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TASK 1
Media is not always just stating facts about crimes, and can have a biased feeling in the writing. Especially as they try to have a "grabbing" headline in order to catch the public's eye to get them to read their piece. They can even have misinformation regrading the offender/case, this can lead to many influences that are not always good.
For example, in the case of a sexual assault, it has been known for the media to dig up some type of "dirt" on the victim to shame them and put them in the bad light instead of focusing on the offender and making the victim of the assault out to be the bad person in the scenario.

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Task 1: The type of media definitely matters in respect of it's readership and perceptions consequently held as a result of this style of reporting. Newspapers aim for 'headlines'; sensationalist news, that evokes an provokes emotions such as fear and anger in it's readers. Newspapers will often uses language that portrays the story in a particular way and their use of language plays a role in this too. Using 'knife crime' and reporting the socio-demographics of both victim and perpetrator in instances resulting in people with certain demographic characteristics being feared and blamed on the most part for these type of crimes. Social media too evokes and provokes emotions which escalate as a result of the combination of opinions and often lead to anger; perhaps retaliation?? These portrayals in the media may lead to the criminal believing they will not be accepted or will always be judged in this light and therefore the dynamic risk factors may be effected; if they have no self believe also, a reduction of fear for authority and/ or themselves is reduced. 

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Task 1: The type of media definitely matters in respect of it's readership and perceptions consequently held as a result of this style of reporting. Newspapers aim for 'headlines'; sensationalist news, that evokes an provokes emotions such as fear and anger in it's readers. Newspapers will often uses language that portrays the story in a particular way and their use of language plays a role in this too. Using 'knife crime' and reporting the socio-demographics of both victim and perpetrator in instances resulting in people with certain demographic characteristics being feared and blamed on the most part for these type of crimes. Social media too evokes and provokes emotions which escalate as a result of the combination of opinions and often lead to anger; perhaps retaliation?? These portrayals in the media may lead to the criminal believing they will not be accepted or will always be judged in this light and therefore the dynamic risk factors may be effected; if they have no self believe also, a reduction of fear for authority and/ or themselves is reduced. 

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Media, including both the newspapers and television portray offenders to be typical hooligans or gangsters, with a gang culture. These are typically portrayed as young black men, who are career criminals. What they fail to mention is the disproportionate number of black young men who live on the breadline, in poorer areas of town. If there was more focus on it being about the social status of people rather than colour, would that mean the government would have to step in to improve the lives of young people, and individuals who are living in poverty. Therefore is it better for the media to allow the public to thing this is a black gang culture, so those who are in a higher margin of society can pretend it is not their problem, and something that can do nothing to influence. Furthermore, the more publicized the crimes are the more this increases the risk of violence, as people are under the impression they will get attacked in certain areas when in fact, looking at the official statistics this might not be the case. Like other professional bodies, I feel the media should have to back up their comments with credible evidence.

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Overall, I think the media is hugely biased. Often it reports only what the business men who own the papers credit from being reported to the public. Particular offences appear to be handpicked to report on where others are bypassed or ignored completely. Often those offences that are particularly emotionally provocative are the ones that are documented; those that appeal to the biggest population and therefore that will sell the most, exaggerating the negative of the offender but also highlighting the 'mistakes' of those who should have "known the risk" or could have prevented it. This leads to the general perception of the public that offenders are un-redeemable and that rehabilitation does not work and is pointless. Often I hear friends and family members saying things like "lock them away for life and throw away the key" and "leopards don't change their spots" when they hear stories in the media. All consideration for the humane rights of that human being are felt to be justifiably stripped because the media has said they are "evil", because the person has offended. This makes the job of trying to re-integrate offenders back into society safely more difficult and trying to remain objective about the risk, difficult for assessors, who do not want to be held publicly responsible for someone re-offending.

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Task 1; I too found the articles extremely interesting to read.  Especially in understanding how the media represent crimes in a way that is marketable and unrepresentative of the crime as a whole. For example, the fact that national newspapers only represented 2 black males that died of knife crime when many more women and children died of different races perpetuates the stereotype that black males are more likely to be victims of knife crime than others. However this does not appear to be the case.In Australia information was provided in the media that stated that they portray an increased level of homicide though this is inaccurate. This evokes an increased level of fear in the public. This includes reporting crimes committed by people who suffer from a mental illness. The statistics of a person suffering from mental illness committing a violent attack is considerably lower than the media would have people believing. This could cause members of the parole board to assume that someone with a mental illness would be a higher risk to the public, though this may not be true. This could affect the outcome of the hearing and negatively affect those who may be able to live cohesively in society.The media portrayals of offenders matter greatly. The public on a daily basis are exposed to many different forms including newspapers, TV and radio. The professionals on the parole boards are firstly, members of the general public who may be affected by this.

