Blaming Children: Youth Crime, Moral Panics, and the Politics
of Hate
Bernard Schissel (professor in dept of Sociology, University of Saskatoon
Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, 1997
Crime and Power (p.9)
“Whether Canadians like to admit it or not, Canada
- Some
examples (in
- In
the name of reducing crime, “Canadian society is embarking on a crusade to
increase punishment for children.”
The Young Offenders Act (YOA):
- The YOA
is the focal point for “this law and order campaign”
- It
attempts: “to use community-based punishments not based on incarceration;
to limit sentences for even the most serious crimes; to minimize stigma
and labeling by preventing the publication of names of young offenders; to
ensure that the civil rights of the young offender are met through legal
representation and parental involvement in court proceedings.”
- Critics
argue: “it is too lenient; youth are not deterred by the ‘soft punishments’
it allots; human rights provisions are excessive; that adolescent
offenders are released to become adult offenders”
The YOA stands in contradiction to the “law-and-order mindset
in Canada
- it is
based on the idea that “prevention and rehabilitation are constructive”
- that punishment
and criminalization “are ultimately destructive to the young offender and
to the society”
“Fiscal realities being what they are [...] the goals of the
YOA remain unmet in many respects.”
- Programs
and services that were supposed to replace the criminal justice system for
youth offenders are under funded (at least at the time this book was
published)
- Police
and courts are left with few alternatives for punishment
- The
state’s “Inability to support the spirit and the intent of the YOA”
- “Ample
fodder for the ‘we told you so’ agenda” of right-wing political groups
- War
on Young Offenders: “A cause celebre
that politicians seem unable to resist.”
Note: “the rise of street kids” in Canada
·
“The
current political pastime of blaming children [occurs] in the context of
changing national and local agendas.”
·
“Crime
panics are targeted at vulnerable and marginal people.”
·
“A
critical analysis of media coverage [can show that] perception of the seriousness
of crime is largely a matter of race, real estate [class and area] and family
constitution.”
·
“[...]
a coordinated and calculated attempt to nourish the ideology that supports a
society stratified on the bases of race, class and gender”
·
“[...]
part of the state-capital mechanism that continually reproduces an oppressive
social and economic order (Hall et al. 1978; Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Herman
and Chomsky 1988)”
At the time of publication, there was no youth crime wave, no
real increase in youth crime. Youth
crime was largely characterized by “petty, unthinking acts.” Any increase in
crime statistics could be attributed to “increased arrest rates and the
zero-tolerance mentality of the courts.”
·
Dangerous
offenders were a small minority but “only their activities and characteristics
seem to inform the moral panic debates.”
·
Dangerous
offenders are never seen to have suffered “victimization and disadvantage” of
their own.
·
“Increased
visibility of young people in public places”; more idle time for youth (because
of poor job situations, etc): this is spun into fear of gangs.
·
E.g.
kids loitering in shopping malls. “The
presence of youth [...] fuels the panic that kids are loitering with the intent
to commit a crime.”
·
Debate
centers on the victims of youth crime; however the Canadian justice system
rarely considers victims in rendering decisions about crime.
“A gulf between reality and perception.”
·
“Fear
of the crime that seems to be forever increasing is a powerful, personal and
politically emotional tool.”
·
The
media industry “constructs the news to appeal to the demands of a frightened
audience and a political-economic system that casts blame.”
The author asks: “Are there larger forces at work that
construct, communicate and perpetuate a belief system that benefits those who
have access to power and indicts and disadvantages those who live on the
margins of society?”
Moral Panics and Power (p.12)
Moral panics occur “regularly and predictably throughout
history.”
Hall et al 1978, Cohen 1980: some examples of moral panic
literature that study “the phenomenon of putative crime waves and the origins
of public panic about crime.”
·
“The
research concentrated on how rare or atypical events at historical junctions
came to raise to collective ire to the point where the public demanded law
reform.”
·
“In
addition, the literature concentrated on how official and popular culture
accounts of criminality and their associations and how the public panics that
resulted were mostly directed at working-class or marginalized people.”
