In the ranks of these ogres are assassins and those who lynch them; stranglers of women and torturers of children; practitioners of patricide and killers of offspring; and among them we find the quiet veteran who converts his home town into a target range. Such men strike terror for several reasons: for one, they cast doubt on the sanctity of life, because they assault victims who have done them no harm and who are frequently unknown to them; they raise questions about the meaningfulness and predictability of human motives, because their lives typically do not foreshadow their tragic fate. Frequently these are the mildest, gentlest souls, immune to anger and unconcerned with their surroundings. Frequently they are shy, brooding, and shadowy, unnoticed until the moment when they explode into horrible prominence. (Toch, 1969:214).

Predator Criminals and The Social Construction of Criminality. The crimes and criminals that dominate the public consciousness and policy debates are not our common crimes but are the rarest ones. Whether in entertainment or news the crimes that define criminality are the acts of predator criminals. Our desire to understand and control these seemingly incomprehensible and uncontrollable criminals is long standing and is reflected in much of our classic literature) However, the modern mass media has raised the specter of the predator criminal from a minor character to a common ever present image. Predator criminals are modern icons of the mass media. As with other icons, they represent a largely unquestioned set of beliefs about the world - a constructed reality that - as the aphorism "perception is reality" suggests - has the ability to shape the actual world to fit the media image. In the world of crime and justice, the icon of predator crime pushes life to imitate art.

How does the media's portrait of predator crime construct social reality? To understand this process, it is useful to conceptualize social reality as a changing, socially created phenomenon, not as fixed or universal but as evolving and subjective. In dealing with society, people use world models to group and understand factual information and to simplify and direct their decisions and social behavior.2 These models are constructed over time from information gained through social interactions and personal experiences. An individual's direct experiences make up what has been termed "objective reality."3 Because its knowledge is first hand, this objective reality has the strongest influence on the social reality each individual constructs and subsequently on their behaviors, attitudes and perceptions. For most creatures, knowledge of the world is gained only through their objective reality or direct experiences.4 Humans, however, have access to another source of knowledge about the world. This second source is termed "symbolic reality" and is obtained from our extensive capability to manipulate abstract symbols as representations of objects and concepts. Examples of symbolic systems include written and spoken language, art, music, and mathematics. Symbolic reality provides a vast amount of communicated knowledge of the world and allows individuals to employ knowledge of experiences that they have not directly undergone and to incorporate that knowledge into their world models. For modern people, most of our worldly knowledge is gained not from objective reality but from symbolic reality.

In the final world model construction step, the objective and symbolic realities are combined by each individual to create a "subjective" reality model.5 In sum, in the social construction of reality process each individual constructs their social reality based upon their interaction with an objective reality (the physical world) and information they receive from a culture's symbolic reality (language, art, the media) to create a subjective reality that directs their social behavior.6 In advanced, urbanized societies such as the United States, the mass media play a crucial role in the social construction of reality because knowledge of many social phenomena is obtained solely through the media rather than through direct experience (Meyrowitz, 1985) and social institutions must rely on the mass media to distribute their reality molding information (Altheide and Snow, 1991). Furthermore, when other sources of knowledge are not available the media play a greater role in the construction and dissemination of social reality. The mass media has evolved in present day America to become the dominant player in the symbolic reality realm and by default in the subjective reality construction process.

The social construction of reality process and the media's role in it has been forwarded as particularly important in the area of crime and justice. Relatively few people have direct experience with crime so that the entertainment and news media are major sources of crime related information and have been forwarded as important elements in the construction of crime and justice reality.7 In the crime and justice area, one result of the media's central role is the construction of mass media supported crime myths (Kappeler et al, 1993).8 Although individual crime myths fade and are cyclic in nature, their effect on our conception of crime and justice linger because they provide knowledge that becomes permanently incorporated into our socially constructed world models. This process is enhanced as new events are constructed within the framework of previously constructed myths. The most prevalent, longest running crime myth promulgated by the media is that of predator crime: a media icon that has been unchallenged for a century.

The Genesis of the Predator Icon. The history of the predator icon reveals that this image has long dominated the news and entertainment media. By 1850 the dominant image of the criminal in the popular print media had shifted from earlier romantic, heroic portraits to more conservative, negative images. The two most popular media genres of the period, detective and crime thrillers (found in magazines, serials, and dime novel books) describe crime as originating in individual personality or moral weakness (Papke, 1987:117). In this regard, the crime and justice portrayals produced during the late 1800s are surprisingly similar to today's efforts. Both present images that reinforce the status quo, state that competent, often heroic individuals are pursuing and capturing criminals, and encourage the belief that criminals can be readily recognized and crime ultimately solved through direct law enforcement efforts (Papke, 1987:181-182). Detective and crime thrillers mark the beginning of a more violent entertainment crime media that is less critical of social conditions. They laid the groundwork for the construction of a social reality of crime which is predatory and rooted in individual failures rather than social ills (Papke, 1987:108).

