“Super-Predators” in the News: A Comparison of Adult and Juvenile

© 2007 School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 14 (1), 2007.

Juvenile “Super-Predators” in the News: A Comparison of Adult and Juvenile Homicides

By

Jesenia M. Pizarro, Ph.D. Steven M. Chermak, Ph.D.

Jeffrey A. Gruenewald, M.A.

Michigan State University

Although there has been considerable research examining the presentation of crime in the news, only a handful of studies have examined the presentation of juveniles in crime stories. This article fills this void in the literature by examining whether the juvenile super-predator ideology, which affected criminal justice policy in the late 1990s, has affected the media’s portrayal of youth violence. We also examine whether juvenile and adult homicides are presented differently by the media. Overall, our findings suggest that homicides involving juvenile suspects receive more salient coverage. The hypotheses testing whether juvenile homicides that fit the super-predator script receive more media attention than those that do not yielded moderate support. Homicides involving particularly young suspects receive more media coverage than those involving older teenagers. Additionally, incidents involving heinous modes (e.g., involve multiple victims, or were committed with guns) and motives (e.g., child abuse, patricides, and fratricides) are more likely to receive media attention. Our findings also suggest that there is variation in the covariates of adult and juvenile media coverage. Keywords: juvenile delinquency, homicide, media

INTRODUCTION On October 13, 1994, two boys, 10- and 11-years-old, dropped Eric Morse, 5-years-old, to his death from a 14th-floor window in a Chicago housing project (Page, 1998). The young boy refused to steal candy for the older boys, so they lured him into the apartment building to kill him. It was an important local crime event that also received considerable attention in the national news media and was cited by politicians to promote policy change. Moreover, it was one of several sensationalized incidents involving young juvenile offenders that were linked together to promote general concern about the increasing violent nature of youth in society. The public and policymakers were enraged. The local and national media sensationalized these incidents, but also had the opportunity to ask several important questions about this new crime wave. The media could have asked: how did we let urban centers deteriorate to such a level that 10- and 11- year-old boys are choosing life in a gang? What social programs and policy exist and what should be introduced to respond effectively to youth violence? How could this happen at the birthplace of the juvenile court and what happened to its rehabilitative ideal? The media did not ask these questions and instead helped promote get-tough youth crime policy. For example, in a January 22, 1996 issue of Newsweek, a reporter discussed the Chicago case under

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the headline: “Should we cage the new breed of vicious kids?” Other stories argued that the rise in youth violence was only the “lull before the storm” and that teenagers were like wild animals in the street (see Brownstein, 2000: 111-113). Although available statistical evidence showed that national crime rates were declining, the media told a very different story and a moral panic on youth violence emerged. One of the issues that increased the momentum of this panic was the creation of the “juvenile super-predator.” Several academics were responsible for creating and promoting this notion of an impulsively dangerous youth with a very sexy moniker. Professor John Dilulio and colleagues wrote: "Based on all that we have witnessed, researched and heard from people who are close to the action," … "here is what we believe: America is now home to thickening ranks of juvenile 'super-predators' -- radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more pre-teenage boys, who murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, join gun-toting gangs and create serious communal disorders" (Bennett, Dilulio, & Walters, 1996: 27). Other academics, like James Fox from Northeastern University, similarly supported and promoted this myth by arguing that the juveniles of the 1990s had “more dangerous drugs in their bodies, more deadly weapons in their hands, and a seemingly more casual attitude about violence” (Fox, 1996: 2) than those of previous generations.

Although Dilulio has since admitted that his position about the emergence of the super-predator was incorrect (Becker, 2001), this moral panic led to significant change in policy and public opinion. Julian Roberts’ (2004: 495-497; 500) important work in this area discusses how the public subscribes to a number of misconceptions about youth violence and how the criminal justice system has become increasingly punitive with youth. He finds that people “tend to overestimate the volume of crime for which juveniles are responsible,” “overestimate the seriousness and proportion of juvenile crime involving violence,” and believe that crimes rates are increasing (p. 500-501). He also discusses how almost all states passed legislation in the 1990s allowing juvenile transfers to adult court, that 40 states send juveniles to adult prisons, and an increasing number of states have mandatory minimums for juvenile violent offenders (p. 496).

This article addresses whether the juvenile super-predator ideology has affected the

media’s portrayal of youth violence. We posit that the youth violence moral panic, which affected criminal justice policy, also has impacted how reporters cover homicides involving youth. In short, we believe that a “super-predator news frame” (see Gilliam & Iyengar, 1998) continues to significantly influence how reporters cover youth homicide. Specifically, we suspect that youth homicides that match the “super-predator script” (i.e., impulsive and indiscriminant murders involving young teenagers) are much more likely to be presented in the press and receive more space compared to other juvenile homicides. We also think that juvenile homicide will be presented differently compared to adult homicides. We test these notions by examining media coverage of homicide in Newark, New Jersey.

PRIOR RESEARCH There is a large body of research examining content issues related to the presentation of

crime in the media. Most of this research has focused on how the news media cover crime, but scholarly interest in other media outlets, like popular television programs, films, and music

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continues to grow (Kubrin, 2005; Gerbner, 1972, Center for Communication and Social Policy, 1998; Rafter, 2000). Research in this area has revealed numerous important conclusions. First, studies have shown that crime is a staple of news and popular programming (Chermak, 1995a; 1995b; Graber, 1980; Klite, Bardwell, & Salzman, 1997; Maquire, Sandage, & Weatherby, 1999; Yanich, 2005). Research indicates that between 10 and 50 percent of news programming is of crime or crime-related stories. Klite et al.’s study (1997) of the presentation of crime in 56 cities found that crime was the top subject in local news. Similarly, the National Television Violence Survey (Center for Communication and Social Policy, 1998), which randomly sampled programs from 23 broadcast and cable channels during a 20 week period, concluded that 61 percent of television programs contain some violence. Second, research consistently shows that crime is distorted in favor of uncommon events—crimes that are least likely to occur are most likely to be emphasized in the press (Chermak, 1995a; 1995b; Davis, 1952; Ericson, Baranek & Chan, 1991; Graber, 1980; Jerrin & Fields, 1994). Murder, violence and bloody events are overrepresented, and minor crimes and white-collar events are ignored or deemphasized. In most cities where homicides occur with some frequency, research shows that anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of the news stories will be murder stories (Chermak, 1995a; 1995b; Gilliam & Iyengar, 2000). Moreover, crime coverage is also distorted in cities that lack a steady supply of violent crimes to fill local coverage (Chermak, 1995a.) Reporters in these locations tend to present the most serious crime available (thus, the least likely to occur), present sensational events from other locales, and dramatically display serious, violent crimes if and when they do occur. Third, crime stories are relatively easy to write, and reporters disproportionately rely on criminal justice sources, especially the police, when reconstructing the daily crime blotter (Chermak, 1998; Ericson, Baranek & Chan, 1989).

