A different way of looking at crime

Aino Nykopp

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By Antero Mukka
     
      Crime is news. The events, causes, and effects of crimes interest people. Usually crimes have undeniable societal significance.
      As news items, crimes are sensitive, requiring good taste and precision.
      Some of the most difficult decisions in an editorial office involve stories concerning the perpetrators and victims of crimes.
     
Finland has strong traditions in protecting the privacy of crime victims. Journalistic guidelines oblige those in the profession to protect the identity of victims of crimes of a sensitive nature.
      Information must also not be disclosed about perpetrators if that information might reveal the identity of such a victim. The next of kin must also not be made to suffer additional grief.
      This past week a couple of crimes have been covered in the news, in which the coverage has deviated from the familiar pattern.
     
On Monday, the A-Studio current affairs television programme of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) allowed a Helsinki nurse who was given a life sentence for five murders to speak in a televised interview.
      Interviewing a serial killer is unusual in this country, and the item could be justified by the exceptional nature of the event.
      Perhaps viewers needed to see this in order to better understand why innocent elderly people died.
      Nevertheless the confused account of that pleasant-sounding lady, the defence of a serial killer, left a somewhat hollow feeling.
      How hurtful was it toward the families of the victims?
      Did it advance the cause of justice? Or even that of freedom of speech?
     
Something unusual was also seen in court on Tuesday.
      A case of aggravated rape was tried in open court (and not behind closed doors as is usually the case) and the victim, a sales clerk who had been assaulted at her own workplace, related the event to the media as well.
      The woman herself explained the public airing by a desire to deconstruct the taboos surrounding sex crimes.
     
Her open airing of the event was admirable. The wish to protect the victims of rape and abuse in particular from the glare of publicity has been necessary and efficient.
      However, a culture has been quietly established in which victims of rape are shunned as if marked with a brand of shame.
      The media and officials have pondered who is really being protected when silence is maintained about the fates of victims.
      Stories of crimes have focused on the perpetrators.
     
It is healthy to sometimes look at crimes with different eyes.
      However, future paths of news work should be trodden with care. Each case is unique.
      Rape is an evil act, where a person’s bodily integrity is violated. It leaves deep scars in the victim that are not always apparent from the outside. Recovery takes time.
      And if someone regrets the publicity the next day, it is too late.
      For by then, Google sets the pace.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.1.2011
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mental evaluation finds that nurse in poisoning case understood consequences of actions (29.11.2010)
  Nurse found guilty of poisoning elderly patients; psychiatric evaluation called for (14.5.2010)

See also:
  Rape case exceptionally held in open court (19.1.2001)

ANTERO MUKKA / Helsingin Sanomat
antero.mukka@hs.fi