Media bias on race and criminal justice

[iiandyiiii]

The article is here.

It notes a few things:

• Black suspects of crimes receive disproportionate coverage.

From the study:

Researchers for the group watched New York newscasts on WCBS, WNBC, WABC, and WNYW, counting the percentage of suspects revealed as African American, either by a photo aired on the newscast or a verbal description. Over a three-month period, the parade of potential perps were overwhelmingly black: Eighty percent of theft suspects were African American, as were 73 percent of assault suspects and 68 percent of murder suspects whose cases received airtime. But when Media Matters compared the numbers to arrest statistics from the NYPD, the racial breakdown showed a much lower percentage of black suspects. “African-American suspects were arrested in 54 percent of murders, 55 percent of thefts, and 49 percent of assaults,” they wrote.

Further, the coverage itself is different.

• Black defendants are more likely than non-black defendants to be shown by a mugshot rather than a personal picture.

• Black suspects are twice as likely as white suspects to be shown under police restraint.

The article relates this to “missing white girl syndrome” – that missing black people are covered far, far less than missing white people.

This is distressing, but unfortunately not particularly surprising. I think it’s likely that much of this is unconscious – most news directors and editors probably aren’t consciously deciding “let’s make this guy look like as much of a thug as we can”… but they might look at a few pictures and, for some reason, be more likely to choose the mugshot, and the footage of the guy in cuffs, to go on the evening news, if the guy is black.

[Shodan]

If a TV producer wanted to attract a more prosperous demographic and thus raise the value of his commercial time, who do you expect he should try to appeal to - blacks, or whites? And, all other things being equal, what is going to get a stronger reaction from that demographic - pictures of black criminals, or pictures of white criminals?

Also, do the news channels mentioned routinely cover arrests for theft or assault? I can understand that they might cover murders, and the figures for arrest for murder are closest to the figures for mention of race in news coverage.

I wonder if there might not be a separate factor to account for the fact that the newsworthy assaults or thefts skew differently than overall assaults or thefts - for instance, if the circumstances of the thefts or assaults were broadly similar for those committed by blacks vs. those committed by whites.

The reason I mention it is an article I read some years back, that examined the racial disparity in being sentenced to death for murder. What the writer found was that whether or not you murdered a stranger correlated better than if you were a black person who murdered a white one. Since most of one’s acquaintances are of the same race as oneself, most murders are intra-racial. Many stranger murders are not.

For example, it is clearly the case that blacks who murder whites are treated more harshly than are blacks who murder blacks. This looks like racial disparity if you assume that the circumstances are similar in the two cases. Unfortunately, it’s vastly unlikely that they are. Most murders are among people who know each other. Murders done by strangers are much more likely to be regarded as heinous than are murders growing out of domestic quarrels, drug deals gone wrong, and such. It might seem reasonable to compare the punishment received by blacks who murder whites with the treatment received by whites who murder blacks. Unfortunately, while black on white crime is relatively rare, white on black crime is even rarer. There simply isn’t an adequate statistical base to allow us to generalize about whites who murder blacks

(Emphasis added.)

Cite., although not the article I mentioned earlier.

Regards,
Shodan

[iiandyiiii]

@Shodan

If a TV producer wanted to attract a more prosperous demographic and thus raise the value of his commercial time, who do you expect he should try to appeal to - blacks, or whites? And, all other things being equal, what is going to get a stronger reaction from that demographic - pictures of black criminals, or pictures of white criminals?

This isn’t exactly a defense! Hurting society for the profit-motive is not any better than hurting society for the racist-motive.

I wonder if there might not be a separate factor to account for the fact that the newsworthy assaults or thefts skew differently than overall assaults or thefts - for instance, if the circumstances of the thefts or assaults were broadly similar for those committed by blacks vs. those committed by whites.

It’s possible, but since all of these sorts of statistics tend to skew in the same direction, I think it’s unlikely that this is the entire explanation.

The reason I mention it is an article I read some years back, that examined the racial disparity in being sentenced to death for murder. What the writer found was that whether or not you murdered a stranger correlated better than if you were a black person who murdered a white one. Since most of one’s acquaintances are of the same race as oneself, most murders are intra-racial. Many stranger murders are not.

This might warrant further study – it shouldn’t be too hard to determine which black-on-black murders are “stranger” murders – but it’s not exculpatory.

[Shodan]

Defending something is different from explaining it.

Regards,
Shodan

[iiandyiiii]

@Shodan

Defending something is different from explaining it.

Regards,
Shodan

My apologies!