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Task 1; I too found the articles extremely interesting to read.  Especially in understanding how the media represent crimes in a way that is marketable and unrepresentative of the crime as a whole. For example, the fact that national newspapers only represented 2 black males that died of knife crime when many more women and children died of different races perpetuates the stereotype that black males are more likely to be victims of knife crime than others. However this does not appear to be the case.In Australia information was provided in the media that stated that they portray an increased level of homicide though this is inaccurate. This evokes an increased level of fear in the public. This includes reporting crimes committed by people who suffer from a mental illness. The statistics of a person suffering from mental illness committing a violent attack is considerably lower than the media would have people believing. This could cause members of the parole board to assume that someone with a mental illness would be a higher risk to the public, though this may not be true. This could affect the outcome of the hearing and negatively affect those who may be able to live cohesively in society.The media portrayals of offenders matter greatly. The public on a daily basis are exposed to many different forms including newspapers, TV and radio. The professionals on the parole boards are firstly, members of the general public who may be affected by this.

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Generally, I believe the media portrays offenders in a very negative light. Often the media will comment heavily on the offence in order to create public outrage and an interesting article however fail to mention anything that may have contibuted to an individuals offending behaviour such as biology, upbringing, social status etc. The media is often highly biased on the type of crime they report. They empasise crimes that are shocking to the public and have a "perfect" victim.

The media is often fuelled by opinions rather than facts, which again causes biases and can lead to hate crimes against certain groups of people.

I believe the way in which the media reports crime is biased and unethical. It may unknowingly affect judgements of those completing risk assessments and it is generally an unhelpful medium for factual evidence.

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I believe that social media has more influence over the younger population. Social media is a platform for uncensored opinions to be published, there are always links to false reports online to back up these opinions. This type of media does matter in terms of offences and offenders, it allows for stereotypes of offenders and offences. Social media would be a concern for offender risk assessments, as the offender may see something on social media that could cause distress to the offender.
Newspapers seem to have a reputation for not being honest, and so there is not much influence from newspapers. Whereas TV news is the opposite, and the public seem to credit the TV news lines.
For offender risk assessments, the media in general is a concern if the offenders identity is known, the public can brand people a certain way and want to seek revenge. Robert Thompson and John Venables are classic examples of how the public react to medias coverage of crimes.

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i think the type of media does matter. With the recent invention of social media, public opinion seems to be swayed on a larger scale especially among young people. However, with more official types of media like the news, people may place more weight in these opinions as you see them as 'experts' rather than lay people giving personal opinions. Either way it is clear the media has a massive effect on public perceptions and we all have a responsibility to be mindful of the language we use the effects this may have

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The media uses language and images to sensationalise an offender and their offences to provoke responses in it's readers. Unfortunately, some in the public have negative stereotypes and perceptions, often fuelled by the media, which alter the public's perception of the Justice system. As a result, the media will target this and print articles about criminals, labelling them as 'gangsters', 'monsters', 'killers', 'deviants' to appeal to the masses that have these thoughts and opinions. This kind of thinking, in my opinions, harms the rehabilitation of not only the offender, but the rehabilitation system as a whole. We need to work on promoting community rehabilitation, but that is hard to accomplish when the media prints 'to lock them up' as someone has suggested above.

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Sorry this is glitchy. I can't drag and drop it to write a comment under your previous box because someone else's is over it!

In relation to the comment about people being kept in prison too long, I have seen evidence that hopelessness can be a real issue affecting long-term prisoners. I've seen examples where people withdraw from the whole parole process, because they experience it as so traumatic.
Sarah P.

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It is interesting that the Dowler (2003) study suggested that watching crime shows increases a fear of violence but the news does not. Perhaps the more dramatised the crime the greater the fear. The greater public fear of crime, the more the media will play on this.
With regard to social media, I find that some people believe (and share) everything they read, and others claim to be very sceptical about anything posted online.

