-
Common Misperceptions: The Press and Victorian Views of Crime
- Journal of Interdisciplinary History
- The MIT Press
- Volume 41, Number 3, Winter 2011
- pp. 367-391
- Article
- Additional Information
After a string of successes in the early nineteenth century, the Victorian movement to reform criminal punishment began to falter. Despite evidence to the contrary, the populace grew convinced that violent crime was on the rise. A frequency analysis of The Times and The Manchester Guardian suggests that this misperception was due to a drastic increase in crime coverage by the periodicals of the day.