·
“Much
of the research, in addition, concentrated on moral panics over youth crime,
especially in relation to alienated, organized, gang-based delinquents.”
Cohen 1980: The seminal work in the study of moral panics is
Stanley Cohen’s study of Mods and Rockers in London
·
Mods/Rockers. “this political/linguistic device based on
social stereotyping came to circumscribe youth crime.”
·
Folk
Devils. The media “use evocative
language and imagery” to alert the public to potential danger, which Stanley
·
Once
the Mods/Rockers became viewed as folk devil, “the judiciary and the police
over-reacted to those identified as gang members and came to view the Mods and
the Rockers as a conspiratorial, well-organized force.”
·
Note
too that this is moral panic directed towards youth.
Why a moral panic in Britain
·
Post-war
Britain Britain
Hall et al (1978) “lent a more Marxist interpretation [...]
by suggesting that moral panics serve a decidedly elitist purpose [...] to
divert attention away from the crisis in British capitalism.”
·
“Important
and instructive in that it studies the connections between ideological production,
the mass media and those in positions of power.”
·
“Without
[it], we are left with the presumption that the media acts alone, isolated from
economy and politics, and that its mistaken mandate is the result of poor
journalism and the need [to sell newspapers.]”
The media:
·
“Give
significance to events”
·
“Both
draw on, and recreate consensus”
·
“represent
the primary, and often the only source of information about many important
events and topics” (Hall et all 1978:56)
·
“Define
for the majority of the population what significant events are taking
place” (Hall et all 1978:57)
·
“Offer
powerful interpretations of how to interpret these events” (Hall et all
1978:57)
·
“maintain
their power is by claiming journalistic integrity as a priori”
·
“sift
fact from fiction [...] by drawing on expert opinion.”
·
“decontextualize
[events] for public consumption”
·
“may
not directly control public opinion, [but] they are certainly able to contain
the nature of discourse by establishing parameters of discussions and giving
the appearance of consensus on public issues.”
Discourse: What is discourse and why does it matter to this
story?
·
It
matters because, as we will see, the story of raving in Edmonton
·
Can
cite example in Bowling for Columbine.
The Columbine school shooting, 1999, was blamed (at least in part, in
the media) on Marilyn Manson. Control of
Discourse allowed the Powers That Be to deflect attention and focus blame on a
rock artist, rather than on issues such as gun control, that would threaten
their ideological hold.
·
Regarding
raving, in Edmonton
“There is a structured relationship between the media and the
ideas of the powerful sectors of the society.”
·
“[...]
journalistic discourse is constrained by definitions of right and wrong that
are governed by powerful people.”
·
“Such
discourse serves to reproduce the socio-economic system that allows some to
live in mansions and requires others to live on the streets, by organizing the
way we think about crime and punishment in relation to poverty and wealth.”
Moral panics of the 60s and 70s are similar to those of
today: similar in form if different in content.
Moral panic directed towards youth:
·
“has
been vocal, concerted and politicized, fostered by the portrayal of
idiosyncratic examples of youth crime as typical.”
·
“effect[s]
social control policy that stigmatizes and controls those who are most
disadvantaged and victimized”
Blaming Children: The author Bernard
Schissel argues “that the powerful in society benefit from a particular ‘truth’
about young offenders.”
·
The
media put forward an understanding of youth crime based on the defective
morality of the individual, rather than “privation, disenfranchisement and
marginalization.”
·
“The
system of profit is absolved from responsibility from making the lives of
others more precarious [...] the accounts of youth crime and justice fostered
in the media focus almost exclusively on individual conduct and rarely on the
criminogenic effect of the partnership between corporate capitalism and the
state.”
The Media and the Politics of
Morality (p.15)
Moral panics:
·
have
their origins in “politics, systems of information and various institutions of
social control”
·
“function
within the confines of an orthodox state machinery that is closely tied to the
mechanisms of production”
·
“may
drive public policy and may also be created to justify political decisions
already made.”
Most moral panics directed at youth “urge others to protect
children or condemn them.”
·
IE,
children are either in constant danger, or are dangerous.
The belief that all children are dangerous.
