Media’s Portraits of Guns and Violence Essay

Discuss the connection between the portrayal of guns, violence, and victims and the crime-fighting policies that are implied in these portrayals. What criminal justice policies are support by the above portraits and which ones are warnd? The media distorts the publics deal of violence, guns, and victims, and helps shape the criminal justice policies by doing so. Their portrayal of guns, violence, and victims is of law enforcement or private citizens fighting a constant war against crime, usually with an excess of violence from both the perpetrators and the crime fighters. One example of the violence that the media shows is how more of the crimes committed have guns involved. The media sours it seem like it is easy to get a gun, that all criminals have one, and that all citizens need one for protection. Whoever has the biggest gun wins. hence they show the crime fighter coming after the criminal precise aggressively, and they violently battle it out.The more the media sensatio nalizes gun violence, and keeps it fresh in the sweethearts minds, the more the public will believe it is the biggest problem in crime control, whether it is true or not, and public opinion will slip away to many debates over the issue of gun control, and other policies that could lessen violence. These media portrayals make it seem ok for private citizens to take the law into their own hands, purge violently, as long as they stop the bad guy. A current media example of this is the television show Arrow. The Arrow would be a rogue, although he was never a cop. Criminal Justice policies that discourage these media portraits are gun buy-back programs stricter gun laws, and harsher sentencing for those caught with unlawful guns.