American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION As one of the most recognized social problems, crime represents a constant focus of many media accounts in television, movies, and newspapers. Crime stories are a staple of day-to-day newspaper reporting; thus the media may profoundly shape the public’s stereotypes and beliefs toward crime and perpetrators of criminal activity. Individuals’ notions of crime may be influenced by the media practice of emphasizing serious crime and overreporting crime relative to the actual crime rate. Of special interest to social scientists is the media’s portrayal of racial/ethnic minorities in crime reporting. It is possible that simply identifying a suspect’s racial/ethnic minority status may contribute to the maintenance of certain “minorities as criminal” stereotypes and could impact the readers’ perceptions about the threat posed by minorities. This problem could be exacerbated if certain contextual or situational forces influenced the overrepresentation of racial/ethnic minorities as perpetrators in crime articles. Involvement in crime, an increase in minority populations, and periods of racial/ethnic conflict may heighten displays of prejudice and discrimination that could result in differential racial/ethnic identification in crime reporting. Although a growing body of research has examined racial/ethnic minority characterization in media images of crime, the primary focus has been on television and movies. Less research has concentrated on how the print media, specifically newspapers, portrays minorities in crime news. These analyses of media accounts largely ignore American Indian populations, which is some- what surprising given that American Indians are impacted by crime at a higher rate than most other racial/ethnic groups. For instance, American Indians are subjected to rates of violence twice that of the general US population and possess the highest victimization rate of all racial/ethnic groups. American Indians are incarcerated at a rate 38 percent higher than the national rate. However, recent research has indicated that this overrepresentation may be the result of continued discrimination due to the unique historical and political status of American Indian groups. Previous research on American Indians and crime has been criticized for ignoring the importance of these contextual factors. Thus, the question remains whether the bias toward American Indians in the past has continued into the recent era as a result of their identification in crime articles.