How the Media Misrepresents Juvenile Policies
By Robert E. Shepherd, Jr.
The shape of the juvenile justice system in America has been significantly transformed over the past decade. The passage of juvenile reform bills has resulted in a growing number of juveniles being tried and sentenced as adults, those youth retained in juvenile or family court for trial as juveniles being subjected to increasingly punitive penalties, and the traditional confidentiality of juvenile proceedings and records being dramatically eroded. These policy changes have affected the handling of juveniles in the legal system in a very profound way. For example, in 1988 judicial transfers of juveniles to adult courts numbered 7,000, while by 1994 the number had risen to 12,300, and many more are going to the criminal court as adults automatically. Even those juveniles retained in the juvenile justice system are frequently exposed to more severe sanctions than previously with a proliferation of boot camps, longer commitments to juvenile correctional facilities, and greater exposure to publicity. There are other long-term negative effects of a juvenile court adjudication through its subsequent use in adult sentencing guidelines and "three-strikes-and-you're-out" proceedings. The impetus for these major "reforms," which have significantly narrowed the gap between the juvenile process and adult criminal treatment, is generally attributed to a dramatic recent increase in juvenile delinquency and violent crime.
However, the facts reveal that in 1974 juveniles accounted for 31.3 percent of all crimes cleared by arrest and 12.5 percent of all violent crime, compared with 21.7 percent of all crimes in 1994 and 14.2 percent of violent crime. What really has driven much of the punitive youth legislation is a dramatic increase in juvenile homicides, largely attributed to the greater availability of firearms, and, importantly, the public and political perception that youth crime has become epidemic and is a major threat to the peace and order of society. There is an obvious gap between perception and reality and it is important to place the increases in juvenile delinquency and youth crime in perspective with other developments in our society.
Research indicates that the news media play a major part in shaping these perceptions. Although there are few surveys focusing specifically on public perceptions about youth crime, a 1989 Time-CNN poll revealed that 88 percent of respondents believed that teen violence was a bigger problem than in the past and 70 percent thought that "lenient treatment of juvenile offenders by the courts" was a factor to blame for such violence.
In 1994, a poll of American teens similarly revealed that 74 percent believed that teen violence was a major problem generally and 53 percent believed it was a big problem in the schools. However, only 30 percent of these youth reported teen crime as a serious problem in their school and only 18 percent said it was serious in their neighborhoods. (Ira Apfel, "Crime--Teen Violence: Real or Imagined?", American Demographics, June 1995, at 2.) Thus, the expressed perceptions of the seriousness of juvenile crime are not necessarily a reflection of personal experience or close observation in the respondent's own community, neighborhood, or school.
Other research focusing on the coverage of children and youth by the national news media through the monitoring of news broadcasts and the analysis of national newspapers reveals that television news devoted more than 47 percent of all its news coverage of youth on crime and violence, and newspapers devoted about 40 percent of their stories to these topics. In the same survey, television devoted only about 15 percent of its stories to education issues, while the print media focused 25 percent of its coverage on the schools. Issues such as child poverty, child care, and child welfare occupied only about 4 percent of the attention of the media, both electronic and print. Very little space in either medium was devoted to policy discussions about possible solutions to youth problems. (Dale Kunkel, The News Media's Picture of Children (1994).) A comparable survey of local television news coverage of youth in the State of California in 1993 concluded that over half of the stories on youth involved violence, while more than two-thirds of the violence stories concerned youth. By way of contrast, only 14 percent of all arrests for violent crime in California that same year were of youth. Thus, more than two-thirds of the TV news coverage of violent crime was focused on juveniles who were responsible for about 14 percent of that violence. (Lori Dorfman & Katie Woodruff, Local TV News, Violence, and Youth: Who Speaks? (1995).)
The problem of the creation or reinforcement of public impressions about violent crime is exacerbated by the persistent nature of reporting, especially by television news, on crime in general and specifically homicides. It seems to be true that "if it bleeds, it leads" is a governing maxim on both local and network news shows. Yellow crime scene tape and flashing police lights are a constant image on local TV news while actual crime has remained relatively constant, or even gone down during the same time periods.
