoccupation with crime per se, such as we experienced in Houston during the mid-1990s."
Houston matches trend
Houston's violent crime statistics last year mirrored the national
numbers, with a slight uptick of 2.4 %. Nonviolent crime decreased by 1.7%, according to Houston Police Department Uniform Crime Report figures. The year-to-date numbers for 2006 show violent crimes being committed in greater numbers than in the past 3 years but still lower than, for example, 2002.
Criminologists and sociologists who specialize in crime say parsing
statistics for explanations of public fear of or perceptions about crime is pointless. The public is more likely responding from a general feeling, something lingering in the subconscious, they say, than with cold, numerical logic.
"I'm not convinced that the public is generally aware of crime-rate
trends," said Dennis Longmire, a criminology professor at Sam Houston State University's Criminal Justice Center. "And I'm not convinced they are swayed in their attitudes toward crime based on news about crime rates and such. People would like to think that they are, but I think it is more visceral and emotional than rational."
He added: "I tend to discourage making too much of a temporal link between rates of criminality and public fears about rates of crime."
Many academics and policy experts study crime, and a dedicated few specialize in public attitudes about crime and where those attitudes come from. David Altheide, who has written several books on the subject, lays much of the responsibility at the feet of the mass media, which have increased crime coverage by estimates that run from 80 to 700 % - even as violent crime has declined.
The murder rate in Texas in 1960 was 8.6 per 100,000 residents. Forty years later, it was 5.9 per 100,000 residents. Crime as the staple of news reporting remains remarkably high despite lower crime rates, however, and fear is a constant of public opinion polls.
"You see an incredible cascading of images and language about crime, and that becomes a big part of people's lives, in their leisure time and the things they talk about," said Altheide, a professor at Arizona State University's School of Justice and Social Inquiry. "The local news disproportionately focuses on crime news. The main reason is this generates fear, and fear is very entertaining. It generates more readers and viewers."
Focus on Peterson case
The crime does not have to take place where the viewer or reader lives. One might be watching the national news on a cable channel when the anchor breaks away for the latest update on Laci Peterson, a California woman who went missing and was later found to have been murdered by her husband. The
crime had no national significance, but the developments were broadcast daily into homes from Maine to Alaska.
The formula is repeated day after day.
"They might be watching Oprah, and suddenly their televisions have taken them to a small town in Tennessee where a husband has killed his wife and barricaded himself in his house," Longmire said. "There is an infusion of crime into everybody's daily life. It appears suddenly in their air space. They might be watching C-SPAN and hear someone discuss a child-pornography predator. People's heightened awareness calls attention to their own fears
and their own sense of vulnerability."
In Houston, Police Chief Harold Hurtt has directed more resources to problem areas and appointed a captain to review crime statistics so as to spot emerging trends. However successful those moves, they probably won't have nearly the impact on the public as the particular crimes that do take place and how the media treat them.
There is crime, and there is the public's perception of crime, and often the 2 are only loosely connected.
"The more time the media spends discussing crime and crime-related issues, the more people are going to be thinking about it," Longmire said. "The fact that Houston's crime rates are fairly stable doesn't mean necessarily that people are going to be less concerned."
In 1985, Houston recorded 459 murders, which was encouraging because just a few years before, the total topped 700. 2 decades later, a more populous city has 3/4 of that total and is alarmed.
With crime, like hemlines and home prices, bad news often is in the eye of the beholder.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
The stock market is down. Consumer confidence is down. The president's approval ratings are down, and hopes for an end to the Iraq war are falling.
Noticeably up, however, is crime. The FBI's annual report of crime
statistics collected from across the country and released last week revealed a 2.5 % increase in violent crime in 2005 - news not only because crime is always a big topic but because the jump bucks a decadelong trend.
In Houston, the rising total of homicides and robberies is getting
noticed. The carnage - including a midafternoon gang killing in Montrose, the horrifying death of a little girl in a carjacking and the gunning down of 6 teenagers in the past 3 weeks - has dominated the front page for weeks.
Recalling early '90s
So steady has been the barrage of violent incidents that many residents are getting the impression that we are sliding toward the bad old days of the late 1980s and early '90s, when waves of young gangsters and the horrors they inflicted received constant attention.
The most recent Houston Area Survey, conducted annually under the direction of Rice University sociology professor Stephen Klineberg, reported crime as the public's biggest concern for the city, rising from 13 % in 2005 to 31 %.