Most media research relies on classic content analysis. Specifically, stories from various

media will be sampled, the representation of various characteristics will be coded, and conclusions about the characteristics of crime, victims, and defendants presented in the news will be made. When using this methodology, researchers commonly conclude that the media distort crime coverage by comparing news content to aggregate statistics about crime. Some studies, for example, will compare the crimes emphasized in the news to Uniform Crime Report statistics. Although such studies have built an important foundation of understanding on how crime is presented to the public, this approach is limited for several reasons. First, most crime stories provide only limited information about incidents. A story will usually include a brief description of the circumstances of the event, some characteristics of the victim and defendant, and the status of the case. Much information is excluded from these stories and thus the content analyst is often left with a lot of missing data. For example, race can only be reliably determined when a picture is included because most crime stories do not reference the race of the victim or defendant. Not having racial characteristics is a significant problem because research consistently indicates that it influences the salience and prominence of crime coverage (Chermak & Weiss, 1998; Gilliam & Iyengar, 2000; Johnstone, Hawkins, & Michener, 1994; Pritchard, 1985). Second, the factors influencing media selection and production decisions, when relying only on a sample of news stories, must be inferred unless reporter and editorial decision-making processes are observed or individual case data is examined. It is impossible to determine how the cases that are covered are different from those that are excluded (Pritchard, 1985). Third, problems with aggregate statistics on crime are well-documented (Hammond, 1973), but these limitations are particularly troublesome for the content analyst. Newspaper reporters do not use the same definitions as police department. In addition, the reporting of incidents by the police do

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not always coincide (see Pritchard, 1985). A research approach that has been frequently used in the last ten years responds directly

to these concerns. Researchers have increasingly collected all available characteristics about a specific type of crime, usually homicide, that have occurred in a particular jurisdiction for a specific time frame. Because of increased electronic access to newspaper stories and television transcripts, the researcher then searches available databases for stories about each incident. Johnstone et al. (1994) provides an early example of this innovative approach. These researchers had access to data from the Chicago Police Department, and then examined what events were presented in two Chicago newspapers (the Tribune and Sun-Times). They concluded that the number of victims murdered, the method used to complete the incident, and the race of the victim increased the log odds of an incident being selected for news coverage. They found that the chances of a white murder victim being presented were two or four times greater than African Americans or Hispanics (Johnstone, et al., 1994: 867). The important contribution of this approach is that it refines our understanding of the factors that influence news selection decisions (was an incident covered or not?) and news production priorities (how much attention was given to an incident?) (see Chermak & Weiss, 1998; Johnstone, Hawkins, & Michener, 1994; Paulsen, 2003; Peelo, Francis, Soothill, Pearson, & Ackerley, 2004; Sorenson, Peterson, & Berk, 1998).

Although there has been a lot of research examining the presentation of crime in the news

and increasing attention to comparing the actual occurrence of incidents to their presentation in the news, there has been surprisingly little research examining the presentation of juveniles in crime stories (see Boulahanis & Heltsley, 2004; Buttrum, 1998; Dorfman, Woodruff, Chavez & Wallack, 1997; Feld, 1995; Sprott, 1996; Yanich, 2005). Most of this research has used the traditional content analysis approach for understanding the presentation of juveniles in crime stories—documenting what is presented about juveniles in news stories and comparing it to what is presented about adults involved in crime. Yanich’s (2005) conclusions are representative of what is known about juveniles in crime stories. In this study, a content analysis of television broadcasts in 20 television markets was used to compare the presentation of adult to “KidsCrime” (stories where the victim or suspect was under 18-years-old). The sample included over 7,600 stories from 559 television broadcasts, and approximately 1,700 of these stories focused on crime issues (p. 107). First, this study concludes that crime is an important topic, accounting for 27 percent of the stories and 26 percent of the broadcast time (p. 111). Second, most of the stories focused on adult suspects or victims. Only 31 percent of the stories included a juvenile as a suspect, victim, or both (p. 112). Third, adult and KidsCrime stories were emphasized similarly—8 of 10 stories appeared within the first block of stories in a newscast and was usually the first story of a newscast (p. 113). Fourth, both types of stories tended to be included in a block with at least three other crime stories and were presented similarly. Fifth, criminal justice sources were the main source cited in both types of stories. Sixty-three percent of KidsCrime stories and 65 percent of adult crimes included a criminal justice official as a news source.

Moreover, several differences in how adult and KidsCrime stories were presented. First,

juveniles were much more likely to be presented as victims than perpetrators. Second, 28 percent of the adult crime stories focused on murder. In contrast, over 50 percent of KidsCrime stories focused on murder. Third, male offenders and stranger crimes were more prominent in

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adult stories, and juveniles, when in the news, were much more likely to be presented as victims than offenders. Based on these findings, Yanich (2005:130) concludes: “The KidsCrime stories perpetuated the notion that juveniles live in a violent and dangerous world…[a]nd we support public policies that are based on that understanding, even if we do not recognize the connection.”

Like so much research in this area, Yanich compares the media’s representation of juvenile crime to FBI data for each county in a designated market area (p. 108), and concludes that the presentation of crime in the news is distorted—that the presentation of crime is not in proportion to its prevalence (p. 121). This approach, however, is limited because it does not compare crime incidents with what the media portrays. There is one article about juvenile crime in the news that compares the actual incidence of crime to the media’s presentation (Boulahanis & Heltsley, 2004). Although the primary focus of this study is how media consumption impacts levels of fear of crime, Boulahanis and Heltsley also examine the factors that increase the likelihood that a homicide story is presented in the news. In this study, full-text articles were collected from the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, and the stories were linked to homicide data from the Chicago Police Department. They found that the most significant predictor of juvenile crime coverage was the age of the offender and victim—cases with young offenders were more likely to be covered (p. 142). In fact, there was nearly a 28 percent decrease in the odds of receiving coverage for every year increase in offender age (p. 143). Similarly, homicides involving young victims were significantly more likely to be covered. Homicides with victims less than 14-years-old were nearly 500 percent more likely to be covered compared to victims 20 to 29 years old (p. 144). Homicides with Caucasian offenders, female offenders, and female victims were more likely to receive newspaper coverage. Geographic location also impacted the likelihood of news coverage, but the type of weapon did not.

