When School-Shooting Media Fuels a Retributive Public

• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Date: 01 April 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204015616664
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

When School-Shooting Media

Fuels a Retributive Public: An

Examination of Psychological

Mediators

Megan J. O’Toole

1

and Mark R. Fondacaro

1

Abstract

Despite evidence suggesting proactive responses to youth crime are advantageous, juvenile justice

relies heavily on punitive practices. This discrepancy is in part affected by public preferences for

retribution, which are skewed by sensationalized media portrayals of youth crime. This experiment

(N¼174) explores how youth crime media exposure translates into retributive attitudes by testing

the hypothesis that media portrayals of school shootings increase retributive attitudes indirectly

through either dehumanization or mortality salience. Statistical analyses suggest that dehumaniza-

tion mediates the relationship between school-shooting media portrayals and retributive attitudes

toward crime-involved youths. To promote support of less retributive juvenile justice policies,

advocates may benefit by focusing emphasis on humanizing elements of young offenders.

Keywords

school shooting, dehumanization, public attitudes, media

From Columbine to headlines today, media attentiontoschoolshootingshasrisenfornearly

20 years (Muschert, 2007). Despite their relative infrequency, school shootings remain a promi-

nent aspect of the media’s narrative on youth crime in America. For the many who learn about

crime primarily through news sources, this trend creates an illusion of increasing youth crime rates

and results in a harshening of attitudes and policies toward juvenile offenders (Birkland &

Lawrence, 2009; Goidel, Freeman, & Procopio, 2006; Roberts & Doob, 1990). This is particularly

problematic given the plethora of evidence-based, nonretributive responses to juvenile crime that

are available yet largely underutilized due in part to a lack of sufficient political support (Slobogin

& Fondacaro, 2011).

While a great deal of interdisciplinary research suggests that media sensationalism (such as that

of school shootings) increases support for harsh punishment, less is understood about the psycholo-

gical processes by which these reactions occur (Ferguson, 2013). Two relevant theories may help to

1

CUNY Graduate Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Megan J. O’Toole, CUNY Graduate Center, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 W 59th St., New York, NY 10019, USA.

Email: motoole@jjay.cuny.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

2017, Vol. 15(2) 154-171

ªThe Author(s) 2015

Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1177/1541204015616664

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explain how such attitudes are developed: dehumanization, which suggests that we may categorize

social out-groups such as young offenders, as less human, and therefore punish them with greater

ease, and mortality salience (MS), which alternately suggests that we may punish harshly out-

group members whom we associate with reminders of human mortality (Bastian, Denson, &

Haslam, 2013; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986; Haslam, 2006). By better understanding

why and how the public believes that America should be ‘‘harsh on youth crime,’’ policy makers and

advocates for evidence-based reforms can better identify points of intervention, areas for reeduca-

tion, and elements to include or emphasize in policy initiatives.

This experiment tests the effects of school-shooting media on participants’ punishment attitudes

toward justice-involved youths. Using actual media coverage of school shootings at Columbine,

Sparks, Taft, Chardon, and more, level of sensationalism is manipulated across participants to exam-

ine whether the dramatized stories have a stronger—or different—impact than the basic event cov-

erage or unrelated youth entertainment news. Both dehumanization and MS are examined as

possible mediators in explaining the relationship between school-shooting media coverage and the

formation of punitive attitudes toward youth crime.

Public Attitudes Toward Juvenile Justice

The general public influences justice system functioning through a variety of outlets including jury

participation, campaign advocacy, candidate support, protests, and voting (Wood, 2008). Likewise,

a well-developed body of literature explores laypeople’s attitudes toward appropriate forms of pun-

ishment and sentencing. Psychologists contribute to this literature by distinguishing between two

primary punishment philosophies: retribution and consequentialism. Retribution is traditionally

described as retrospective punishment awarded on the grounds of moral deservedness, whereas con-

sequentialism is described as punishment delivered with the goal of impacting future behavior (Bec-

caria, 1764; Bentham, 1789; Kant, 1952). In practice, retribution can be observed in sanctions such

as juvenile detention following nonviolent offenses, whereas consequentialism can be seen in sanc-

tions aimed at reducing recidivism or providing rehabilitative counseling.

In general, both research and current policies suggest that Americans are overwhelmingly retri-

butive in their views toward criminal punishment (Carlsmith & Darley, 2008). While some literature

suggests that people may be slightly less retributive toward juveniles (see, e.g., Piquero, Cullen,

Unnever, Piquero, & Gordon, 2010), Carlsmith (2008) suggests such discrepancies in punishment

attitudes can be explained by the fact that people abstractly support nonretributive punishment, yet

reject concrete policies that lack retributive elements. In fact, in practice, only about 13%of juvenile

dispositions result in nonretributive sanctions such as restitution, community service, counseling, or

treatment, despite mounting evidence that more proactive responses to juvenile crime are more cost-

efficient and effective in reducing crime (Puzzanchera, Adams, & Hockenberry, 2012; Slobogin &

Fondacaro, 2011). In effect, America’s democracy meets this public demand through the imposition

of a largely retributive juvenile justice system that is overwhelmingly punitive and ‘‘harsh on crime’’

(Slobogin & Fondacaro, 2011).

Media Influence on Punishment Attitudes

Media is perhaps the foremost contributor to widespread retributive punishment attitudes (Gray,

2008). Laypeople typically have little direct experience with crime and therefore rely heavily on

media portrayals in understanding and forming attitudes relative to criminal populations (Roberts

& Doob, 1990). Unfortunately, basic economics force news networks to produce what sells rather

than what is reflective of societal norms, meaning that the average viewer is subjected to far more

sensationalized reports of extreme offenses (e.g., school shootings) than their less threatening,

O’Toole and Fondacaro 155