Throughout the decades representations of criminals, police and society have changed.

Mid 50's.
Police - wholly good, friendly and honest
Criminals - Criminals defines as social misfits, still the rest of scoeity functions well.
Society- Clear distinction between good and bad, clear moral universe

60's
Police- distinction between detectives and bobbies on the beat. Some are ruthless and bullies
Criminals - social causes of crime present; poverty, unemployment, race, family breakup etc.
Society - crime is now linked to the society however still clear morals.

Change in attitudes. The police are represented differently here ---> more brutal, on social terms with criminals.

70's
Police - brutal, disrespectful, corrupt, share characteristics with criminals. (The Sweeney)
Criminals - have a code of ethics which in some ways is parallel to the ethics of police
Society- crime is simply the visible side of an unjust society, the logical outcome of social structure.

80's
Influence of feminism

Crime series with central female characters eg. The Gentle Touch.
Crime genre was hyper-masculine

Heavy focus on crime solving ----> around male characters eg. Poirot
Emphasis onhigh production values

The Bill
reaction againist the violent series in the 70's.

• discussions about the role of police and how they were 'out of touch'
• return the idea of police serving a particular community's needs
• See things from police point of view ---> never had access ti the planning or execution of a crime.

90's

Alot of hybrid genre

The X files - crime and horror

The roles of the police changed from being wholly good and moral, to the police being similar to the criminals and being on social terms with them.

Criminals seemed to have changed from 'evil and sick' to people who are criminals because of society, and how they dont fit into society.

Recent Texts

Gridiron Gang - '...sends out a message that one man can make a differenceand the most hopeless kids in our society can change the course of their lives through hard work, commitment and bold leadership'.

' The average child will see about 8,000 murders depicted on TV before finishing grade school'

Quoted - http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/gridirongang/site/flash.html 30/4/09

Kidulthood- Trevor's uncle was a criminal, how he affects Trevor.

http://www.thesweeney.info/ The website for that TV programme.

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1366

2 Tales of fear and fascination
2.4 Summary
While social scientists think about crime analytically, most of the time individuals think about crime in terms of narratives or stories. Narratives which describe and explain their lives.
Societies also construct narratives about themselves. The dominant common-sense story about the crime problem in the contemporary UK is that a long wave of rising crime has created a society that is frightened, that feels both individual safety and the wider social order are under threat.
Our society is also fascinated and attracted by stories and representations of crimes and criminals


2.1 Social attitudes towards crime
Crime, then, is a social construction. We had to break down the definition of crime and the process of recognising crimes to explore that. This is an analytical approach to the issue, which simply means unpacking an idea or a process into its separate components so that we can examine them more closely. But most of the time we don't think about crime analytically. We think about it as a narrative, as a story.
At a personal level we may tell the story, over a drink, of our car being broken into for a third time this year. Others confide in each other with stories of personal injury. We use stories to make sense of our misfortunes, to seek remedies to our hurts, to establish a chain of events and actions that we can understand. What we do as individuals and small groups, we also do as a society. What kinds of stories about crime are we telling ourselves in the UK?
Broadly speaking, there are two types of story in circulation. One set of stories is prominent in public discussions and the media. It describes the UK as a society engulfed in a tidal wave of crime in which a secure past has become an insecure and uncertain present, crime is something to be feared and diminished: a society frightened by crime. The other set of stories we tell and consume, more privately perhaps, is of crime as macabre but glamorous, fearful but fascinating. It seems that we cannot get enough of this kind of crime and these stories: a society fascinated by crime

3 Main Features

Three parts;

1. Police representation
2. Criminal representations
3. Society good?, fractured with lines of confilct? race, class etc

Police Representation

Two sides to police that we view on TV.

good moral side ---> Wholey bad side

the wholey bad side betrays our attitudes to policing.

'The Sweeney' , old Tv programme about police, which portrayed them as thuggish who were very violent however morally good.

Criminal Representation

Two sides also

1. Plain, bad evil ---> how society works, crack down on bad 'elements'.
2. Criminals are the logical outcome of social inequalitites. Not baddies, they behave in the way society influences.

Extreme criminals eg. Seriel killers are they sick or evil?

Your first ideas

Why not look at crime narratives and how they represent the police, the criminal, and society in general? Within this you could explore the pleasures offered by the texts, the possible cultural anxieties they indicate exist, and how real audiences talk about them (ie what they like about them - this would connect your secondary reading with some real research to see if it is backed up or not).

Media texts you could focus on:

Whitechapel - about Jack the Ripper. IS the serial killer sick and needing treatment, or evil and needing punishment?

Knife Crime reporting - why the increase despite ambiguous evidence

The Bill

For primary research you could get together fans of crime drama and show them some clips to find out their attitudes to what you discover doing your secondary reading.

Sean