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Media-generated discourse can provide a framework for its consumers to construct representations of the world they live in. These representations, however, are often disproportionate to the true incidence of crime or risk of victimization. In order to examine the extent to which the gender of the offender or victim impacts portrayals of crime, content and discourse analyses were carried out on four Canadian city newspapers over a span of 30 years. The results from the 1190 sampled crime articles revealed that, although portrayals of female offenders accurately depict them as generally lower-risk, both female offenders and female victims were treated equivocally. Women offenders were dichotomized into sexualized bad girls or malicious black widow archetypes. Similarly, female victims were depicted either as bad victims who were blamed for their circumstances, or good victims who garnered sympathy through negative portrayals of the offenders. The findings are discussed within the context of gender differences surrounding the social discourse of violence, particularly chivalry.

To address whether there is a systematic racial bias in the language used to describe offenders and victims in Canadian print media, content analysis was conducted in four Canadian local newspapers. Using 12 sub-themes relating to fear and marginalization, the results of the 1190 sampled crime articles indicate that white offenders were disproportionately criminalized and dehumanized. In addition, articles describe crimes against white victims with significantly more fearful language, while visible minority victims were blamed for their own victimization. The results reflect a bias mainly through explanations for crime rather than in what newspapers report about crime and offenders. The racialization of offender and victims creates a powerful hierarchal treatment between those who are and are not 'meant' to have their lives impacted by crime and for whom being a victim of crime is tragic.

The factors that determne the health and well-being of older populations are increasingly recognized as critical public health issues. The focus of this review article is to provide evidence for the role of fear of crime in determining the mental health of older populations. The fear of crime is a complex construct, as the vast majority of fear is not related to actual rates of victimization. Here, we synthesize the literature on fear of crime and how the physical and social environment can profoundly affect mental health outcomes. The review presents some plausible physiological mechanisms by which fear of crime may directly or indirectly affect the life span development of the brain to modulate mental health in an effort to aid further development of research in this area.