Following the print media's lead, the first film criminals are descendants of violent western outlaws but unlike the western bandits, the early Twentieth century film criminal was usually portrayed as an urban predator (Rosow, 1978:37). The most frequent portraits of these urbanized criminals depicted a common use of ruthless and corrupt business techniques and pursuit of wealth, and this businessman/criminal portrait has remained a prevalent part of the media crime image to this day (Rosow, 1978:11-21). In the 1930s and 1940s, the portraits of violence became more graphic as gangsters and undercover policemen and detectives appeared (McArthur, 1972:29-30,46; Rosow, 1978:253, 262-268). The predator image was quickly adopted by television in the 1950s and television's portrait of crime greatly over emphasizes individual acts of violence.9 Murder and robbery dominate, with murder comprising nearly one fourth of all crimes.10 In a representative content study by Lichter and Lichter (1983), murder, robbery, kidnapping, and aggravated assault made up 87% of all television crimes. 11

The repeated message in the entertainment media is that crime is perpetrated by predatory individuals who are basically different from the rest of us and that criminality stems from individual problems. In the media, crime is behavior criminals choose freely and media criminals are not bound or restrained in anyway by normal social rules and values. 12 Over the course of this century an evolution in the portrayal can be observed. Media criminals have become more animalistic, irrational and predatory, (a process paralleled by media crime fighters), and their crimes more violent, senseless and sensational, while their victims have become more random, helpless, and innocent. The public is led to see violence and predation between strangers as a way of life (Scheingold, 1984:63).

The news media has mirrored the entertainment media in the pursuit of predator criminality. Emphasis on predator criminality in the contemporary news media can be traced to the 1890s with the introduction of a new mass, entertainment focused news journalism, known as "yellow journalism" (Papke, 1987:35). Represented by the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers in New York, this new style of journalism devoted space and importance to disasters, scandals, gossip, and crime. In particular, personal violent crime was emphasized. Eventually dominating justice news, today crime news is composed largely of violent personal street crimes such as murder, rape and assault while more common offenses such as burglary, theft, and fraud are notably underplayed. 13 The vast majority of crime coverage pertains to violent or sensational crime. With similar orientations, it is not surprising that the image of the criminal that crime news propagates is similar to the image of the criminal found in the entertainment media. And when crimes are reported without perpetrator descriptions, since most crime news is of violent interpersonal crime, it follows that the blank image is filled by the public with a faceless predator criminal (Graber, 1980; Sheley and Ashkins, 1981).

Lastly, the recent merging of the entertainment and news in high visibility, dramatic court trials and info-tainment, tabloid style crime shows represent the cumulation of the icon construction process. 14 Such shows and trials represent the final step in a long process of merging the news and entertainment components of the mass media - often resulting in multi-media products and exploitations. 15 Crime in these productions symbolize the uncertainties of modern life, that criminals are evil, abnormal people, and that victims are vulnerable (Cavender and Bond-Maupin, forthcoming). Media crime is nearly universally due to individual characteristics rather than social conditions and the causes of crime are rooted in individual failings rather than social ills. 16 As an individual choice, other social, economic or structural explanations are irrelevant and can be ignored. Although other crimes and criminals are sometimes shown, the predatory stranger who preys upon unsuspecting victims dominates the news and the public's image of criminality. 17 In the final analysis, the media project the horrendous crime as the norm (Elias, 1986:42).

However, sometimes a constructed subjective reality is found to be significantly different from the objective reality that empirical data suggests actually exists. Such is the case with predator criminality. Although predator criminality dominates our image of crime and predator criminals direct our criminal justice policies, predatory criminal events are rare. If that is true, the potential seriousness of the misleading effects of the predator icon can be garnered from looking at the empirical reality of predator crime.

The Empirical Reality of Predator Crime. Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi (1990:35) argue that media emphasis on the atypical but highly publicized crime is a serious source of misinformation and false perceptions of the true nature of crime. A simple direct measure of predator crime is not available but some proxy measures are. The first is the victimization rate for violent crimes by strangers calculated by the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics. The Bureau bases its calculations on annual National Crime Victimization Surveys. The most recent estimated rate (per 1000 persons age

12 and older) of violent victimization by strangers is shown in Table 1.
 
