Essay
Essay - TMA01 - DD310
- Module
- DD310
- Institution
- The Open University (OU)
Introduction and summary of the newspaper article
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Enrique Sarabia Sánchez - personal identifier: G6533073DD310 - TMA 01- 1500 words
Introduction and summary of the newspaper article
Critique and analyze whether a newspaper article about the rise in violent offences in Scotland
has true and adequate evidence against its claims. The article claims that violent offences has
increased. Using data from the National Statistics report on crimes and offences recorded in
Scotland by the police between 2019 and 2020. I will look for statistical evidence.
THE MOON
Newspaper article
13 November 2021 (K. Campbell): "Scotland's most dangerous streets in the UK".
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to investigate the media's interpretation of the increase in violent
offences and, in particular, rape being committed in Scotland, in the context of a newspaper
article, in light of actual data provided through the National Crime and Misconduct Statistics
recorded by Police Scotland in 2019-20. A brief analysis of the article will be provided,
followed by a critical appraisal of the data collected in the article. It will examine the type of
language used in the article and analyze whether the statistics used can be supported by the
Police Scotland Report. Assess whether the statistical data presented in that report corroborates
the claims made in the article.
Criticism of the newspaper article
The article argues that, according to the statistics in the report, violent offences is becoming
increasingly prevalent in Scotland and that women are most at risk. The report states that rape
has peaked in the last 10 years, with a 100% increase. It is unclear whether the 100% increase
has been in the last year or comparatively over the 10 years in which it claims this increase has
occurred, this lack of clarity denotes a deliberate intention to create social alarm and generate
some controversy to help increase the sensationalism of the report.
The author's article contains statements such as "women are not safe even in their own homes",
these statements clearly denote the omission of information and the deliberate intention to create
social alarm.
The omission of the fact that the newly created DASA offences are the cause of the huge growth
in this type of household crime and the failure to comment that these offences can also be
suffered by men or any other member of the household does not reflect the truth of the Police
Scotland report. With the new Sexual Offences Act 2010 (Scotland), there were a number of
reforms that changed the way these types of offences were recorded, so we must bear in mind
that prior to 2010 some of these events or the way records were kept did not include some of
these offences in the category in which they are counted from 2010, so we must look at and
analyze all the data prior to 2010 and the change in trend that has led to the incorporation of this
law in statistical matters with caution.
The sentence in the article states that "The homicide rate also increased by 20%, making people
much more likely to be murdered in 2020 than they were in 2019." She is omitting that this
increase is mostly due to homicides related to traffic offences and not violent crime, again the
author generates fear and social alarm in an unfounded way if we look in detail at the data in the
police report. As we can see in the report, homicides accounted for only 1% of non-sexual
violent offences. Going from 102 in 2018-19 to 121 in 2019-20, implies a growth of close to
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