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.