The present study fills several gaps in the extant research. First, past research on the presentation of crime in the media has generally ignored how juveniles are presented in crime stories. This gap is surprising considering current concern about youth violence, gangs, and gun use among youth by policymakers and community leaders. Second, we use the approach that has increasingly been used to study homicide, but also other types of crime such as terrorism (Chermak & Gruenewald, 2007). Specifically, we examine media coverage of all homicides that occurred in Newark, New Jersey between 1997 and 2004. An online newspaper database was searched for any story written about all of the homicides that occurred during this time frame using various keyword combinations. For each incident, we have identified whether any story was presented about that incident in the media, and how many articles and words were written about it. Although the Boulahanis and Heltsley (2004) article used a similar approach,1 this research extends their work by examining a significant number of control variables and multiple measures of media salience (Boulahanis and Heltsley only examined if a story was covered or not).

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESES Construction of News stories It is important to acknowledge the bureaucratic routines inherent to the construction of the news (Chermak, 1995a; Gans, 1979; Tuchman, 1973). Most news organizations are hierarchally structured--organizational policies are constructed by management but interpreted in the field by reporters. Reporters are line-level employees of bureaucratic organizations, and rely primarily on bureaucratically-affiliated officials for the information contained in news stories.

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When a reporter is charged with constructing a crime story about the beginning stages of the criminal justice process, he or she gathers information provided by police officials (Chermak, 1997; Ericson, Baranek & Chan, 1991; Sherizen, 1978).

Crime reporters produce several stories during each work session in order to fill the crime

“news hole.” Reporters learn the importance of certain types of news story, as well as an easy process to appropriately construct such stories efficiently, primarily through their interactions with editors and more senior reporters. These media personnel use subtle cues to teach rookie reporters, often whose first assignment is the police beat, the news values of the organization. These cues might include placing a reporter’s story on the back pages, excluding a story from presentation, or asking the reporter to rewrite a story multiple times (Ericson, Baranek, & Chan, 1989). Efficiency pressures also promote a reliance on information provided by specific individuals or organizational representatives like police and political officials. These individuals, although able to satisfy the need for information, use these interactions as opportunities to manufacture positive publicity for the organization they represent and provide only certain types of information (Chermak & Weiss, 2005; Schlesinger & Tumber, 1994).

It is our contention that the factors discussed above result in the development of a shared

understanding among workers about what is newsworthy about crime. Reporters have general expectations about what is newsworthy about crime, and seriousness of the event is an important factor that influences whether a story is covered and how it is presented. Violent crimes, especially murders, are high priority news items. Crimes involving such significant personal harm cross over an initial threshold into an arena where news personnel struggle over how much news value to assign to that event. Consequently, there is variation in the extent of coverage homicides receive from news organizations. For example, some homicides are not covered by news organization, while some are given a two-paragraph overview, and others are front-page stories that are covered dramatically. This lead to the question: when all crimes are equally serious, what other factors influence how events are covered and described in the news?

Although the media workers’ immediate goal is the production of a news story, these

general expectations provide an efficient means to organize their work and provide an easy way to decide the work pattern that flows from that categorization. It is also our contention that, because of these expectations, not all homicides are approached in the same manner by reporters. That is, reporters first acknowledge that a homicide is worth covering, but then must decide what “story” to tell about that incident. For example, we expect that juvenile homicides will be presented differently than adult homicides, and a different set of factors will determine whether a juvenile homicide is covered and the amount of space it receives.

The Super-predator Myth The super-predator ideology depicts a new breed of juveniles who are impulsive, short sighted, violent, aggressive, and incapable of concerning themselves with the feelings of others. It emerged in the mid 1990s as a response to the increase in violent crime that the United States experienced during the 1980s and early 1990s. Dilulio was at the forefront in the promotion and widespread dissemination of this ideology (see Bennett, Dilulio, & Walters, 1996; Dilulio, 1995). He based this myth on research done by James Fox (see Fox, 1996), and sensationalized youth violence news stories such as the murder of Eric Morse. Fox (1996) employed Supplementary Homicide Report data to demonstrate an increase in the involvement of juveniles

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in homicides. The findings showed an alarming increase of 172 percent in juvenile murders (i.e., cases involving 14- to 17-year-olds) from 1985 to 1994. Among the most affected youths were black males who even though only comprised slightly more than 1 percent of the population, accounted for 17 percent of victims and 30 percent of offenders. His findings also indicated that the onset of violent crime among juveniles had reached an all time low of 14 years of age. Dilulio and his colleagues attempted to explain this rise in youth violence by positing that this increase was due to a new breed of juveniles who they referred to as super-predators.

Dilulio nor his colleagues never clearly defined what a super-predator was or exactly

what caused juveniles to adopt a super-predator mentality. They simply vaguely characterized these juveniles as predators who “do not value human life,” “live by the meanest code of the street,” “seek immediate gratification,” “commit crimes for trivial reasons,” “join gun-toting gangs,” “are capable of committing the most heinous crimes in society,” and “do not fear the threat of punishment” (Bennett et al., 1996: 26-29). They argued that these super-predators come from “criminogenic communities” in which there is a lack of positive role models. Consequently, the root cause for the super-predator epidemic, according to them, is moral poverty. Moral poverty, which they defined as “being without loving, capable, responsible adults who teach you right from wrong” (Bennett et al., 1996: 56), causes children to become super-predators during their teenage years. Research Hypotheses

There is limited access to juvenile records and juvenile court proceedings, and thus, juvenile crime is rarely presented in the news. Homicides, however, are “fair game.” Thus, like others who have compared juvenile to adult crime coverage, our expectation is that the intensity of coverage—the average number of words and articles written about homicides involving juvenile offenders and or juvenile victims will be significantly greater compared to adult homicides. In addition, we suspect that the moral panic involving super-predators discussed earlier has impacted reporter expectations about juvenile offenders, and that juvenile super-predator stories will be treated differently than other juvenile homicide stories and adult homicide stories.

