Perception and reality differ

Chris McCormick, The Daily Gleaner

 

Recently I listened to Michael Enright and his media-files team discuss the public's irrational fear of crime.

 

They began with a recent Angus Reid poll which found a disturbingly high percentage of Canadians believe crime has increased.

 

Obviously it hasn't, and in fact, we haven't seen such a relative degree of safety since the 1960s.

The panellists then discussed possible reasons for why people get it wrong.

 

The impression I came away with is that politicians distort issues to get votes, the media sensationalizes by leading with what bleeds, the police exaggerate crime to justify budget requests, and the public is too dim to see what's going on.

 

I didn't learn anything new, and the most intelligent comment was actually a question, when Michael asked his panel, "why we are more likely to believe we're in danger than to believe we're safe?"

 

Similarly, Lysiane Gagnon, writing in the Globe about a month ago, deplored the fact that Angus Reid also found there is newfound enthusiasm for bringing back the death penalty.

 

Speaking rhetorically, she asked "can it be that in just four years, Stephen Harper's government has managed to change the views of Canadians toward crime and punishment?"

 

The remaining analysis should have been apparent from the title: "This take on crime is irrational."

She lamented the fact that Canadians seem to have adopted the hard-line approach of the Conservatives, with over 60 per cent supporting the death penalty for murderers, and 30 per cent for convicted rapists.

 

In 2004 support for the death penalty was much lower at 48 per cent.

 

I have received several of the Conservatives tough-on-crime flyers, have listened to the speeches and weighed the promises, but don't think it's as simple as being conned by the politicos.

 

It's not that we buy into retribution discourses, but that we feel more anxious in the face of same.

In environmental polls, for example, people feel less angst in times when they believe their governments are doing a good job.

 

The parallel is that people are more afraid of crime when they don't believe the government is doing a good job.

 

A similar counter-intuitive finding is that following a policy of covering news "if it bleeds, it leads" actually drives away media audience.

 

Sensationalistic, decontextualized reporting does cater to a voyeuristic audience, but the more interested and empathetic are going to turn the channel.

 

Sure, there is more and more correspondence in attitudes in Canada, the United States and Great Britain now than in the past.

 

Many people share tough-on-crime views, such as the idea that mandatory minimum prison terms are a deterrent to criminals, and long prison terms are a good method of fighting crime.

 

But many people also agree that rehabilitation and discretion are more effective than blind retribution.

 

Criminologists know crime rates have been dropping since 1990.

 

However, the type of context we can provide when explaining the latest violent shooting or stabbing is difficult and runs counter to evolution.

 

As animals have evolved, we have had to be alert to danger, and the safer our surroundings become, the more sensitive our radar becomes.

 

We are susceptible to messages of danger, and repeated messages become an 'availability heuristic' for making sense of the world.

 

But how could we ever be expected to put crime news in context? Most of us don't know the true rate of risk, and so to be told we're irrational is not helpful, especially when continuously told what to fear.

 

What we fear is how we feel, however irrational, and to be told otherwise misunderstands the underlying psychology.

 

To her credit, Ms. Gagnon quotes the pollster in charge of the Angus Reid survey, saying that when a government has a tough crime agenda, it actually feeds a population's fears.

 

And she also quotes the head of the John Howard Society saying "we are swept up in a miasma of underwear bombers, 9/11 and earthquakes in Haiti - with all this thrown together in a kind of disarticulated confusion."

 

I like that - disarticulated confusion. Sounds like a state of mind to me.

 

Chris McCormick teaches criminology and media studies at St. Thomas University and his column appears every second Thursday.