This text is the definitive work on media and criminal justice. With the media's role in reporting crime and using crime as entertainment gaining increasing influence and attention, the importance of the interplay between the mass media news and entertainment systems and the criminal justice system may be greater today than ever before. Surette comprehensively explores this interplay. The basic premise of the text is that people use knowledge obtained from the media to build a picture of the world and then base their actions on this constructed image.