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Case study analyses that can be used to help with the end of year assessment...

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Case Study 1: Taglines 03/10/19 1) What would you do if you were accused of a murder you had not committed...yet? Minority Report. - Planned murder or terrorism? Is the person being framed or have they really been planning this? - idea of self-fulfilling prophecy in the idea of ‘yet’. - Idea of people being consdiered risky because of predicted future behaviours i.e. sex offenders are given predictive scores for their likelihood of reoffending. 2) A homespun murder story. Small town. Big crime. Dead cold. A lot can happen in the middle of nowhere. - Fargo. - Very isolating, small town psyche - everyone knows one another and their business, the idea of being safer as not much happens, criminal or otherwise. - The jeopardy here is the idea of a murder having been committed - Winter and cold so the idea of nowhere is more expansive. - Strategic intent - leftover feelings of anxiety and distrustfulness. 3) They locked him up. They crushed his spirit. But they couldn’t hide the truth. - Murder in the First. - Shawshank Redemption? A person being unjustly and corruptly imprisoned character perhaps beaten and abused whilst there, ideas of brutality and crushing of spirit, but also a sense of justice, a person being vindicated at the end. - The jeopardy of the film is that the truth is ultimately exposed. 4) On the inside the rules are brutal and the stakes are high. - Animal Factory. - Idea of working just within the rules but not quite, greed and the curiosity and yearning of the outside world. - The jeopardy is that the breaking of the rules has the potential to end in death or imprisonment. - life and death stakes. 5) This house looked like an easy target. Until they found what was inside. - Don’t Breathe. - burglary/aggravated burglary/home invasion - easy target because the person(s) living there are easy to manage? Deceptive appearances. - Jeopardy of reversing the roles of victim and villain. Feeling more empathetic with the perpetrator rather than the supposed victim. 6) The only thing more dangerous than the line being crossed is the cop who will cross it. - Training Day. - Strong links to authority - who sets the lines being crossed? Reversal whereby how is the cop any different to a criminal when upholding the law leads to breaking it.

R. Sparks - analyses of t.v. crime drama. Looked across different narrative theorists; U.Eco, 1979, The Role of the Reader - texts have generic narrative features and structures i.e. Bond Films, whilst also being constructed with a hypothetical audience in mind rather than being aimed at a true audience. R. Ericson, 1987, Visualising Deviance - stories always have a strategic intent especially with the narratives that are told i.e. asking a question to prompt a story forward. These narratives tell stories as to who we are and are central to human communication. R. Ericson, 1991, Mass Media, Crime, Law and Justice - t.v. crime dramas feed the tension between chaos and order, anxiety/pleasure, simplicity/complexity etc. Quote - Looks at how t.v. crime dramas are scheduled i.e. how long, timing - anything outside these slots are different and quirky to the regular. - Continuity announcements that hook in the audience, like a tagline announcing the programme. - Trailers are also v. important i.e. Whitechapel and the storylines of the Kray twins, some of the most notorious gangsters of the East End. Much of their mystique was the fact that they were identical twins and often considered to be very charming, having multiple ‘celebrity’ friends such as Barbara Windsor, with one of them being openly gay. This programme sets up many binaries to add to creative tension = a contemporary reality or have the real Krays come back? Is this a mimic/copycat or have they somehow returned? Idea that this set of events is very serious, is not petty but in fact extremely serious. The Krays mentioned here meant to be sons of Ronnie Kray but is this just a facade, a recreation of the 1960s Krays. Is this case built on facts or intuition? - In this narrative the scenes create different contexts for different types of action - a generic feature of a t.v crime drama. Often always a crowded, Urban scene which depicts the unknown/dangerous/chaotic - the space where the action takes place, a vast labyrinthian area. - Police stations are always depicted as dark/gloomy and as a space of reflection and planning rather than one of actions. The t.v. narrative creates a movement from indoors/outdoors and safety to danger. - Characters are v. important i.e. antagonist/protagonist/a supporter of the hero/villain. Character of the hero is what the drama is centred around. Strong ideas of moral entrepreneurs or mavericks. - T.v. crime drama is often marketed around the bluntness of the hero’s surname - very masculinised whereas where women’s crime dramas are idealised around the

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situation rather than the name of the detective. These are all very generic features of the typical t.v crime drama. They confirm what we think we know about policing - if the outcome is not what we want then we are unhappy i.e. Game of Thrones. The ending becomes very unsatisfying. there is a tension between the distribution and the ordering of moral categories.

