Making News of Police Violence: A Comparative Study of Toronto and New York City

Citation

Holmes, S.T. (2001), "Making News of Police Violence: A Comparative Study of Toronto and New York City", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 24 No. 4, pp. 626-629. https://doi.org/10.1108/pijpsm.2001.24.4.626.1

While I do not traditionally review many books for academic outlets I made an exception in the case of the new release of Making News of Police Violence, by Jeffrey Ian Ross of the University of Baltimore. With the many incidents of police violence that have had considerable media play in the past couple of years, I was intrigued by the topic and the author’s conceptual framework. While the topic of police violence and the use of excessive force by officers against citizens have been thoroughly researched, this book had something new to offer. Ross proposes to set up a conceptual/theoretical process model where we can begin to understand how incidents of police violence garner national/regional media attention and assume on a life of their own.

This undertaking is a massive endeavor. Not only is the policing literature silent about many conceptual/theoretical models of police violence, but the thought of taking a process model from the literature of other disciplines and overlaying it on the topic of a volatile social problem like police violence is truly a monumental task. While there are several metholodological concerns with generalizing the outputs of the media in only two distinct and very different cultural regions (New York and Toronto), Ross does a wonderful job of integrating theory with applied knowledge to find support for his central thesis, that there is indeed a process where the media plays a central role in brining to light incidents of police violence where either internal or external change is called for.

Ross’ contention is that there is a four‐step process where incidents of police violence garner the attention of the public. These steps include: media initiation, public arousal, reaction and outcome. He states that the success of any story depends on several factors throughout each of these four steps. In the first step, he claims that media initiation is the series of events in which media outlets learn of an incident of police violence. This transference may occur in several ways, but most of the time it is through a witness or other source placing a call to the individual reporter or city desk. It is at this stage that the reporter investigates the story, and checks the sources and validity of the complaining witnesses.

While most of this first phase is common sense, Ross takes the reader on a journey throughout the process. He claims that it is not just the report that matters and allows the story to be played in the media, but also the experience, status and credibility of the individual reporter that wants to run with the story. He claims that several factors, such as the number of media outlets and crime reporters in the city, will determine how aggressive the newsroom or editors are in weeding out stories that may create political as well as legal problems for them in the future. He infers that small markets are less apt to run stories that challenge the local political sovereigns because of the symbiotic nature of the media and city government sources. However, large markets, where there is intense competition among outlets for leader stories, are more apt to give play to incidents of police violence, especially when the evidence collected is not as compelling as they would like. Other factors that influence whether the story will get air time or print space include the experience of the reporter, their status and ultimately the individual reporters’ gender. He claims that reporters that are full‐time, salaried employees are more likely to get their stories approved by their editors since they have more invested in these employees. Further, he found in several interviews with a variety of actors that female reporters were not only less likely to receive tips from informants within the criminal justice system, but many believed that they experienced discrimination from many of the male reporters that hampered the free flow of information both to them and to their editors.

The second stage is one that Ross describes as the public arousal. This stage “refers to the extent, intensity and perception created by the news of police violence” (Ross, 2000, p. 19). In this stage, Ross contends that the way the media shapes the story eventually enables it to assume a life of its own. He states that since arousal in this sense is a group activity, if the story is presented in such a way that solidifies group members and possible organizational antagonism against the effected group, it is more likely to garner the interest of an affected group.

In this section he claims that several factors come into play. First he states that if the episode or characteristics of the victims are portrayed in a light that others can identify with, there is a greater chance that the story will not be played one night and forgotten. For instance, it is unlikely that many people will respond or be aroused by a story where an unemployed male is subject to police force and intimidation after being pulled over leaving a bar. However, if the victim is a female minority on her way home from attending classes at a local university, the public generally has more empathy for the victim and can relate to her plight against this alleged form of police violence.

In cases like this, affected individuals may call the newsroom reporting similar episodes or may even call governmental offices demanding an official explanation for the actions of the police agents. This, according to Ross, is a two‐way street. Government agencies and actors may also be aroused and pledge support to the police and their actions. Regardless of the direction of response, Ross indicates that community arousal based on the story, or the lack thereof, influences the life and running time of a particular incident.

According to Ross, the third phase is the reaction phase. This phase encompasses the public’s reaction to their arousal. Although similar to the arousal phase, this phase deals specifically with the actions taken on the part of the public or other private entities once they have been alerted that something has happened.

This phase often involves action on the part of the victim, public, the governing body and the police agency. As Ross points out, there are many forms of action that can take place. The public can respond in public outcry and march on city hall, or they may choose to do nothing if it has not resonated with a critical part of the audience.

In this phase many community groups often participate, especially when there has been a gross violation of a citizen’s civil rights. Individuals may organize public demonstrations, local business leaders and community sovereigns may call well‐placed city officials, and the organization charged with wrongdoing may conduct a press conference to explain the actions undertaken by the department while investigating the claim.

Ross claims that if the police and other government agencies are successful in quelling the arousal of the public by explaining the actions of the officers, it is unlikely that future stories will persist in the media. However, if their explanations are not satisfactory, or there simply has been too rich a history of similar occurrences of these types of indiscretions, the media and public will push for resolution in the fourth and final stage.

The fourth and final stage is the outcome stage. When a story or event reaches this stage, the actors and agents within the system come to the realization that they are going to have to give up some power, control or authority to help them overcome this public relations nightmare. Ross claims that this stage is the most complicated of the four stages and, using a statistical analysis of events in New York and Toronto, illustrates that incidents of this type are infrequent and are a rare occurrence.

He finds that police organizations do indeed change in response to the few incidents that mobilize the police. However, this change is often subtle and may have very little effect on the daily tasks of officers. Further, most of the changes that do occur in response to these critical incidents are what he calls efforts at internal control, where the police organization itself may implement additional bureaucratic controls (additional mandated formal reports) than other far‐reaching policy changes. Moreover, changes as a result of participation in a high profile incident are more likely to be accepted if they are directed at an individual officer than the organization itself. He finds that when these controls are directed at the department, officers are likely to resist these changes and they are less likely to be accepted by the rank and file.

Ross then takes this model and uses a series of intensive case studies from both Toronto and New York to illustrate further its utility in explaining how alleged incidents of police violence are actually played out in the media. Each case is presented in a clear and precise format with attention to the critical elements of each story that the model predicts will prolong the life of the story. This section is one of the strongest parts of the book and what other articles or monologues of this genre lack. While Ross provides readers in this section with many tables and statistical information regarding these incidents that are not well explained, the careful reader, by the end of the section, will begin to understand the complexity of this type of analysis and the need for this included supporting documentation.

In summary, while this book may be written over the heads of many undergraduate students in criminal justice and criminology, it should be considered a viable option to professors teaching graduate classes on violence and the media. Unlike many of the best‐selling books in our field, Ross does an excellent job at combining the thoughts and theories of other disciplines in this look at, arguably, the critical and most volatile incidents surrounding the police and how they interact with the public. Dr Ross should be commended for this work and hopefully it will inspire other authors to take off our blinders and use the available knowledge and theories from other disciplines and apply them to other contemporary problems that face actors and agents within the criminal justice system.