Crime Media Project

I had chosen to do my crime media project on the television program Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. While watching this program I noticed a few things that were reoccurring trends in the type of crimes that were committed in this show. The majority of the crimes committed in this program are sexual assaults and tied in with the sexual assaults in some cases there are kidnappings and murders. While watching the show I noticed that these crimes were committed because of many different reasons depending on what episode you were to watch. The most typical sexual assaults seen in the show are either one of the three types of sexual assaults, Anger sexual assault, power sexual assault or, less commonly seen in the show is sadistic sexual assault. The show also shows in some episodes gang rape and acquaintance rape or date rape. When sexual assault is committed with power as the motive its because the attacker wants to feel dominance over the victim. Power sexual assault is a way for the attacker to stopping any personal insecurities or a way to feel more masculine. We also often see sexual assault motivated by anger in Law and Order:Special Victims Unit. Sexual Assault motivated by anger is committed when the attacker is using it as a way to let out any built up anger about something or someone. Often this type of sexual assault is more violent than sexual assault motivated by power. Less commonly seen in the show is sadistic sexual assault, this type of sexual assault is extremely violent both physically and mentally. The attacker of a sadistic sexual assault gets excited by seeing the victim in pain and forcing pain onto the victim. In practically every single episode of this program a male of any race or ethnicity is the on committing the sexual assault to a woman. I've only ever seen one episode of Law and Order: SVU where a woman was the one who supposedly sexually assaulted a male. This is because the majority of sexual assaults in the world are committed by men and women are typically the victims. Other than being male the attacker also tends to be in power of the victim in some sort of way whether the attacker be the victims boss, teacher, or some other form of authority that they have over the victim. In some cases the attacker is someone that the victim is close with for example someone who they believed they were friends with or a significant other in some cases. The age of the people who commit the crimes in this show range anywhere from sixteen years old to someone who is middle aged. The social classes also tend to range from lower class to upper class people depending on the episode however there is a lot more attackers shown to be in either the middle class or upper middle class rather than lower classes. As for victims there is two ways the victims are shown, they are shown as either "innocent" or a "whore" this is the Madonna whore complex we learned about not too long ago. Pretty much the victim has too roles in the show. there is the innocent role  in which the victim is typically someone who is well respected and seen as innocent. They are typically in the middle class or upper middle class of society in this show. And then there is the role of the whore. In this role the victim is normally shown to be in a lower class in society. The victim also tends to be shown either as prostitute or someone who has some sort of addiction whether it be drugs or alcohol. These are really the only two roles women have in the show. These were the things I had noticed while completing this crime media project.