 

*Source: Criminal Victimization in the United States, 199 (1992) Bureau of Justice Statistics, Table 37, Page 55 "Number of Victimizations and Victimization Rates for Persons Age 12 and Over, By Type of Crime and Victim-Offender Relationship"

Table 1 reveals that the probability was slightly less than 2 out of 100 (.018) of being victimized by a stranger in 1990.18 Note that this value includes both completed and attempted victimizations and is largely comprised of simple assaults. Without simple assaults the probability drops to about 1 in a hundred (.0099). If only completed crimes are included the probability drops to about one/third of one percent or 1 in 300 (.0034). There are also indications that the rate of victimization has been slowly declining over the past fifteen years. The rate per 1000 for crimes of violence (stranger and non-stranger combined) has dropped from a peak of 35.3/1000 in 1981 to 29.6/100 in 1990 and has been under 30/1000 for the past five years. 19

But of course, being the victim of a predator crime is normally a more harmful, serious event than other crime victimizations so yearly probabilities do not fully account for the threat. In 1987, the Bureau of Justice statistics published an estimate of lifetime likelihood of victimization by Herbert Koppel. Koppel estimated that based on 1975-1984 victimization rates, 83 out of every 100 people will be victims of violent crime (rape, robbery, and assault, either completed or attempted, at least once during their lives.20 Stranger versus non-stranger victimization is not separated in the bureau's lifetime likelihood estimate, but assuming that the ratio of stranger to non-stranger crime remains similar to that found in 1990 (a ratio of .611 or about 3 out of 5 violent crimes committed by strangers), of the 83 out of 100 persons the Bureau estimates to be victimized during their lifetimes, about 51 will be victimized by strangers. At first blush, over a lifetime the likelihood of being a victim of at least a simple assault by a stranger appears significant. However, the likelihood of victimization declines significantly with age and the number of people in any group who are victimized more than once is substantially greater than If victimization were equally probable for all members of a group. In reality, persons inordinately susceptible to being victimized are likely to continue in their high susceptibility (Koppel, 1987:4). Thus, if it were true that we all equally share the likelihood of victimization, violent crime would be a common lifetime experience. But some carry more risk than others. Although violent victimization is a devastating act and cannot be trivialized, the reality is that a relatively small "at-risk" core of citizens carry a significant portion of the victimization risk. Hence, only about 1/3 of U.S. residents report ever having been punched or beaten by another person in their entire lives.21 In any one year risk of violent crime by a stranger is small, over a lifetime it can be significant but with a substantial portion of the risk concentrated in high-risk groups, particularly young, urban, and minority males.

In terms of the most serious predatory crime, murder, the reality of predation also differs from media appearances. Again the estimation of victimization rates is derived from the Bureau of Justice Statistics data.22 The number of murders has been increasing over the last 30 years from a low of 7,990 in 1964 to 20,045 in 1990.23 Even with steady annual increases, murder remains a minute piece of all violent crime, comparing in 1990 for example to over 100,000 rapes, 600,000 robberies, and 1,000,000 aggravated assaults,24 or about one forth of one percent of all violent crime. The 1990 figures also categorize 14.4 percent of murders known to the police as committed by strangers.25 It is likely however that a proportion of the 6,956 uncategorized murders are also committed by strangers. Assuming that the proportion of stranger murders in the unidentified group is similar to the identified group, 1,537 of the unidentified relationship murders would be by strangers and of the total 20,045 murders in 1990, a total of 4,424 or 22.1 percent would be stranger committed. Murder in general thus comprises a small proportion of all violent crime and predatory murders by strangers comprise about one/forth of all murders.

Regarding the epitome of the predator criminal, the serial killer, Philip Jenkins (1988) in discussing the media generation of a serial killer panic in the 1980s reports that although evidence of a true increase in the number of active serial killers since the 1970s exists, in total, serial killers account for no more than 300 to 400 victims a years, or 2 to 3 percent of all American homicides. They are not the dominant homicide problem in the United States as their media image suggests. Furthermore, the "roaming serial killer" media stereotype is even rarer. Serial killing is a regional, not a national problem that is concentrated in the states of California, Texas, and Florida. Kappeler and his colleagues (1992:245) argue that recent media coverage provides the reinforcement and linkage necessary for a unified image of violent predatory crime to be established with the roaming serial killer stereotype as the lead element. The multi-media coverage of serial murderers such as Jeffery Dahmer and Ted Bundy and the movie Silence of the Lambs link real and fictional cases together allowing the coverage of actual predator crimes to blend with popular fiction.

