Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1517916
24 Unity SUNDAY 24 MARCH 2024 Where are you from and where do you live? I am from Mosta and live in Mosta as well. Have you ever involved in the community? Yes, I was enrolled with the Scouts and was part of the MUSEUM. What is your role at the UM? Assistant Technical Manager in the Electrical and Plumbing Section How long have you been working at the UM? 33 years, since 1991. What is the secret with man- aging a large team of person- nel with different characters? You need to listen and under- stand everyone and then take the best decision. What is your favourite pas- time? Cooking and gardening. Are you interested in sports, if yes, what is your favourite sport? Not really no, but I enjoy watching snooker. Do you practice any sport? Unfortunately, no. What is one experience you recall when you were young? When we used to go running around in the valley and cook- ing in the open. Do you like travelling? Which is the country you would keep visiting? Yes, I love travelling. Spain. Do you like watching series on television? I have none, I do not watch television series. What are you afraid of when you grow old? That I would become depend- ent on others. Dr Sandra Scicluna Department of Criminology CRIME is a frequently encountered topic in normal conversations. Who has never heard statements such as "Did you hear what happened? The person must be mad", or "The types of crimes are getting worse and worse." These are common comments that one often hears in everyday life. Crime seems to activate that curiosity within us, perhaps in a way that enables us to distinguish between good and bad, be- tween us and them. No matter the rea- soning, the fascination with crime re- mains, as is shown by the various crime programmes featuring in television se- ries and at the cinema. I am sure that you all can think of some 'crime' programme that you watched avidly, or crime books and tabloids that you have devoured whilst asking your- selves 'what is next?'. A more worrying aspect of crime programmes is when viewers start siding with the criminals. Most of the time, these criminals com- mit theft against someone who deserves it: take as examples Lupin, The Italian Job, Sopranos, Peaky Blinders and Mon- ey Heist. Although most of us will not want a criminal to get away with crime, we do not mind siding with a criminal in fiction. Maybe because they are do- ing what we would secretly love to have the courage to do but which our con- ventional upbringing does not allow us to do? This fascination lies in both the fan- tasy and real worlds. We fear crime but at the same time we are captivated by it. Criminologists analyse crime, sci- entifically, asking questions about why crime occurs, the extent of crime, soci- ety's response to it and why do certain people commit crimes while others do not. Society is more enthralled by crime stories, by the portrayal of crime, by the underworld, by the mystery of crime. However, society is equivocally wor- ried about crime. One wonders why we are so fascinated by crime. The answer might be found in the analysis done by Lettieri (2021), a forensic psychologist. He maintains that most of us are in bal- ance, keeping in check the 'demonic' or what Freud calls the 'id'. We have all probably envisaged killing some- one at one point of our life. David Buss (2006) found that 91% of men and 84% of women have imagined killing some- one. However, most of us do not act on the impulse – our fear of being caught, our compassion, our guilt all stops us from acting out our impulses. Lettieri calls this the 'virtue' that is in all of us. The impulse to commit crime is always present but this is balanced out by 'vir- tue'. Thus people commit crime because their 'virtue' has failed them. Other re- searchers have tried to justify our fas- cination with crime, be it the fact that it makes males feel more masculine, or women getting tips on how to defend themselves. However, it could also re- flect what Vicary and Fraley (2010) found on women's interest in fictional crime stories as being related to their fear of victimisation. This would give them a sense of security through feeling in control and gaining knowledge about crime, albeit in the fictional world. These ideas seem to be a justifiable way of trying to explain why we are fascinated by crime, however could something more basic be at play? If we believe that in all of us there is an in- stinct to commit crime, watching crime stories might be a safe way of distanc- ing ourselves from something that dis- turbs our consciousness but at the same time is very present. Is it a way for us to portray a civilised saintly image while a criminal self exists in all of us? The worrying side of watching a lot of crime stories, being real crime or fic- tional is that it tends to distort our im- age of crime and criminal investigation. Normally, the media portrays sensa- tional stories, crimes that are not every- day occurrences. The overconsumption of these stories can cause serious issues on the perception and fear of crime as well as on the creation of stereotypes of criminals. Crime: Why are we so fascinated by it? Crime People Martin Grech Asst. Technical Manager Estates & Works University of Malta