Study Examines Role of Stereotypes In Identifying Criminal Suspects
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.
Research by a Penn State media studies expert reveals that memory of crime stories with the suspects’ pictures reflects racial stereotypes, and African Americans are especially likely to be mistakenly identified for perpetrators of violent crimes, an issue being discussed nationally by community and law enforcement groups.
“When readers were asked to identify criminal suspects pictured in stories about violent crimes, they were more prone to misidentify African American than White suspects. The same readers, to a far lesser degree, tended to link White offenders more with nonviolent crime,” says Dr. Mary Beth Oliver, associate professor of communications and co-director of the Media Effects Laboratory at Penn State University.
Oliver notes, “Essentially, people’s ‘mismemories’ of violent crime news seem to implicate all Black men rather than the specific individuals who are actually pictured.”