All told, the available statistics suggest that the empirical reality of predator crime is a serious but not representative component of the crime picture. Most victimizations are simply not that serious, assaultive, injurious, or life threatening (Skogan and Maxfield, 1981:63). The media's attraction to predator crime cannot be understood by its pervasiveness and can be only partly understood by its popularity. To a degree, some interest can be attributed simply to its rarity. However, the public's devotion and the media's myopic exclusion of competing images is not readily apparent.26

Devotion to the Predator Icon. The public's devotion to the predator icon and an understanding of the media's role in its proselytization can be better understood from looking at the United States' cultural tradition. Noted as a dominate cultural trait first by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s, a key feature in American culture is the central role that individualism plays.27 Individualism in America demonstrates itself in two ways. First, at the personal level it is related to an American focus on close individual relationships and an avoidance of contact with large groups and organizations. Second, regarding the conduct of other individuals, they are nearly universally held directly responsible for any problems and difficulties they may experience and for fashioning any solutions, collective responses are seldom conceived or pursued. This firm belief in individual responsibility is reflected in our vigilante tradition (Scheingold, 1984:60-61) and is apparent in our popular crime and justice literature as the rugged individualist as problem solver (Gans, 1988:54). In practice, Americans traditionally focus on small personal "micro" communities and avoid contact with the "macro" community and large organizations. In private life, individualism forwards the pursuit of life-style enclaves, artificially created private havens of safety and privacy. These enclaves share external features of life (built around a golf course or a marina for example) but are less than a community. They have no history, no social interdependence, and no external political involvement (Bellah et al, 1985:73).

In practical effect, individualism leads to micro-social solutions to crime - security devices, guns, private protection agencies. And when enclaves feel threatened by crime, the ones that can afford it become garrison communities. The culture of individualism also affects our perceptions of the causes of crime, forwarding personal and interpersonal moral explanations. Predating the mass media, the traditional causes of crime have been seen as individual flaws or flawed relationships between individuals; social or organizational relationships have not been traditionally given much weight (Gans, 1988:60). And although the media does not argue any clear set of policies, it reflects the cultural focus on the microcommunity of family, close friends, and individuals in its content regarding social lems and their solutions. In our media and in our culture, social problems are generated and solved at the individual level.  Because of this, Americans lack the cultural resources to deal with relationships between culturally, socially or economically different citizens (Bellah et al, 1985:206-208)Large organizations, government, and business corporations are shown as distant, distrustful and frequently dishonest, things to be avoided wherever possible (Bellah et al, 1985:279).

For criminal justice, another effect of individualism is its orientation toward deviants as inherently different. The culture desires to isolate troublemakers and to perceive them as distinct (Schur, 1969:1415). In the crime and justice arena, the myopic focus on predator crimes is thus heightened by the perception of criminal as a separate breed, encouraging the perception of social and economic factors as irrelevant (Scheingold, 1984:66). The mainstream American response to crime is drawn from a common sense perspective which focuses on morally deficient criminals and on preventing them from committing crime. However, this focus tends to ignore the social generation of morally deficient criminals. In sum, when crime is solely blamed on individual failure, even non punitive anti-crime policies will emphasize intensive individual rehabilitative or educational efforts rather than policies that deal with social contributors (Gans, 1984:96). This emphasis on individual explanations and solutions in turn hurts people at the bottom of the social hierarchy who need a package of policies that incorporate both social solutions as well as individual responsibility.28

A second cultural feature of more recent vintage is the general acceptance of a largely invisible and incomprehensible social complexity as a basic American reality of modern economic, organizational and political life. The acceptance of an incomprehensible, complex society developed early in this century along with modernization; the emergence of the United States as a world power; the growth of professional "careers" as the defining feature of work; and a reliance on individual based therapy (Bellah et al, 1985; Gans, 1984). All of these developments occurred simultaneously with the development of the mass media in the United States. An immediate effect of the perception of an invisible, incomprehensible complexity was to heighten the avoidance mechanism Americans already held toward large organizations and differing social groups. Acceptance but avoidance of complexity also means that Americans do not strive to be greatly informed about many aspects of society. A conscious decision to remain uninformed is strong and we intermittently "keep up" through the news media (Gans, 1984). Thus, as with other areas of public life, we avoid the criminal justice system unless immediately involved and turn over responsibility for crime to its specialized experts and bureaucratic managers as the only sensible course.29 The "administrative despotism" de Tocqueville feared 160 years ago has been realized. This deferment to expertise and bureaucracy is palatable because it allows individuals to follow our natural cultural tendency to concentrate on micro-society relationships and enclave living while avoiding macro society.