·
“many
news articles [...] suggest blatantly that children are not to be trusted or
taken lightly.”
·
The
focus on youth crime:
o
“implies
that the powerful are better”
o
“diverts
public debate away from the political actions of the powerful that create
social stresses for the less powerful”
o
that
is, “unemployment, welfare-state cuts, dangerous work environments, poorly paid
and part-time labour.”
·
“invokes
images of gangs, and connections between nihilistic behaviour and music and
dress” (e.g. Grunge)
·
Youth
are characterized as “aimless and calculating.”
·
The
campaign against youth: “ambivalent yet moralistic”
Moral panics “emerge in clusters and tend to foster one
another.”
·
A
general climate of fear leads subsequent events to also be interpreted through
fear.
·
“The
success of one panic lends credibility to another, and the result is a
generalized lobby for increased social control at all levels.”
·
Where
youth are concerned, stories about youth tend to get lumped together and become
“a generalized ‘problem of youth’” instead of individual problems like “youth
exploitation and disadvantage.
·
“The
lumping together of adolescent issues transforms a problem that originates in the
structure of society into one that appears to originate from youth themselves
[...] the state and the adult world are absolved or responsibility.”
The role of the Mass Media:
·
Note:
the concentration of media ownership in Canada
·
Remember:
“the news industry’s passion for profit [...] results in the production of
sensationalist and often uncontested news accounts that appear fictitious and
largely removed from [reality] but are, more likely than not, highly
marketable.”
·
Media
portraits of crime:
o
create
insiders/outsiders, us/them, acceptable/unacceptable
o
connect
crime and criminal behaviour to social characteristics
o
decontextualize
anecdotal evidence and portray it as “omnipresent, noncomplex truth.”
·
Stories
of youth crime draw on the opinions of experts from fields such as medicine,
education, social welfare, religion, government “to lend credibility” to their
claims.
·
“Politicians
are quick to adopt a punitive stance”
“The interdependent and multi-institutional nature of moral
panics is an important focus for the critical researcher in uncovering the
claims to moral legitimacy made in public discourse, and in revealing the
actors who benefit from such claims.”
·
“The
social-constructionist approach presumes that knowledge (social and ‘natural’ facts)
is largely created, most often for a political purpose.”
·
It
assumes “that even the most ‘objective’ knowledge is relative to time and
place”
“The mythology of delinquency”:
·
Benefits
certain Powers That Be
·
“How
[the Powers That Be] construct and produce images of deviance [...] absolve
themselves from responsibility for social conditions and indict others who are
less powerful”
“[Blaming Children], then, is essentially a study of
ideology – a collective belief system that constricts the way we see the world,
especially with respect to issues of good and evil. Ultimately, such a belief system ties good
and evil to socio-economics.”
Marshall McLuhan: “The owners of media always endeavour to
give the public what it wants, because they sense that their power is in the medium and not the message or program” (1964:193).
The media / media industries:
·
Give
us what they think we want to hear, not necessarily facts
·
As
technological extensions of human senses, the media “configure the awareness
and experience of each one of us” (1964:35).
·
The
media “have the power to construct slanted or fictional accounts of real-life
incidents by decontextualizing and simplifying the news.” They can present binary representations of events,
right vs wrong, good vs evil.
·
We
are presented with “at best, supposedly what we want to hear and, at worst, all
we are capable of understanding.”
·
“The
consummate ideological tool.”
Kellner (1995):
·
From
material presented in the media, “we forge our very identities” – “our sense of
selfhood; [...of] male and female; [...of] class, ethnicity and race; [...] of
‘us’ and ‘them’.”
·
Media
influence “our deepest values”: good/bad, positive/negative, moral/amoral.
·
Media
provide “Symbols, myths and resources through which we constitute a common
culture and through the appropriation of which we insert ourselves into that
culture.”
·
Stories
in the media “demonstrate who is powerful and who is powerless”
·
The
media “dramatize and legitimate the power of the forces that be and show the
powerless that they must stay in their place or be destroyed.
The media provides “the discourse used to understand things
that happen in the real world.”