In light of our assumptions, we test the following “super-predator” propositions in this article. First, an important element of this myth is that children are becoming increasingly violent. We expect that homicides involving very young offenders will receive significantly more attention and space by the news media. Second, the super-predator script indicates that juveniles are capable of committing brutal, unspeakable acts of homicide. We therefore expect that homicides with multiple victims, occuring as a result of shocking/rare motives, or that are carried out using particularly heinous methods will receive more attention and space. Third, because the juvenile “super-predator” was depicted in the press as being a remorseless thug, we expect that juvenile gang and drug-related homicides are important variables predicting coverage of juvenile but not adult homicides. That is, the classic “drug deal that went bad” crime story will decrease in importance when adults are involved, but will increase when juveniles are involved. Finally, an important element of this myth is race of the offender--“The clear but unspoken subtext of the super-predator thesis is that a disproportionate number of criminal youth are from racial minority groups” (Gilliam & Iyengar, 1998: 45). Thus, we anticipate that homicides involving minority juvenile offenders to be prominently displayed in the media. In

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contrast, we do not expect that suspect race will impact adult homicide stories.

DATA AND METHODS Data

This study examines newspaper coverage of all homicides occurring in Newark, New Jersey between 1997 and 2004. The analysis portion of this study is based on two sources of data. The first source of data consists of information about homicide incidents gathered from Newark Police Department (NPD) homicide investigation files. These files contained rich detail about the homicide incident (i.e., date, time, incident address, premise, motive, weapon used, relationship between victim and offender), victim (i.e., demographic information, employment status, gang affiliation, past criminal history), and suspect(s) (i.e., demographic information, employment status, gang affiliation, past criminal history). A data collection protocol and instrument helped ensure that researchers captured this information in a consistent manner. As part of the data collection process researchers also created a narrative account for each incident describing the circumstances that led to the homicide, detailing how it occurred, and providing information on the victim and suspect(s). The researchers then coded from the narratives the precipitating factors for the murder, which include the motive and other related activities that led to the occurrence of the incident.

The unit of analysis for this study is the homicide incident. A small number of incidents

that would not necessarily be considered homicides, such as vehicular homicides, are included in the dataset because they were initially considered homicides by police, and thus, also by crime reporters. Overall, the data consist of 572 homicide incidents that occurred from January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2004. Twenty-four (4 percent) of these incidents have multiple homicide victims. There are twenty-two double homicides, one triple, and one quadruple, which result in a total of 599 homicide victims. Due to the unit of analysis being the homicide incident and the scarcity of cases that have multiple victims, only the information of the first victim identified by police in the double, triple, and quadruple homicides was used in the analyses. Police identified a suspect in 447 of the 572 homicide incidents. Of these cases, 127 (28 percent) involve multiple suspects. Similar to Tita and Griffiths (2005), only the information of the “primary suspect” was used in these incidents. That is, the person identified by police as the most responsible (e.g., the trigger person) for the death of the victim(s) was included in the analyses. In the cases where the role of the suspect was inconclusive, the individual first identified by police and charged with the homicide was coded as the primary suspect.

The second source of data consists of all newspaper articles written about each homicide

occurrence in The Star-Ledger, Newark’s daily newspaper. We chose to search for homicide stories in The Star-ledger because it is by far the most widely read daily in Newark and the surrounding areas. The design for this study allowed us to link specific homicides to all news articles that may have been written about them in the local newspaper. Information from homicide narratives such as names of homicide victims and suspects functioned as keywords that were inputted into Access World News from NewsBank, an online searchable database that provides access to all The Star-Ledger news stories since 1996. Searching for homicide news coverage in the online news archive made it possible to identify which homicide occurrences received news media attention and which were ignored by the news media. For those homicides that were covered by The Star-Ledger, all articles were collected and a number of content categories were coded in order to capture how prominently homicide news stories were

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displayed. Measures

Dependent Variables We measure news media selection and prominence decisions with several dependent

variables. Our first dependent variable is binary-coded and measures whether or not a homicide was covered by The Star-Ledger (0=not covered, 1=covered,). Approximately 59 percent of all homicides investigated by the NPD were covered by The Star-Ledger between 1997 and 2004. For those homicides that were reported by The Star-Ledger we also measure how prominently the news story was displayed by noting whether or not the story appeared on the front page (0=not front page, 1=front page). Between 1997 and 2004 only 2.3 percent of all homicides that were covered by The Star-Ledger during this time received front-page coverage.

Consistent with past research we also measure news story prominence by counting the

total number of newspaper articles and total number of words written about each homicide incident. In addition, we categorize types of articles and words depending on the primary focus of the news story’s content. The first type of newspaper article collected are stories specifically addressing the homicide occurrence or, in other words, the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the incident throughout the criminal justice process. We refer to these articles as “incident articles” (see Chermak & Gruenewald, 2006). The second type of homicide news stories collected are referred to as “policy articles”, and consist of articles whose primary focus does not pertain solely to specific homicide occurrences, though the articles mention an incident briefly in some capacity. Examples of policy articles would consist of news stories discussing trends in homicide occurrences or anti-violence policy initiatives, but an incident may be referred to in these stories. News media and other social claimsmakers may use specific homicide incidents to push for stricter law enforcement, the redistribution of community resources, or increased community involvement in an effort to combat violent crime. By collecting policy articles it is possible to examine which types of homicide occurrences are more likely to be used by social claimsmakers in this way.

Independent Variables The independent variables used in the analyses are presented in Table 1. We include

several measures to test the impact of the super-predator characteristics identified by Dilulio and his colleagues (see Bennett et al., 1996) and control for various other independent variables found to be important in previous media studies. The super-predator variables (suspect age, suspect race, number of victims killed, incident weapon, and motive) were developed to test the hypotheses stated earlier. The average suspect age for all incidents is 26.13, for incidents with adult suspects is 27.97, and for the offenses involving juvenile suspects (18 and younger) is 16.82. The youngest homicide suspect is nine-years-old and the oldest is sixty-eight-years-old. Overall, there are 373 adult and 74 juvenile suspects in the data set. Race is a dichotomous variable (0=Non-Black; 1=Black). The vast majority of suspects (66 percent for all incidents and 85 percent for adult and juvenile incidents) are Black.