Hence, the cultural reflex is to turn over complex, seemingly incomprehensible problems like crime to large organizations staffed with the technical expertise and bureaucratic experts to deal with them. And because social problems tend to be scanned from a distance and policy development and administration ignored, involvement increases only as threat to personal private life increases. As most crime falls on the poor and disadvantaged it is easy for most to avoid it as a public policy issue that requires close attention. Individual acts of crime are significant to individuals or small groups of people but specific crime policy is left the responsibility of government and in practice the monopoly of the professionals and experts of the criminal justice system (Heinz, 1985). As long as it is founded on individualism, crime and justice policy is mostly a government concern. Deemed the place where you find crime experts, by extension the criminal justice system's enhancement is seen as the natural solution to the crime problem. In addition, the short term immediate effect of alternative solutions to crime not based on individualism or punitiveness would mobilize middle America (Gans, 1985:80). Therefore, although the status quo may be ineffective or even counter effective in the long run, it is more acceptable in a repeating cycle of short term politically defined periods demarcated by elections.
I
This reluctance to change is also found within the criminal justice system. It is best understood by conceiving of the criminal justice system as a collection of manufacturing firms sharing a marketplace. They influence one another's activities but they do not have direct authority over one another. In such a market there are few actions big firms can take easily and inexpensively and one of the easier ways of responding to criticism is symbolically (Gans, 1985:85). Thus, change in the criminal justice system's policy would require many parts of the system to change simultaneously and the costs of not changing must be high before any change will occur. It is not surprising then that real policy change, except to increase punitiveness, is rare and that the criticism leveled at most criminal justice system innovations is that they are more symbolic than real. And it is in the realm of symbols, of course, that the mass media has its greatest influence.

Within the media construction of social reality, two myths symbolizing society are focused upon (Knight and Dean, 1982:160-161). The first myth is of simpler times when prompt solutions could be .achieved through direct, disciplined action. The second myth is that of optimism for technology creating a better future through exotic, technological solutions. The first myth is an outgrowth of the cultural tenet of individualism, the second an outgrowth of the tenets of expertise and complexity. Both help in bolstering the cultural support structure for the predator icon and both are supported in turn by a high level of fear of crime in society. Media content, dominated by the predator icon, has been credited as the single greatest source of fear of crime.30

This is because perceived vulnerability is more important that actual victimization and further supporting predator based policies, those who see themselves as vulnerable are more punitive in their attitudes (Langworthy and Whitehead, 1986:577). Thus, the media portrayals and politician's manipulations of the media result in increased support for punitive policies above the levels that victimization would alone establish. The effect is summarized by Bazelon (1978:13):
 

The true source of the public's anxiety is not, I believe, the problem of crime as such. People are afraid instead about their personal safety. It is not white collar crime that causes us to lock our doors so firmly at night. It is not organized crime, which corrupts our politics and business life, that causes us to lock them, either. Locking our doors against crimes of passions is, of course, like locking the fox 'inside' the chicken coop. What makes us fear for our safety are the random muggings and burglaries, the assaults on our sense of security and repose committed by people we don't know, for reasons we cannot fathom, let alone understand.

This effect is not a conspiracy but the convergence of the goals of politicians seeking an issue, punitive predispositions of the public (due to our heritage of individualism), the content focus of the news and entertainment media, and the professional proclivities of the crime control establishment, especially the police (Scheingold, 1984:81). The media is encouraged by our cultural history to project the predator icon, risks little social criticism by emphasizing it, and is rewarded by its continuing popularity. The icon is a safe and expected image for crime and justice. That both the news and entertainment components of the media project the predator icon ad nauseam has however led to some concern over its effects on society and criminal justice policy. Audience fear, mystification of the criminal justice system, artificially generated support for punitive criminal justice policies, and increased tolerance for illegal law enforcement practices are all concerns.31

Icon Effects. The social effects of the icon are multiple. First, the mass media has been forwarded as a crucial factor in the development of general public policy and has been cited as especially important for criminal justice policy developments.32 The most notable relationship between the icon and policy is the simultaneous shift toward individual focused retributive policies in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s and the growth of the resurgence of predator criminals in the media. A causal relationship is not asserted but both developments point to the underlying cultural forces discussed earlier. Exemplifying this process is the rise of the predator icon of the serial killer which ascended to cultural prominence in the 1970s. The serial killer presents a recent, extreme image of a more conservative predator stereotype. Representing an explanation of crime in terms of objective, external evil, the resulting quest for evil denotes the culmination of the historic effort to differentiate dangerous offenders from the law abiding (Rennie, 1986). As other causative theories of crime were discounted, public policy and criminological research shifted. By the late 1970s, criminology tended to emphasize the offender as a rational responsible deterable creature, as a generalized group criminals were less the victims of society and more ruthless predators upon it. Stereotyped as serial killers, sexual abusers of children, and devil -worshipers, criminals were portrayed not only as predators but creatures of extreme, pathological evil (Jenkins, 1988:66). In the process, crime was transformed to a war fought by semi-human monsters versus society.

