The news media's influence on criminal justice policy: how market-driven news promotes punitiveness.

• Author: Beale, Sara Sun

ABSTRACT

This Article argues that commercial pressures are determining the news media's contemporary treatment of crime and violence, and that the resulting coverage has played a major role in reshaping public opinion, and ultimately, criminal justice policy. The news media are not mirrors, simply reflecting events in society. Rather, media content is shaped by economic and marketing considerations that frequently override traditional journalistic criteria for newsworthiness. This Article explores local and national television's treatment of crime, where the extent and style of news stories about crime are being adjusted to meet perceived viewer demand and advertising strategies, which frequently emphasize particular demographic groups with a taste for violence. Newspapers also reflect a market-driven reshaping of style and content, resulting in a continuing emphasis on crime stories as a cost-effective means to grab readers' attention. This has all occurred despite more than a decade of sharply falling crime rates.

The Article also explores the accumulating social science evidence that the market-driven treatment of crime in the news media has the potential to skew American public opinion, increasing the support for various punitive policies such as mandatory minimums, longer sentences, and treating juveniles as adults. Through agenda setting and priming, media emphasis increases public concern about crime and makes it a more important criteria in assessing political leaders. Then, once the issue has been highlighted, the media's emphasis increases support for punitive policies, though the mechanisms through which this occurs are less well understood. This Article explores the evidence for the mechanisms of framing, increasing fear of crime, and instilling and reinforcing racial stereotypes and linking race to crime.

Although other factors, including distinctive features of American culture and the American political system, also play a role, this Article argues that the news media are having a significant and little-understood role in increasing support for punitive criminal justice policies. Because the news media is not the only influence on public opinion, this Article also considers how the news media interacts with other factors that shape public opinion regarding the criminal justice system.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE PUNITIVE POLICIES OF THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A. Sentences for Adult Criminals, Rates of Imprisonment B. Conditions of Incarceration, Treatment of Offenders C. Treatment of Juvenile Offenders II. CRIME RATES III. A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE A. Comparing Punitiveness B. Comparing International Crime Rates C. The Comparative Bottom Line IV. PUBLIC OPINION, PUNITIVENESS, POLITICS, AND THE NEWS MEDIA A. How the Media Portray Crime and the Criminal Justice System 1. Network News 2. Local News 3. Newspapers 4. New Media and Shifts in Media Choice B. How the Media Treatment of Crime Affects Public Opinion and Criminal Justice Policy 1. Mechanisms that Increase Crime Salience 2. Mechanisms that Produce Increased Punitiveness a. Framing b. Fear c. Racial Typification 3. Different Groups, Different Media, and Different Settings 4. What the Research Doesn't Tell Us C. It's Not All the Media 1. American Culture 2. American Politics 3. The News Media Interact with Culture and Politics CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION

At the end of the twentieth century the criminal justice system in the United States underwent a major change, a shift toward more punitive policies, that has had a profound impact. Every U.S. jurisdiction adopted and implemented a wide range of harsher policies. In the federal system and in every state, sentences for adult offenders were substantially increased and in many instances made mandatory. Policies were adopted to make the conditions of incarceration more onerous for adult offenders, and every state adopted provisions allowing more juvenile offenders to be prosecuted and punished as adults. The result is a system that is significantly more punitive than that of any other Western democracy, and an incarceration rate that is--by a large margin--the highest in the world. Throughout this period crime was a highly salient political issue, and the policies in question had widespread public support.

Not surprisingly, there is a good deal of scholarship seeking to explain this fundamental shift in American criminal justice policy. (1) There have almost certainly been multiple causes. In prior work I explored two factors: (1) the role played by partisan politics that developed when civil rights and the Vietnam war dominated the political landscape; and (2) the cognitive processes of risk perception. (2) This Article addresses two other issues. The first is a preliminary question: were the new American policies simply a response to sharply rising crime rates--and were these harsh policies responsible for bringing crime rates down? If so, nothing is left to explain. The first portion of this Article describes the adoption of the punitive policies and concludes that they cannot be explained, at least in full, by anything distinctive about the rates or types of crimes that occur in the United States. The door is thus open for other explanations.

The second portion of the Article explores the news media's treatment of crime during the 1990s and into the new century, the reasons for that treatment, and the question whether the treatment of crime--in addition to or instead of the crime itself, or other factors such as partisan politics--may have had a significant role in reshaping public opinion, and ultimately criminal justice policy. (3) I begin with the question of how the news media treats crime, focusing on economic factors and changes in media coverage. The news media are not mirrors, simply reflecting events in society. Rather, media content is shaped by economic and marketing considerations that override traditional journalistic criteria for newsworthiness. This trend is apparent in local and national television's treatment of crime, in which the extent and style of news stories about crime are adjusted to meet perceived viewer demand and advertising strategies, which frequently emphasize particular demographic groups with a taste for violence. In the case of local television news, this trend results in virtually all channels devoting a disproportionate part of their broadcast to violent crimes, and to many channels adopting a fast-paced, high-crime strategy based on an entertainment model. In the case of network news, this strategy results in much greater coverage of crime, especially murder, with a heavy emphasis on long-running, tabloid-style treatment of selected cases in both the evening news and newsmagazines. Newspapers also reflect a market-driven reshaping of style and content, accompanied by massive staff cuts, resulting in a continued emphasis on crime stories as a cost-effective means to grab readers' attention. These economic and marketing considerations shape the public's exposure to crime in the news media.

Turning next to the question of how the news media's marketdriven treatment of crime may influence public opinion and bolster support for punitive penal policies, I survey research in the social sciences and media studies. Two key points emerge from this survey. First, through agenda setting and priming, the news media's relentless emphasis increases public concern about crime and makes it a more important criteria in assessing political leaders. Once the issue has been highlighted, the news media's emphasis appears to increase support for punitive policies, though the mechanisms through which this occurs are less understood. I explore the evidence for several of these mechanisms. One strand of research focuses on framing, which appears to increase support for punitive criminal justice policies by enhancing viewers' acceptance of the assumption that crime results from individual choices rather than societal causes. Other research explores the connection between news media portrayals of crime and increased fear, which in turn has links to punitive attitudes. Finally, media appears to influence public attitudes about criminal justice policies by instilling and reinforcing racial stereotypes and linking race to crime. This Article thus builds on the work of media scholars such as Joseph Cappella and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, who have argued that the news media, traditionally thought to be one of the major institutions supporting democracy, may actually be undermining or distorting it. (4)

My focus here is a narrow one, necessarily leaving out many related--and potentially very important--facets of the news media's impact on criminal justice policy. First, the news media's treatment of crime may have other, more salutary effects that are not addressed here. For example, the media has helped focus attention on the cases of innocent persons who were wrongly convicted, promoting public support for DNA testing and other mechanisms to avoid miscarriages of justice. (5) The news media has provided extensive coverage of incidents of police abuse, (6) and may have played a role in promoting legal reforms with respect to other subjects such as drunk driving and child abuse. (7) Second, other factors may have a greater impact than the news media. My claim here is not that the news media is the sole or even the most important cause of America's uniquely punitive criminal justice policies, (8) but rather that worrisome evidence suggests that it is playing a significant role in shaping--or distorting--public opinion. (9)

Parts I and II set the stage by describing the punitive policies of the last part of the twentieth century and the drop in crime rates. Part III puts the U.S. developments in a comparative perspective, concluding that the United States' uniquely punitive policies cannot be explained, at least in full, by anything distinctive about the rates or...