Racial Stereotypes in Crime

         Media representations of crime impact how the public understands the frequency and who the criminals and victims are. However, some groups are over or underrepresented as victims or perpetrators. For instance, White women are often times seen as victims, whereas Black men are often seen as perpetrators. According to Bjornstrom, Kaufman, Peterson and Slater (2010) an over representation of particular groups as perpetrators can promote racial or gender stereotypes or reinforce public hostility toward those groups as well.

        Bjornstrom, Kaufman, Peterson and Slater are all well respected college professors that conducted a study on race and ethnic representations of criminals and victims in crime news in 2010 based off of a National Study of television coverage. These authors found that public opinion and media coverage on this topic is paramount because their opinion and findings affect criminal justice policies, and differential treatment may result (i.e. harsher penalties for crimes that are seemingly more often committed by particular perpetrators). In addition, their results found that there was a relative over reporting of Black offenders and this is most likely due to the lack of power Blacks have politically, and the racism against Blacks and the fact that White people have more privileges than Blacks. Furthermore, there seems to be an overrepresentation in news stories focused on perpetrators of violent crime for the Black population. In addition, the media representation of Hispanics and Others is more consistent with market share and normal crimes expectation.

     According to Farbota (2015) Black people make up roughly 13% of the United States population, and white people make up 64%. However, Black people make up 40% of the prison population, whereas White people make up 39%. Even though there are five times as many White people than Black people, Black and Whites are incarcerated in equal numbers. This is not due to Blacks committing more crimes than Whites. Farbota finds that it is because Black people are more likely to be arrested, convicted and incarcerated than their White counterparts.

Statistics Taken Directly From FBI Uniform Crime Reports: 

• In 2012, 69.3 percent of all individuals arrested were white, 28.1 percent were black, and 2.6 percent were of other races.

• Of all juveniles (persons under the age of 18) arrested in 2012, 65.2 percent were white, 32.2 percent were black, and 2.5 percent were of other races.

• Of all adults arrested in 2012, 69.7 were white, 27.6 percent were black, and 2.7 percent were of other races.

• White individuals were arrested more often for violent crimes than individuals of any other race, accounting for 58.7 percent of those arrests.

• The percentages of black adults and white adults arrested for murder were similar, with 49.3 percent being black and 48.3 percent being white.

• Black juveniles accounted for 51.5 percent of all juveniles arrested for violent crimes. White juveniles accounted for 61.6 percent of all juveniles arrested for property crimes.

• Of the juveniles arrested for drug abuse violations, 74.0 percent were white.

• White juveniles accounted for 55.2 percent of juveniles arrested for aggravated assaults. 

       To summarize, research suggests that Black men are overrepresented in crime in media and this false information provides support for false stereotypes that Black men are dangerous. This overrepresentation affects policy and makes racial profiling more common (Bjornstrom, Kaufman, Peterson & Slater, 2010). Black men are then more often targeted for crime and are judged more harshly than Whites are. They are more likely to be arrested, convicted, and incarcerated (Farbota, 2015). Media should be more conscious of the crime reports they release to the public. They should not have any overrepresentation of any group of people. Media has a huge affect on the publics' view of particular people groups and they likewise influence public policy. Therefore, they should ethnically provide all the facts and not practice racist reporting. 

References

Bjornstrom, E. S., Kaufman, R. L., Peterson, R. D., & Slater, M. D. (2010). Race and ethnic 

representations of lawbreakers and victims in crime news: A national study of television coverage. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, 57(2), 269-293. 

Farbota, K. (2015, September 2). Black crime rates: Your statistics are racist. The Huffington

Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-farbota/black-crime-rates yourst_b_8078586.html 

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2013). Crime in the united states in 2013. Retrieved

from https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/table-43