Newsgroups: misc.legal
From: [h--le--n] at [hprpcd.rose.hp.com] (Helen Nusbaum)
Subject: Crime, Punishment and the Media
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 21:52:49 GMT
Crime, Punishment and the Media:
Creating Public Perceptions of the Justice System
Copyright 1993 by Steven Meinrath*
It is very fashionable these days to blame the criminal justice
system for the fact that we do not feel as safe as we would like on the
streets. The news media, along with many of our elected officials,
have long promoted the idea that the justice system is a bastion of
bleeding hearts who care more about the rights of criminals than those
of anyone else. This simplistic and highly inaccurate message has
contributed substantially to the public's loss of faith in the justice
system. That faith will not be restored until the issue of crime can
be addressed in all its complexity. Neither the media nor our elected
officials will lead the way. A meaningful discussion will only take
place when the public demands it.
The idea of the system being a revolving door for criminals became
a cliche in the Reagan/Bush years. This cliche was best illustrated by
the image of a turnstile used in the infamous Willie Horton ad. Despite
much belated criticism of the inherent racism in that ad, it was
enormously effective. The public has thoroughly bought the notion that
our society is unsafe because we don't incarcerate enough people and
the ones we do, we don't incarcerate for long enough. There are many
reasons why this notion has been so universally accepted. Like most
sophistries, this one contains a kernel of truth. The widespread
public acceptance of this notion in its simplest form, however, has
brought our entire justice system to the point of crisis and threatens
to destroy it altogether.
The news media have harped on the `revolving door' theme for a
long time. A representative example was a recent story on CBS' "60
Minutes" by Leslie Stahl concerning the early release program for
inmates in the Florida prison system. She began by pointing out the
facts: several hundred defendants are sentenced to prison in Florida
every week; Florida prisons are already so overcrowded that they are
under federal court orders to reduce overcrowding and the taxpayers
refuse to fund more prison construction. Having accurately described
the dilemma, she then proceeded to harangue the director of the state
prison system for the fact that Florida is having to release inmates
after they have served only a small fraction of their sentences to make
way for the constant influx of new prisoners.
Interestingly, Stahl interviewed three inmates who had been
granted early release. Each had been imprisoned for a non-violent
offense. Stahl quickly pointed out that while these three were not
violent offenders many who were had also been released early.
Leslie Stahl had the same problem as many other journalists, not
to mention legislators, when discussing the current crisis in our
criminal justice system. When faced with some startling facts about
the huge influx of humanity into the system, and the clear evidence
that herding massive numbers of people into prisons does not make our
society any safer, her reaction was to assume that the only solution is
more incarceration.
As Stahl pointed out, numerous states around the country are under
similar federal injunctions to reduce prison overcrowding. What she
did not point out is that, while overall inmate populations have
increased exponentially all over the country in the last twelve years,
the composition of inmate populations has shifted dramatically. The
simple fact is, during the Reagan/Bush years legislators throughout the
country passed mandatory sentencing laws which filled prisons with
non-violent drug offenders and that is why even violent offenders are
having to be released early today.
During the Reagan/Bush years an ideological war was declared, the
so-called war on drugs. While eliminating funds for treatment, the
drug-war enthusiasts convinced lawmakers that the drug abuse problem
must be solved first, last and only by way of the criminal justice
system. This ideological crusade has resulted in such a massive
increase in arrests, convictions and prison sentences for non-violent
drug law offenders that it has crippled the criminal justice system.
The crisis that the criminal justice system is in today will not be
resolved until we have the foresight to disavow this ill-conceived
social experiment.
Downsizing prison populations by imposing alternative forms of
punishment for non-violent offenders is essential. Unfortunately, many
institutional forces will have to be overcome to implement such
desperately needed policy changes. The press, for example, seems to
operate under an institutional imperative driving it to produce news
stories designed to appeal to the strongest emotions in the reader.
That's what sells newspapers (and television). And, of course,
everyone's strongest emotion is fear. So it was much more powerful for
Leslie Stahl to focus her story on the violent inmates, who undoubtedly
belong locked up somewhere, and tell horror stories of them being
released to commit new atrocities than it would have been for her to
produce a story on the large numbers of non-violent offenders in the
Florida prisons who never belonged in prison in the first place and are
the real cause of overcrowding.
Another institutional obstacle are the legislatures across the
country. Just as fear is what sells newspapers, it is also what
motivates people to vote. People are afraid of crime so they vote for
the candidate who promises to lock up the most people. For
legislators, the press and voters, fear of crime has become an
addiction. Like most addictions, it is a vicious cycle: the public
fears crime, the press and politicians pander to this fear with
sensationalistic crime stories and endlessly more punitive laws, which
themselves breed more crime, hence more fear and thus the cycle repeats
itself. After more than a decade of this downward spiral, the justice
systems in many states have become overburdened nearly to the point of
collapse. Another costly effect of this cycle of more incarceration
and more violent crime has been to cause the public to utterly lose
confidence in the justice system. If the justice system cannot provide
safe streets what good is it?
Ironically, at the same time that the Reagan/Bush era obsession
with passing draconian drug laws was bringing the justice system to its
knees, the federal government was either ignoring or taking part in
lawlessness on an unprecedented scale itself. This too resulted in
large-scale public cynicism and mistrust of government.
The Iran/contra arms-for-hostages deal was but one example of the
crimes committed by elected officials during that era. The savings and
loan scandal was probably the biggest case of official corruption and
fraud in the nation's history. When the Reagan administration mined
the harbors in Nicaragua, the World Court of the United Nations called
it an illegal, unprovoked act of war. Thumbing its nose at the rule of
law, the Reagan administration simply said the United States would
withdraw from the World Court. Thanks to the UN Truth Commission in El
Salvador, the world now knows the full extent to which the Reagan and
Bush administrations aided and abetted torture and mass murder in that
country while systematically lying to Congress about it. The Inslaw
theft by the Reagan Justice Department, the BCCI scandal, the list of
just plain criminal activity by the federal government during these
past twelve years is almost endless. The sad fact is, after twelve
years of lies and deception, of greed and deception exalted and
rewarded, most of us are left with so little faith in our government
that the crimes committed by it no longer shock us.
As the public loses faith in the institutions of government and
its fear of crime is perpetually exploited, increased violence is the
inevitable result. We can expect to see more vigilantes like Ellie
Nestler, who walked into a courtroom in Sonora and fired five bullets
into the head of Daniel Driver, who had been charged with molesting her
son. And more Hollywood films like, "Falling Down," in which a laid
off defense worker shoots up LA in an orgy of frustration and violence.
And the line between real violence and fantasy violence will become
even more blurred when Hollywood will sensationalize and glamorize
stories like Nestler's with made-for-TV movies, which will, in turn
provide encouragement for even more vigilante violence.
If solutions to the current crisis in the criminal justice system
are to be found it will be in spite of the overwhelming influence of
the media and the cynical pronouncements of many members of the
government itself. Finding solutions will require resisting the
institutional forces that have held sway for the last twelve years and
saying no to the simplistic solutions we are continually offered such
as mandatory minimum sentences and the war on drugs. Otherwise we will
continue down the path we are on. More cynicism and distrust of the
justice system, more fear, and ultimately, more and more violence.
*Steven Meinrath is an attorney in Sacramento, CA.