The new, refined serial murderer predator icon is important because it solidified and confirmed the traditional notion of an overwhelming social threat from lethal criminal predators. The media induced serial killer panic of the early 1980s was readily embraced not only because of the media sensationalism that accompanied the campaign but also from the manipulation of the media by government agencies and the public's embracement of a quest for evil as an all encompassing crime explanation and solution. Our cultural traditions set the tone and prepared a receptive social setting, for the 1980s interaction between the mass media, public officials, and the public (Jenkins, 1968:67). In the end, public resources and law enforcement efforts have been heavily diverted to address serial killers. A policy directed at a perception of the crime problem rather than at the reality of crime (Jenkins, 1988:68).

Besides influencing resources, the icon also affects police practices. This is not surprising in that the early steps of the justice process, law enforcement, investigation, and arrests, are emphasized in entertainment programming to the near exclusion of other subsequent steps (Carlson, 1985:117; Garofalo, 1981). Law enforcement not only dominates, but dominates as a glamorous action filled detective process which often legitimizes the use of violence (Culver and Knight, 1979). The media crime fighters are the dramatic embodiment of the dominant American ideology of individualism and action and the media's criminal justice system usually ends with the arrest or killing of the offender (Bortner,1984:5; Dominick, 1978:116). Info-tainment news style shows cement the image that police work is dangerous and pitted against an established class of predator criminals, images that match the self promotions of law enforcement "wars" against crime and on drugs (Kappeler et al, 1992:124). Thus, a parallel icon of a dangerous, exciting world of crime fighting ties into the image of the predator criminal icon, the two reinforcing each other. Indeed, the police image of stressful, dangerous, crime fighting work needs the predator criminal image to maintain its credibility (Kappeler, et al, 1992:142).

There is also evidence that the media predator image influences police recruits in their expectations of police work. In a pre and post academy training survey of police recruits by Surette (1993) it was noted that police recruit expectations of police work shows a significant relationship with their media usage, a relationship that persists following police academy training. Even after the effects of other independent variables are taken into account, the greater a recruit's preference for crime shows and belief in the reality of programming, the more likely recruits expect that police work will involve greater amounts of crime fighting, that officers will more often fire their weapons, and that more arrests will be violent encounters. When the media's crime and justice message is subscribed to by police recruits, the predator icon results not surprisingly in predator-hunting, predator focused police.

The predator criminal icon has also helped to make the United states one of the most punitive countries on the planet while ironically, simultaneously forwarding the myth that we are overly lenient.33 Our reality is that we are both more violent than most Western societies and more punitive. We incarcerate at nearly four times the rate of our nearest competitor, the United Kingdom (388 versus 97.4 per 100,000 in 1988) and we have been increasing our death row, prison, parole and probation populations annually and significantly since the early 1980s. However, punitiveness has not brought security. For example, in 1990 56 percent of Americans fear violent victimization,34 44 percent are afraid in their neighborhoods to walk alone at night,35 38 percent are more uneasy on the streets than they were the previous year,36 and 30 percent are more than a little fearful of being attacked, or robbed at home and 48 percent while travelling.37 Fear and concern outrun risk, while increasing criminal justice expenditures do not seriously reduce the crime problem (Tauchen et a[, 1992).

A single, unified and very popular conception of crime in America emerges from the predator criminal icon. Predator crime is a metaphor for a world gone berserk, for life out of control. Forging a partnership between the police, the media, and the audience, these images of dangerous fugitives in a violent and uncertain world encourage broad social controls and justify increased social surveillance.38 In an ultimate irony, myth creates reality. The pursuit of the icon in the real world fosters aggressive law enforcement policies and ignores social conditions that make the icon both more credible and threatening. Alternatives challenging the icon tend to be expelled from normal reality as dangerous, bizarre, and comical (Knight and Dean, 1982:146).

In conclusion, the most basic effects of the predator icon are to generate fear, degrade social networks, increase reliance on the media, and foster social isolation and polarization. We abandon society and its real problems to the media (Kappeler et al, 1992:248). When all external causes of crime are rejected, individual punishment emerges as the only logical social response to crime while criminology is demoted from a quest for understanding to the pragmatic task of crime detection. Offenders are stereotyped as monolithic, pathological, and violent; crime is analyzed from a simplistic prey-predator paradigm; and crime policy is fixated in a punitive defensive posture (Kappeler et al, 1992:249-250). The continued exposure to media violence, especially among those in which violence is likely to be perceived as a way of life, offers little hope that the media is orientating our society in a less violent direction. Instead it suggests that the media plays an important role in reinforcing the norm of justified violence (Israel et al, 1972:100).