Two views of the media:
·
One,
that media give consumers “what they want to hear” because they respond (like
everything else) to supply and demand pressures. “[...] Somewhat banal in its implication that
people democratically control what they see and how they understand what they
see.”
·
Two,
that media have a “two-dimensional vested interest, at once economic and
ideological;” that “our ideas and opinions are largely influenced by
self-interested, biased mediators of the news.”
This influence is particularly felt around “things that are foreign and
frightening to us.”
·
Note
too:
·
Increasing
media concentration in Canada
·
The
media – reporters, editors, producers, presenters and executives – tend to be
white and male.
·
The
news industry is highly competitive “and is increasingly in competition with
American news organizations for the public’s attention” – with “para-factual”
news accounts “based on real-life events that are presented in a
decontextualized, fictional style” – this blurs the distinction between fact
and fiction.
“[...] News is now, more than ever, a commodity that must be
desirable and titillating if it is to sell.”
·
Note
that media do not just sell stories to viewers, they also sell viewers to
advertisers.
·
Hackett
(1991): advertisers are interested in two kinds of audience, “the affluent and
the mass audience.”
·
“Affluent
readers are more likely to be politically conservative, [with] a
disproportionate ‘vote’ in determining the type and the political orientations
of the media that survive” (Hackett 1991)
As news media become “more monopolized, more concentrated and
less competitive”:
·
“the
number of alternative voices and opinions diminishes, especially with respect
to important political and social issues.”
·
“narrowing
of opinion” – which tends to reflect, not the consumer in general, but the
affluent consumer, “who need and prefer a particular world view and a
particular take on social issues [...] narrowly moral and necessarily
alarmist.”
A list of the Actors in the Theatre of Crime:
1. Consumers
·
Certain
types of news are played up for the benefit of the consumer, for there is “the
presumption that what the public fears, the public will read.”
·
For
the benefit of the consumer, the news is simplified into opposites, “most
important, us and them.”
·
A
civil libertarian perspective is: Let the Buyer Beware. However, news media are “omnipresent [...]
all-embracing [...] intrusive.” Neil
Postman calls television “a meta-medium” that not only shapes what consumers
know, but how. Schissel argues that print
media have adjusted to match TV media in content and style: “decontextualized,
brief, episodic.”
·
“[...]
News media, now more than ever, [...] not only react to what the public wants,
but also proactively creates and directs the public appetite.”
·
Many
topics in a short period of time; decontextualized visual imagery (pictures);
shocking headlines; disconnected impressions: “The audience for these theatrics
comprises unwilling consumers.”
·
News
media “are so pervasive and available that the busy modern consumer cannot help
but be affected, if only subliminally.”
·
Not
necessarily because people are not capable of understanding, and not
necessarily because the news media are “evil or manipulative”, but rather
because “the media industry dictates that the primary function of news
reporting is that people pay attention,” because of the needs of advertisers.
·
The
Consumer is the focus, not Journalistic Integrity, in the production of news. “The consumer is left with [the view that]
human community does not work and violence and personal trauma are
ever-present.”
·
This
is no accident: “Such presentations are constructed to sell, and, importantly,
‘the generate meaning as well as profit’ (Hackett 1991:51).”
·
“The
most insidious result of this manipulation is that the news business acts as a
‘filter, gate-keeper, or agenda setter’ (Hackett 1991:52) that provides
powerful citizens with a mechanism to direct public opinion.
·
Schissel
says: “This is exactly what has happened to the mythology of youth crime in Canada Edmonton
2. Governments
·
Control
of crime:
o
Is
a political act
o
Involves
domination of rich over poor, of men over women, of enfranchised over
disenfranchised, of powerful over marginalized, of adults over children.
·
Fears
of street crime are increased; fears of corporate crime (etc) are diminished
·
Political
platforms (at time of writing) are “almost without exception based on issues of
crime and punishment.”
o
Right
wing political movements “have been fraught with arguments and images of a
growing criminal underclass that increasingly preys on ordinary citizens.”
o
“...a
natural playground for politicians [...] basic, cataclysmic and demands
immediate attention.”
o
NB
exceptions: Liberal Minister Allan Rock stating that YOA is not responsible for
increase in youth crime – however politicians with such views often elect not
to participate in moral panic debates.
o
“No
savvy and/or moral politician would oppose anything that protects the
vulnerability of ordinary citizens.”
o
However,
there is a gulf between perception and reality.
