John,
The Sentencing Project today released a report, The Real Cost of ‘Bad News’: How Misinformation is Undermining Youth Justice Policy in Baltimore, revealing how media reporting on youth crime is misleading city residents and fueling poor public policy.
The report, which examines coverage by six of Baltimore’s leading media outlets during the first half of 2024, finds that coverage of youth justice issues is skewed in ways that reinforce harmful stereotypes of children and adolescents. The Baltimore media’s intense focus on offending by youth was disproportionate to their actual role in Baltimore’s overall crime rate. Coverage often sensationalized isolated instances of youth violence, stoking residents’ fears.
|
Specifically, the report finds: -
Baltimore media, particularly Sinclair Broadcasting’s Fox45, disproportionately emphasizes youth crime, often sensationalizing incidents. This approach creates a misleading narrative about young people’s role in threatening public safety.
-
Although police data show that youth under 18 accounted for just 5% of arrests in the first half of 2024, youth were the focus of 28% of crime-related stories in the outlets studied, including more than half (53%) of all relevant stories on Fox45.
-
The media frequently claims that youth crime is on the rise without providing evidence. The new reports that do provide evidence often cherrypick short-term data and ignore adults’ arrest rates, resulting in a skewed portrayal of broader trends.
- Words like “spike,” “wave,” or “crisis” are commonly used in youth crime reporting, especially on TV, to amplify public fear. Fox45 led this trend, with 88% of its youth crime stories featuring this kind of fear-inducing rhetoric.
The report also highlights the troubling role that problematic media coverage played in the rushed passage of House Bill 814 by the Maryland legislature. The bill rolled back evidence-based reforms enacted just two years before and is poised to send more youth into the juvenile court system. Legislation like HB 814 –rooted in punishment, rather than a rehabilitative approach – often exacerbates youth offending, which undermines community safety and entraps children and adolescents in the criminal-legal system.
The media holds incredible power in shaping how the public—and policymakers—view young people. This report reveals how harmful and often inaccurate narratives can dominate the policy conversation, and in the instance of Maryland’s HB 814, drive a dysfunctional policy process. It is essential that journalists approach their role in shaping narratives with responsibility and care. |
