Counterblast: punitive Payne, justice campaigns, and popular punitivism: where next for ‘public criminology'?

This paper looks at the increasing power of the British press in relation to (in)forming political responses to crime. Drawing on the example of the Sun Justice campaign, we examine the trend of the celebrification of news and the use of emotional language in relation to sexual offending. We argue that criminologists should be more forceful in their response to misrepresentative press reporting about crime, and unashamedly promote empirical findings in mass-media circles to redress the balance between ideology and evidence.