Criminal Justice and the Media Biases and Misrepresentations

As I walk down the street and also spot a policeman, I suddenly attempt to serve as typical as feasible and also obtain anxious, fearing the officer will certainly stop me just for being questionable. Many of my fears of the cops stem from their representation by the media as strict by the book enforcers and brutal abusers of pressure. While police gets such a negative photo that is not constantly real, they serve an essential function in our neighborhood.

As a nation, we elect to have laws that control the limits to our behavior. However, if these regulations are unenforced, they are inadequate. As an approach to deter criminal activity, we create punishments that individuals run the risk of if they go against a regulation. Part of a policeman's job entails such enforcement of the law-they may release a penalty such as a ticket to a person that runs a red light. This responsibility of a policeman contributes to the unfavorable sight the American culture offers the police as they are related to punishing as well as quiting people to apply the law. Taking into account countering our sight that police are exclusively available to provide penalties, Inciardi states that their peacekeeping activities also consist of "areas of civil service such as routing traffic, resolving conflicts ... as well as delivering infants" (Inciardi 182). Hence, it is safe to claim that we choose our police officer for activities that broaden a lot additionally than just decreasing crime.

Putting police working does not come without an expense to our civil liberties. For instance, the security activity of a police officer horns in my personal privacy as I walk along the sidewalk. It gives the police authority over exclusive people that may or may dislike losing their autonomy. This is demonstrated when Inciardi mentions a police onlooker that gives an example that demonstrates this loss of autonomy-the individual in the example would call the cops rather than firing the individual that is trying to lower his tree, hence he loses his right to use pressure and also gives it up to the police (Inciardi 184-185).

Via approaches of prejudice, the media can skew our sight of cops towards the extra adverse view of doing not have control of their use force. A clear example of this remains in an article created by Michael Snyder specifying: "Just this week, there have actually been stories regarding cops killing a child deer at an animal sanctuary, about police eliminating a 95-year-old World War II veteran in a retirement home ..." (Snyder). This bias by omission intends to provoke a popular opinion disregarding the many more favorable payments such as keeping the streets secure that the police given during the week. One more vital element to the media's coverage of law enforcement is that it prejudices in order to favor earnings. With the George Zimmerman as well as Trayvon Martin instance, according to Jaime Ortega, the media "turned the entire instance right into a racially prejudiced solo prosecution to promote his shame and sponsor an anti-Zimmerman project that would certainly last for over a year" (Ortega). This emphasis prejudices the case by spin as well as noninclusion of facts such as Trayvon Martin's past record, preferring a one sided view that Zimmerman must be punished. By doing so, the issue can be blown up right into a much hotter subject that raises money for the news as well as protestor teams sustaining Trayvon. Attaching this back to police circumstances, the authorities eliminating a child deer is an instance of an abnormal act that is even more interesting than a story that a police officer succeeds in directing traffic on an active road, hence it will increase even more money for the media.

Police with its defense of our safety and also peacekeeping certainly does even more great than harm. It is just our misunderstandings and prejudices that the media provides that make us really feel as it is the other way around.

Works Cited

• Inciardi, James A. Criminal Justice. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2010. Print.
• Ortega, Jaime. "Media Bias: The Case of Trayvon Martin and Chris Lane."Thedailyjournalist.com. The Daily Journalist, 30 Aug. 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.
• Snyder, Michael. "Why Have Police In America Turned Into Such Ruthless Thugs?"Infowars.com. N.p., 9 Aug. 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.

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