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Chapter 10
New Media, Crime, and Justice
Chapter Objectives
After reading Chapter 10, students should:
1. appreciate the difference between legacy media and new media
2. recognize the social effects and concerns related to new media
3. have an overview of the ways new media, crime, and justice intersect
4. comprehend how new media broadens criminality and encourages performance
crimes
5. see how new media has been adopted by law enforcement, the courts, and corrections
Chapter Outline
I. New Media, Crime, and Justice
a. Changes in society associated with new media dominate social experiences and
today many people communicate and compete for attention through their media
more often than in their face-to-face encounters with people
i. The quip “Everyone wants their fifteen gigabytes of fame” describes one
way that new media have changed society
b. This change has had significant effects on crime and justice
c. The key characteristic of new media that underlies the social changes is that new
media’s content is composed of digital information that is quickly and easily
shared among large audiences
d. The existence of new media, in particular social media has resulted in broad
cultural changes in how the public receives and process information and
understands and interacts with the world
i. People today communicate with a large circle of people more frequently
but less often in face-to-face encounters
ii. Our personal social networks are broader but shallower
iii. More and more how we define ourselves and how others define us are
determined in the digital world of new media
iv. In terms of knowledge about the world, enormous amounts of information
and people are accessible
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1. New media provide access to the personal diaries, photo albums,
and home movies of millions of people, most of it freely provided
by the subjects
2. The early 21st century is an era of unprecedented self-surveillance
where people voluntarily place themselves open to the voyeuristic
gaze of others
v. Multi-function new media devices have permanently altered the “media
creation-individual consumption” relationship so that in contemporary
media the content consumption is a participatory activity
1. People no longer just consume media content but also participate
in how news stories are covered and entertainment is crafted
e. The world of crime and criminal justice has not been immune to these changes
i. The most obvious is that new media allow the public to not only watch
crime and justice but to participate in criminal justice
ii. This chapter explores some of the ways that new media have altered:
iii. New media provide platforms for crime related content to influence
perceptions and attitudes about crime and justice and in the process to
entertain within an emergent “mediated reality”
1. Within this mediated reality, the ability of traditional criminal
justice agencies to maintain ownership of crime issues and events
is more difficult than in the past
2. The social construction of crime and justice in new media:
a. Is a more fluid, multi-directional process
b. Sees multiple social constructions emerge and compete,
each adopted by different and devoted segments of the
audience
iv. New media in the form of the Internet and social media are accepted parts
of the criminal justice system
1. Agencies throughout the justice system have incorporated the
information sharing and distribution capabilities of new media in
investigations and case processing
a. the issuing of warrants, complaints, and discovery requests
b. the preservation and presentation of evidence
c. the conducting of post-conviction motions and hearings
2. However, new media are double-edged swords
a. New media means new ways to commit old crimes and
opportunities to commit entirely new types of crimes
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i. Example: Cybercrime has become a leading
criminal justice concern (see Box 10.1).
b. New media also distribute false information as quickly as
accurate information and extend the reach and impact of
rumors
i. Examples: The spread of unsubstantiated rumors
through YouTube, Facebook, and online news
outlets such as followed recent school shootings
f. New Media, Criminality, and Victimization
i. New media effects on criminality happen in five ways:
1. Old Crimes in New Ways: New media provide new ways to
commit old types of crime
a. Examples:
i. Terrorism has been a means of displaying political
violence for over 2,000 years
1. New media has altered:
a. How acts of terror are committed
i. shown by cyber-attacks that
allow both state and non-state
terrorist groups to attack
governments, organizations,
and individuals who have an
online presence
b. The strategic goals of terrorists
i. linked to the reach and
control of the content that
new social media affords
terrorist groups
2. New media allow:
a. Global recruitment of members
i. Terrorist messages can be
tailored for near and distant
audiences, victims, enemies,
and supporters
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b. Dissemination of propaganda
i. Examples include the regular
online posting of videos of
terrorism, the use of mobile
phones to organize and carry
out terrorism, and the
numerous terrorist related
Internet sites
c. Crime sourcing: Described as taking
a portion of a criminal act and
outsourcing it to a crowd of either
witting or unwitting individuals
i. Large numbers of strangers
can be recruited to help
commit a crime
ii. Property and white collar crimes (such as theft and
fraud) are forecast to be the most significant crime
problem associated with new media as hackers,
spies, organized crime, and terrorists as well as
common criminals tap in
1. Social media and global networks have
made it easier for identity thieves to obtain
information like:
a. Names
b. Addresses
c. dates-of-birth
d. work and school locations
e. phone numbers
f. additional personal information
iii. Social media combined with mobile phones have
provided mechanisms to arrange riots, gang fights,
and shoplifting sprees in a new fashion
1. Example: recent riots in the United
Kingdom were coordinated through social
media
iv. Theft
v. “Cyber-bullying” has become recognized as a
unique new form of social harassment with its own:
1. pernicious dynamics of anonymity
2. broad social exposure
3. continuous threats
a. makes social media based “peer-to-
