Despite being an increasingly high profile subject, few publications address media representations of law and order head on. This book aims to meet this need by bringing together an important range of papers from leading researchers in the field, addressing issues of fictional, factual and hybrid representations of crime in the media.

Introduction: visions of crime and justice Part One: Criminal Visions in Context 1. From law and order to lynch mobs: crime news since the Second World War 2. Video violence: how far can you go? 3. 'Signal crimes': detective work, mass media and constructing collective memory Part Two: Criminal Representations - Crimes and Criminals 4. Masculinity, morality and action: Michael Mann and the heist movie 5. Sex crime and the media: press representations in Northern Ireland 6. Organized crime: Mafia myths in film and television 7. Political violence, Irish Republicanism and the British media: semantics, symbiosis and the state 8. Mass media/mass murder: serial killer cinema and the modern violated body Part Three: Criminal Decisions - Agencies and Agents 9. Photo stories and family albums: imaging criminals and victims on Crimewatch UK 10. Media representations of visual surveillance 11. Completing the 'half-formed picture'? Media images of policing 12. Film lawyers: above and beyond the law 13. British justice: not suitable for public viewing? 14. The screen machine: cinematic representations of prison