Christopher J. Schneider

Security and Risk Technologies in Criminal Justice takes students through the evolution of risk technology devices, processes, and prevention. This seminal text unpacks technology’s influence on our understanding of governance and social order in areas of criminal justice, policing, and security. With a foreword by leading criminologist, Kevin Haggerty, the collection consists of three sections that explore the impact of big data, traditional risk practices, and the increased reliance on technology in criminal justice. Eight chapters offer diverse examples that are linked by themes of preventative justice, calculability of risk, the theatre and reality of technology, and the costs of justice. With both national and international appeal, this vital resource is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students in criminology, police studies, or sociology.

In a world where authority is increasingly performed, mediated, and judged online, policing now unfolds as much on screens as on streets. Policing and Social Media: Social Control in an Era of Digital Media examines how police agencies in Canada manage, use, and control social media as part of their public-facing work. Christopher J. Schneider shows how shifts in information technology and communication formats have reshaped the institutional practices of policing, arguing that police engagement with social media aligns with the platforms’ underlying logic. As police adopt these tools, policing itself evolves to emphasize new forms of public conditioning, self-promotion, and the expansion of social control. Fully updated, each chapter of the second edition presents a case study focused on a different platform or format, while also developing analytical and methodological approaches suited to understanding contemporary policing in digital spaces. The result is a book that demonstrates how police presence on social media is not merely communicative but consequential, with significant implications for power, visibility, and accountability.

Focusing on discourses surrounding the introduction and use of body-worn cameras, this book contends that the principal catalyst for equipping front-line officers with cameras is linked to media narratives concerning beliefs about their effectiveness in bringing about police reform. Although research testing the efficacy of body cameras is inconsistent, law enforcement agencies continue to adopt and use body-worn cameras on the premise that the technology will increase and enhance accountability and transparency. The authors argue that the police and public do not have shared definitions or expectations associated with the terms accountability and transparency, but that these ideas appear frequently across media narratives in relation to police reform. Police Body-Worn Cameras: Media and the New Discourse of Police Reform details how the new discourse obfuscates the clashing expectations and goals of police and publics, ensuring that transparency and accountability remain aspirational public concepts with no enshrined legal or policy parameters that bolster the legitimacy of policing as an institution. This book will appeal to scholars and students of criminology, sociology, media studies and policing.

Focusing on discourses surrounding the introduction and use of body-worn cameras, this book contends that the principal catalyst for equipping front-line officers with cameras is linked to media narratives concerning beliefs about their effectiveness in bringing about police reform. Although research testing the efficacy of body cameras is inconsistent, law enforcement agencies continue to adopt and use body-worn cameras on the premise that the technology will increase and enhance accountability and transparency. The authors argue that the police and public do not have shared definitions or expectations associated with the terms accountability and transparency, but that these ideas appear frequently across media narratives in relation to police reform. Police Body-Worn Cameras: Media and the New Discourse of Police Reform details how the new discourse obfuscates the clashing expectations and goals of police and publics, ensuring that transparency and accountability remain aspirational public concepts with no enshrined legal or policy parameters that bolster the legitimacy of policing as an institution. This book will appeal to scholars and students of criminology, sociology, media studies and policing.

Policing and Social Media: Social Control in an Era of Digital Media investigates various public aspects of the management, use, and control of social media by police agencies in Canada. This book aims to illustrate the process by which information technology—namely, social media—and related changes in communication formats have affected the public face of policing and police work. Christopher J. Schneider argues that police use of social media has altered institutional public police practices in a manner that is consistent with the logic of social media platforms: policing is changing to include new ways of conditioning the public, cultivating self-promotion, and expanding social control. Every chapter in this second edition has been updated with contemporary examples and analysis. Each case study presented here focuses on a different social media platform or format while at the same time developing suitable analytical and methodological approaches for understanding contemporary policing practices on social media sites.

A basic premise of public scholarship is making academic work and related ideas accessible and available to publics. Media engagement, whether interviews with news journalists, or the use of hashtags, is a necessary feature of any public scholarship. Media formats play a fundamental and interactive role in how people ultimately come to view and understand the social world, having had a discernable influence on election outcomes, responses to global pandemics, and so on. The question is not whether scholars should engage with media but how to do so. Drawing on fifteen years of experience that includes hundreds of print, radio, and television news interviews, dozens of published opinion pieces, and the use of social media for public engagement, this book outlines a practical, easy-to-follow approach to doing public sociology in media that consists of, and brings together, interrelated forms of media engagement. This book also offers some advice pertaining to career advancement and provides strategies to avoid negative experiences. Doing Public Scholarship will be of general interest to those wanting to go public with their research.