We created three variables to measure the heinousness of the offense: number of

homicide victims, weapon, and motive. The average number of victims killed in an incident was 1.05 for all incidents, 1.06 for adult, and 1.04 for juvenile. Weapon is dichotomous variable

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(0=Other, 1=Gun). Sixty-six percent of all homicides and approximately 61 percent of adult and juvenile homicides were committed with a gun.

Motive refers to the primary reason that caused the offender to act against the victim.2

This variable is coded into five dummy variables: domestic, drug/gang, interpersonal dispute, robbery, and other, with domestic serving as the reference category. The domestic homicide category includes incidents that resulted from child abuse by parents or family members, spousal abuse, disputes between intimates or ex-intimates over their relationship and/or breakups, revenge over infidelities and sexual jealousy, and disputes between family members over family matters. Drug and Gang homicides are defined as incidents that occurred because of sales or distribution of narcotics and/or other illegal drugs or homicides that occurred in order to further the interests of a gang (e.g., dispute over turf, colors, a gang initiation, internal conflict within a gang for power, or rivalry between two or more different gangs). Interpersonal dispute incidents involve non-domestic and non-drug murders that resulted from an argument, physical altercation, or the victim/offender wanting to get even for a past altercation. Robbery homicides refer to non-drug incidents that resulted from the suspect’s attempt to take by force money or other material goods from the victim. A fifth category consists of any remaining homicides types not fitting the aforementioned categories.3 Of the 572 homicide incidents, 78 (13.6 percent) are domestic, 108 (18.9 percent) are drug or gang, 143 (25 percent) are interpersonal dispute, 51 (8.9 percent) are robbery, 68 (11.9 percent) were caused by other factors, and in 125 (21.9 percent) the motive is unknown because police have not identified a suspect in the case. When looking specifically at the adult and juvenile incidents some small differences are evident. Adult homicides are more likely to occur due to interpersonal disputes (33 percent), followed by drug/gang (24.9 percent), domestic issues (18.2 percent), other motives (14.2 percent), and robberies (9.9 percent). Juveniles, on the other hand, most often kill as a result of interpersonal disputes (27 percent), followed by drug/gang and other motives (20.3 percent), robberies (18 percent), and domestic issues (13.5 percent).

The rest of the suspect, victim, and incident variables included in Table 1 are control

variables. The suspect characteristics include gender and an illegal activities scale. Most suspects were male. Involvement in illegal activities is a scale variable that ranges from 0 to 4, and is based on criminal record, involvement in the drug business, a gang, and/or other illegal activities (e.g., prostitution). If the person did not have a criminal history and was not involved in any illegal activities a value of 0 was assigned. Conversely, if he/she had a criminal history and engaged in the remaining 3 indicators a 4 was assigned. On average the suspects in each of the categories (i.e., all cases, adult suspect, and juvenile suspects) scored a 1 in the scale.

The victim variables include gender, race, age, and involvement in illegal activities.

Gender and race are dichotomous variables (0=female, 1=male; 0=Non-Black, 1=Black). Overall, 84 percent of the victims were male, 80 percent were Black, the average age was 30-years-old, and their illegal activity scale score was an average of one. These characteristics are similar across all, adult suspect, and juvenile suspect incidents.

Three incident variables are tested. First, we examine victim-offender-relationship

(VOR). Two dummy variables were created, and family/intimate relationship served as the reference category. Twenty-one percent of the incidents involved strangers, 44.6 percent involved friends and/or acquaintances, 12.4 percent were family homicides (i.e. incidents

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involving intimate partners and family members). Twenty-two percent of the incidents have an unknown VOR particularly because a suspect has not been identified by police. The disaggregated figures by adult and juvenile incidents reveal similar findings. Second, we identified whether the crime occurred inside a private establishment (e.g., residence, bar, store) or outside in a public venue (e.g., street, parking lot, open field). Nearly 30 percent of the incidents occurred inside in the three homicide type categories examined. Third, four dummy variables were created to examine the impact of mode (i.e., the manner in which the homicide was carried out): face-to-face incidents, walk-by incidents, drive-by incidents, and an other category.4 The walk-by category serves as the reference category. Most homicides were classified as face-to-face incidents, that is the victim and suspect were verbally communicating at the time of the incident, in all three homicide types.

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Table 1: Independent Variable Description

All Incidents

(N = 572)

Adult Suspect

(N = 373)

Juvenile Suspect

(N = 74)

Super-Predator Variables N Mean/(SD) or % N Mean/(SD) or % N Mean/(SD) or %

Suspect Age 447 26.13 (9.02) 373 27.97 (8.75) 74 16.82 (1.47) Suspect Race Non-Black Black Unknown*

66 381 125

11.5% 66.6% 21.9%

55 318 --

14.7% 85.3%

--

11 63 --

14.9% 85.1%

-- Weapon Other Weapon Gun

194 378

33.9% 66.1%

143 230

38.3% 61.7%

29 45

39.2% 60.8%

Motive Domestic** Drug/Gang Interpersonal Dispute Robbery Other Unknown*

77 108 143 51 68 125

13.4% 18.9% 25.0% 8.9% 11.9% 21.9%

67 93 123 37 53 --

18.0% 24.9% 33.0% 9.9% 14.2%

--

10 15 20 14 15 --

13.5% 20.3% 27.0% 18.9% 20.3%

-- # Victims Killed 572 1.05 (.24) 373 1.06 (.28) 74 1.04 (.20)

Control Variables

Suspect Gender Female Male Unknown*

24 461 87

4.2% 80.6% 15.2%

21 352 --

5.6% 94.4%

--

3 71 --

4.1% 95.9%

-- Suspect Illegal Scale 447 1.65 (.95) 373 1.68 (.94) 74 1.49 (.95) Victim Gender Female Male