The main way that the media can impact risk assessments is by concentrating on specific 'hot' topics or crimes, which become a focus for policy. For those completing risk assessments, one would expect them to undertake assessments objectively, but media focus on a particular group or behaviour may impact how that offender is assessed.

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How are offenders portrayed in the media?
Does type of media matter? If so, how?
How might media views impact on offender risk assessment?

I would suggest that the media portrays offenders negatively, for example by exaggerating cases, using emotional and sensationalised terms and at times almost attempting to dehumanise individuals them with terms such as 'killer'.

I believe that the type of media can matter. With social media forms e.g. facebook/twitter there is opportunity for live discussions by individuals which could lead to debates/disagreements and may influence public perceptions or increase concerns. For live news readings it is possible that it may at times be more emotionally provoking to hear about certain cases verbally/see footage than to read about this. It appears that the wording used in all forms of media is key.

Media views could impact offender risk assessments for more high profile cases. For instance, if the individual completing the risk assessment is exposed to media about the offender this may skew their views and lead to them being less objective in the risk assessment. They may unknowingly take information they have heard from the media to the risk assessment and not base this solely on information they may collate beforehand and during the assessment process.

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thepsychologist.bps.org.uk quotes that

'We would like to see the BPS and other professional bodies step up and engage with the public in communicating these complex ideas.'

I believe that the media aims to present offenders as a threat to the public, which sells more papers or increases views on social media.

I believe challenging these anxieties the public has in regards to offending and publish information about the reality the risk offenders present to the public would help.

In relation to the question 'does the type of social media matter' I would say yes, as facedbook and twitter have more option to discuss the articles, which often result in misinformation in the comments, and hateful language towards the offenders, along the lines of ''lock them up and throw away the key' and especially in terms of Sex Offenders, that they should be castrated or killed.

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Offenders are mostly portrayed in a negative light by the media. Often key features are picked out to illicit controversial responses. For example if the offender is under 18 'youths' are often presented as hoodies or delinquents whom should be looking for work or in education. Skin colour/race is often always noted. It can greatly depend on the type of media used also, newspapers vary across their own platforms, for example a daily mail newspaper will offer a different presentation of an incident to a guardian newspaper. If the offence is publicised, it may influence how a Probation Officer or Offender Manager approaches the risk assessment process. Conversely, if the crime is publicised enough, the officer may struggle to keep the service user safe.

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Good  points regarding, ethic's and the impacts of pressure on decision making

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the media will show more negative events compared to positive, this leads the public to have a heightened fear of crime

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The media at times glamorises perpetrators as Gangsters, which vulnerable people may wish to be portrayed as.

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The type of media may influence public perceptions:
- Social media includes a lot of opinions which can generate hate towards certain crimes/groups of people
- Newspapers may not be very influential on the younger generations as they're unlikely to read newspapers (use social media and watch TV instead)

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The media portrays individuals sometimes in a worse light and when that type of offender gets release, the risk assessment may not correspond to the articles in the media. this then causes uproar in the public because they believe everything they read

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media portrays the perpetrator as usually being young ethnic minorities

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the negative views about offenders might sway peoples responses to be negative toward aspects such as rehabilitation and reintegration back into society

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There isn’t public understanding or knowledge of what constitutes as a risk and what the limitations of individual release will be

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The media has to include 'juicy' topics for front of newspapers so therefore, will create headlines that cause more fear of a group than there initially is.

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can sometimes portray offenders extremely negative meaning it would make it harder for them to integrate back into society if they were to be released. If they are shown to be 'monster' like it can affect them for the rest of their lives.

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It can impact the decision of the psychologist due to unfair pressure from public, government and media 

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It can impact the decision of the psychologist due to unfair pressure from public, government and media 

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lots of coverage on big crimes/violent crimes

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lots of coverage on big crimes/violent crimes

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Media sensationalise certain cases that they feel will evoke reactionary emotions in the public sometimes unfairly 

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Media sensationalise certain cases that they feel will evoke reactionary emotions in the public sometimes unfairly 

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•Is it better to let 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted?

•Is detention without trial ethical?

•Is detention without offending ethical?

•What about long periods of detention?

•How do you balance the human rights of the offender with protecting the public?

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How are offenders portrayed in the media?

Does the type of media (e.g. newspapers, online, social media) matter? If so, how?

How might media views impact on offender risk assessment?