A basic premise of public scholarship is making academic work and related ideas accessible and available to publics. Media engagement, whether interviews with news journalists, or the use of hashtags, is a necessary feature of any public scholarship. Media formats play a fundamental and interactive role in how people ultimately come to view and understand the social world, having had a discernable influence on election outcomes, responses to global pandemics, and so on. The question is not whether scholars should engage with media but how to do so. Drawing on fifteen years of experience that includes hundreds of print, radio, and television news interviews, dozens of published opinion pieces, and the use of social media for public engagement, this book outlines a practical, easy-to-follow approach to doing public sociology in media that consists of, and brings together, interrelated forms of media engagement. This book also offers some advice pertaining to career advancement and provides strategies to avoid negative experiences. Doing Public Scholarship will be of general interest to those wanting to go public with their research.

Defining Sexual Misconduct investigates shifts in media coverage of sexual violence and details significant changes in public discourse about sexual harm. In 2015, the New York Times ran just a single headline with the term "sexual misconduct." Three years later, it ran scores of such headlines, averaging more than one per week, and expanded coverage across other media organizations followed. This shift in coverage is reflective of significant changes in public discourse about sexual harm helping to hold some perpetrators accountable for their behaviour and paved the path for #MeToo and related movements against sexual abuse and harm to receive national and global attention. In Defining Sexual Misconduct, Stacey Hannem and Christopher Schneider trace contemporary shifts in power in relation to the increased recognition and censure of sexual misconduct and the ways in which the shifting social landscape is communicated in the coverage of sexual misconduct in media. Hannem and Schneider also examine the contemporary dynamics of public accusations and their relationship to more formal criminal justice processes, as well as the implications for the stigmatization of alleged abusers and public response to alleged victims. Since behaviours categorized as sexual misconduct may not all be defined as crimes, or punishable through legal means, social censure and cancel culture often stand as proxy forms of punishment, and the authors reflect on what the pursuit of justice might look like in this extra-legal context.

Defining Sexual Misconduct investigates shifts in media coverage of sexual violence and details significant changes in public discourse about sexual harm. In 2015, the New York Times ran just a single headline with the term "sexual misconduct." Three years later, it ran scores of such headlines, averaging more than one per week, and expanded coverage across other media organizations followed. This shift in coverage is reflective of significant changes in public discourse about sexual harm helping to hold some perpetrators accountable for their behaviour and paved the path for #MeToo and related movements against sexual abuse and harm to receive national and global attention. In Defining Sexual Misconduct, Stacey Hannem and Christopher Schneider trace contemporary shifts in power in relation to the increased recognition and censure of sexual misconduct and the ways in which the shifting social landscape is communicated in the coverage of sexual misconduct in media. Hannem and Schneider also examine the contemporary dynamics of public accusations and their relationship to more formal criminal justice processes, as well as the implications for the stigmatization of alleged abusers and public response to alleged victims. Since behaviours categorized as sexual misconduct may not all be defined as crimes, or punishable through legal means, social censure and cancel culture often stand as proxy forms of punishment, and the authors reflect on what the pursuit of justice might look like in this extra-legal context.

This book investigates various public aspects of the management, use, and control of social media by police agencies in Canada. This book aims to illustrate the process by which new information technology—namely, social media—and related changes in communication formats have affected the public face of policing and police work. Schneider argues that police use of social media has altered institutional public police practices in a manner that is consistent with the logic of social media platforms. Policing is changing to include new ways of conditioning the public, cultivating self-promotion, and expanding social control. While each case study presented here focuses on a different social media platform or format, his concern is less with the particular format per se, as these will undoubtedly change, and more with developing suitable analytical and methodological approaches to understanding contemporary policing practices on social media sites.

This book investigates various public aspects of the management, use, and control of social media by police agencies in Canada. This book aims to illustrate the process by which new information technology—namely, social media—and related changes in communication formats have affected the public face of policing and police work. Schneider argues that police use of social media has altered institutional public police practices in a manner that is consistent with the logic of social media platforms. Policing is changing to include new ways of conditioning the public, cultivating self-promotion, and expanding social control. While each case study presented here focuses on a different social media platform or format, his concern is less with the particular format per se, as these will undoubtedly change, and more with developing suitable analytical and methodological approaches to understanding contemporary policing practices on social media sites.

In order to prepare a successful research project, a qualitative researcher often must consult media documents of various types. Authors David L. Altheide and Christopher J. Schneider show readers how to obtain, categorize, and analyze these different media documents in this entry in the Qualitative Research Methods series. They look at traditional primary documents such as newspapers and magazines but also at more recent forms--television newscasts and cyberspace. The use of student examples of research protocols makes this book a useful primer in deriving meaning from the bombardment of media documents a qualitative researcher faces.