Writing Assignment Application: Describe Fear of Crime

Fear of Crime
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Fear of Crime
Media has become the main source of news and entertainment. Unfortunately, most of the news and entertainment movies covered by media contain the crime content, and thus majority of the population is exposed to horror content from the crime scenes (Sandstig, 2010). Since the content covered in televisions and newspapers as well as the internet is not fictional, the public is scared as they may fall victims of the same crime occurring within their areas of residents.
The media exposes crime as occurring under circumstances that the people are confronted with on a daily basis yet that is not the truth. The media associates rape with darkness and bushy places (Sandstig, 2010). This makes women so fearful when they are got in darkness or when they are travelling through bushy areas. However, the reality is that rape occurs in the homes and is executed by familiar people. The media creates crime stereotypes by associating crime with people of the color (Sandstig, 2010). Every time crime news is reported, the media do not miss out relating to an African American. This has made the whites to be fearful of the African Americans to the extent that the children can run away from them for fear of crime. Such stereotyping builds fear among the citizens with one another. Also, media coverage of crime makes the people associate certain sites with crime (Doyle, 2016). For example, most criminal acts such as rape are reported to take place in parks. The public will associate crime with parks and therefore develop the fear of such places that may make them avoid or feel unsafe when in such areas. Also, research has shown that reporting of crime such as terrorism is likely to inflict another terrorist act (Doyle, 2016). Having this in mind, the public will live in fear whenever they are at places where terrorist acts have ever occurred because they fear of recurrence of the same act that occurred before.
Research shows that heavy watching of crime via television or other devices leads to a buildup of fear among such individuals. According to psychology continued build-u...