Journalists do a poor job of correctly identifying copycat crime and social science hasn’t helped.

In the past mass shootings have often been referred to as ‘copycat’ crimes in media reports. But are these crimes truly triggered by earlier events? Ray Surette writes that identifying copycat crimes has long been problematic because many independent crimes that are similar are often identified as ‘copycat’. Using a new measure, he finds that in a sample of purported copycat crimes, less than 40 percent could actually be described as true copycat crimes. He argues that better knowledge of trends in copycat crimes through such new measures could help decision making in criminal justice policy

How social media is changing the way people commit crimes andpolice fight them.

Until the early years of the 21st century, crimes tended to be committed away from the eyes of the majority of society, with traditional media broadcasting information about them often on their own terms. Ray Surette writes that the advent of social media in the past decade has led to a new type of ‘performance’ crimes, where people create accounts of their law-breaking through text, images and video, which are then digitally distributed to the public on a large scale. He comments that social media has also opened up new ways of combating crime for the police, who can take advantage of the self-surveillance of those who publicize their crimes on social media

Toward an Understanding of Aggregate Death Penalty Opinion Change: A Possible Role for Popular Music

Abstract: This study examines the relationship between popular music; specifically, death penalty songs, and aggregate death penalty opinion change utilizing an exploratory time series analysis. An assumption of this study is that the public is made conscious of the death penalty as a salient issue through the popular media, e.g., newspaper stories, magazine articles, movies, television programs, and music. Results of this study support the hypotheses that public consciousness about the death penalty as well as changes in aggregate death penalty opinion are associated with the content of popular media in the form of death penalty songs. As the number of death penalty songs increases in a year, death penalty support decreases two years later

Enhancing camera surveillance using computer vision: a research note

$\mathbf{Purpose}$ - The growth of police operated surveillance cameras has out-paced the ability of humans to monitor them effectively. Computer vision is a possible solution. An ongoing research project on the application of computer vision within a municipal police department is described. The paper aims to discuss these issues. $\mathbf{Design/methodology/approach}$ - Following the demystification of computer vision technology, its potential for police agencies is developed within a focus on computer vision as a solution for two common surveillance camera tasks (live monitoring of multiple surveillance cameras and summarizing archived video files). Three unaddressed research questions (can specialized computer vision applications for law enforcement be developed at this time, how will computer vision be utilized within existing public safety camera monitoring rooms, and what are the system-wide impacts of a computer vision capability on local criminal justice systems) are considered. $\mathbf{Findings}$ - Despite computer vision becoming accessible to law enforcement agencies the impact of computer vision has not been discussed or adequately researched. There is little knowledge of computer vision or its potential in the field. $\mathbf{Originality/value}$ - This paper introduces and discusses computer vision from a law enforcement perspective and will be valuable to police personnel tasked with monitoring large camera networks and considering computer vision as a system upgrade

Sketching women in court: The visual construction of co-accused women in court drawings

This paper explores the visual construction and representation of co-accused women offenders in court drawings. It utilises three case studies of female co-defendants who appeared in the England and Wales court system between 2003 and 2013. In doing so this paper falls into three parts. The first part considers the emergence of the sub-discipline, visual criminology and examines what is known about the visual representation of female offenders. The second part presents the findings of an empirical investigation, which involved engaging in a critical, reflexive visual analysis of a selection of court drawings of three female co-offenders. The third part discusses the ways in which the court artists' interpretation, the conventions of court sketching, and motifs of female offenders as secondary actors, drew on existing myths and prejudices by representing the women as listening, remorseless ‘others’

Media Echoes: Systemic Effects Of News Coverage

This paper examines the effect of massive media coverage on a judicial system by analyzing 3,453 felony cases tried over a 10-year period. The cases span five years preceding and five years following two heavily covered daycare child abuse trials in Miami, Florida. Significant case-processing shifts provide evidence of coverage echo effects, which have been hypothesized to exist in the literature but have not been established empirically. High-profile case publicity echoes are thought to reverberate through judicial systems and to condition them to process similarly charged but nonpublicized cases differently than they would have been processed otherwise. Because they affect nonpublicized low-profile cases, news media echoes expand the effects of news coverage on the judicial system far beyond single high-profile cases. Although a significant echo is found in this study, it does not extend to all possible processing effects. The need to empirically study other media echoes in other jurisdictions is indicated

Cause Or Catalyst: The Interaction Of Real World And Media Crime Models

The effect of exposure to media content containing criminal models is unresolved with two perspectives currently competing. One perspective perceives media provided models of crime functioning as direct causes of criminality or as crime triggers; the other sees media crime models serving as crime forming catalysts or as crime rudders. A study of copycat crime provided an opportunity to simultaneously weigh evidence for both models by examining the comparative roles of real world versus media provided crime models. Data obtained from the anonymous surveys of 574 male and female correctional inmates was employed. Results show that individual offenders, particularly young males, exposed to both real world and media crime model sources were at higher risk for copying criminal behaviors. While both real world and media sources contributed to predicting past inmate copycat behaviors, they also interacted significantly. With the additional enhancement of real world models, the media appear to form crime by providing instructional models to inclined individuals. The results did not support strong direct media exposure effects and the model of media as stylistic catalysts for crime was more supported. The media remains best perceived as a rudder for crime more than as a trigger. © 2012 Southern Criminal Justice Association

A Serendipitous Finding Of A News Media History Effect: A Research Note

On January 16,1989, a Hispanic Miami police officer shot and killed a black motorcyclist in a predominantly black section of Miami. During the following week, the shooting and its aftermath received extensive newspaper, television, and radio coverage. In criminal justice research, history effects are a common concern but empirical demonstrations are rarely reported. As part of a larger study of police recruits’ training and attitudes, the news coverage of this shooting was discovered to have influenced the attitudes of Hispanic recruits: It significantly altered their expectation that police officers would use their weapons while on duty. This effect was not observed in non-Hispanic recruits. This serendipitous finding points to the need for researchers to be alert to threats to validity, particularly as the mass media become more pervasive and more intrusive. Further, it empirically demonstrates the social construction of reality in operation. © 1995 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences

Media echoes: Systemic effects of news coverage

This paper examines the effect of massive media coverage on a judicial system by analyzing 3,453 felony cases tried over a 10-year period. The cases span five years preceding and five years following two heavily covered daycare child abuse trials in Miami, Florida. Significant case-processing shifts provide evidence of coverage “echo” effects, which have been hypothesized to exist in the literature but have not been established empirically. High-profile case publicity echoes are thought to reverberate through judicial systems and to condition them to process similarly charged but non publicized cases differently than they would have been processed otherwise. Because they affect non publicized low-profile cases, news media echoes expand the effects of news coverage on the judicial system far beyond single high-profile cases. Although a significant echo is found in this study, it does not extend to all possible processing effects. The need to empirically study other media echoes in other jurisdictions is indicated. © 1999 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences

Measuring Copycat Crime

Copycat crimes have not been identified or measured in a coherent manner. To forward the study of copycat crime, a methodology was developed to empirically score crimes that are suspected of being copycat crimes on a scale from unsubstantiated to substantiated . The copycat crime measure utilized seven factors culled from the extant literature to differentiate and score a demonstration set of 51 candidate copycat crimes associated with commercial entertainment films. Two examples of analysis and research questions that can be subsequently pursued utilizing the scoring approach are provided. A means of measuring copycat crime will provide interested researchers the capability to examine research questions related to copycat crime trends, media content and copycat crime, social media and copycat crime, and different types of copycat crime