American Indian Culture and Research Journal

INTRODUCTION It has been argued that the media holds some responsibility for determining the public’s notions about who commits crime and what crimes are committed. Increasingly the media reports on and portrays minority men in stereotyped criminal roles, and research projects show an interest in identifying circumstances when racially biased culpability assignment will occur, particularly for African Americans and Hispanics in comparison to European American. There is a dearth of research on criminal culpability assignment for Native Americans however, if educational programs are to dispel stereotypes of Native Americans, the identification of circumstances contributing to biases should be examined. Consequently the purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of alcohol use and stereotyped crime commission on perceptions of culpability for Native American and European American males.