Influence of the Popular Press on Criminal Justice Policy - The Competition Between the French Bertillonage System and the British Fingerprinting System in New York State, 1890-1914

• NCJ Number: 93077
• Journal: International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Dated: (Winter 1983) Pages: 201-208
• Author(s): C K Talbot
• Date Published: 1983
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Forty years ago Donald Taft suggested that newspapers advocate correctional methods in a manner which reflects popular opinion and personal editorial biases, rather than scientific fact.

Abstract

In order to test this hypothesis a content analysis of the New York Times was undertaken covering the period (1890-1914) when first the French Bertillonage System of criminal identification and later when the British fingerprint system was finally introduced into the New York State justice system. The findings of this study indicate that the personal editorial biases of the New York Times may have played a leading role in blocking an effective crime detection technique (fingerprinting) for the New York State justice system for a least a decade, and these biases may have been rooted more in an anti-British pro-French stance of the newspaper than in ignorance of scientific testing. (Publisher abstract)