There are many myths about crime rates, types of crimes that are most common, what leads people to commit crimes, and the rate in which criminals are actually caught and punished. Many of these myths are created or perpetuated by the myriad of television crime dramas that many people watch as if they are reality-based. These shows are blamed by police departments and prosecutors alike for creating unrealistic expectations in the public as a whole, and for many of the mistaken ideas that the average American has about crime.
When most people think of the word “criminal,” they are able to call to mind a very specific image in their mind: a shadowy, sinister-looking man in a trench coat peering out from a dark alleyway awaiting his unsuspecting victim. In point of fact, it is not possible to know who is and is not a criminal simply by appearances (Livingston, 1994). There is no specific race, age, or even gender of the typical criminal offender (Livingston, 1994). Not all criminals are addicted to drugs or live in inner-city squalor (Szalavitz & Rigg, 2017). While it is true that certain areas of the country are more dangerous than others, and that high incidence of poverty is positively correlated with a high crime rate, some crimes are more prevalent in middle-class neighborhoods than in slums (Moutlton, 2013). Home invasions and robberies, for example, are more likely to happen in “good” neighborhoods than in inner-city low-income housing (Moutlton, 2013).
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Television crime dramas, televised news programs and news magazines, and the print media tend to focus almost exclusively on the prevalence of violent crime to the point of almost completing ignoring the presence of white-collar crime (Moulton, 2013). White-collar crime such as identity theft, embezzlement, and fraud are in fact far more common that violent crime in this country, but this type of crime remains largely unreported (Moulton, 2013). In the United States, a person is far more likely to have her identity stolen than to have her purse stolen (Moulton, 2013). White-collar crime is also currently on the rise, while more violent crime seems to be on a downswing (Szalavitz & Rigg, 2017). This is rather surprising, given that prescription drug abuse is at a reported all-time high, which is a condition that many people connect with a high violent crime rate (Szalavitz & Rigg, 2017).
Another myth concerning crimes of all types is that in the majority of cases the criminal is caught and arrested by the police. Once again, the basis of this misconception is blamed by many law enforcement personnel on television crime shows. On television, the good guys always win, the bad guys are always caught, and when they are put on trial they are always found guilty and sent to prison forever, never to offend again (Livingston, 1994). The reality of the situation is far less encouraging. In 2016, the last year for which data is available, only 17.6 percent of property crimes such as breaking and entering, theft, vandalism, and robbery were ever solved (or “cleared”) by the police (Strauss, 2017). Even when robberies or thefts are solved, the stolen property is very rarely recovered (Strauss, 2017). The solve-rate of violent crimes such as forcible sexual assault, aggravated assault, and murder is slightly higher than that of property crimes, with the percentage in 2016 being 32 percent (Strauss, 2017). Of violent crimes, murder is solved at the highest rate (60.7 percent in 2016) (Strauss, 2017).
Even if a criminal is caught by the police and arrested, the odds are against him ever going to trial. The vast majority of crimes are pled out, meaning that the accused person pleads guilty to a lesser charge in return for a lighter prison sentence or other punishment (Livingston, 1994). There are several reasons for this. First, it is far more cost-effective to plead a defendant out than it is to take him through a trial (Livingston, 1994). Also, even with a relatively small number of crimes actually being solved, there are still far too many defendants to effectively prosecute (Livingston, 1994). In the United States, every person has the constitutional right to a speedy trial, and while the meaning of “speedy” is open to interpretation and varies widely by area of the country, it simply is not possible to bring every person who is arrested to trial.
If a defendant pleads guilty or is actually found guilty at trial, he will probably spend much less time in jail or prison than the average person would expect (Moulton, 2013). Prisons across the country are dangerously overcrowded and there is simply not enough prison space to hold every person convicted of a crime (Moulton, 2013). Aside from the death penalty, which is only used in certain states, is consistently being repealed and reinstated, and which takes years if not decades to actually happen, the strongest possible sentence is life in prison without the possibility of parole (Moulton, 2013). To most people, that means exactly what it sounds like: the prisoner will stay in prison until the day he dies. This, however, is usually not the case. “Life” does not mean life when it comes to length of prison terms. The majority of convicted criminals serve one-third of their minimum sentence, or even less in cases of good behavior or extreme overcrowding (Moulton, 2013).
Many people get their opinions and ideas about crime and punishment from television, either crime dramas or legitimate news programs. The problem is that the reality of crime and punishment are misrepresented on the former and ignored on the latter. It is important for people to realize that you cannot believe everything you see on television, even if the source seems legitimate.
