Table Of Content· CRIME WATCHING ·
CRIME WATCHING
Investigating Real Crime TV
Deborah Jermyn
Published in 2007 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
In the United States of America and Canada
distributed by Palgrave Macmillan a division of St Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © Deborah Jermyn, 2007
The right of Deborah Jermyn to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Hardback ISBN: 978 1 84511 238 7
Paperback ISBN: 978 1 84511 239 4
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset in Palatino by JCS Publishing Services
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow,
Cornwall
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 The Birth of Crimewatch UK
Contextualising the rise of real crime TV 19
2 From ‘Public Service’ to ‘Fear of Crime’
Television, anxiety and crime appeal programming 49
3 The Persistence of Vision
Photography, temporality and the TV crime appeal 81
4 Someone to Watch Over Me
CCTV and surveillance in real crime TV 109
5 Pleasure, Fear and Fortitude
Women watching Crimewatch UK 141
Conclusion
Negotiating boundaries in real crime and reality TV 171
Works Cited 181
Index 195
Published in 2007 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
In the United States of America and Canada
distributed by Palgrave Macmillan a division of St Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © Deborah Jermyn, 2007
The right of Deborah Jermyn to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Hardback ISBN: 978 1 84511 238 7
Paperback ISBN: 978 1 84511 239 4
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset in Palatino by JCS Publishing Services
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow,
Cornwall
· For Julia Jermyn ·
for everything
Acknowledgements
While carrying out the research for this book I have been fortu-
nate enough to work with wonderful colleagues at the
Southampton Institute and Roehampton University. Thanks in
particular to Cathy Fowler, David Lusted, Karen Randell and Sean
Redmond for their friendship and intellectual camaraderie; Anita
Biressi and Heather Nunn for generously sharing their TV archive;
Susie Hyde and TVR for helping me build my own; Stacey Abbott
for always being a top ‘roomie’; and Su Holmes, for being the most
insightful of readers, the most diligent of shoppers and the dearest
of friends. I am grateful to Philippa Brewster at I.B.Tauris for sup-
porting this project and for providing one of the highlights of
(my) Glastonbury 2003 with her phone call commissioning this
book. Thanks also to Roberta Pearson and Cindy Carter who pro-
vided invaluable commentary on this work in its early stages, as
did Charlotte Brunsdon; I am especially indebted to Charlotte too
for being an inspiring teacher and writer, and for the endless
encouragement she has given me over the years. Former col-
leagues at New Scotland Yard continued to assist me after my
return to academia, my particular thanks go to Stephanie Day and
Nikki Redmond. I am also tremendously grateful to all the pro-
duction personnel at the BBC and ITV who generously gave up
their time to give me the interviews that have enormously
enriched my research; thanks to Katie Thomson, Belinda Phillips,
Jo Scarratt and Tim Miller. Finally, thanks also to my ‘partners in
crime’ for always providing such interesting diversions away from
the computer – to Fab, Kath, Steph, Tom, the two Abs, Law, Cath,
Nova, Ryanne, Adam, Pam, Pat, Jules, Nick, Shân, Michael, Harad,
Bella, Lisa, Portia and Steve especially – this summer I have real-
ised more than ever how blessed I am to call you my friends.
viii · CRIME WATCHING
Part of Chapter 3 was previously published in ‘Photo Stories
and Family Albums: Imaging Criminals and Victims on Crime-
watch UK’, in Paul Mason (ed.), Criminal Visions: Media
Representations of Crime and Justice, Devon: Willan, 2003. Part of
Chapter 4 was previously published in ‘“This is About Real Peo-
ple!”; Video Technologies, Actuality and Affect in the Television
Crime Appeal’, in Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn (eds), Under-
standing Reality Television, London: Routledge, 2004, and part of
the Conclusion was previously published in the Introduction to
Understanding Reality Television.
DJ
August 2005
