NCJ Number
178880
Journal
Law and Society Review Volume: 31 Issue: 4 Dated: 1997 Pages: 637-676
Date Published
1997
Length
40 pages
Annotation
The media coverage of an interracial robbery-homicide that occurred in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1994 was examined with respect to its influences on public attitudes toward the criminal justice system, with emphasis on how factors such as race, education, and police contact affected attitudes.
Abstract
The research focused on the processes involved in shaping public perceptions during a period of intensive media coverage of a robbery-homicide. The perpetrators were three young black men who held at gunpoint 20 patrons and staff of an upscale cafe called Just Desserts, fatally wounded a young white woman, and escaped in a waiting car driven by a fourth suspect. The shooting was front-page news in the city's 2 main newspapers for 9 days and was the focus of 41 stories in 1 newspaper and 35 stories in the other newspaper during a 2-week period. The specter of interracial violence pervaded the media coverage of the incident. Most of the news coverage portrayed the event as both a tragedy and a social crisis. A public opinion survey serendipitously collected information from a two-stage probability sample both before and after the incident. Initial results indicated that race, education, and police contact directly affected perceptions of criminal injustice. Perceptions of injustice were especially high among well-educated black persons who had experienced recent contact with the police. Further analysis revealed that the media coverage of the homicide seemed temporarily to consolidate public confidence in the police and the criminal courts. However, this effect varied by race and education. Findings suggested that insensitive criminal justice practices and media coverage risk the perpetuation of intergroup conflict and the creation of self-fulfilling prophecies about the kinds of conflict they portray. Tables, figures, footnotes, and 166 references (Author abstract modified)