Textbooks often have hypotheses when it comes to media - known as media effects models. 1 = the more you watch the more it influences you, and this is a problem as it explains why/cause and effect 2 = de-sensitisation model. 3 = copycat 4 = sensationalising and glamourising problems.

Case Study 2: Cultural Narratives of ‘Righteous Slaughter’

17/10/19

Chicago Film (Mirimax Films, 2002) - Cell Block Tango and All That Jazz: -

People are very keen to explore desires, emotions, lens of adrenaline in crime. Tends to then be so micro that people tend to forget there is a wider context to this excitement. We are lacking the cultural context to how these emotions play out and immediacy of this interaction.

Material background; -

Education Health institutions Economy Law/Criminal justice system Consumerism Labour Production Space Media Religion Family Community

Cultural background; -

Tradition Ritual Memories Narratives Symbolism Semiotics (signs) Communication Cultural practises Cultural media Cultural values

Any relationship then between foreground and background, is it synchronic or diachronic? -

Synchronic = fixed in time, specific point in time where things happened Diachronic = persists over time and allow for change, develops and evolves

Testing whether the relationship between the foreground and background has persisted over time and whether it has changed.

Chicago: Based on a true story -

1924 real life trial where Beulah Annan, fictionalised as Roxie Hart, murdered her boyfriend. Equated by an all male duty First proper celebrity trial Film was produced in 1979 and 2002 Made a broadway play of it. In 1975 they made the broadway musical of Chicago

Chicago is diachronic, it retains it appeal across time and space. The narrative of Chicago has a cultural continuity. It isn’t just passing, our cultural portfolio that is touched by this story is quite permanent. It touches in on our cultural background. -

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Genre: Musical satire = inviting you to be skeptical, questing, regard the story as flawed, irony to the plot. Questioning the criminal justice system, the media collusion, the celebrity. Plot/story/characters/setting: shot her boyfriend because he was using her for sex, not championing her to stardom. Gives you to believe that becoming a celebrity can’t be achieved without the accompaniment of a male. Her lawyer (male) builds her up to be a celebrity victim. Women are very dependent on men for their success. The all male jury prove her of her innocence. Media manipulated justice/ patriarchal society/ objective sexualisation of women. Emotional intensities of the victim = lazy, popping gum, womanising, abusive, a bum, alcoholic. Emotional intensities of the women = wanted love, in shock, blacked out, didn’t do it.

The lines of the song position us as viewers to buy into the fact that the men who got killed deserved it. Being invited to share their justifications to killing their men, what’s actually right, what’s actually wrong, the necessity to killing somebody, consider what if feels like to be at breaking point, what if feels like to be temporarily insane. We love this story, it keeps us entertained. It generates cultural narratives of righteous slaughter. Inviting us to universally judge the situations. Inviting us to morally accept it was correct, rather than by law. It excuses behaviour, the last straw that broke the camel's back, transcendental rage. It matters because everyday you will hear a story about something and it’ll impact on you emotionally. In your emotional response you will draw on your cultural background, not on material background (like law, institutions etc). You will draw on cultural reference points. E.g. pedophile Richard Huckle stabbed to death at Full Sutton Prison = you draw on your natural cultural background and think “who cares”, “he deserves it”, you do not think about human rights, the law etc.

Case Study 3: Assembling Suspect Populations (?)

31/10/19

Crime Prevention: Cinderella Service - policing reserved for people injured on duty and need to recover/rest. Commercial Security Sector - crime prevention outsourced to this sector.

Police Service - idea of a ‘service’ and not a ‘force’. Expertise - generated through atheoretical paradigm of research. Atheoretical/common sense approach - Routine activity theory i.e. a crime occurs where there is a likely offender, a suitable target and no suitable garden. - Situational crime prevention i.e. streetlamps so the area is more visible. - Rational choice theory i.e. potential offender does a cost-benefit analysis of whether or not the crime is worth it/ a rational choice. - Designing out crime i.e. using locks/CCTV/ alarms etc. Social media - Campaigns, appeals, reconstructions i.e. police will circulate images and videos etc. in order to prevent crimes, especially when there is an increase in particular types of criminal activity.

