Jordan Galbraith was the recipient of the 2021 Undergraduate Student Paper Award for his paper ‘Crime and the media – How does the media report on prison/prison alternatives and how does this reflect reality?‘
I wrote the paper ‘Crime and the media – How does the media report on prison/prison alternatives and how does this reflect reality?’ for a unit I completed on ‘Crime, Media and Justice’ in my Bachelor of Criminology (Deakin University). Throughout my degree I have become interested in the portrayal of crime and punishment within the media and the dichotomy between the perceived actions of the courts, and how sentencing plays out in practice. It is rare to read an article titled “Judges becoming too tough on criminals!” or “Is it time to stop sending so many people to prison?” and so I wanted to investigate how binaries of ‘tough’ versus ‘soft’ on crime approaches are constructed, and what differences appear in the reporting of prison, prisoners, and prison alternatives.
Reflecting on this piece, there are parallels that can be drawn between reporting on sentencing, and how the media has reported on the pandemic. Politicians rely heavily on the binary of “us versus them” to create a level of fear within the community. The vast majority of crime reporting focuses on the most sensational, emotive and serious examples, particularly those involving children, the elderly, or other vulnerable Caucasian Australian groups. When coupled with a focus on perpetrators who are young, mentally ill or drug affected, this positions the community to look favourably on imprisonment and harsh sentences, over rehabilitative or victim-centred sentencing options.
Unlike with pandemic report, however, those impacted by the ‘virus’ of aggressive sentencing are not given a voice. Rather, incarcerated individuals are left in the shadows, as faceless and foreboding monsters whose treatment and future is to be largely unquestioned by society. And so, the cycle is allowed to continue.
