2020/03/04 by Andrew J. Baranauskas
Social Sciences · #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Crime, Deviance, and Social Control #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
paper · doi:10.1080/00380237.2020.1730280
crossref issued 2020/03/04 · crossref published 2020/03/04 · crossref published-online 2020/03/04 · openalex publication_date 2020/03/04 · crossref created 2020/03/04 · crossref published-print 2020/04/02 · crossref deposited 2022/10/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28 · crossref indexed 2026/07/28
Information disseminated by the news shapes the way that the public perceives criminal events, often providing a distorted view of crime. Previous research has largely overlooked neighborhoods in discussions of how the news portrays crime. This study examines the ways that the news media report the neighborhoods in which homicides, robberies, and assaults are committed. Multiple theoretical perspectives rooted in the law of opposites and racial typification provide differing explanations for the reporting of crime. Using Boston as a test site, this study employs a content analysis of The Boston Globe crime articles to identify the neighborhoods in which instances of homicide, robbery, and assault receive coverage. A comparison with official crime data from the Boston Police Department suggests differences in neighborhood reporting trends for robbery and assault but not for homicide. Specifically, the news media tend to disproportionately report more robberies and assaults in neighborhoods with lower levels of neighborhood disadvantage. Implications for the social construction of crime and neighborhoods as well as criminal justice response for disadvantaged neighborhoods are discussed.