Reports that as evidence of criminal events turn ever more graphic
and videotapes actually replay the violence, jurors in the nation's
courtrooms are the newest victims of trauma. Example of juror on the
Jeffrey Dahmer trial; Hired therapist Roger A. Bell; Jurors are forced to
relive crimes; Effects of secondhand violence; TV simulations.
By
PT Staff, published on May 01, 1992
news & trends
Once it was strictly a by-product of the battlefield. Then, as
American streets turned meaner, posttraumatic stress began hitting home.
Now it's got an even newer venue. As evidence of criminal events turns
ever more graphic and videotapes actually replay the violence, jurors in
the nation's courtrooms are the newest victims of trauma.
After sitting through three weeks of vivid accounts of monstrous
acts in the trial of Jeffrey Dahmer, one juror bolted from the courtroom
in tears. Roger A. Bell was ready. He'd been hired by the' state of
Wisconsin to give jurors the kind of crisis counseling once reserved for
victims and witnesses of crashes and such.
Jurors are forced to relive crimes almost as if they were on the
spot, Bell reports in Hospital and Community Psychiatry (Vol. 42, No. 1).
The effects of the excruciating evidence are classic: sleepless nights,
irritability, mood swings, lack of concentration. Even after counseling,
anniversaries and other stimuli can trigger the anxiety.
Such effects of secondhand violence similarly have social critics
alarmed about the rising number of true-crime shows on television. For
example, when America's Most Wanted re-enacts scenes of high drama,
mayhem masquerades as entertainment and drenches our homes with "happy
brutality."
And it warps our psyches in many ways, says George Gerbner, former
dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of
Pennsylvania. It cultivates insecurity, vulnerability, and mistrust--a
"mean-world syndrome." "Heavy viewers buy more guns, locks, and watchdogs
for protection than light viewers," Gerbner's research indicates.
Sociologist Mark Fishman, who monitors media from Brooklyn College
in New York, contends that the picture of violence TV broadcasts, even on
news shows, is itself warped and unrelated to reality. It's heavy on
heinous crimes and those that hang on a twist of fate. And then,
particularly with bias crimes and Satanism, there is "perceptual
contagion" of violence--they get covered over and over again, leading us
to perceive their incidence as greater than it really is.
If TV simulations and courtroom drama have increasing similarities,
there are some differences. Jurors can't turn off the set. And home
viewers are not separated from their social supports. That may-or may
not--make a difference.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): DAHMER TRAUMA: Graphic replays of
violent crimes are creating even more victims.
Tags:
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