Ethical Considerations
The procedure of ethical considerations is about the media and the influence it has on the case, depending on the type of case committed the media may have a big impact on it. The media may help develop the case within the community by showing every detail of it to the public, although due to it mainly being on the TV and in News Papers they may give the wrong impression of what is happening within the case and what acts the police are taking towards the case this may confuse the general public. The public may receive false leads / untrue statements from the media that can leave them in panic and worry this is more important in unsolved cases where there are no potential suspects, the public will learn from the media about the lack of suspect knowledge the police have and realise there is a criminal walking around there local community. Different types of crime will have different types of media coverage, for example within child abduction interviews with the parents may be shown on the TV although this may not be shown in a murder case as the police may want to keep it quiet. Press may intrude the case and give out information the police would lie to keep to themselves until it is solved.
If a parent is interviewed within a child abduction the ethics will be taken into consideration, depending on the state the parents are in the police will make a decision on whether or not they should be shown on national television. They question if the parents will help the case by making a suspect come forward or bringing in more information from witness statements? Or if it will be too hard for the parent to go through with this activity due to them mourning. When people are interviewed on television there body language and speech is explored and question, if an individual is acting different on the television the analyst will look at this and make decisions on whether they believe they are lying or not. This is an important stage to have in certain cases as the media may try to help support a case by advertising search parties which may lead to more of the general public getting involved with helping to solve a case. Although it may lead to more crimes, this can show the media coverage may lead to negative outcomes even though it’s an important stage to have not every case will have media coverage.
If a parent is interviewed within a child abduction the ethics will be taken into consideration, depending on the state the parents are in the police will make a decision on whether or not they should be shown on national television. They question if the parents will help the case by making a suspect come forward or bringing in more information from witness statements? Or if it will be too hard for the parent to go through with this activity due to them mourning. When people are interviewed on television there body language and speech is explored and question, if an individual is acting different on the television the analyst will look at this and make decisions on whether they believe they are lying or not. This is an important stage to have in certain cases as the media may try to help support a case by advertising search parties which may lead to more of the general public getting involved with helping to solve a case. Although it may lead to more crimes, this can show the media coverage may lead to negative outcomes even though it’s an important stage to have not every case will have media coverage.
The Soham Murders and The Ethical Considerations Involved
Within the case of the Soham Murders ethical considerations and media coverage was very important due to it being a child abduction it was a vital stage to have. At the beginning of the case the police planned search parties, due to the media coverage on this the amount of people in the parties increased a lot near enough the whole town helped play a role in finding the girls. The media also helped to question Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr as potential suspects, due to the body language and speech of both Huntley and Carr on SKY news when being interviewed the police questioned there potentials of killing the girls, Carr was pictured with a card the girls had made her which is located at the top. As Huntley had gave a voluntary witness statement this was proof that he had seen the girls his sightings were then built up upon through the interview, Huntley and Carr spoke about both girls in past tense as if they believed they were already dead. No one else did this so the police believed they needed to question both Huntley and Carr. The media documented on the Soham case through giving the local community a lot of information, SKY news visited Soham in order to get an insight of the case and to see if they could have done anything beneficial to help. There were numerous pleas given by family of both the missing girls as well as the interview with Huntley and Carr they family’s begged on national television for their children to return safe and well. What they didn’t know what the man that killed their children was currently helping within the investigation. David Beckham also hosted an international campaign to raise awareness of the missing girls in order to find them at a quicker pace and get more people involved.