In class today you'll learn about frames and narratives used by the media to tell stories about crime.
What frames and narratives identified in class and in your book do you see in these stories from today, if any?
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2017/09/18/state-police-stop-patrols-atv-high-crime-detroit-precinct/105772908/
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/09/18/westchester-police-cyber-crime-dog/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hate-crime-rise-2016-united-states-trump_us_59becac8e4b086432b07fed8
http://www.eagletribune.com/news/merrimack_valley/candidates-at-mayoral-debate-focus-on-crime-addiction/article_b1c09a67-a7f1-5f23-ae72-3837b7af7ce8.html
http://www.weatherforddemocrat.com/news/crime-up-percent-deen-says/article_ad5b68bc-9ce2-11e7-b4ab-e7b83f759c08.html
In the Detroit News story, you see the racist system frame. The police stopped patrolling the area where the teen was killed because they did not want to aggravate the population further. The victim, an African American teen just riding his ATV, was killed by an officer that had two previous excessive force complaints, who also shot his taser from his vehicle (which was against department policy).
ReplyDeleteIn the mayoral race article, you can see the candidates frame the issues of drug use and crime in a way that supports the faulty criminal justice frame and social breakdown frame. Some candidates argue that there hasn't been a proactive response by the incumbent to curb the rise in crime. Sanctuary Cities were brought up as well, framing the issue of increased crime as something that illegals were responsible for. Additionally, heroin use was framed as something to be remedied through treatment, rather than the criminal justice system.
The detroit article gives us the racist system frame. They say that they pulled their officers out of routinely covering an area of town. This is pretty obviously because they thought it was too dangerous for the officers. While I do agree that it is dangerous, I think that is where they are most needed. The fact that they were still allowing this officer who had been charged twice with excessive force charges to ride around in a patrol car is beyond me and goes to show that they don't have much care for the safety of potential suspects that end up in his path.
ReplyDeleteIn the weather ford article, you can see the "violent media" frame. This is because the mayor gave an extremely high rate of increased crime and the media reported on it. The reality is that the rate of crime had not increased that much as the sheriff said "they would be under siege if that were true". The media reported on it to make people think that violent crime was increasing when it really wasn't.