Crime Fiction Analysis Essay

Paul Darnell is a convicted sex offender who is released from prison and just three months after his release, a young girl is found raped and murdered just around the corner from the ex-con’s childhood home. As the investigators discover that his childhood victim area is in the same town as the girl who was raped and killed, they decide to arrest him for questioning and receive a warrant to search his house. They find a pile of â€Å"self help† DVD cases, which in fact hides criminal porn discs in them; as a result, Darnell is put on trial as a suspect to the case. Darnell tries to convince the jury that he has changed and his new found love, Judy, has changed him to make him into a considerate man who can control himself and his urges. Darnell wins the case and pleads not guilty for both the murder and rape of the past -victim girl. The investigators are left furious as a number of instances have seem to of proven Darnell’s guilt (such as following two girls home from school and his past offences of raping three young teenagers) and not long after Paul pleads guilty, he is found dead in Judy’s apartment, after he tried to rape her seventeen year old daughter. The daughter shot Paul in the head twice in self-defense, after his wrapped a garbage bag over her head to strike again. How does your source reveal information, ideas and an increased understanding of the issues surrounding your area of study? The area of study, being crime, is revealed in different varieties through out this particular episode of â€Å"Law & Order: UK. † Crime is a topic that is covered over a number issues such as theft, treason and rape + murder which is covered in this episode. There are many investigations, such as searching through the suspect’s house, going to his old neighborhood home etc. Interviews (with the suspect, witnesses, close acquaintances), identification (through photographs of both the victim and suspect) and court hearings (which occur quite frequently, which involve as many aspects as possible to help the jury decide whether Paul would be guilty or not) are all part of the tactics that the CSI team all go through to find the right person to fit the crime. According to medicine. com, a crime scene investigation (CSI) is defined as â€Å"the use of physical evidence at the scene of the crime and the use of deductive and inductive reasoning to gain knowledge of the events surrounding the crime. What are points of comparison between the source and your core text? * Between â€Å"Law & Order: UK† and â€Å"The Big Sleep† both investigating teams have tactics in order to find the suspected criminal/s. These are interviewing numerous people, asking around and getting hands on, in actually getting out into the field and doing work themselves. * Both have similar crimes involved: most common being murder. * Both involve a particular male / female role which is being victimised and criminal. Name of the source: Gangster Squad Type of source: Movie Area of Study: Crime Fiction Basic summary of the source content: â€Å"Gangster Squad† is a movie set in the late forties based on a true story set in Los Angeles. Mickey Cohen has become the most powerful figure in California’s criminal underworld, he is ruthless and controlling on both the legal and illegal sides of Los Angeles; he is known to have an â€Å"iron grip† over L. A. as nobody is willing to stand up to him in fear of the threatening gangster crew he carries around him. Until one day, the chief of Police, Chief Parker, has the idea to create a unit specialising in taking Cohen down to keep the city safe. A team is formed around Sargent O’Mara, who then asks four other police officers and a World War II Veteran to join his â€Å"gangster squad unit†. Another officer (Wooters) is asked to join the force but declines, as he is disillusioned from the war and his time on the police force. Wooters does although keep a close eye on Cohen and in doing so, becomes infatuated with his girlfriend / etiquette coach. As the team bugs Cohen’s house and keep a close eye on his surroundings, Cohen finds out in the process, and in result, the veteran is sacrificed. Things heat up and the plot turns into a full throttle war between the two squads after Cohen shoots into O’Mara’s home where his pregnant wife is at the time. Most of Cohen’s team is killed and later on O’Mara and Cohen go head to head in a boxing match where O’Mara wins and choen is jailed. How does your source reveal information, ideas and an increased understanding of the issues surrounding your area of study? There are more issues covered in this movie to deal with crime. Things such as blackmail, abduction, attempted rape (at the start of the movie), murder, theft, treason, adultery etc. Although this movie was based on a true story, crime fiction is used for entertainment purposes, which this is played up for that purpose. All of these different crimes make up a greater understanding of what is needed in a crime fiction story (detective, hard-boiled detective, red herring, crime, crime scene), which all relate back to the core text â€Å"The Big Sleep†, as there may be a different story line, the structure and purpose of each story is the same.