·
“It
appears that those in power and those who administer this power pick an easy
target [...] the disaffiliated and the disenfranchised.”
·
Governments
“[...] can contribute facts to the mythmaking mechanism.”
3. Policers
·
Police
= “front-line protectors of society” with “a good deal of influence and
discretion in producing images of criminality.”
·
Ironically,
“real crime prevention is anathema to popular and expanding police forces.”
·
The
role of police in moral panics: “It is difficult to place blame or even
responsibility”:
o
Police
have a mandate that requires them to use an orthodox approach to law and order.
o
They
are required to act swiftly and dramatically.
o
They
must also consider the reputation of the police force and of policing itself.
·
“Vast
credibility in the eyes of the public” when it comes to discussing crime.
o
“Unfortunately,
when they panic, their actions echo quickly,” with “consequent and continual
lack of reflexivity and self-analysis [that] is potentially harmful for the
targets of public panics.”
o
“It
may be police bureaucrats and not front-line officers” who steer a public
panic.
o
Police
“selectively present crime accounts to public officials and the media by
choosing to release specific sorts of information.”
4. Moralizing Groups
·
‘Moral entrepreneurs’: the term comes from
Becker (1963)
·
refers
to “individuals who [take] a proactive role in defining and controlling deviant
behaviour.”
·
they
have a vested interest in seeing the moralizing movement succeed
·
they
believe a segment of the population is acting immorally
·
they
have the means (“influence, credibility, and power”) to put beliefs into the
public arena
·
Becker
identifies two types
o
“rule
creators”: entertain and act from “a
self-righteous, elitist worldview”
o
“rule
enforcers”: often share the same value system, but more pragmatic in approach
·
Notable
Canadian moral crusaders:
o
Mackenzie
King
o
Emily
Murphy (herself an Edmontonian)
§
Further
readings about Emily Murphy: see Comack, Elizabeth 1991, “We will get some good
out of this riot yet”; and Green, Melvyn 1986, “The History of Canadian
Narcotics Control: The Formative Years.”
o
They
were able “almost single-handedly to initiate public policy on the basis of
assumed dangerous groups or ‘folk devils.’”
o
The
folk devils in these cases were “ethnic minorities who were politically and
democratically marginalized:” Chinese immigrants in Canada ,
Mexican immigrants in the United
States
·
Nowadays
moral crusaders tend to be led, not by individuals, but by “political/doctrinal
groups that have a strong, vested interest in creating a stricter, more
punitive and less forgiving society.”
Often connected to orthodox political or religious groups.
·
Leaders
of such groups “tap into an existent public fervour for their own political
credibility and exacerbate the emotional level for their debates.” Yet, “there must be a potential or a
volatility towards panic among the public.”
·
“Why
such groups tend to err on the side of right-wing, punitive politics, however,
is a fundamental question that has to do with understanding the forces that
create and control public discourse.”
5. Victims of Crime
·
Whereas
“the victim is often forgotten when it comes time [in the criminal justice
system] to decide guilt or innocence,” the victim does become a focus of
concern in the midst of a crime panic.
·
Harsher
punishments, penalties: done for the good of the victim (according to political
lobby groups)
·
The
victim’s experience is “a powerful political tool” because everyone can imagine
being the victim of crime.
·
“It
is relatively easy, therefore, for political persuaders to convince us to empathize
with the plight of victims.”
·
“Victimization
is used as discursive mechanism in two ways”
o
“to
evoke very primal and passionate responses to crime and our own and others’
potential victimization [...] [this] frames our understanding of the criminal
event and creates empathy not only for the victim but also for advocates of law
and order.”
o
second,
“explanations for youth deviance are made in the context of family and cultural
victimization, and the insinuations include mother-centered and lower-class
families as potentially predatory on their children.”
o
These
create “dual accounts of victimization” and “establish that there is a need for
panic and that innocent children are the victims of an uncaring, dangers and
poor class.”
o
Victimization
can be “a volatile and powerful discursive tool to evoke collective passions
and feed law and order politics.”