Klineberg saw the jump as part of "a broader national fear," reflecting a pessimistic general mood. But he acknowledged there may be more to it, especially the media attention that has been paid to some specific crimes and to the unavoidable fact that the city's homicide total jumped 22 % last year and is up by a similar margin thus far in 2006.
Recent months have seen a handful of well-chronicled atrocities: the aggravated sexual assault of a teenager in Spring in which 2 skinheads have been charged; an engaged couple's slaying inside their West End townhome; the shooting death of two Bellaire High School students in separate incidents; and the killing of an elderly Pasadena woman - allegedly by a trio of hurricane evacuees she had befriended.
The last of these may be the most crucial, at least in terms of public impact. It sat at the crest of a wave of news reports about crimes committed by Hurricane Katrina evacuees, leading to a general perception that Houston's criminal ranks have grown significantly thanks to the New Orleans exodus. Local Internet blogs sizzle with denunciations of Louisiana expatriates.
"The fear of crime - 'How worried are you that you or a member of your family will be the victim of a crime?' - did not increase at all from last year to this," Klineberg said via e-mail. "This suggests that the mentions of crime (in poll results) are more a reflection of media coverage, especially connected with the Katrina evacuees, than of any new and pervasive preoccupation with crime per se, such as we experienced in Houston during the mid-1990s."
Houston matches trend
Houston's violent crime statistics last year mirrored the national
numbers, with a slight uptick of 2.4 %. Nonviolent crime decreased by 1.7%, according to Houston Police Department Uniform Crime Report figures. The year-to-date numbers for 2006 show violent crimes being committed in greater numbers than in the past 3 years but still lower than, for example, 2002.
Criminologists and sociologists who specialize in crime say parsing
statistics for explanations of public fear of or perceptions about crime is pointless. The public is more likely responding from a general feeling, something lingering in the subconscious, they say, than with cold, numerical logic.
"I'm not convinced that the public is generally aware of crime-rate
trends," said Dennis Longmire, a criminology professor at Sam Houston State University's Criminal Justice Center. "And I'm not convinced they are swayed in their attitudes toward crime based on news about crime rates and such. People would like to think that they are, but I think it is more visceral and emotional than rational."
He added: "I tend to discourage making too much of a temporal link between rates of criminality and public fears about rates of crime."
Many academics and policy experts study crime, and a dedicated few specialize in public attitudes about crime and where those attitudes come from. David Altheide, who has written several books on the subject, lays much of the responsibility at the feet of the mass media, which have increased crime coverage by estimates that run from 80 to 700 % - even as violent crime has declined.
The murder rate in Texas in 1960 was 8.6 per 100,000 residents. Forty years later, it was 5.9 per 100,000 residents. Crime as the staple of news reporting remains remarkably high despite lower crime rates, however, and fear is a constant of public opinion polls.
"You see an incredible cascading of images and language about crime, and that becomes a big part of people's lives, in their leisure time and the things they talk about," said Altheide, a professor at Arizona State University's School of Justice and Social Inquiry. "The local news disproportionately focuses on crime news. The main reason is this generates fear, and fear is very entertaining. It generates more readers and viewers."
Focus on Peterson case
The crime does not have to take place where the viewer or reader lives. One might be watching the national news on a cable channel when the anchor breaks away for the latest update on Laci Peterson, a California woman who went missing and was later found to have been murdered by her husband. The
crime had no national significance, but the developments were broadcast daily into homes from Maine to Alaska.
The formula is repeated day after day.
"They might be watching Oprah, and suddenly their televisions have taken them to a small town in Tennessee where a husband has killed his wife and barricaded himself in his house," Longmire said. "There is an infusion of crime into everybody's daily life. It appears suddenly in their air space. They might be watching C-SPAN and hear someone discuss a child-pornography predator. People's heightened awareness calls attention to their own fears
and their own sense of vulnerability."
In Houston, Police Chief Harold Hurtt has directed more resources to problem areas and appointed a captain to review crime statistics so as to spot emerging trends. However successful those moves, they probably won't have nearly the impact on the public as the particular crimes that do take place and how the media treat them.
There is crime, and there is the public's perception of crime, and often the 2 are only loosely connected.
"The more time the media spends discussing crime and crime-related issues, the more people are going to be thinking about it," Longmire said. "The fact that Houston's crime rates are fairly stable doesn't mean necessarily that people are going to be less concerned."
In 1985, Houston recorded 459 murders, which was encouraging because just a few years before, the total topped 700. 2 decades later, a more populous city has 3/4 of that total and is alarmed.
With crime, like hemlines and home prices, bad news often is in the eye of the beholder.
(source: Houston Chronicle)