peer” bullying more harmful than the
older face-to-face schoolyard version
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vi. Social media have made stalking a distant, virtual
experience where stalkers can follow from afar and
digitally drop in and out of someone’s life
vii. Criminals also utilize new media capabilities to
select and maneuver their victims
1. Example: Public concern regarding new
media and victimization involves the use of
the Internet by sexual predators
a. In 2009, when MySpace removed
90,000 sex offenders from its site,
more than 8,000 of them
immediately reappeared on
Facebook
b. Despite public concern and periodic
moral panics, little actual research
has been conducted on sexually
predatory males, called “travelers” in
the literature, who solicit children
online, establish virtual relationships,
and arrange meetings for sex
2. The use of new media to reach victims is not
limited to sexual crimes. Other examples
include:
a. Murderers
b. Burglars have identified unoccupied
homes from Internet and social
media provided information
b. Counter efforts by law enforcement include online
undercover child sex stings where law enforcement agents
place ads on social networking sites soliciting sexual
encounters with children or child pornography and pose as
either children or as parents looking to prostitute their
children
i. These efforts have produced popular infotainment
programming
ii. How effective these efforts are at deterrence is not
known
1. the fact that some offenders have been
caught more than once by the same ploy is
not encouraging
2. New Media and New Crime: New media provide new types of
crime to commit
a. Example: the social media generated phenomena of “flash
mobs” (which sometimes turn criminogenic)
i. Coordinated via social media to appear as a
seemingly spontaneous activity, flash mobs involve
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the convergence of a large number of strangers at an
agreed upon time and place to perform some agreed
upon behavior
ii. Initially benign activities such as dancing or singing
would seemingly spontaneously ‘break out’ among
the assembled mob
iii. However, riots and “flash mob” shoplifting and
vandalism sprees have also been generated
b. In new media when a crime occurs is a debatable issue
i. The bizarre nature of life in the new media world
confounds what constitutes crime
ii. When does new media based activity qualify as real
world criminality and when is someone a victim of
a crime are unmarked borders that law enforcement
and the courts will have to determine
3. New Media and Performance Crime: Social media provide a new
means to “perform” criminality as a social statement
a. Usually to record, share, and upload them to the Internet
b. Media generated performance crime can be traced to the
early 20th century and the recording of torture and ritual
humiliation of prisoners and hostages by governments and
terrorist groups
i. Example: The photos of the abuse at the Iraq Abu
Ghraib prison
c. The recent explosion of performance crime is linked to the
celebrity culture of the early 20th century which saw the
emergence of:
i. “celebrated criminals”
1. people who because of their criminality
became celebrities
2. Example: the gangster Al Capone
ii. “criminal celebrities”
1. persons who were celebrities first and
subsequently became linked to crime
through either serious crimes, such as
murder, or strings of comparatively minor
offenses
2. Examples:
a. football stars O.J. Simpson and
Aaron Hernandez
b. Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton,
Amanda Brynes
d. Laying the foundation for the development of the celebrity
criminal was the recognition that a famous criminal could
be a valuable commodity
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i. However, as victims gained public and media
interest, and predatory criminality became the
primary portrait of criminals, and punitive criminal
justice policies gained public support, celebrated
criminals fell into disfavor and were supplanted by
the more benign celebrity criminal which dominates
the world of crime fame today
e. Mass produced performance crime is possible due to the
shift to the new media dynamic where consumers are also
producers of self-generated media content
i. With this shift the time process of self-promotion
through criminality changed
1. With legacy media the process most often
followed a sequence of first one had a crime
career, second an arrest and punishment, and
third their story was promoted and marketed
2. With new media, especially social media,
the process is often that crime and
promotion are simultaneous
a. New media encourages people to be
seen and socially validated and
YouTube’s call to ‘broadcast
yourself” has resulted in a host of
video postings of offenders
voluntarily posting incriminating
visual records of their crimes
f. Today, attention to celebrated criminals continues to
decline in popularity but following criminal celebrities is
on the rise
i. The confluence of social acceptance of celebrity
criminals, heavily covered media trials, and new
media supported audience participation expectations
have resulted in a significant surge in performance
crime
ii. The contemporary public expectation of
entertaining crime and justice spectacles has
increased the number of:
1. celebrity criminals
2. celebrity victims
3. criminal performances by non-celebrities
seeking attention
a. The capability of new social media
to rapidly elevate the visibility of
previously unknown individuals
means that anyone can become
celebrated at least for a while
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b. The distinction between fame and
infamy has blurred
4. New Media and Copycat Crimes
a. Contagion effect related to new media
b. Examples:
i. The spread of the 2010 “Arab Spring” uprisings in
the Middle East
ii. The cluster of internet posted beheadings of
hostages displayed by varied terror groups in the
1990’s
iii. Digital video games, particularly those that portray
crime and violence
1. Generated the greatest debate over the
causal role that video games might play in
the generation of violent behavior in society
2. On one side, the association between game
play and aggression has been repeatedly
reported
a. The view of this set of research is
that that adolescents who play
violent video games show increases
in aggression over time and that the
effect of playing violent games is
substantively different from the more