·
What
is missing “is a sense of larger victimization at the structural level – its
context.”
o
Presentations
of crime are “decontextualized” in the media
o
And
they are “constituted in discourse that is at once believable, instructive and
policy-forming.”
·
Regarding
social justice: “crime panics and harsh law-and-order programs ignore a
fundamental consideration in understanding crime: most repeat young offenders
and their families are victims of privation.”
o
“[...]
victimized by the systems of law, social welfare and education.”
o
Conservative
political movements reject these claims, with the belief that “in a free
society, people have the freedom to choose between right and wrong” – “a
compelling a simplistic libertarian position that is difficult to refute in a
democratic society.”
o
Schissel
contends that “knowing the background of victimization and privation is more
compelling.”
6. Experts
·
“People
who foster moral panics have a vested interest in making their claims as valid
and legitimate as possible” – hence, the expert.
·
“Academics,
doctors, pollsters, police and court officials”
·
These
people “have access to a specialized knowledge and language that is both
mystical and impressive.”
·
Experts
are often privileged people – i.e., experts are rarely drawn from “the
socio-economic strata occupied by stereotypical street criminals.”
·
“We
thus discredit common knowledge and folk wisdom and rely on the opinions of the
educated.”
·
“This
is changing somewhat with the advent of community-based models of justice such
as Aboriginal healing circles”
·
Note
that “professional knowledge is often uncertain and contradictory regarding the
nature of crime and punishment.”
o
“[...]
representations of youth crime often draw on selected opinions that are not
necessarily shared by the majority in the scientific community.”
7. The Folk Devils
·
The
folk devil is “the focus of public panic.”
·
The
term is from Cohen (1980): “[...] threats to the moral and physical well-being
of society.”
·
“[...]
identified by association with a particular, visible social category.”
·
Presumed
to be “inherently deviant, [and] self-seeking [...] and in danger of
undermining the stability of society.”
·
They
are “constructed in the context of moral panic and are imbued with
stereotypical characteristics that set them apart from normal, law-abiding
society”
·
Thus
it is “easy for average citizens to become embroiled in the alarm over crime
and to call for harsh justice.”
·
“Most
media depictions of crime, whether factual or fictional, are about people
unlike us – the street person, the drug trafficker, the violent and amoral”
o
But
this is often not the case.
o
Schissel
contends “that the creation of the folk devil as a type of ‘resident alien’ is
the primary reason why punishment-based lobbies are so successful.”
§
Difficult
to punish our own
§
Much
easier to punish “those we do not understand or with whom we do not empathize.”
Blaming Children is “about the politics of hatred and the politics of fear.”
·
These
are powerful emotions “that people in positions of political and economic power
use to garner public opinion [... they are] staples of popular culture and
populist politics, [and] marked by their ambient and furtive nature.”
·
“an
unquestioned part of our ideology and discourse”
·
“Hatred
is fundamental to news reports, and fear is what sells them.”
·
The
author’s contention: “fear and hatred also contribute to a collective
understanding of issues of right and wrong, which, incidentally, have little to
do with a universal or inherent morality.”
·
Note:
“fear and hatred are not abstractions and not the result of power in a
theoretical form, but they result from the actual imposition of moral will by
some over others.”
The politics of hatred and fear:
·
“mechanisms
by which we attach moral valuations to social categories.”
·
“If
we hate and fear someone, then they must be bad.”
·
Hatred
and fear of young people “reveals an ideological orientation that associates
immorality with marginal social groups, which are identifiable by race, class
and gender.”
·
Deep
down, the politics of hate and fear are “the politics of stratification.”
·
Two
theories underlie the book Blaming Children.
o
Social
Constructionism ...
§
“assumes
that public images of acceptable behaviour are appropriate penalties for
violations of social norms are highly variable, as is the definition for ‘normal’
behaviour.”
§
Thus,
what constitutes ‘deviant’ behaviour also changes “over time and across social
groups and societies.”