92 480

16.1% 83.9%

58 315

15.5% 84.5%

13 61

17.6% 82.4%

Victim Race Non-Black Black Unknown*

111 460 1

19.4% 80.4% .2%

73 300 --

19.6% 80.4%

--

14 60 --

18.9% 81.1%

-- Victim Age 571 29.65 (12.95) 373 30.85 (13.77) 74 25.05 (11.25) Victim Illegal Scale 565 1.28 (.97) 373 1.26 (.98) 1.04 (.99) VOR Family/Intimate Partner** Friend/Acquaintance Stranger Unknown*

71 255 121 125

12.4% 44.5% 21.2% 21.9%

60 213 100 --

16.1% 57.1% 26.8%

--

11 42 21 --

14.9% 56.7% 28.4%

--

Location Outside Inside Unknown*

412 159 1

72.0% 27.8% .2%

248 125 --

66.5% 33.5%

--

53 21 --

71.6% 28.4%

--

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Mode Face-to-Face Walk-By** Drive-By Other Mode Unknown*

365 69 39 51 48

63.8% 12.1% 6.8% 8.9% 8.4%

277 48 17 31 --

74.3% 12.9% 4.5% 8.3%

--

57 6 -- 11 --

77.0% 8.1%

-- 14.9%

-- * Not Included in analysis ** Reference category


FINDINGS Table 2 presents descriptive data of the amount of media coverage received by the Newark homicides. Data are presented for all homicides (i.e., all incidents investigated by Newark Police Department), for homicides involving a juvenile suspect or a juvenile victim, and for homicides involving an adult suspect or an adult victim. In general, approximately 60 percent of all Newark homicides were provided at least some coverage in the Newark newspaper, but only about 2 percent appeared on the front page.5 On average, a homicide had about two articles and 1,300 words written about it. Incident stories received about 502 words and stories that include discussion of a policy issue had about 77 words.

A good starting point for our assessment of whether homicides involving juveniles are presented differently in the media is an assessment of whether these incidents receive significantly more coverage and space. Fifty-eight percent of homicides involving juvenile suspects, 62 percent of homicides involving adult suspects, 62 percent of homicides involving juvenile victims, and 59 percent of homicides involving adult victims were covered, and a similar percentage of these homicides were presented on the front page. Although a somewhat higher percentage of homicides involving juvenile victims were covered, there were no significant differences comparing the homicide types (juvenile suspect v. adult suspect; juvenile victim v. adult victim). However, homicides involving juvenile victims received significantly more articles (p=.001), words (p=.001), specific incident words (p=.01), and policy words (p=.001). For example, homicides involving adult victims received only modest coverage: 1.35 articles and 828 words. Rarely were these homicides included when reporters discuss policy-related issues. In contrast, homicides involving juvenile victims received, on average, nearly 6 articles and 4,957 words. The results are not as dramatic when examining differences in coverage for the adult and juvenile suspect cases, but juvenile suspect cases still receive significantly more words (p=.05), articles (p=.05), and incident words (p=.05). Adult suspect homicides receive about 1.6 articles, 1,034 words, 460 incident words, and 78 words in policy stories. Juvenile suspect homicides receive nearly 4.8 articles, over 3,900 words, 1,309 specific incident words, and 137 policy words.

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Table 2: Coverage and Salience Comparisons of Adult and Juvenile Suspects and Victims

N %

Covered % Front

Page Total

Words Total

Articles Incident Words

Policy Words

All Cases 572 59 2 1303.55 1.86 502.88 77.52

All Suspect Cases 447 61 3 1520.17 2.14 601.00 88.27

Juvenile Victim (18 or younger)

66 62 4 4957.54 5.75 1573.36 172.24

Adult Victim 505 59 2 828.58 1.35 363.98 65.30

Juvenile Suspect (18 or younger)

74 58 3 3969.20 4.81 1309.33 137.5

Adult Suspect 373 62 3 1034.30 1.60 460.47 78.50

Media Coverage & Salience Given the research questions posed, these analyses focus only on the 447 homicides in the dataset where police have identified a suspect. Two challenges influenced how we approached the statistical analyses. First, there were several variables that posed collinearity problems. For example, total number of articles that mention the incident and total number of words in these articles are correlated. Similarly, incident specific articles are correlated with incident specific words, and policy articles are correlated with policy words. As a result, we collapsed these six measures into three variables - rate of total coverage, rate of specific coverage, and rate of policy coverage. Rate of total coverage was created by dividing total words written about the incident by total articles written about the incident; rate of specific coverage was created by dividing specific words written about the incident by specific number of articles written about the incident; and policy rate was calculated by dividing total number of policy words written about the incident by total policy articles that mention the incident.

Second, although the overall number of homicides is relatively large, there were only a

small number of homicides involving juvenile suspects. Consequently, our approach for the analyses was to test the impacts of the super-predator variables first in each model. We then eliminated those variables that were not statistically significant and tested the suspect, the victim, and then the incident control variables. The final equations include the variables that achieved statistical significance in the first stage of these analyses.

Media Coverage Three logistic regression models were estimated (see Table 3) in order to test whether

juvenile incidents fitting the super-predator script are more likely to receive media coverage than those that do not. The first and second models examine the variables associated with the media coverage for all incidents where a suspect was identified by police (Model 1) and adult suspect

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incidents (Model 2). The purpose of these two models is to examine whether the variables that influence their coverage in the Star-Ledger differ from those of juvenile incidents. The third model examines the covariates of juvenile suspect homicides.

Model 1 (All Suspect) and Model 2 (Adult Suspect) are similar. Two super-predator variables emerge significant in these models - suspect race and number of victims killed. Contrary to our hypothesis that suspect race will not have an impact on the coverage of adult incidents, the models indicate that this variable indeed has an effect. The models suggest that non-black suspects are more likely to get more media coverage than black suspects. This finding concurs with those of previous research (e.g., Boulahanis & Heltsley, 2004). Number of victims killed has a positive effect in the model suggesting that as the number of victims increase so does the amount of media coverage. This finding is not surprising since previous studies (e.g., Paulsen, 2003; Peelo et al., 2004; Sorenson et al., 1998) have also reported a similar pattern. A very different model emerges for the juvenile homicide cases. Unlike the previous models, gun, motive, suspect race, and victim age emerge as significant. Number of victims killed was not included in this model due to lack of variation. Only three of the juvenile suspect incidents involve multiple homicide victims, and all three cases received media coverage. Contrary to our hypotheses, homicides with black suspects were significantly less likely to be covered when compared to those with non-black suspects. The measures of offense heinousness emerged as significant, and lend partial support to our super-predator hypotheses. The findings suggest that juvenile suspect incidents carried out with a gun are significantly more likely to be covered by the Star-Ledger than those that are not. Drug, interpersonal dispute, robbery, and other motives have a negative effect in the model, indicating that when the reference category is domestic homicide, these incidents are less likely to be reported. This finding may be due to the fact that domestic homicides involving juvenile suspects are comprised of a mixture of parricides, fratricides, and child abuse cases. Finally, one control variable, victim age, is significant in the model indicating that as the age of the victim increases, the likelihood of coverage increases. Similar to motive, this may be due to the media attention that parricides and fratricides receive.