benign effects from playing
nonviolent video games
3. On the opposing side of the debate, critics
argue that much of the research used to
demonstrate a causal link ignores important
differences in game characteristics such as
level of competitiveness associated with a
game and confounding factors related to
player characteristics
a. These factors are argued to be more
important in the generation of violent
behavior than simple exposure to
violent video games
4. The conclusion is that the research findings
reported thus far are not strong enough to
warrant the marketing restrictions on video
games being called for
a. Collectively, the research from both
sides of the debate suggests that a
significant interactive effect between
game player and video game
characteristics exists
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b. Strong evidence of a direct causal
video game role in the generation of
criminality is not found with video
games
c. Gaming appears to interact with
other prior risk factors to heighten
pre-disposed criminogenic impulses
d. Current speculation is that video
games play the role of catalytic
rudders in the formation of crime,
not directly causing it but shaping its
appearance
5. New Media and Criminal Victimization
a. How people sometimes assess social situations and risk has
changed due to
i. The psychological impact of communicating
through new media
ii. The feeling of safety and personal contact that
accompanies live, often visual communication
b. New media have led to faulty and sometimes fatal risk
assessments by some victims while becoming part of the
victimization process for other crimes
i. In the first process, the psychological sense with
new media that you are not alone because you are
able to converse in real time with others and thus
feel “safe,” has led some eventual victims to ignore
risks
ii. In the second process, the social need to share and a
sense that a criminal act has become socially
acceptable because its distribution on social media
has a waiting audience adds an additional public
humiliation layer to being a crime victim
iii. A depressing set of examples currently exist where
someone was victimized, often in a sexual assault,
and their victimization was subsequently publicized
in a secondary follow-on victimization involving
public exposure and ridicule
1. A number of suicides by post crime
victimization victims exposed to additional
social humiliation have occurred
a. In these cases, new media play an
initial role as part of a performance
crime that has been recorded by
offenders
b. It is the distribution via new media
platforms of the visual record of the
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initial victimization that adds
additional harm in a perverse
“shaming the victim” social process
2. Recent revelations of the hacking of crime
victim’s mobile phones and social media
accounts by news media in the United
Kingdom further demonstrates the emerging
convoluted relationships that are developing
between victims, offenders, the media, and
the criminal justice systems in the new
media era
ii. New Media and Law Enforcement
1. New media are emerging as a law enforcement resource for both
proactive crime prevention and reactive crime response
a. Currently police agencies employ new media in their:
i. investigations of crimes
ii. identification and pursuit of suspects
iii. apprehension of offenders
iv. crime prevention efforts
b. Proactive applications:
i. Exemplified in digital efforts that are akin to prior
legacy media victimization reduction efforts (such
as the McGruff the Crime Dog public service
advertising campaigns)
ii. Contemporary agencies also post crime prevention
and victimization reduction materials on
departmental web sites and distribute it through
Facebook pages
iii. Employing new communication avenues like
‘twitter-bots” (soft-ware automated Twitter feeds
that automatically send messages to targeted
subscribers such as residents in a particular
neighborhood) highly focused information
distribution of crime alerts has been tested
iv. Information tailored to zip codes or individual
streets have begun to be automated and married to
social media distribution platforms and:
1. Describe police calls for service
2. give crime and fugitive alerts
3. provide crime prevention tips
v. Digital uncover police investigators have been
assuming the online personas of children or
pedophiles to proactively identify sexual offenders
in new media sting operations for a number of years
c. Reactive applications:
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i. Law enforcement has embraced the ubiquitous
increased surveillance of digital media for leads and
evidence
1. A recent example: the Boston Police
Department tweeted the general public after
the 2013 Marathon Bombings asking for
leads and received thousands of responses
ii. Offender posted online videos are another
investigatory source that has been tapped by law
enforcement
1. Associated with offender provided
‘performance crime’ material, social media
videos have supplied suspect identifications
as well as incriminating visual evidence for
criminal investigations
iii. New Media and the Courts
1. Judicial applications of new media’s capabilities revolve around
court administration issues
a. Document processing through new media communication
platforms has sped the processing of cases and reduced
delay
i. For example: In Australia the courts have approved
contact through a person’s social media online
profile as sufficient to satisfy legal notice, issuing of
complaints, and delivery of court orders
2. Worries about new media effects on judicial systems are generated
from:
a. High public interest cases that are heavily socially
constructed in social media communications
b. Run-of-the-mill low visibility judicial proceedings where
negative effects on the behaviors of trial participants have
been noted
c.
3. The most important change occurred with the shift from observer
to participant on the part of the public audience
a. The watershed event in this shift was the first cyber-trial,
the O.J. Simpson murder trial (1996)
i. was the first trial to be fully discussed, dissected,
and socially constructed in new media cyberspace
ii. in its rendering as a crime and justice infotainment
production, the trial was transformed
1. from a criminal justice event to be simply
observed by the public
2. into the equivalent of a massive multi-player
game experience