§
This
theory is “informed [...] by historical studies that
o
The
second theoretical concern “attempts to understand the origins and intent of
[...] power” [...] i.e. the power of “defining and sanctioning virtuous and
evil behaviours among youth.”
·
Considering
“the public and political venom directed towards children and youths, and as we
contextualize youth misconduct in the structure, culture and family of
contemporary society [...]
o
...
the question is: “What is going on?”
o
The
paradox between “child victimization and child blaming.”
·
Certain
theories “do not answer why many youths who suffer economic, social and
personal privation go on to become law-abiding and productive citizens.”
o
Much
law-and-order rhetoric “is based on the presumption that everybody at one time
or another has suffered victimization, but only the truly bad engage in
criminal behaviour.”
o
But
these theories do address how “stratified society, by causing people to live on
the margins, not only creates criminal behaviour but constructs certain types
of behaviour and persons as unacceptable, not on the basis of inherent
morality, but on the basis of social signifiers.”
from “The Sociology of Knowledge and
the Deconstruction of Crime Myths” (p.103)
Focus on fear and “knowledge that underpins fear”
·
‘As
sociologists, we are forced to confront the task of deconstructing public
opinion, which we assume to be based on selected and biased knowledge.”
·
And,
“to uncover the sources of information and to asses the claims of [objectivity]
that inform and direct public opinion.”
Social constructionism:
·
is
part of post-modernism.
·
posits
that “deconstruction tears a text (all phenomena, all events, are texts) apart,
[and] reveals its contradictions and assumptions” (Rosenau, 1992)
·
Questions
(according to Schissel):
o
“What
are the hidden messages that ‘objective journalism’ conveys?”
o
“Who
are the originators of such ideological communiqués and how do they make claims
to legitimacy?”
o
“Who
are the expressed and insinuated targets of the social/political attack?”
Foucault, 1980:
·
“Particularly
instructive in understanding the nature of discourse surrounding youth
offenders.”
·
Foucault
(1980): “we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth”
Discourse (Foucault, cited in Ramazanoglu, 1993:10):
·
Discourse
is a “historically variable way of specifying knowledge and truth – what it is
possible to speak of at a given moment.”
·
Discourse
operates (NB, as an example, scientific discourse) as “sets of rules, and the
operation of these rules and concepts in programmes which specify what is or is
not the case, what constitutes insanity, for example.”
·
Discourses
= powerful
·
Power
may be “exercised by officials through institutions, or through many other
practices”
·
Power
is “constituted in discourses and it is in discourses that power lies.”
·
Discourses
produce truths, and access to the truth gives access to power.
Discourses comprise “the rules under which ‘talk’ can be
carried out.”
·
The
discourse regarding youth crime and punishment “is restricted to accounts based
on individual blame.”
·
Youth
crime: “individuals gone wrong, either inherently or culturally.”
·
The
underlying message: “society is structured correctly [and] individuals who
offend are individually or socially pathological and identifiable.”
·
Lent
legitimacy by “the knowledge of experts” – “news articles are often infused
with the voices of ‘professionals’ who corroborate their claims.
·
Not
only gives validity to the story, but by extension to all the media
·
Professional
opinion is often accompanied by the knowledge of ordinary people – a technique
to produce credibility.
Foucault:
·
“was
generally unconcerned with discourses and what interests they served.”
·
“his
approach to the study of the social construction of truth focuses on how power
and knowledge operate – not on what discourses mean but on what makes them
possible”
·
Questions:
“Who controls the images of youth? Who benefits from biased and incriminating
portraits of offenders? Why [are] certain categories of people the targets of
journalistic and political abuse?”
·
To
answer these questions: “we need to turn to critical-feminist and
political-economy-based theories of knowledge as they related to criminality
and use them to achieve some insights into the rhetoric of child-hating.”
