Transcript Chapter 7: Media and Corrections

Corrections
• Historically, corrections is the least covered
aspect of criminal justice by the media.
• Outside of shows like “Lockup,” most
Americans have no idea about the realities of
American prisons, such as the enormous pains
of imprisonment suffered each day by
inmates.
Corrections
• Prisons are little covered in the news.
• Scholars call imprisonment the “veiling of
punishment” and refer to it as “out of sight,
out of mind.”
Corrections
• In one study, Steven Chermak found that
about 17% of all criminal justice stories in
newspapers and on television dealt with
corrections.
• Stories about policing made up 52% of all
stories, and stories about courts made up 30%
of all stories.
Corrections
• News coverage of corrections focuses on the
extraordinary rather than the ordinary.
• Most commons stories are negative including
stories about riots, escapes, and executions.
Corrections
• Three types of negative stories dominate news
coverage of corrections:
– 1) stories about the failure of corrections to
protect the public
– 2) stories about amenities of prisoners
– 3) stories of corruption and misconduct
Corrections
• The most prevalent images of corrections
found in news accounts as well as television
and movies are misleading.
– For example, the vast majority of people who are
punished in the United States receive relatively
mild sanctions such as probation …
– Media images of corrections suggest that the
typical punishment used in the United States is
imprisonment.
Caption: Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that far more people are
on probation than under any other form of criminal sanction in the US. While the
US leads the world in the number of people incarcerated as well as its
incarceration rate, inmates locked up in prisons and jails only account for about
31% of all people under correctional supervision in the US.
Probation
• Why ignore probation?
– Boring
– No conflict
– Nonviolent offenders
Eva Carson, UNC student body president
Her suspected murderers
(both on probation during their crime)
“Tough on Crime”
• Mainstream media generally ignore that
“getting tough” does not work
– Crime is down, BUT how much due to criminal
justice? http://www.pscj.appstate.edu/media/crimedecline.html
• Why do media generally ignore this issue?
– Links with politicians, government officials
– Pro status quo
– Main narratives of criminals in media revolve
around individual level causes
Costs of Punishment
• Mainstream media generally ignore the
enormous costs of punishment
– Roughly 77% of all corrections expenditures are
for prisons
– Spent roughly $68.8 billion on corrections in 2006
– 77% of $68.8 billion = $53 billion for prisons
Why So Expensive?
• Because we are #1!!!
– U.S. leads the world in the size and scope of its
criminal justice apparatus.
– More people locked up in the U.S. than in any
other country in the world!
• US has 5% of world’s population
but 25% of prisoners!
Pains of Imprisonment
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Loss of liberty
Loss of autonomy
Loss of security
Loss of dignity
Loss of voting rights
Loss of goods and services
Loss of heterosexual relationships
Stigmatization
Mentally Ill in Corrections
• More than half of all inmates have a mental
health problem of some kind, including
705,600 state prison inmates, 70,200 federal
prisoners, and 479,900 local jail inmates
(2005-2006).
• … 56% of State prisoners, 45% of Federal
prisoners, and 64% of jail inmates!
Mentally Ill in Corrections
• In most states, the largest provider is the
prison system
• The nation’s largest provider is the Los
Angeles County Jail.
Biases in Corrections
• Black males are disproportionately likely to be
under all forms of correctional supervision.
• African American males have a 32% chance of
serving time in prison at some point in their
lives, versus 17% of Hispanic males and 6% of
Caucasian males.
Biases in Corrections
• Black males are disproportionately likely to be
under all forms of correctional supervision.
• One in ten (10.4%) black males aged 25–29 is
in prison or jail, versus 1 in 26 (3.8%) Hispanic
males and 1 in 59 (1.6%) white males (2008).
• African American males have a 32% chance of
serving time in prison at some point in their
lives, versus 17% of Hispanic males and 6% of
Caucasian males.
Capital Punishment
• … is extremely rare in the US (and thus
newsworthy!)
– only 1% of all killings nationwide lead to death
sentences
– only 2% of killings in states with the death penalty
lead to death sentences.
• Only 7% of executions (1977-2007) received
national TV new coverage
– Coverage more common in newspapers (20-48%
covered in USA Today and NY Times)
Capital Punishment
• Certain executions more newsworthy than
others (e.g., multiple victims, high profile
cases, white victims)
• Coverage of executions more common than
coverage of exonerees
– Isolated mistake frame more common than
systemic failure frame
Capital Punishment in NC
• http://pscj.appstate.edu/ncdeathpenalty/