CRIM 205 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Availability Heuristic
10 Sep 2017
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Chapter 15: merging myths and misconception of crime and justice (pp. After the initial fear and panic surrounding a crime myth subsides, the conceptual residue becomes a frame of reference for determining our future views of social problems. Crime myths become mental filters through which social issues are sifted. Once a myth becomes entrenched in thought, it takes only an occasional incident to fan the smoldering embers of the latent myth into another flame of public attention. The picture of violent crime in the united states results from a composition of panics promoted by the mythmakers of society. Once a unified conception of crime and its control becomes a part of popular thought and government policy, the empirical reality of crime will mirror and support our mythology. Social service aspects of policing will be reduced to rhetoric that merely masks the core function, and crime fighting will truly become the police response to social problems.
