Attitudes towards crime differ from country to country and from generation to generation. However, there is no doubt that, in the Western world at least, attitudes to crime are highly critical in the twenty-first century, with the public wanting more police protection on the streets and the powers-that-be claiming that cutbacks need to be made in the justice system. Taking the UK as an example, this article will examine some twenty-first century attitudes towards crime and the reason for them.

Fear of crime and the media

In the first few decades of the twentieth century, the UK population felt largely safe when they knew that there was a police presence nearby. Crimes were considered rare and, because of the lack of timely communication, most people didn’t know about much about what went on outside of their immediate area. Now, the smallest event can be transmitted to millions of people in a matter of seconds via social networking sites and news websites online. This has had the result of inspiring fear in the general populace; murder, for example, is still a very rare occurrence, but because the news industry focuses on each event, people have come to believe it is more prevalent than it is. 

The politicisation of crime

Perhaps largely because of its handling in the media, crime has become largely politicised. The criminal justice system is frequently debated in Parliament and changes are instigated by government bodies which many people believe are not always in the best position to judge what is appropriate. In a 2010 presentation, Ian Loader from the Centre of Criminology, University of Oxford, suggests that crime needs to be de-dramatised to cut down on knee-jerk responses on the part of politicians and that more effort needs to be put into what does work, rather than what politicians think will work. Maybe then, the general public’s attitude towards criminal justice will improve.

Distrust of law enforcement bodies

Law enforcement was once regarded as a noble profession and children were brought up to respect their local policeman. Nowadays, policemen are rarely seen on the streets and even when a member of the general public calls 999, the police are generally so late in responding that there is little they can do apart from take statements. There are also many rules and regulations to do with health and safety, which supposedly exist to protect the police, but often seem to protect criminals too. Criminals are believed to get off lightly, with short prison sentences and the ability to be released early as a result of ‘good behaviour.’ The media exacerbates this by highlighting people who have suffered as a result of crime, when they were the innocent party.

Crime without borders

Crime was once a very local affair; when something went wrong, the person reporting the crime went to their local police station and had the matter dealt with by someone that they knew. The criminal was probably somebody local too. Now crime has far fewer borders than before and, particularly as a result of 9/11 in New York and the 7/7 London bombings, the public are suspicious of just about anyone that they come across. Some go as far as to blame British immigration laws for the rise in crime, as highlighted by this Daily Mail article. The fact remains that crime happens in any country, regardless of the percentage of immigrants, something that many British people would do well to remember.

Crime and high-tech

Attitudes towards crime have had to change quite substantially in the twenty-first century because of the Internet. Identity fraud is commonplace because unscrupulous people are able to hack into people’s computer accounts and steal information. Gone are the days when the only people who knew what went on in a bank transaction were the person who owned the bank account and the local bank manager. Now people have to be careful in their everyday behaviour, even when they don’t leave the house. This naturally makes them more suspicious and brings home the fact that crime is all around.

‘Lies, damn lies, and statistics’ (usually attributed to Mark Twain)

Much information that reaches the eyes and ears of the British public is littered with statistics. However, as most people now know, statistics can be manipulated to suit a political cause, or the opinion of the researcher presenting them to the world. People have now come to rely on their own opinion of crime, usually based on what they see and hear in the media, rather than the figures with which they are presented. This is yet another reason why the general public mistrust politicians and government officials; they believe that whatever they say suits a purpose and, in just a few months’ time, as so often happens, a completely different point of view based on the same statistics will be put forward. 

There is no doubt that attitudes towards crime are constantly changing in the twenty-first century, often far too quickly for the majority of people’s liking and often not in the way that they would choose. Hopefully, continued efforts to discuss crime and its impact on the ordinary person will eventually result in finding solutions with which everyone is happy.