Cover stories in national news magazines in recent years have also heightened the emphasis on youth crime. Newsweek's cover story for its March 9, 1992, issue focused on the topic of "Kids and Guns: A Report from America's Classroom Killing Grounds," with a teen shooting victim strapped to an ambulance gurney depicted on the cover. Time similarly had a story on October 26, 1992, entitled "Children Without Pity." In August of 1993, Time magazine again had a cover story entitled "Big Shots: An Inside Look at the Deadly Love Affair Between America's Kids and Their Guns," superimposed over a picture of a youth with a gun. Newsweek on the same date also showed a teenager with a gun on the cover coupled with the headline "Teen Violence: Wild in the Streets." Likewise, on November 8, 1993, U.S. News & World Report had a youth with a handgun on its cover with the caption, "Guns in the Schools: When Killers Come to Class--Even Suburban Parents Now Fear the Rising Tide of Violence" emblazoned over the illustration. These last three cover stories all ran during a year that saw teens arrested for only 18 percent of the violent crimes in America. More recently, U.S. News & World Report ran a cover story in 1996, entitled "Teenage Time Bombs." People Weekly magazine featured a cover story in June 1997 on "Heartbreaking Crimes: Kids Without a Conscience," focusing on sensational cases. These more recent covers ran in years that had witnessed consecutive drops in the juvenile violent crime rate.
The media thus devote a disproportionate share of their news coverage to crime and delinquency, particularly on television, and most especially at the local level. The crime coverage also is inordinately concentrated on crimes of violence, including random violent acts such as drive-by shootings. And yet, crime statistics still show that most homicides are committed by family members or acquaintances.
The Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington annually monitors network television evening news shows and reports on the ranking of issues. In 1990, crime ranked fifth in the number of stories carried, and the next year crime stories ranked sixth. By 1992 crime stories had risen to third place, and in 1993 crime jumped to the top of the charts and the Center reported that "crime news doubled and coverage of murders tripled in 1993, although real world violent crime did not increase." By 1994 crime stories totaled almost 2,000--still in first place--with the O.J. Simpson case accounting for most of this increase. In 1995, crime coverage leaped to more than 2,500 stories. In 1996, crime dropped to second place behind the presidential campaign, with less than half of the previous year. (Center for Media and Public Affairs, Media Monitor (January/February 1991–97).) Ironically, during these years the total crime index peaked in 1990 with 1,203.2 arrests per 100,000 inhabitants, dropping to 1,148.4 in 1994. However, whereas total arrests dropped from 1991 to 1994, and violent crime arrests increased only from 293 in 1991 to 310.7 per 100,000 in 1994, crime coverage on national television news exploded from about 600 stories to almost 2,000 stories, more than a threefold increase.
Media rhetoric appears also to color the public perception of delinquency and youth violence. The news media have picked up on contemporaneous political rhetoric, using terms such as "super predators," "youthful predators," "teen killers," "young thugs," and the like to describe the youthful delinquents of the 1990s. Similarly, the language used to describe juvenile activity has shifted subtly, but dramatically. "Juvenile delinquency" has been transformed into "juvenile crime," "children" increasingly became "juveniles," "juvenile detention homes" turned into "juvenile jails," and "training schools" became "juvenile prisons."
The shifts in media news coverage have been especially pronounced in the cases of minority youth and girls. Media portrayals of youth violence, especially visual images, are dominated by pictures of African-American or Latino youngsters. A survey of local television news in Los Angeles revealed that where the race of crime perpetrators was identifiable, nearly 70 percent were non-white males. (Franklin Gilliam, Jr. & Shanto Iyengar, Prime Suspects: Script-Based Reasoning About Race and Crime (1997).) Girls are frequently portrayed in news accounts as gang members, despite the fact that there is little to suggest any significant increase in female gang membership or involvement.