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Table 3: Media Coverage

All Suspect

(N = 447)

Adult Suspect

(N = 373)

Juvenile Suspect

(N = 74)

b b b

Super-Predator Variables

Suspect Age Suspect Race (Black) -.740* -.779** -2.898** # Victims Killed 1.487* 1.349** Weapon (Gun) 2.441*** Motive Drug/Gang Interpersonal Dispute Robbery Other

-3.402**

-4.508*** -2.846* -2.680*

Control Variables

Suspect Gender (Male) Suspect Illegal Scale .189 -.533 Victim Gender (Male) Victim Race (Black) Victim Age .075** Victim Illegal Scale VOR Friend/Acquaintance Stranger

Incident Location (Inside) Mode Face-to-Face Drive-by Other

-.454 -.576 -.529

Constant -.458 -.167 3.388** Model Chi-Square 14.937*** 15.447** 25.050*** R-Square .033 .041 .287

****p < .001, ***p < .01, **p < .05, *p < .10


Coverage Salience Two types of statistical procedure are used to examine the salience of newspaper coverage. For the juvenile suspect cases, ordinary least squares regression is used because diagnostics indicated that there were no problems with outlier cases. However, several outlier cases were present for the all incident analyses and the adult suspect analyses. This is a common problem in media studies using multivariate statistics. Consequently, the regression equations for all homicides and for the adult homicide cases were generated using robust regression—one technique that corrects for the problems with outlier cases.

Table 4 presents the results examining the salience of all, adult, and juvenile suspect

homicides. The most consistent predictor of media salience is the victim illegal scale variable. As victim scale score increases (i.e., involvement in drug, gang, other illegal activities, and criminal record) the amount of coverage decreases. This variable is significant in five of the nine models - the total coverage models and specific coverage models for all homicides; the total coverage model and specific coverage for the adult homicides, and specific coverage model for juvenile homicides. It is interesting that most of the other control and super-predator variables are not statistically significant in almost all of the other equations.

The results provide only weak support for the influence of the super-predator

phenomenon on the media coverage of juvenile homicides. Interestingly, although age did not have an influence on whether a case is covered by the Star-Ledger or not, when juvenile cases are covered by the media age significantly predicts the amount of coverage the incident receives. The models suggest that as suspect’s age increases, total coverage decreases. Thus, the media give much more attention to homicides involving younger suspects. None of the other super-predator variables influenced coverage of the juvenile homicide cases, but two control variables, victim race and victim illegal scale have an inverse relationship with the amount of total and specific coverage the incidents receive.

Contrary to our hypotheses, the super-predator variables showed a stronger effect in the

all suspect and adult suspect models. Number of victims killed showed a significant effect in the specific coverage model of all suspect cases and in the specific coverage model of adult cases. As the number of victims killed increases so does the total and specific coverage. Robberies were modestly significant in the specific coverage model of all cases and the specific coverage model of adult cases showing that when robbery incidents are covered by the media they receive significantly more specific coverage when compared to domestic homicides. In addition, other motive was statistically significant in the all suspect specific coverage model and in the adult suspect total coverage and specific coverage models. Like robberies these incidents received significantly more attention compared to domestic homicides. One possible explanation of this is that these incidents are comprised of a combination of vehicular homicides involving stolen cars, witness tampering, and non typical cases of self-defense.

A handful of control variables were also statistically significant in the all and adult

suspect models. Suspect illegal involvement is significant in the policy coverage models of all and adult suspect cases suggesting that incidents with suspects that do not engage in illegal activities receive more policy coverage. Similarly, victim gender is significant in the policy coverage model of all suspect cases, suggesting that incidents with female victims are more

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likely to receive policy coverage. Finally, friend/acquaintance homicides receive significantly more policy words compared to the domestic homicide incidents.


Table 4: Media Salience

All Suspect (N = 447) Adult Suspect (N = 373) Juvenile Suspect (N = 74)

Total coverage

Specific Coverage

Policy Coverage

Total coverage

Specific Coverage

Policy Coverage

Total coverage

Specific Coverage

Policy Coverage

Super-Predator Variables Suspect Age 1.0 .86 -79.4** -111.4**** Suspect Race (Black) # Victims Killed 53.7 109.9*** 114.4*** Weapon (Gun) Motive Drug/Gang Interpersonal Dispute Robbery Other

14.8 -1.9

98.2* 103.1**

81.7 44.3 47.0

156.7**

17.4 3.3 150.4** 132.3**

Control Variables Suspect Gender (Male) 109.8 Suspect Illegal Scale -14.2*** -22.3**** Victim Gender (Male) 41.4*** 17.0 Victim Race (Black) -59.9 -140.7** Victim Age Victim Illegal Scale -57.3*** -71.4**** -46.9** -78.2**** -75.4*** VOR Friend Stranger

48.9**

36.7

Incident Location (Inside) Mode Face-to-Face Drive-by Other

18.6 43.8 33.9

Constant 378.02**** 398.1**** 88.6**** 556.9**** 323.7**** 107.23**** 1885.29*** 2502.08**** F 2.61** 7.97**** 3.65*** 2.11 6.97**** 5.31**** 5.11** 14.56**** R2 .09 .54

****p < .001, ***p < .01, **p < .05, *p < .10


DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION The focus of the present inquiry centered on answering whether the super-predator moral panic, which led to significant changes in criminal justice policy and public opinion in the late 1990s, has an impact on the media’s portrayal of youth homicide. We hypothesized that youth homicides that match the super-predator script are more likely to be presented in the press and receive more coverage space compared to other juvenile homicide types. We also expected that homicides involving juveniles are presented differently when compared to homicides involving adult suspects.

