3-Strikes Caused by Counterfactual Fear and Vengeance
The 3-Strikes law is the culmination of a growing fear and vengeance that
has been experienced by the public in the United States. Local news agencies
have cut their budgets and have found it much easier to simply send reporters
to crime scenes. Even though crime rates were decreasing before 3-Strikes was
enacted, the public has had a drastic increase in crime shown on TV and in the
newspapers.
The 3-Strikes law was promoted heavily by parents whose daughters were
killed by sexual molesters. The pictures of the victims and their families were
constantly in the news promoting the law. Such news coverage generated quite a
bit of sympathy from the public. While we are also sympathetic with the
families of the victims, we do not think that the 3-Strikes law is going to
resolve the problem.
Unfortunately, in the public's vengeance against murderers and sexual
predators, they have snared many other minor criminals in the 3-Strikes web. As
a consequence, many major criminals that were originally wanted behind bars are
being let go (because they only committed one or two crimes) to make room in
the prisons for the minor offenders.
In addition, the 3-Strikes law was forced on the people without any option
to eliminate strikes for nonviolent and non-serious offenses. Many people have
indicated that they would rather have a 3-Strikes law that is for only violent
and serious offenses.
In addition, like the spineless politicians in the days of the witch
trials, today's politicians also find it easier to jump on the bandwagon than
necessarily to "do the right thing."
The following are some statistics and comments from books and articles on
the growing fear and vengeance caused by news media. PLEASE SEND US NEW DATA
AND ARTICLES IF YOU HAVE THEM.
LATimes publishes in-depth series on the fear of
crime.
An in-depth article by the LATimes demonstrates how the fear of crime has
overwhelmed the reality:
"The reasons for that disparity are complex, and sometimes shockingly
deliberate. Police stoke fear in part because they take crime seriously, but
also to prime their budgets; politicians feel deeply about the issue, but also
manipulate it to win votes. News organizations amplify fear by ratcheting up
their crime coverage, even as crime declines, because it helps ratings.
Security companies, theft detection manufacturers and others tap into deeply
held fears and end up turning a profit."
"The fear of crime is highly irrational and reflects a very deep
culture of ignorance of risk factors and safety," said Eric Sterling,
president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Washington. "We're
a nation of 230 million people. Much of the country is perfectly safe. Crime,
particularly violent crime, is very highly concentrated . . . and yet that
feeling of fear lasts."
A Los Angeles Times poll taken in 1997 found that nearly 3/4ths of
residents surveyed believed crime in their neighborhoods to be about the same
as it was five years ago or worse. Seventy-seven percent said they felt less
safe or about as safe as they did five years ago. This, despite the fact that
homicides had dropped to the lowest level in 20 years in 1997 (1997: 590
slayings in LA; early 1990s: More than 1,000 per year).
From 1990 to 1995 network news coverage of murder increased 336% and that
did not even include coverage of the O.J. Simpson case, according to the Center
for Media and Public Affairs, a Washington-based non-partisan, nonprofit group
that monitors the media. "I think this is the best example I've seen of
media images driving public perception in the face of contradictory
facts," said Bob Lichter, president of the group. "The reality is
going one way, the media images are going another and the public perception
follows the images rather than the reality."
Number of crime stories featured on national network TV broadcasts
| 1990 |
757 |
| 1991 |
630 |
| 1992 |
830 |
| 1993 |
1,698 |
| 1994 |
1,949* |
| 1995 |
2,574* |
| 1996 |
1,227 |
| 1997 |
1,617 |
*O.J. Simpson trial
ABC, CBS and NBC double stories about crime from 1992 to
1993
In 1992 the evening newscasts of the three major TV networks in the United
States--ABC, CBS, NBC--aired 785 stories about crime; in 1993, the number more
than doubled to 1,632. Stories on murder increased from 104 in 1992 to 328 in
1993. Freeman, Michael. 1994. "Networks Doubled Crime Coverage in '93,
Despite Flat Violence Levels in U.S. Society." Mediaweek 4:4.
1994 Gallop Polls show 52% in U.S. name crime as
"most important problem" when figure was only 9% just 18 months
earlier.
According to Gallop Polls, 52% of the people surveyed in 1994 named crime
as the "most important problem" (topping all other concerns) in the
United States. This last figure was only 9% just 18 months earlier and only 1%
in 1990. The Gallop Organization.
Even though crime falling, 87% and 88% of people in 1993
and 1994 believe crime rising and at an all time high
Reflecting the increased media focus on crime, 87% of U.S. residents in a
1993 poll said that crime was higher than a year earlier. Sam Vincent Meddis
(Oct. 28, 1993) "'Brutalized' Public Lives With Growing Fear." USA
Today, p6A.
Even thought the crime rate actually fell from 1991 through 1994, 88% of
U.S. residents in a 1994 poll agreed that crime was at an all time high.