The juvenile court is also portrayed often as ineffectual and lenient, without any real effort to analyze or cover the working of the court in any systematic fashion. Coverage of the court is spasmodic and usually associated with a particularly sensational or heinous case. Little effort is exerted to address the courts' lack of resources to carry out their functions, although a few recent books and an occasional newspaper series or news magazine article have attempted to do a more in-depth job. There has been little in-depth coverage of juvenile court proceedings around the country and almost no analysis of the effect of media coverage on public perceptions about the effectiveness of the juvenile justice process. However, television with its emphasis on sound bites, strong visual images, and "hot" language is much better at depicting crime itself rather than society's efforts to deal with the prevention or consequences of that crime.
The news media have a profound impact on the development of public policy in the related areas of crime and delinquency. The public believes that crime is rampant, except in their own neighborhoods and communities, because the media interpret the world outside to them. In addition, politicians and policy-makers are influenced in shaping their agendas both by the public's communication of their concerns and fears, and by the proliferation of news about crime. The public's view of the effectiveness of the courts and other crime control agencies is also shaped largely by the news media. Political leaders today are extraordinarily attuned to what they believe the public wants, often as reflected in public opinion polls or focus groups. They are "reluctant to utter a word" that has not been tested against public opinion, and polls are often "sheet music for politicians." (Greg Sargent & Hugo Lindgren, "Gut Reaction: How Politicians Discover What Americans Want to Hear," George, October-November 1995, at 12.) Thus, as media images heighten the public's perception of the seriousness of youth crime, so the greater public sensitivity and fear drive the choices made by politicians and other policy-makers.
Some news media are attempting to take a fresh look at the handling of crime news through the development of new policies and guidelines to govern the coverage of crime and delinquency. More in-depth reporting about crime in a contextual setting is occurring around the country, both in the electronic and print media, although these are still the exceptions rather than the rule. KVUE-TV in Austin, Texas, for example, decided to take a new approach to covering crime stories in early 1996. In determining whether to cover a crime story on the local news, the station assesses whether it meets "one or more of five criteria: 1) Does action need to be taken? 2) Is there an immediate threat to safety? 3) Is there a threat to children? 4) Does the crime have significant community impact? 5) Does the story lend itself to a crime prevention effort?" The station has the top-rated local news show in Austin. (Joe Holley, "Should the Coverage Fit the Crime?," Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 1996, at 27.)
Several newspapers have taken a similar approach. Should a violent crime be reported prominently without any in-depth analysis? The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot and the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina have both resolved to deal with crime primarily in its human and policy context. When reporting a homicide or other crime of violence, they will address in the story, if possible, whether the victim and perpetrator know each other or were related, if there was a history of domestic violence between the victim and the suspect, whether there was an involvement with alcohol or other substances in connection with the commission of the offense, and, if a shooting involved a young person, whether the gun used in the offense could be traced back to its point of origin with all the intermediate transfers. In other words, the violence story is dealt with in the context of more of a public health orientation and perspective. Also, there has been a closer examination of the identification of the race of those involved in the offense and the relevance of such designation.
The proponents of "civic" or "public" journalism are also slowly gaining disciples as newspapers, in particular, are examining their responsibilities to the communities in which they operate. Some newspapers have become more active participants in their community's issues by the sponsorship of forums on issues of great moment, and through the research and development of series focusing on particular problems and their possible solutions. (Jay Rosen, Getting the Connections Right: Public Journalism and the Troubles in the Press (1996).) More in-depth, balanced reporting in a public journalism context can contribute to the development of more cost-effective and efficient programs for the prevention and treatment of juvenile crime.
Robert E. Shepherd, Jr., is a professor of law at T.C. Williams School of
Law, University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia, and a contributing
editor to Criminal Justice magazine. He is also former chair of the
Juvenile Justice Committee of the Criminal Justice Section. This article
was adapted from the 1997 Annual Report of the Coalition for Juvenile
Justice, "False Images? The News Media and Juvenile Crime."
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