AbstractsCommunication

Problems which confront the police in the last few decades have given rise to a complete change in the methods developed for dealing with them. The press, as an instrument of police administration, should stand in the front rank, along with the use of two-way radio, teletype, firearms identification, fingerprints, and photography, among others. The development of a comprehensive police-press program, therefore, is the problem and task of this thesis. Most police departments do not have a press program. In those police departments that do have some kind of a police-press relation, there is little organization, information and knowledge from which beneficial results can emanate. Written police-press releases and constructive newspaper portrayal of police and crime news will give the public information as a basis for cooperation with the police. The benefits that can be reaped from sound police-press relations depend largely on the ingenuity and skill of the police administrator in adapting police-press techniques to his own peculiar environment. To elucidate the police and crime news problem, this study attempts to show that historical, traditional and contemporary practices of the press in their depiction of police and crime news through various techniques may tend to stimulate and develop interest in criminal activity which hamper law enforcement and crime prevention. [TRUNCATED]