Guides: Media Activism: Criminal Justice/Prisons

Organizations/Websites

Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC)
National non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment, founded in 1990.
Decarcerate PA
A grassroots campaign working to end mass incarceration in Pennsylvania.
Prison Activist Resource Center
The Prison Communication, Activism, Research, and Education Collective (PCARE)
Blog of PCARE, a group of communication scholars formed at the National Communication Association Convention in 2002.
Prison Mindfulness Institute
Volunteer organization that teaches nonviolent communication in prisons.
Prison Policy Initiative
Non-profit, non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative produces cutting edge research to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization, and then sparks advocacy campaigns to create a more just society.

Selected Books

Crime Policy and the Media by Jon Silverman
ISBN: 0415672325
Publication Date: 2011-11-28
First academic text to map the relationship between a rapidly changing media and policymaking in criminal justice. Spanning the period, 1989-2010, it examines a number of case studies - terrorism, drugs, sentencing, policing and public protection, amongst others - and interrogates key policy-makers (including six former Home Secretaries, a former Lord Chief Justice, Attorney-General, senior police officers, government advisers and leading commentators) about the impact of the media on their thinking and practice. Bolstered by content and framing analysis, it argues that, especially, in the last decade, fear of media criticism and the Daily Mail effect has restricted the policymaking agenda in crime and justice, concluding that the expanding influence of the Internet and Web 2.0 has begun to undermine some of the ways in which agencies such as the police have gained and held a presentational advantage.
Crime and Racial Constructions by Jeanette Covington
Call Number: PN1995.9.N4 C625 2010
ISBN: 9780739125915
Publication Date: 2010-04-12
Crime and Racial Constructions: Cultural Misinformation about African Americans in Media and Academia focuses on how film images of dangerous, hedonistic blacks have assumed greater significance since blacks protested racial injustice during the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Cop Watch by Hans Toch
ISBN: 9781433811197
Publication Date: 2012-02-15
Renowned social psychologist Hans Toch takes stock of the vast changes in police procedures that have occurred over the last half-century by examining the evolving role of spectators to police-citizen interactions. This sympathetic and informed analysis details the concerns of both disgruntled citizens and unsettled police. Their interactions are played out on a broad stage, from 1960s riots and Kerner Commission findings, to 2011 accusations of police brutality in Seattle. In this unflinching examination of the power of the crowd and society to shape police practice, Toch provides a uniquely compelling look at the struggles and complexities of policing in a volatile world.
Prime Time Prisons on U.S. TV by Bill Yousman
Call Number: HV9469 .Y68 2009
ISBN: 9781433104770
Publication Date: 2009-09-02
In the current era of rampant incarceration and an ever-expanding prison-industrial complex, this crucial book breaks down the distorted and sensationalistic version of imprisonment found on U.S. television. Examining local and national television news, broadcast network crime dramas, and the cable television prison drama Oz, the book provides a comprehensive analysis of the stories and images of incarceration most widely seen by viewers in the U.S. and around the world.

Databases

Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text
Comprehensive indexing with abstracts of the scholarly literature and applied literature on criminology and related disciplines, also with extensive full text. Subject areas covered include: causes and correlates of crime, criminological theory, offender characteristics and careers, and victimology; causes and prevention of delinquency, juvenile justice systems, courts and correctional agencies, diversion and deinstitutionalization; community policing, police investigations and management issues, police community relations and use of force, private security; sentencing patterns and reforms, court case processing systems, prosecution and defense functions, issues in criminal law and procedure; incarceration trends and alternatives, probation and parole, jails and prisons, treatment programs and community corrections; situational and community prevention programs, deterrence, criminal justice systems, drug control policies, and violence control measures.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service

Media Activism: Criminal Justice/Prisons

Organizations/Websites

Selected Books

Databases

Journals