Crime, Crime News, and Crime Views

Abstract

This paper compares police, newspaper, television, and public images of crime trends for the seven FBI index crimes over time, the relative frequency of occurrence of these offenses, and the characteristics of persons committing them. Media presentations of crime trends over time are found generally Linrelated to trends in police statistics. Newspaper presentation of the relative distribution of crimes approximates police figures more closely than does the television presentation. Public views of the relative distribution of crimes but not of crime trends more closely approximate media presentations than police presentations. Television's impact on public views of crime is apparently minor. Reasons for these findings and their implications for crime news reporting are discussed. Joseph F. Sheley is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Tulane University. Cindy D. Ashkins is a juvenile justice and child protection services consultant in Fairfield, Connecticut. The New Orleans Police Department provided crime statistics for this study, and the managements of television Channels 4, 6, and 8 in New Orleans provided access to files of past news scripts. The authors gratefully acknowledge this assistance. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 45:492-506 ? 1981 by The Trustees of Columbia Univelsity Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/81X0045-492/$2.50 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.127 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 06:08:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms CRIME, CRIME NEWS, AND CRIME VIEWS 493 papers daily, 64 percent of the sample report reliance on television as their primary source of news about political and current events. Forty-seven percent watch local newscasts frequently. Yet, despite television's popularity, we know little about its crime-reporting practices and less about the extent to which its picture of crime mirrors those of the police, the print media, and the public. This research examines all four images of crime in New Orleans, Louisiana, comparing their respective presentations of (1) crime trends for the seven major index crimes over time, (2) the relative frequency of occurrence of these offenses, and (3) the characteristics of persons committing them.