Crime Prevention Advice: Individualistic/victim blaming. Lacks perspective of power/resources/ power and agency. Culture of suspicion and fear regarding who/wear/what we should feel unsafe (about). Intolerance to difference. Divided, surveillance society whereby we become a surveillance society, constantly looking for possible offenders. Criminogenic spaces/criminogenic people. Lippert and Wilkinson (2010, Crime, Media, Culture 6(2): 131-152: - Relies heavily on ‘the visual’ - ‘dodgy people’ in ‘risky spaces’. - Generates hegemonic narratives - Betsy Stanko, Women’s Safety (1989), everyday experiences of women and crime, found crime office awareness and women always depicted as being at risk in public spaces. According to statistics women are most at risk in private spaces by people they know/love. - Promotes a punitive imagination. - Befits a form of counter-law i.e. governing through crime (Simon, 2007). - Yields undemocratic, gendered and racist consequences. - Focuses almost exclusively on property crime. Cultural Criminological Contributions to Crime Prevention Discourses: Focused massively on culture i.e. - Creative and artistic practices and artefacts - Lifestyles, identities, traditions, rituals, memories, beliefs, everyday worlds - Symbolic contexts for making choices

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Production and exchange of meanings Visual, material, performative, affective, sensory, discursive, aesthetic and embodied life

Case Study: Preventing sex offenders: - First advert: suggests it is the females allowing themselves to be vulnerable which allows sexual predators to attack them - victim blaming. - Advert places emphasis on women and girls staying together on a night out. - the text image over the girls faces makes it a very everyday normalised image. - Paradigmatic relationship between the close relationship of the girls and the text that reads ‘the one you leave behind’. The language of the text opposes the closeness of the image. - Poster targeted towards young women - resonates with every girl in that age group. - Second advert: the word ‘rape’ is written in red assoiciated with danger and voilence. - The word is emphasised by the black background. - The word ‘flirting’ is also emphasised but in a different way? - Where are the boundaries? - poster suggests there are clear boundaries and stages between flirting and rape but in real life that’s not how it happens. At what stage does the permission need to be asked? If the flirting is bordering on harassment then what is the protocol for this. Crime Stoppers Alleyway/ Gun advert: - Underground, back alley practices. - Alley is well lit, possibly with cameras and this is counter-stereotypical as it means it shows it could happen anywhere and anyone could happen upon it. - Tagline: ‘You stay anonymous. Crime doesn’t.’ The person in the background is anonymised which adds to this. - Poster aim is to report crime. - Gun is very symbolic of a darker type of crime, something much more serious. - Poster assumes that we come across these things all the time and that it is our duty to report it when we notice. Opportunist Burglary/Theft: - First advert: Bold lettering that is explicitly victim-blaming, it is our responsibility to ensure there is minimum risk of our property being taken, despite the fact that the bag is being taken from someone's locked car with a clearly broken window. - Counter-intuitive? - if you’re property is taken in this kind of situation you feel at fault

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and therefore less likely to report it out of embarrassment/ self-blame. Second advert: takes a safe place, the home, and stages it as being a place at risk. Focuses on doors, windows and locks. Idea of taking risks i.e. the opportunity is there and it presents a challenge. The burglar is anonymous in dark clothing - suggests they are prepared but it cannot be both pre-meditated and opportunistic. What about the people that are dressed regularly i.e. poster constructs what a suspicious person looks like so no one focuses on people who are just ‘regular’. Poster is very victim-blaming and geared towards girls? - the laptop being stolen is bright pink.

Counter-Terrorist Posters: - Red with white text so both are very stark and eye-catching, for everyone to read and take notice. - There is a sense of imperative i.e. there are no pictures but the message is clear. - Adverts invite the public to take any incidence, even the smallest thing, and to report it just in case. It doesn’t want people to disregard anything at all. - In the way the adverts work, this gestapo-esque reporting model creates a surveillance society whereby everyone is suspicious of everybody else, even friends against friends etc.

