Juvenile Offenders, Coverage of

Juvenile offenders in the News

Little research appears to have been conducted on news coverage of juvenile offenders until the late 1990s. Research since then indicates that when youth are covered in the news it is generally in the context of violence, and particularly murder. About half of all coverage of youth is related to crime and violence, despite strong evidence that juvenile crime arrests have been stable or in decline since the 1990s. This holds true for both broadcast and print reports.

According to the office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), part of the U.S. Department of Justice, since 1994, most arrest [Page 818]rates have seen a steady decline. Murder arrest rates, for example, were 74 percent lower in 2000 than they were in 1993. About half of all juvenile arrests are made for theft (the greatest single cause), simple assault, drug abuse, disorderly conduct, and curfew violations.

Such news coverage of juvenile offenders does not reflect social reality in a number of ways. For example, media coverage of juvenile crime tends to increase as juvenile crime rates decline. A commonly noted problem with news media is that only news with blood and violence—“if it bleeds, it leads”—is covered. This trend clearly affects coverage of youth issues. Violent crime by youth in 2005 was at its lowest point in the history of the National Crime Victimization Survey (which provides statistics back to 1973) yet, according to David Doi of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, more than two-thirds of coverage of violent crime was focused on juveniles while youth were actually responsible for less than 15 percent of the violence. Further, most youthful offenders are not violent. In 2003 the Annie E. Casey Foundation, established to foster human service reforms to meet the needs of vulnerable children and families, estimated that 77 percent of incarcerated juveniles are nonviolent offenders.

Journalists also tend to cover juvenile crime episodically. They focus on individual crimes as isolated events instead of reporting the important context of overall trends. Major events—such as shootings or other violence in public schools—tend to receive heavy coverage. So do drive-by shootings and carjacking crimes. News coverage of juvenile offenders also connects race and crime, particularly violent crime and especially on television. Pictures of African Americans or Latino youth (including reports of gang warfare) dominate portrayals of youth violence, especially broadcast or photographic visual images. These portrayals have been shown to lead many who watch and read such news to worry more about their own safety. Television coverage of African American and Hispanic youth offenders raises levels of fear among viewers, increases their support for more stringent crime policies, and promotes racial stereotyping.

...