NCJ Number
180884
Journal
International Journal of the Sociology of Law Volume: 27 Issue: 3 Dated: September 1999 Pages: 229-250
Date Published
September 1999
Length
22 pages
Annotation
By drawing on a particular case study of the Strathclyde police in Scotland, which has been at the forefront of rethinking and developing new approaches to police media strategies within the United Kingdom, this study identifies border shifts in police-media relations that are responding to the changing context of policing in the 1990's.
Abstract
Section 1 of the paper provides a brief background of the context in which the Strathclyde police force operates. This is particularly important given that most British research into police-media relationships have tended to focus on the police in England and Wales (Crandon, 1992; Reiner, 1992; Schlesinger and Tumber, 1994). This section also examines the origins of the "Spotlight Initiative" and its relationships to the high-profile "Zero Tolerance" campaigns that have been prominent in the United States and New York City in particular. Section 2 provides an analysis of the media coverage that accompanied both the launch and development of the Spotlight Initiative. It complements this media analysis by drawing on interviews with both police media officers and crime journalists who work on the main Scottish newspapers; it assesses the impact of the Spotlight Initiative on the developing relationship between these organizations and its influence on the reporting of crime. Finally, Section 3 reviews the success or otherwise of the Spotlight Initiative in Strathclyde and examines what it indicates about the changing nature of policing in the 1990's and the increasingly complex relationship between a more media- proactive police service and the newspaper reporting of crime. 9 notes and 27 references