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics--1994 and Derrick Z. Jackson
(Oct. 21, 1994) "'Politicians' Crime Rhetoric." The Boston
Globe, p.15.
While violent crime rates are flat, the news of
violence has gone up sharply.
"We never used to cover the police blotter stuff that's on
today," says Walter Jacobson of WFLD in Chicago. "In its heyday, at
Channel 2, we focused on things that mattered: government, politics, social
problems. In the late '70s and '80s, politics was the biggest game in town. You
had Harold Washington and Council Wars, Ed Burke and Ed Vrdolyak. They made it
interesting. The challenge is to make the stories on health care reform,
balanced budgets and remapping interesting. It's a lot easier to send a crew to
Cabrini-Green and catch a body bag being removed."
"It isn't just a question of 'if it bleeds, it leads,'" says Jack
Bowen, chairmen of McHugh & Hoffman, a media consulting firm. "It
isn't the bloody lead I'm worried about. It's what comes after it. Stations are
stacking one crime story on top of another. And they're not even crimes in that
particular market. I've seen stations reach out to cities 800 miles away to
cover a four-car crash."
"While violent crime rates are flat, and in some cases on the decline,
the news of violence has gone up sharply," says George Gerbner, dean
emeritus of the Walter Annenberg School of Communication at the University of
Pennsylvania.
The Chicago Council on Urban Affairs commissioned a study released in May
1994, which found that about 60% of the news hole was devoted to "some
form of man-made or natural threat of violence to humans." Murder, rape,
child abuse, drive-by shootings, arson--with the majority of the perpetrators
black or Hispanic--explosions, crashes, floods, hurricanes, blizzards,
tornadoes and earthquakes.
Crime news is also fast, cheap and easy to produce. "It doesn't
require a lot of enterprise or innovation," says Scott Libin, of the
Poynter Institute for Media Studies. With pressure on TV stations to keep costs
down and profits up, and with more and more news hours to fill, it's easy to
turn on the police scanner and then send a crew to a crime scene to shoot some
pictures of grieving relatives.
"It leads to a dramatic polarization of society," says Gerbner,
who has been tracking TV news for 30 years. "Suburban whites begin to
think of the inner city as ridden with crime and violence and drugs. So they
vote for more jails, harsher and longer sentences and capital punishment.
People are afraid to go out at night, they're distrustful. I call it 'The Mean
World Syndrome.'"
But there is hope. "We're basically so ashamed of what happened in the
past 10 years that many of us are trying hard to change back and we've been
fairly successful," says Jacobson. "It's slow, but it's
happening." Cheryl Lavin, "Violence at 10: Fast, cheap and easy to
produce, local TV news taps our darkest fears" 1997 Chicago
Tribune.
"It's important that we don't just spew out crime
and violence."
Christine Devine, co-anchor of KTTV-TV Channel 11 in Los Angeles, believes
that local TV news in general could and should do a better job--beginning with
less emphasis on crime and violence.
She acknowledges that crime is easier to cover than almost any other type
of story, that there is interest in it and that it tends to travel better
across the vast L.A. market than, say, a story about one particular school
district. "But I think that has got to change," she said. "It's
important that we don't just spew out crime and violence. If we put out too
much pollution, it can be detrimental."
OC-LATimes, 7/9/97.
85% in poll wanted 3rd Strike to be for only violent
offenses
When asked, 85% of voters in a San Diego Union-Tribune poll stated that
they would have preferred a version of three-strikes in which the third strike
had to be a violent offense. Such a proposal, authored by Republican Assembly
member and former Contra Costa Sheriff Richard Rainey, had the support of the
California District Attorneys Association and many in law enforcement. Based
largely on political considerations in what was then a tight gubernatorial
race, Governor Pete Wilson never gave voters the option to express their will
in the 1994 election, placing only the current version of three-strikes on the
ballot. Vincent Schiraldi
Three Strikes Passed Without Serious Rational
Discourse.
As developed in an article by Michael Vitiello, 3-Strikes "passed
without serious rational discourse or legislative compromise because of public
panic, its chief proponent's distrust of politicians, judges and lawyers, and
politicians' manipulation of public fear." Michael Vitiello, "Three Strikes: Return to
Rationality?"
District Attorney in Colusa County follows the
crowd--no matter what.
"I come from a really conservative county. They want people locked up,
and locked up forever. I want to keep my job. If prior strikes are serious or
violent, I don't care what the current charge is. I want him locked up."
-- John R. Poyner, Colusa County district attorney, quoted in California
Lawyer, October 1996.
100,000 Americans a year are killed by bad reactions
to prescription drugs
Americans have extraordinary fear of crime but have little fear of taking
prescription drugs even though 100,000 Americans a year are killed by bad
reactions to prescription drugs. In addition, 2.1 million Americans are
seriously injured from prescription drugs.
OCRegister, 4/15/98.
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3-Strikes.
Date last modified: 11/22/98.