Overall, our findings suggest that a similar percentage of adult and juvenile suspect

homicides were covered by the media. However, when juvenile homicides are covered, they receive more attention than those involving adults. To our surprise, the hypotheses testing whether juvenile homicides that fit the super-predator script receive more media attention than those that do not only yielded moderate support. Only two of our four hypotheses were supported by the analyses. First, contrary to our expectations, juvenile age was not a significant covariate of whether the homicide was covered in the Star-Ledger. This variable was only significant in explaining the amount of coverage the incident receives by the media when they are reported. When juvenile cases are covered by the media, the amount of coverage the homicide receives increases as the age of the suspect decreases. In terms of homicide heinousness, we found that juvenile incidents that have multiple victims are always covered in the Star-Ledger. Incidents involving rare motives that are generally regarded as taboos in our society are also more likely to receive media coverage. Juvenile homicides involving the murder of their parents, siblings, and their children (i.e., child abuse) are more likely to receive coverage than any other motive. This finding goes hand and hand with previous studies that suggest that the least frequent homicides are the ones that get the most attention. As the descriptive findings show, domestic homicides are the least likely murder to occur when a juvenile is the suspect. Homicides committed with firearms are also more likely to be covered by the media than those involving other weapons. Our last two hypotheses did not receive any support in the analyses. Contrary to our expectations, juvenile gang and drug homicides did not receive more media coverage than those involving other motives. Instead, as it was mentioned previously they received less coverage than domestic murders. Additionally, murders involving non-black suspects were also more likely to receive media attention than those involving blacks. This finding may be due to the rarity of non-black suspects in Newark. The majority of suspects in the city (approximately 85 percent) are black.

The analyses also showed that there are some differences and similarities in the

covariates of media salience and coverage of adult and juvenile incidents. For example, one of the similarities that emerges between these two homicide types is that non-black suspect incidents are more likely to be reported by the press. Cases where the victim was involved in illegal/deviant lifestyles also receive less attention when covered. Additionally, the least common murders in both types of homicides were the most covered by the media. Conversely, robbery and other motives receive more media attention in adult and overall homicide incidents, but not in those involving juveniles. Suspect illegal scale, victim gender, and VOR are also important covariates of media coverage of overall and adult homicides, but not of juvenile incidents.

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Taken as a whole our findings concur with previous studies that suggest that media

portrayal of homicide is skewed towards the rarest events (e.g., Chermak, 1995a; Davis, 1952; Ericson, Baranek & Chan, 1991; Graber, 1980; Jerrin & Fields, 1994). Domestic incidents involving juveniles, multiple victim murders, robberies, and those involving victims who were not involved in illegal or deviant activities are more likely to receive media attention even though the reality of homicides in Newark differs. Newark homicides are typically single victim incidents that occur as a result of interpersonal disputes between people who knew each other, and had some kind of involvement in deviant or illegal activities. This is problematic because if the media emphasize uncommon crimes, or unique elements of crime events, then the public may be left with a distorted picture of the crime problem where they live and elsewhere. Moreover, media images of crime may influence how the public live their lives, as well as their preferences for crime policy. For instance, the focus on unusual or particularly serious types of crime may increase the publics’ fear of crime (Chiricos, Eschholtz, & Gertz, 1997; Skogan and Maxfield. 1981) and encourage the public to accept punitive crime policies (Roberts, 2004; Tonry, 2004), such as the policies that emerged in the late 1990s as a response to the super-predator myth.

In conclusion, this inquiry joins only a handful of studies that focus on the media’s portrayal of juvenile homicides. Consequently, there are still various research questions that need further exploration in this area. First, the methods employed here should be replicated in other locales in order to determine how generalizable the findings are to other similar and dissimilar municipalities. Additionally, future studies should also take into account organizational factors in media outlets (e.g., number of reporters available) in order to understand if they affect the decisions of whether to cover a particular incident. Spatial factors would also be interesting to consider. Recent studies have shown that location of homicide incidents also influence the decision to cover the case by the press. Therefore, it would be interesting to test whether juvenile homicides that occur in some geographic locations (e.g., neighborhoods) receive more or varying types of coverage. Finally, a worthwhile research endeavor could involve examining how the media’s portrayal of youth homicide impacts the perception of the consumers of this information, and in turn how those perceptions influence the development of criminal justice policy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank the Newark Police Department for granting us access to their homicide data. We also would like to thank the Police Institute at Rutgers-Newark for facilitating the homicide data collection, and Eric Chapman II for helping in the collection of the media data.

NOTES

1 The article does not make clear how newspaper articles were collected. It appears that the articles were collected independently, and then linked to the homicide data. Instead of searching by name of the suspect and victims in the newspaper database, these researchers searched broadly using search terms like, “juvenile homicide” and “juvenile murder.”

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2 The information used to code the motive comes from a variety of sources such as witness testimonies, evidence obtained from the scene of the crime by police investigators, and confessions obtained from suspects. In cases where more than one motive may be gleaned, the initial or primary reason for the act was coded. That is, the reason that caused the offender to act against the victim. For example, a case where a suspect kills a victim during a drug robbery for the purpose of monetary gain by reselling the drugs or supplying a drug habit was classified as a drug case because the primary reason that the suspect acted against the victim was to obtain drugs. Another example can be seen in domestic cases. In particular, a murder resulting from a dispute between two individuals (e.g., current intimate partner and an ex-intimate partner) over an infidelity was coded as a domestic incident and not an interpersonal dispute because the suspect initially acted in relation to a domestic related matter. 3 Homicides in this category include: 27 vehicular homicides, 19 self-defense, 10 accidents, 9 witness tampering, 2 mental illness triggered cases, and 1 that occurred because the suspect was angry and needed to vent his frustration. All of the vehicular homicides involved stolen vehicles or people intoxicated with alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident. 4 The other category includes: 29 cases in which a motor vehicle was used as the weapon (27 of these are vehicular homicides), 21 shoot-outs, and 1 incident where fire was used. 5 Due to the scarcity of homicides covered in the front page of the Star-Ledger, a multivariate analysis of the covariates of this variable was not feasible.

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Documents

“Super-Predators” in the News: A Comparison of Adult and Juvenile