The Presentation and Image of Bailiffs in the Media

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2010 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Linguistik, Note: 1,3, Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Englisches Seminar), Veranstaltung: Langugage of Legal Texts, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: People and especially the media often confuse the occupation of a bailiff with the job of a debt collector. But the work of these two is very separate because bailiffs usually enforce court orders and warrants issued by the government departments and are allowed to take people's goods to sell it to pay what is owed (csa). In contrast to a bailiff a debt collector has no right to do that and is only a representative of a Debt Collection Agency (payplan). However, there are different types of bailiffs that must be distinguished and will be dealt with in one of the following paragraphs of this paper. If you are a creditor and have problems with a debtor or if you are a debtor and afraid of an arriving bailiff, you will find a lot of websites on the internet offering help and giving advice. This shows that there is an increasing awareness of bailiffs and since courtroom shows have experienced a remarkable revival in the mid-1990s and became a regular feature of daytime television, bailiffs are present on the TV screen, too (Versteegen 71). While examining the presentation of this occupation, I will demonstrate that bailiffs are shown in a contrary way in the media. To prove my thesis, I will firstly give a definition and an overview of the job and function of a bailiff, present the different types of bailiffs and will also deal with the walking possession agreement. In the second part of my paper I will have a look at two different presentations of Bailiffs in the media: First I will examine a debtor's proceed against a bailiff, which caught the attention of the media. In contrast to that I will have a look at the character of Petri Hawkins-Byrd, the popular bailiff of the American courtroom show 'Judge Judy' and his depiction on the TV show. In the last part of my paper I will evaluate my findings and prove my thesis that the presentation of this occupation in the media differs. Finally I will assume the function of these distinct ways of presenting this occupation and will also refer to the two different genres of media in which the bailiffs are shown, namely on the one hand a real court case in newspapers and on the radio and on the other hand a TV courtroom series.