AJ 240: Punishment

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AJ 240 Punishment CorrectionsSpring Term 2007
Indiana Prison Riots New Castle Correctional
Facility (Private Prison)

• MW 1600-1750 Instructor Robert Swan RM SBII
  RM 247

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Agenda April 25, 2007

• In the News Indiana Prison Riot
• Adjust Midterm Date
• Papers In the belly of the Beast New Jack
• Media Prisons Lecture
• In the News Oregon Prison Costs
• Break into groups
• Discuss article (see handout)

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Indiana Riot

• 600 specially chosen Arizona inmates transferred
  to Indiana prison. These inmates were supposed
  to be non-violent and had a good record of
  behavior
• Many of them then started a riot in the Indiana
  facility. (500 involved)
• Why?

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Prisons, Crime Media Part I
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Why Study the media-justice relationship?

• The media are not neutral, unobtrusive social
  agents providing simple entertainment or news.
• The medias pervasiveness makes their influence
  extensive...we are all exposed to mass media at
  some point (some more than others of course).
• A societys ideas of criminality and social
  justice reflect its values concerning humanity,
  social relationships, and political ideologies
  (See Erikson Reading). These ideas are put into
  operation and legitimized within the criminal
  justice system, spread and given final
  legitimization through the mass media. The
  medias social influence is focused therefore
  through their role in the social construction of
  our crime and justice reality.

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4 sources of knowledge Social Construction Theory

• Individuals gain the knowledge on which they
  construct their social realities from 4 sources
• 1. Personal experiences
• 2. Symbolic reality significant others AKA
  conversational knowledge (peers, family,
  friends)
• 3. Symbolic reality other social groups and
  institutions (schools, unions, churches,
  government agencies)
• 4. Symbolic reality mass media An increasingly
  influential source of information.
• From the mix of symbolic knowledge and personal
  experience, an individual constructs his or her
  personal world

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Competing realities

• Competing realities The Social construction of
  reality involves the notion of competing
  realitieswith the victorious reality often
  dictating public policy (e.g., in CJ Get Tough
  v. Rehabilitation)
• In order to compete and win, groups and
  individuals must frame their issues/versions of
  reality in a way that makes it competitive with
  currently dominant conceptualizations of reality
  (e.g., some prison activists may attempt to frame
  Getting Tough on Crime as too expensive and/or
  ineffective).

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Framing

• The concept of framing can perhaps be most easily
  grasped using a metaphor Framing is like
  photographyin the sense that the photographer
  chooses a focal point for their photo. In
  photography, we choose to emphasize specific
  aspects of a much larger picture and, thus,
  deemphasize (or ignore) the remainder of the
  bigger picture.
• Similarly, politicians, journalists, writers,
  artists, film makers, academics, etc. choose
  which aspect of reality to bring in to focus.
• Frames are present in all media content.
  Multiple frames shape media content which in turn
  are reshaped by how the audience interprets (or
  accepts) the original frames.

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Framing

• Framing Robert Entman 4 generally accepted
  characteristics of framing
• 1.) Frames attempt to define problems
• 2.) To diagnose causes
• 3.) To make moral judgments
• 4.) And to suggest remedies.

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Modern Portraits of Crime and Justice

• Criminal justice actors Corrections Prisons,
  Guards, and Prisoners (more distortion)
• At best, only marginally equipped to handle
  rehabilitation.
• Harsh, brutal places of legalized torture or
  uncontrolled zoos
• Ignores corrections officers or depicts them to
  be stupid or as bad as the inmates (or worse, in
  the hero inmate model).
• Prisons not often the direct focus of news
  stories (except in special reports in print
  media)
• Why? Prisons are closed environments and
  typically do not like media attention.
• This often leads to a focus on scandal, violence
  and otherwise aberrant behavior.

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The News Hole TV News

• The amount of actual news that is delivered after
  subtracting advertising, promos, etc.
• The news Hole is shrinkingand filling more and
  more with anomalous violent crime.
• Very little substantive discussion of prisons.

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Bennett Media Biases

• Lance Bennett The important Media biases are
  not ideological
• We are all aware of our own ideological biases
  and can easily ignore (or defend against) what we
  do not agree with.
• Even if neutrality or objectivity could be
  achieved, citizens with strong views would not
  recognize itit is the media biases that we are
  not aware of that we need to worry about..

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Media Biases News as Info-tainment

• Bennetts 4 media biases
• 1) Personalization
• 2)Dramatization
• 3)Fragmentation
• 4)Authority-disorder

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Bennett Biases 4 news format characteristics.

• 1) Personalization Downplaying the big social,
  economic or political picture in favor of human
  trials, tragedies and triumphs. Very superficial
  coverage. Instead of power and process, indiv.
  Combat and flawed personalities. Taking the news
  personally and egocentrically. No social
  awareness.

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Bennett Biases 4 news format characteristics.

• 2) Dramatization Stories chosen are those that
  can be encapsulated in short stories. Rather
  than analytical essays, political polemics or
  more scientific causal (e.g., problem-evidence)
  stories, American journalism has settled on the
  narrative stories which invite dramatization,
  especially with sharply drawn characters at their
  center (personalization). Tend to ignore
  problems that dont meet these specifications.

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Bennett Biases 4 news format characteristics.

• 3) Fragmentation The isolation of news stories
  from each other and from their larger context,
  further exaggerated by the shrinking news hole
  and lack of space for more substantive stories.
  Stories then become hard to assemble into a
  bigger picture. Causal connections hard to make.

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Bennett Biases 4 news format characteristics.

• 4) The Authority-Disorder Bias Bias towards
  authorities for information on a given subject.
  No alternative explanations. A focus on
  authority is more dramatic, easily personalized,
  and often fragmented because these stories can
  stand alone. However, the news also now
  attempts to discredit these authorities or their
  portrayal of order in order to make a better
  news story The creation of Dramatic tension
  Increased levels of mayhem etc.

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News Values for the 21st Century

• See Handout

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Article Prison Costs Shackling Oregon

• Move into groups
• Names of Group Members
• Assignment
• What reality is being constructed here? How?
  Why? Is it convincing?
• Describe the various frames contained within the
  article.and the overall frame created by the
  article itself.
• Describe/find the presence of Bennetts Biases.
• News Values?

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Moral PanicsTed Chiricos

• Moral Panic A concept used to understand why the
  public becomes almost hysterical over some
  perceived threat to societal values and
  interests.
• Chiricos argues that moral panics are used by
  political leaders to justify expansion of the
  power of the state.
• In the policy process, there are always solutions
  looking for problems.

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Moral PanicsTed Chiricos

• Examples of moral panicsPolly Claus, sex
  offenders, Meth, random violence etc. Result
  Getting Tough and expansion of the punitive
  apparatus of the state even during a period of
  declining crime.
• Leaders exploit the media frenzya concentrated
  focus on a problem to push policy.
• Its not that there is nothing there, but the
  public policy response is inappropriate (Cohen).
  There is a strong call to do something

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Examples of Moral Panics?