Strange Decoupling: Crime, Media, and Carceral System in New York during the Era of Decarceration

Chungse Jung, Hartwick College

Over the past twenty years, policing, prison, and restorative justice reforms have led to a continuous decrease in the prison population in New York State. However, policing practices and carceral systems have evolved strategically and technologically during this period. This evolution of the criminal justice system has led to justice disinvestment in various areas, including policing, corrections, moral panic, and crime reporting in the media. Based on these two contrasting contexts of decarceration and deinvestment in the criminal justice system of New York State, this study explores the relationship between crime reporting in the media and the devolution of the criminal justice system in New York State during the era of decarceration. Through an analysis of drug-, crime-, and incarceration-related news coverage frequencies in 22 New York State local newspapers from 2000 to 2020, this study particulary examines how volumes of crime and drug reporting fluctuate according to changing criminal justice laws, policy reforms, policing practices, and incarceration trends in different regional settings within the state. The empirical investigation reveals that reforms and restorative justice initiatives have malfunctioned or misfunctioned in certain regions and rural areas of New York State since 2008. This study, thus, manifests that media crime reporting trends support the regional structure of the prison industrial complex, and these media practices perpetuate the enduring characteristics of the U.S. criminal justice system as a carceral state.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 176. Constructing and Responding to Crime