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American Government,
Seventh Edition
Alan R. Gitelson, Loyola University of Chicago
Robert L. Dudley, George Mason University
Melvin J. Dubnick, Rutgers University, Newark
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Myth Boxes
Murder, They Wrote
Among the most significant domestic policy issues for Americansduring the first half of the 1990s was crime. In the 1994 elections, 25percent of those who voted said crime was the issue that mattered mostto them, and of those voters more than half voted Republican. Crimerated consistently high among the American public's concerns in publicopinion polls throughout the first half of the 1990s. Of all majorissues, only the economy received as much public attention.
It is little wonder that both the White House and Congress werewilling to increase expenditures for law enforcement and prisons even asthey discussed cutting back on everything from highways to defense andwelfare.
What made this growing concern for crime interesting to manyobservers was that in recent years crime rates had declined for mostmajor categories of criminal activity. The crime rate for violent crimes(including murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) haddeclined slightly in recent years, while rates for crimes againstproperty (e.g., burglary, larceny—theft, motor vehicle theft) haddropped even more. Nevertheless, anxiety about crime continued to climb.We were, in one analyst's words, "doing better, but feeling worse."
There are many explanations for this seeming paradox. For one thing,while crime rates have been declining in recent years, the public'sfeelings probably reflect the significant increase in criminal activityover the past several decades. Violent crime rates had increased by morethan 40 percent between 1983 and 1992, and property crime had grown bynearly 6 percent during that same period. Between 1955 and 1995, thecrime rate for robberies increased sixfold. Such statistics arecertainly cause for concern. In addition, some analysts say that recentminor declines are due to the public being more cautious as a result oftheir growing fear of crime. They point to the fact that spending forprivate security in 1990 stood at $52 billion—a good deal more than the$20 billion spent on security by individuals and private sector firms in1980.
Some analysts, however, argue that the public's focus on the crimeissue has more to do with how that issue is portrayed in the popularmedia than what the reality is out on the streets. One detailedanalysis—by S. Robert Lichter, Linda Lichter, and Stanley Rothman—ofprime-time television shows aired since the mid-1950s concluded thatviolent crime "is far more pervasive on television than in real life. .. ." Between 1955 and 1964, for instance, there were 7 murders for every100 characters seen on television-a murder rate some 1,400 greater thanthe actual U.S. murder rate during the same period. Other violent crimeswere committed at a rate of 40 per 1,000 TV characters during thatdecade, while the real-world rate was only 2 per 1,000. During thestudy's second decade (1965—1974), violent crime rates on televisionrose to 140 per 1,000, while real-world crime grew to 25 per 1,000.
Those trends changed slightly in the mid-1970s, when prime-time TVschedulers reacted to criticisms of television being too violent byreducing the violent crime rate on TV. Thus, as violent crime declinedon television, real-world violent crime rates continued to increase.However, the study found that the incidence of nonviolent (property)crimes on TV sharply increased after 1975, which more than compensatedfor the decline in TV violence.
In broader perspective, the Lichter, Lichter, and Rothman studycounted 2,228 crimes on 620 prime-time TV shows—an average of 3.6crimes per episode, or nearly 50 crimes a night. Even more bothersome,however, was their finding that among those 50 were typically a dozenmurders and about 20 robberies, rapes, and other violent acts. "Sotelevision is not just more crime-ridden than real life. It alsohighlights the most violent and serious crimes." Furthermore,
. . . television presents crime in a context that bears littlerelation to reality. This context suggests that violence flows not fromanger or passion, but from premeditated avarice. Crimes are layered onone another to create the scariest combinations. When businessmen commitcrimes, they are not the nonviolent white-collar crimes they mightcommit in reality. Instead, they murder for the sake of the company orin the interest of career success. It is not enough for the TV rapistsimply to assault his victim; he must brutally murder her as well. Inshort, video crime is unlike reality in its frequency, severity, andmotivation.
It remains an open question as to whether the image of crime found ontelevision over the past forty years has had any impact on the wayAmericans view the issue of crime. Perhaps the typical viewer gets hisor her fears and anxieties about criminal activity-its frequency, itsseverity, and its premeditativeness-from watching the "boob tube"rather than from the real world. In that sense, the issue of crime maybe built on a popular culture myth-one that might be very differentfrom actual problems of crime. The result could be law enforcementpolicies that address mythical rather than actual problems.
Sources: S. Robert Lichter, Linda S. Lichter, and Stanley Rothman,Prime Time: How TV Portrays American Culture (Washington, D.C.:Regnery, 1994), especially chap. 8; quotes are from pp. 277-278, 299.Also see Paul H. Robinson, "Moral Credibility and Crime," AtlanticMonthly, 275, No. 3 (March 1995).
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