Case Study 4: Graffiti Tagging; - Unreadable

14/11/19

- Difference in thickness - Colours - Similar style - Symbolic style - hieroglyphics/arabic/chinese - Different language i.e. if you're not involved and don’t understand then you don’t get the point - communication/community - Sameness and dissimilarity - perhaps done by the same person? - Recursive narrative in graffiti? - type of dialogue not noticeable to outsiders but a possible narrative to those who understand. Tags are put up rapidly in one swift motion, the aim here is quantity i.e. how many tags can be put up within one given area. These tags are put up for the benefit of other graffiti artists and the more there are, the more recognition you gain as being a ‘good’ artist. Every tag tells a story, one which we are unaware of as we are not part of that community. The tags are parodies of symbols that we see/have seen in everyday life, but each tag has common features i.e. stars/halos/crowns/arrows etc. Number 3 - a call for someone who has been sent to prison for tagging etc. to be released. R.I.P - memorialise graffiti artist who has died. Tagging takes years of practice to ensure it is readable and reachable to the tagging community. The sense of style acts as a signature, a form of calligraphy that sets the precedent for your role within the tagging community. Localised i.e. tags in London are called ‘dubs’ and are angular, blocky and 2-toned in chrome paint. The symbols in tags are highly territorialised to the local/urban tag crew as well as being part of the hierarchy as to where tags are placed i.e. more serious tag writers will put their tags in seemingly dangerous areas i.e. train tracks/sides of high buildings/ bridges etc. There are rituals to these tags.

Political Slogans; I.e. ‘yeet the rich’, ‘climate change is class war’, ‘live, laugh, love. meth’. - Everyone can read and understand it - consumable for everyone not just a select few - Maybe aimed at younger people/other specific audience? - language used, reception may vary depending on generation - Lasting display of passion, a fuck you to the system - Sense of rebellion/resistance/opposition

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What are the statements really about? What is the intended reading of the statement?

Some political slogans marked by political affiliations i.e. Anarchists.

Picotral Graffiti; - Dichotomy between art and crime is completely blurred - Appealing - you want to look at it - Readable for everyone This type of graffiti communicates something different. It is not for a specific demographic or community, it is for everyone. It involves skill and connects people/things together. Can become a point of reference/a landmark/a context that people can talk about. There is a pride and pleasure in a city etc. having this kind of graffiti that can be enjoyed by the people. However, this kind of graffiti is commodified, more like commercial art than a criminological piece of graffiti. The cultural appropriation of the street, from criminology to consumer culture.

Artveillance (Brighenti). Genre of graffiti that interrogates surveillance and makes fun of it. Politically motivated, used to question the surveillance of urban spaces.

Case Study 5: The Jay Report (2014) 28/11/19

Headline statement of independent inquiry = 1400 children minimum sexually esploited over enquiry period, 1997-2012. - In Rotherham - Involved rape by multiple perpetrators - Children trafficked to other towns around North of England - Victims abducted, beaten and intimidated - Some doused with petrol as a form of control/punishment as well as threats to be set alight/gun violence - Forced to witness other child rapes as a form of threat - Girls as young as 11 raped by multiple perpetrators - In 2013, Police received 157 further reports of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. - May 2014, 51 cases of CSE reported to social care teams. - In just over ⅓ of these cases, children exploited were already under the care of social services.

Political and Professional Mishandling; - scale /seriousness of issue was systematically played down. - Police gave no priority to CSE and held victims in contempt. - 3 reports of CSE were presented by case working social workers to police/council and each report was either suppressed/ignored or disbelieved. - Police and SS managers claimed each report was exaggeration.

Majority of perpetrators described by victims as Asian and councillors did not engage with Pakistani heritage community to discuss the issue. Councillors regarded the CSE as a one off problem that would go away and staff were nervous of identifying perpetrators as Asian for fear of coming across as racist - some staff given explicit instructions to never reveal race in reports. In 2009 the SS put under special measures which were never implemented or monitored. In 2013 leader of council apologised for the poor handling of these cases on the part of the council/social services.

Guardian Editorial, August 2014; - ...‘Mass betrayal of young people’... - References ...