Reform and Retrenchment: Media, Fear, and Policy Rollbacks that Impede Safety

Описание: Panel 3 of "Media Mythmaking of Punishment and Safety: Changing the Narrative on Race, Crime, and Reform," a one-day convening which explored media coverage of crime and of criminal legal reform which took place at Harvard University on November 15, 2024.

Moderator: Ames Grawert (Brennan Center for Justice)

Speakers: Nazgol Ghandnoosh (The Sentencing Project), Chenjerai Kumanyika (NYU Journalism, Empire City podcast), Mark Joseph Stern (Slate)

The panel opened with a frame to focus on fact and fiction around crime, criminal justice policy reform, and what the media’s role in that conversation is and can be. The panel focused on policy—how do media stories create policy? How do media stories impede policy? Panelists offered remarks to situate current policy debates amidst historic declines in crime but also reckoned with the continued prevalence of incarceration. Panelists also spoke about more than a century of media focus on urban decay and how those narratives endlessly repeat and lead to regressive policies and political campaigning, pushing partisans of all stripes to the right to make constituents feel like they are taking the inflated problem of ‘crime’ seriously. Panelists also provided insights into media’s role in specific policy debates, from differential treatment of turnstile jumping and parking in bus lanes in DC to the success of second-look sentencing and the Oklahoma survivor’s justice act. Panelists also spoke about the role of journalism schools in educating the next generation of journalists and funders needing to devolve funding not to media conglomerates but to community-based organizations.

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