From The Sentencing Project:
Misleading news coverage of crime and criminal legal policies has played an integral role in the over 50-year history of mass incarceration. Following is The Sentencing Project’s guidance to newsrooms and journalists on how to accurately cover crime and justice. News coverage that adds context, mitigates biases, and ensures veracity can inform the public and policymakers on how to pursue the most effective and humane public safety policies.
1. Situate crime trends and policies within their broader historical and geographic context.
Nationwide, crime rates reached their peak levels in the 1990s then fell roughly 50% by year end 2019—a trend to which mass incarceration contributed only modestly. Then, the economic, social, and psychological turbulence of the COVID-19 pandemic created a seismic shift for the most serious crime: homicide. Homicides spiked up 27% in 2020 and remained at elevated rates until beginning a substantial decline in 2023. Reported rates of violent and property crime exhibited typical fluctuations amidst the pandemic, although household surveys of violent victimization showed a more dramatic increase across the country. Motor vehicle thefts, which were at near-historic lows by 2019, also increased in the subsequent years, as did carjackings. The country’s experience with mass incarceration has shown clearly that ratcheting up harmful police and prison policies is a counterproductive response to upticks in crime. Well-framed stories about crime increases should consider the following questions: Is the shift unique to one form of crime and is it attributable to a change in crime reporting or recording? How does the uptick compare to historical crime peaks and lows, and how does it compare with crime trends in other jurisdictions?
Continue reading the full report here.
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