Description
This book examines perceptions of violent behaviour and compares public opinion with statistics and past events. How do the press and special interest groups shape public opinion and official concern about violence? Using the example of the unrest in 1930s Newfoundland, the book also provides a model for analysing the complex and shifting relationship between social and economic conditions, violence and popular protest, state policy and public anxiety. Leyton reviews the influence of the media; O'Grady looks at the role of official crime statistics; Overton discusses how assumptions about the past can distort the present.