·
Feminist:
“[...] the constructed and gendered knowledge about youth crime originates in
patriarchal political and economic systems.”
o
“Law-and-order
campaigns [...] are in part veiled attacks on women and feminism”
o
Women
are said to be the “producers of criminality [...] the inadvertent victimizers
of children”
o
“Non-traditional
families, non-traditional motherhood, single-parenthood, and poverty [...] causal
factors in youth criminality.”
o
Problems
resulting from structural inequality and the potential unfairness of a
market-based economy are attributed to problems of mothering and, ultimately,
to problems created by feminism.”
o
Feminist
response: “patriarchal ideologies frame the nature of women’s crime and the
imputed female role in criminogenesis” ... and, “these “stereotypical ‘sexist’
images are reproduced in the media and in academic institutions.”
·
Left-Realist
o
Left-Realism:
Marxist-based theory regarding crime and justice
o
How
is crime “defined by powerful people in association with the state political
system”?
o
“The
YOA is based on understanding the exploitative and marginalized background of
many offenders, but the reality is that the law is often not applied with this
in mind, and certainly the new wave of conservative law and order politics
vehemently denies the usefulness of thinking in such terms.” [...] “In fact,
youth offenders may be accurately described as survivors who are punished by
law for offenses viewed out of context.”
o
Left-Realism
“incorporates victimization as a fundamental consideration in just and
equitable social policy.”
·
Marxist
or Conflict Criminology
o
Marxist
theories proceed from the assumption that “certain groups of people gain advantage
over others and dominate by virtue of
their position of privilege and ownership of the system of production.”
o
Therefore
we are concerned “not just with the nature of images of youth, but also with
understanding the creators of those images and who is advantaged and
disadvantaged by the social construction of that knowledge.”
o
The
media play a role by the “creation and reproduction of stratified
socio-economic order by their creation of images of good and evil that are
attached accordingly to preferred and non-preferred groups of people.”
o
Instrumental
Marxist argument (Quinney 1974; Goff and Reasons 1978): “powerful people
directly influence government and manipulate this policy to their advantage.”
o
Structural
Marxist argument: the state is relatively neutral towards powerful individuals,
but functions to maintain the conditions whereby capital accumulates most
quickly.
§
Therefore
“the state must create conditions under which the system of capital
accumulation is held as legitimate by the populace,” otherwise the democratic
process would replace the system of “dominance and subordination.”
§
Therefore
the media must play an “ideological role”: media do not create the news, “nor
do they simply transmit the ideology of the ruling class in a conspiratorial
fashion” (Hall et al. 1978:59) – they play a crucial secondary role.
§
Hall
et al (1978) applied this point of view to the panic surrounding “mugging” in England
·
·
Schissel:
“The obvious question is WHY do news definers and makers conform to the
dominant ideology of a modern-day ‘ruling class,’ especially when the professed
mandate of the media is objectivity and journalistic integrity?
o
Near
monopoly of ownership of newspapers in Canada
o
Media
have an interest in maintaining their own credibility by controlling who can
speak in the media – i.e., experts.
Experts have access to knowledge that is, “to an uninitiated public
[...] mystical inaccessible, and, by definition, correct.” Therefore the
understand of crime and punishment presented in the media reflects power and
privilege.
o
The
media have selective attention – and “actively appropriate and transform [...]
the structured raw materials” (Hall et al, 1978) of the news.
·
Schissel
(1978) notes: “The stories, the visual and verbal images, and the scientific
accounts of youth crime are remarkably similar and constructed around a rigid
set of journalistic/ideological rules.
The newspapers and news magazines, with some differences in the extent of
inflammatory rhetoric, could be interchanged quite easily with little change in
content or intent.”
Conclusion
·
“Neo-Marxist
and feminist perspectives allow us to understand the entire moral panic against
youth in the context of power and social control.”
·
Steven
Box (1983): “Crime and criminalization are control strategies” that
o
“render
underprivileged and powerless people more likely to be arrested, convicted, and
sentenced to prison, even though the amount of personal damage and injury they
cause may be less than the more powerful and privileged cause;
o
“create
the illusion that the ‘dangerous’ class is located primarily at the bottom of
the various hierarchies by which we ‘measure’ each other
o
“fuses
relative poverty and criminal propensity and sees them both as effects of moral
inferiority
o
“[...]
thus rendering the ‘dangerous’ class deserving of both poverty and punishment.”
No comments :
Post a Comment