The Fifth Dimension

The aim of this chapter is to consider a five-dimensional world made possible by cyber-infrastructure and how this notion influences legal frameworks. In discussing this five-dimensional world I will highlight fundamental challenges that hinder this vision, which is a shared vision, not unique to the National Science Foundation, but common to countries throughout the world. I will also consider strategies that could assist in achieving this fifth dimension

Fear of Crime

Fear of crime is a complex phenomenon influenced by a range of interconnected social and demographic variables, including perceptions of risk and vulnerability, age, social class, geographical location, ethnicity, personal experience of criminal victimisation, media reporting and popular wisdom (Hale, 1996). It can have a variety of effects on individuals’ ‘quality of life’, ranging from not walking home alone at night to withdrawing from society altogether and living in isolation. Felt or expressed fear of crime bears no necessary relationship to the objective risk of victimisation and, paradoxically, those who tend to demonstrate the greatest fear - older people and women – are often those who are least at risk (Ferraro, 1995). For this reason, some have questioned just how ‘rational’ fear of crime really is

News Media, Victims and Crime

The definition of who may legitimately claim victim status is profoundly influenced by social divisions including class, race, ethnicity, gender, age and sexuality, and, as such, remains a point of contention and debate

Crime and Media: Understanding the Connections

The contemporary era – whether we term it the information society, the network society, the image world, postmodernity, or late modernity – is a fundamentally mediatised era. It is also an era in which high crime rates and high levels of concern about crime have become accepted as ‘normal’. The rapid and relentless development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) over the past one hundred years has shaped the modern age, transforming the relations between space, time and identity

News Reporting

The most striking thing about media reporting of young people with respect to crime and criminal justice is their overwhelming representation as offenders rather than victims. Research consistently finds well over half of young people surveyed to have suffered some form of criminal victimisation within the past 12 months (Muncie, 2004). Yet their experiences as victims of all but the most serious offences would appear to be of little interest to journalists

The Fifth Dimension

The aim of this chapter is to consider a five-dimensional world made possible by cyber-infrastructure and how this notion influences legal frameworks. In discussing this five-dimensional world I will highlight fundamental challenges that hinder this vision, which is a shared vision, not unique to the National Science Foundation, but common to countries throughout the world. I will also consider strategies that could assist in achieving this fifth dimension