The Influence of Media on Penal Attitudes

• Date: 01 December 2011
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016811428779
• Published date: 01 December 2011
• Subject Matter: Articles

The Influence of Media on

Penal Attitudes

Jared S. Rosenberger

1

and Valerie J. Callanan

1

Abstract

This study examines the influence of crime-related media consumption on individuals’

perceptions of the most important purpose of criminal sentencing, using a statewide survey of

4,245 California residents. Consumption of various forms of crime-related media was regressed

on four goals of criminal sentencing (punishment, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation)

using multinomial logistic regression. The results suggest that consumption of television news and

crime-based reality programs increased the odds of selecting punishment as the most important

goal of criminal sentencing as opposed to rehabilitation. The more hours of television watched,

irrespective of genre, the more likely respondents were to support punishment, deterrence, or

incapacitation rather than rehabilitation. These results hold even after controlling for various

sociodemographic characteristics and experiences with crime such as fear, past victimization, and

prior arrests.

Keywords

penal attitudes, media, fear of crime, rehabilitation, punitiveness

Introduction

Incarceration rates have substantially risen over the last three decades in many countries, but most

dramatically in the United States, which now has the highest incarceration rate among developed

nations (Walmsley, 2009). From 1980 to 2006, the incarceration rate in the United States rose by

well over 300%(Maguire & Pastore, 2007), but despite popular misconception, this striking increase

did not correspond with an equally dramatic rise in crime. In fact, violent crime has been steadily

dropping in the United States since 1991 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2008).

Some scholars have suggested that increases in incarceration rates are driven by increasingly

punitive publics (Demker, Towns, Duus-Otterstrom, & Sebring, 2008), but others suggest the role

of public opinion is more complicated (see Frost, 2010, for overview). Yet, all perspectives cite the

importance of public opinion on crime-related policy, thus studies have endeavored to understand

the sources of public opinion about crime.

1

Department of Sociology, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jared S. Rosenberger, Department of Sociology, The University of Akron, 277b, Akron, OH 44325, USA

Email: jsr26@zips.uakron.edu

Criminal Justice Review

36(4) 435-455

ª2011 Georgia State University

Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1177/0734016811428779

http://cjr.sagepub.com

Beckett and Sasson (2004) note that studies have focused on three factors: fear of crime, crime as

a social problem, and popular punitiveness. They argue that because fear of crime among the Amer-

ican public has been relatively stable over the last three decades, fearful sentiments could not be

responsible for any increases in punitive attitudes. However, concern about crime as a social prob-

lem has waxed and waned over the last three decades. For example, only 3%of Americans cited

crime and violence as the number one problem in the country in a Gallup poll in 1982, but concern

for crime crept upward, reaching 9%in 1993, and jumping to 37%in 1994. Although this unprece-

dented level of concern was anomalous, and abated somewhat in the years following September 11,

2001, more than 20%of Americans still cited crime and violence as the number one problem in the

country in 1998, the year before the study survey was administered.

With respect to popular punitiveness, empirical evidence has found that ‘‘get tough on crime’’

policies enacted and implemented in the 1980s and 1990s did have widespread public support

(Gerber & Engelhardt-Greer, 1996; Sasson, 1995). As many have argued this ‘‘populist punitiveness’’

(Bottoms,1995) is driven by politicians that exploitpublic sentiment for politicalgain (Beckett, 1997).

Political campaigns using anticrime platforms began in the 1960s when crime in the United States

began to rise (Davey, 1998; Scheingold, 1995). Many candidates became successful using this safe

and popular topic as a focal point of their campaigns; consequently, during the 1980s and 1990s pol-

iticians introduced an unprecedented number of anticrime bills, most of which toughened sentencing

laws. Policies were created using dramatic rhetoric such as ‘‘three strikes and you’re out’’ and ‘‘zero

tolerance’’ (Haghighi & Lopez, 1998). Public campaigns promoting these policies often used partic-

ularly heinous crimes involving innocent and young victims. A well-known example is the case of

Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old California girl kidnapped and murderedby a repeat violent offender under

parole supervision. This highly publicized case was used bythe media and politicians to help pass the

‘‘three strikes law’’ in California, which mandateda sentence of 25 years to lifefor those convicted of

three or more felonies (Males & Macallair, 1999).

Central to the growth of popular punitiveness is public ignorance about crime and crime policy.

The American public overestimates the prevalence of crime and underestimates the punitiveness of

criminal sentences (Cullen, Fisher, & Applegate, 2000; Roberts & Stalans, 1997). Most Americans

receive their information about crime and criminal punishment from secondhand sources, most nota-

bly, the media (Graber, 1980; Tonry, 1999). This has led many to suggest that crime-related media is

an important factor in popular punitiveness, especially given that over the same period that criminal

justice policies became more punitive, media coverage of crime increased significantly (Roman &

Chalfin, 2008).

Although crime has long been a staple of American news and entertainment (Einstadter,

1994; Rafter, 2000), the percentage of mass media devoted to crime increased during the

1980s and the 1990s, particularly on television (Cavender & Fishman, 1998; Dorfman &

Schiraldi, 2001; Fox & Van Sickel, 2001). Crime news, for example, comprised one fifth to

one third of local television news (Surette, 1992); and was often the lead story (Gerbner,

1996; Romer, Jamieson, & De Coteau, 1998). The percentage of news coverage devoted to

crime on the three major television networks far surpassed any other topic, including politics

and world affairs. Additionally, the advent of 24-hr news cable news channels, beginning with

cable news networks in 1980, flood television with more news about crime. But like local tele-

vision news, these outlets also provide more ‘‘soft news’’ about crime rather than coverage that

analyzes and contextualizes information about crime (Britto & Dabney, 2010; Frost & Philips,

2011). Finally, in the late 1980s, sensational crime stories became the staple of a new form of

entertainment—‘‘reality’’ programming, such as COPS and America’s Most Wanted (Cavender

& Fishman, 1998).

Numerous studies have documented that crime-related media disproportionately attend to serious

violent crimes, focus on the most heinous violence, and often portray a system that is ineffective at

436 Criminal Justice Review 36(4)