The result is that the media attending public evaluates the criminal justice system poorly while paradoxically supporting more crime control oriented law enforcement and punitive based policies (Graber, 1980:83). Victor Kappeler and his colleagues (1992: 236,247-248) conclude:
 

Through our growing panic, we have enhanced law enforcement resources, developed task forces, implemented national programs, and created vast bureaucracies to deal with crime myths. Once created these machines are seldom dismantled and they consume an ever expanding amount of resources as they widen their sphere of influence... Police will be limited to vigorously tracking stereotyped criminals, social service aspects of policing will be reduced to rhetoric, the courts will be pushed to the assembly line model of crime control, and we will fill the new prisons with those deemed different while continuing to search for new technologies to widen the system's net of social control.

The empirical reality of crime will be molded and offered as supportive evidence for the mythical icon of crime. A closed, tautological system will have been created that despite the criminal justice system being presented and perceived as waging a losing war, its enhancement, at least as a law enforcement and punitive system, will be offered as the best hope against a sea of violent crimes and predator criminals. The continuing disparity between the media constructed reality of crime and justice and the non-media reality of crime and justice results in the public receiving an unnecessarily distorted image that supports only one anti-crime policy approach, an expanded and enhanced punitive criminal justice system. An approach lacking evidence of success.39
19

1 A prime attempt is Dostoevski's psychological study of a murderous burglar in Crime
and Punishment.

2 These world models can be considered analogous to the world-views of George Gerbner
and his colleagues (1976, 1978, 1979, and 1980).

3 See Adoni and Mane, 1984; Cohen et al, 1990; Schneider, 1985.

4 With some supplerwntal behaviors provided by instinctive patterns.

5 Thus, the constructed reality is subjective in that each individual's world model will
sightly differ from every other individual's model. This is because the knowledge mix will
differ slightly from individual to individual. However, people exposed to similar experi
ences (objective reality) and similar communicated knowledge (subjective reality) will nat
urally construct subjective realities that are also similar. One can conceive of "culture" and
.1 cultural heritage" as a set of similar products created from long term social reality con
struction under similar objective and symbolic realities.

6 See Altheide, 1984, Altheide and Snow, 1991; Cohen and Young, 1981; Knight and Dean,
1982; Lichter, 1988; Quinney, 1970; and Tuchman, 1978.

7 See Barber, 1987; Best, 1989; Cohen et al, 1990; Dominick, 1978; Graber, 1979; Green
berg, 1969; Hawkins and Pingree, 1982; Knight and Dean, 1982; Quinney, 1970; Stroman

& Seltzer, 1985; and Surette, 1992.

8 Kappeler and his colleagues (1993) describe the process of rapid electronic-based com
munication system enabling myths to spread in unprecedented numbers and with frighten
ing speed. Quoting Sutherland (1950:143), they state: "Fear is produced more readily in
the modern community than it was earlier in our history because of increased publicity"
What was once restricted to small groups are now instantly projected to millions of people
internationally by the mass media. (Kappeler et al, 1993:4). In addition, myth makers do
not simply uncover crime and transmit information: they serve to structure reality by selec
ting and characterizing events- thereby cultivating images of crime (Kappeler et al, 1993:14
citing Lang and Lang, 1969; Gerbner, 1972; Schoenfeld, Meier and Griffin, 1979).

9 See Bortner, 1984; Jones, 1976; Antunes and Hurley, 1977; Pandlani, 1978; Sherizen,
1978; Graber, 1980.

10 See Estep and MacDonald, 1984:5; Lichter and Lichter, 1983:10.

11 The single most common portrait of a television criminal is an upper middle class
person gone berserk with greed. See Estep and MacDonald, 1984:7-8; Pandiani, 1978.
Regarding corrections, they are often referenced via indirect negative allusions to an
alumni of ex-con offenders. In that habitual criminals out number first offenders by more
than 4 to 1, any rehabilitative ability of corrections is shown as marginal in the entertain
ment media (Lichter and Lichter, 1983:29). Instead, corrections are suggested as being
simple weigh stations for predatory criminals, frequently returning worse criminals to
society than they receive. While corrections have not been ignored by the film industry,
unfortunately its portrayed image in film is as negative (Zaner, 1989).

12 An associated feature in these media portrayals involves the use of violence. The
evolution of Twentieth century media crime violence has been to portray the crime fighter
and criminal as more violent and aggressive and to show this violence more graphically
(Rosow, 1978:326-327; Shadoian, 1972:212). The distinction between the crime fighter
and criminal has become insignificant. Regarding weapons, they have become more
technical and sophisticated but less realistic over the years. The portrayal of their effective
ness, especially for hand guns, is often either ridiculously benign, so that misses are
common and wounds minor and painless, (usually when the hero is shot at) or ridiculously
deadly, (usually when the hero is shooting) so that shots from handguns accurately hit
moving, distant people, killing them quickly and without extensive suffering (Stark, 1987;
Bortner, 1984).

