So-called reality programs sometimes integrate actual footage and dramatic reenactments of the real-life adventures of police officers, suspects, emergency medical personnel, and everyday citizens performing heroic feats.6 Popular crime dramas focus primarily on violent offenders, perhaps for dramatic effect. One is left with the clear impression that criminal activity is typically random or results from individual pathology rather than larger social ills such as poverty, racism, and unemployment.7 And much as we see in the local news, the entertainment industry quite regularly depicts the crime problem along racial lines, with a disproportionate number of White officers compared to White offenders, and a disproportionate number of minority offenders compared to minority officers.8 Obviously, the script writers and producers of these crime dramas have no interest in presenting—and are under no obligation to offer—a balanced viewpoint. So, it is not unusual to view the events that these shows depict from the perspective of either law enforcement officials or prosecutors.9 Viewers are left with the impression that the police operate efficiently and always solve their cases. These distorted images may combine to skew viewers’ perceptions of the crime problem in the United States. And these distortions become particularly problematic when we consider how they serve to stereotype people of color.
The popular media’s portrayal of our corrections system tends to focus on violence, corruption, and a severe degree of disorganization. Nightly news coverage and investigative stories represent the media’s effort to provide more in-depth coverage of the lives of inmates and the problems they encounter. But, more often, the public builds its perception of prison life from the entertainment media. Television programs such as Prison Break and Oz and popular movies such as The Shawshank Redemption often purport to give the public an insider’s view of the daily lives of inmates.10 Millions of people watch these forms of entertainment; the influence upon the public imagination cannot be discounted.11 But, the public is unaware of this impact. In a self-reporting survey, many people underestimated the role of entertainment in the creation or reinforcement of their own subconscious assumptions, especially in comparison to the impact of explicitly “informative” news programming.12
A. News Coverage of Prisons and Offenders
The news media continues to have a significant impact on the development of public policy in the related areas of prisons, crime, and delinquency. Crime coverage in the news media plays an important agenda-setting role, as well as influencing public perceptions about the incidence and severity of antisocial behavior.13 By looking at the percentage of stories and their content, we can begin to glean patterns that may explain policy as well as public opinion.
A content analysis of 206 New York Times articles relating to corrections published between 1992 and 1995 found that more stories focused on institutional violence and riots than any other issue, at 40 percent.14 Interestingly, the second most reported were stories on correctional programs and rehabilitation (34 percent), followed by health care (17 percent), followed by stories about tough-on-crime policies (16 percent).15 Content analysis found that the majority of sources quoted by the New York Times were government officials voicing support for the government’s position on a particular issue.16 In the case of institutional violence, the articles focused almost entirely on particular violent events, rather than on policy debate.17
Articles on institutional violence often took the form of investigative reporting, a method almost entirely absent from other articles on correctional issues.18 As for the prevalence of articles on rehabilitation, the authors of the content analysis use this result to suggest that, “contrary to the claims of some correctional pundits, the issue of rehabilitation is far from dead.”19 The statistical content analysis at least suggests that the bulk of the stories on corrections—and indirectly on those who inhabit prisons—focused on violence. This is more than a confirmation of the “if it bleeds, it leads” mantra. Rather, this speaks to the difficulty in developing a constituency and support for reentry. It also highlights the focus on government sources for quotes. If the public sees that the primary “in-depth, newsworthy stories” from prison are full of violence, then the news contributes to the notion that prisons are violent places filled with people who cannot easily be reintegrated.
Electronic media have been equally as focused on violent crime. Researchers have documented the media’s predilection for stories of criminal violence against another person.20 A survey of local television news in Los Angeles revealed that crime coverage was overwhelmingly focused on violent crime rather than property nonviolent crime and that where the race of the offender was recorded, nearly 70 percent were non-White males.21 A similar study of local news in Chicago confirmed that television images were not only violent but also disproportionately focused on incidents involving perpetrators who were people of color.22 People tend to forget, ignore, or miss altogether distinctions in crime news, which is a further means of developing false impressions. In watching and reading the news, the average viewer tends to think of a person who kills after being released from prison for a lesser—or less violent—offense simply as another murderer who was released too early. This assumption ignores altogether that he was released as someone who had committed a lesser crime and had never committed murder. Thus, news accounts of murders committed by persons who have previously served prison terms for other crimes, or by persons who were charged with first-degree murder but convicted of lesser offenses and later paroled, may contribute to the false impression that convicted first-degree murderers are back on the streets far sooner than they actually are. Of course, such selective ignorance makes these stories more consonant with myths of crime and punishment.
There is no question that the public is deeply concerned about crime; however, the average citizen actually knows very little about rates of incarceration, who is being incarcerated, and how much time they serve. This information is not part of the media coverage on crime; that coverage is episodic, not analytical. Nonetheless, Julian Roberts and Loretta Stalans have conducted a number of studies that seem to indicate that the majority of the public in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia share the view that sentences imposed on adults are too lenient.23 In 1996, polls conducted by the National Opinion Research Center reported that 67 percent of those surveyed thought that the nation spent too little on stemming the rising rate of crime,24 while 78 percent said that the courts in their area did not deal harshly enough with criminals.25 Elected officials have responded to public concern about crime with an easily explained, superficially appealing strategy that does not provide an effective response to that concern. Simplistic terms and limited sentencing discretion proffered by elected officials are not limited to violent crime (which the public is largely focused on) but tend to catch large numbers of property and drug offenders in their indiscriminate nets as well.
B. Entertainment Media
In thinking critically and analytically about policies and attitudes regarding offenders, ex-offenders, reentry, and race, it is helpful—if not necessary—to examine the entertainment media. Movies, in their two-hour format, provide an opportunity to transport the viewer to a world wholly divorced from his or her own daily experiences. This medium taps into emotions and transmits messages about the prison and postprison experiences. At its best, entertainment media can educate the public to a side of life that is normally concealed to the average person. At its worst, it can caricature, stereotype, and titillate with little concern about the accuracy of its portrayals. What follows is a closer look at a few examples.
1. The Shawshank Redemption
Although not initially a huge hit upon its release in 1994, The Shawshank Redemption became enormously successful through video rental and sales.26 In the Internet Movie Database list of the top