13 In one study by Sheley and Ashkins (1981:499-500), murder and robbery account for
approximately 45% of newspaper crime news and 80% of television crime news. Similarly,
Graber (1980:39-40) reports that murder constituted 0.2% of the crime known to the
police, whereas it was 26.2% of crime news, and while nonviolent crime equaled 47% of
crimes known, it comprises only 4% of crime news stories. Two examples of molding
news coverage to fit the predator icon are offered by Best and Horiuchl's study of Hal
loween poison candy stories that were broadcast as anonymous predator criminal attacks
but were in actuality family member poisonings. They state (1985:490): "neither case fit
the image of a maniacal killer randomly attacking children. Five year old Kevin Toston
died after eating heroin supposedly hidden in his Halloween candy Newspapers gave
less coverage to the fact that Kevin had found the heroin in his uncle's home Eight-year
-old Timothy O'Bryan died after eating candy contaminated with cyanide. Investigators
concluded that his father had contaminated the treat." See also Bortner, 1984:3;
Dominick, 1978:108; Marsh, 1991; and Roshier, 1973:32.

14 See Surette, 1989, 1992.

15 See Surette, 1992 and Cavender and Bond-Maupin, forthcoming for reviews.

16 Nearly 66% of the cases reported in Graber's study were due to personal quarrels,
greed and the like and the public perceives the cause of crime as clearly residing in
offender deficiencies (Graber, 1980:70-71).

17 Cavender and Bond-Maupin, forthcoming citing Katz (1987) and Best (1990).

18 Note these values do not include murders. The rate for all violent crime (stranger and
non-stranger) victimization in 1990 is 29.5 per 1000.

19 Source: Criminal Justice Sourcebook, 1991 (1992) Table 3.2, "Number and Rate (per
1000 units of each respective category) of Personal and Household Victimizations" page
257.

20 Due to the assumptions underlying the estimates the victimization likelihood estimates
tend to show a slightly larger number of people being victimized at least once then is
actually the case. This positive bias is counter-balanced somewhat by an underestimation bias regarding series victimizations. See Koppel, 1987, page 5.

21 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1991 (1992) Table 3.35, "Respondents
Reporting Whether They Have Been Hit by Another Person" page 288-289. Since 1986 the
rate has held fairly steady between 36% and 34% of respondents responding yes to the
question: "Have you ever been punched or beaten by another person?" The percentage
peaked in 1983 when 46% answered yes.

22 In their statistics they combine murders and non-negligent manslaughters together.

23 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1991 (1992) Table 3.138 "Percent Distribution
of Murders and Non-Negligent Manslaughters Known to Police" Page 398. The peak year
was 1981 with 21,860 murders.

24 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1991 (1992) Table 3.127 Estimated Number
and Rate (per 100,000 inhabitants) of Offenses Known to Police page 372.

25 The Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1991, Table 3.140 "Percent Distribution
of Murders and Non-Negligent Manslaughters Known to Police" page 399.

26 For a discussion of the demographics and general exposure of viewers to media
violence see Israel, Simmons, Associates & Robinson (1972).

27 See de Tocqueville, 1981; Bellah et al, 1985; Gans, 1988.

28 While it unduly benefits those at the top who get personal credit for the successes of
the organizations or corporations they head (Gans, 1984:96).

29 For example, Anne Heinz (11985) notes that professions dominate the criminal justice
process, especially prosecution-oriented groups that tend to criminalize behavior and
increase punitiveness.

30 Langworthy and Whitehead (1986 citing Sheley, 1985) list three sources of fear of
crime; victimization experiences, political campaigns, and general media content. They
see the media playing a role in all three sources.

31 See Barrile, 1984; Cavender & Bond-Maupin, forthcoming; Hennigan et al, 1982; Reiner,
1985; Surette, 1985.

32 For an overview see Doppelt and Manikas, 1990; Surette, 1992.

33 It has been noted that during periods of increased stress from multiple, simultaneous
social problems the American cultural traditions of individualism and avoidance result in
increased support for punitiveness and law and order (Scheingold, 1984:75).

34 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1991, Table 2.24 "Fear of Violent Victimizat
ion" page 191.

35 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1991, Table 2.27 "Attitudes toward Walking
Alone at Night and Safety at Home" page 195.

36 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1991, Table 2.26 "Attitudes toward Crime Rate
in Own Area and Uneasiness on the Streets" page 195.

37 Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1991, Table 2.29 "Reported Fear of being
Attacked or Robbed" page 198.

38 Cavender & Bond-Maupin (forthcoming citing Gitlin, 1979 and Schattenberg, 1981)
discuss similar ideas in terms of reality crime programming.

39 Eliot Currie (1985), David Duffee (1980), Diana Gordon (1990) and Stuart Scheingold
(1984) all discuss the lack of evidence regarding the criminal justice system's effects.