An Overview of Public Opinion and Discourse on Criminal Justice Issues An Overview of Public Opinion and The Opportunity Agenda Discourse on Criminal Justice Issues Acknowledgments This report was funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, The Libra Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations. The statements made and views expressed are those of The Opportunity Agenda. The “Overview of Public Opinion” and “Criminal Justice and Social Media” reports were authored by Jill Mizell. “Media Coverage of Criminal Justice Reform” and “Media Coverage of Racial Justice Issues” were authored by Loren Siegel. The reports were edited by Julie Fisher-Rowe and Juhu Thukral, and designed by Chris Moore. About The Opportunity Agenda The Opportunity Agenda’s mission is to build the national will to expand opportunity in America. We use strategic communications, advocacy, and cultural engagement to grow a large and lasting movement for social justice vision and values, and we promote concrete solutions that fulfill those ideals. Our mission encompasses everyone in the nation, particularly communities facing steep barriers to opportunity, including low-income Americans, people of color, women, and immigrants. Our current issue areas include immigration, economic opportunity, criminal justice, and poverty. August 2014 An Overview of Public Opinion and The Opportunity Agenda Discourse on Criminal Justice Issues Table of Contents Introduction 1 Overview of Public Opinion Executive Summary 7 Introduction 9 Methodology 10 Findings from Opinion Research on Public Safety and the Criminal Justice System 11 Conclusion and Recommendations 45 Works Cited 47 Media Coverage of Criminal Justice Reform Executive Summary 51 Introduction 53 Methodology 54 Findings 55 An Overview of Public Opinion and The Opportunity Agenda Discourse on Criminal Justice Issues Media Coverage of Racial Justice Issues Executive Summary 71 Introduction 72 Methodology 73 Findings 74 Criminal Justice and Social Media Executive Summary 89 Introduction 92 Methodology 93 Findings from Online Discourse Related to Criminal Justice 96 Recommendations and Conclusion 108 Appendices 110 An Overview of Public Opinion and The Opportunity Agenda Discourse on Criminal Justice Issues Introduction This series of reports from The Opportunity Agenda describes the American public discourse on crime, the criminal justice system, and criminal justice reform. It examines years of public opinion research, mainstream media coverage, and social media content. And it incorporates the input of leaders working in the field of criminal justice reform. Taken together, this body of work is intended to help reform leaders, organizations, and allies to build public support for effective solutions. It also provides useful insights for journalists, news outlets, and commentators who cover—or could cover—this important subject. Involvement in the criminal justice system can be an opportunity-ending event in people’s lives. The “tough on crime” policies of the past generation—the “war on drugs,” mandatory minimum sentences, “three- strikes laws” and the like—have negatively affected millions of people. In addition to the individuals who are arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated for long periods under harsh sentencing laws, families and whole communities face racial profiling, mass incarceration, and barriers to re-entry after release from prison. These impediments to opportunity are not spread evenly across the U.S. population. Racial and class bias infects the criminal justice system at every point, from arrest, through prosecution, sentencing, incarceration, and release. Today, the nation’s experiment with mass incarceration is being scrutinized and critiqued as never before, and criminal justice reform is on the public policy agenda. Our scan of legislative activity across the country indicates that reforms are taking place in red and blue states alike. As one reform leader put it: The fiscal crisis that so many states find themselves in has created a space for dialogue about reducing the use of incarceration to solve social issues…This is a very conservative city in a conservative state, and I’m seeing opportunity after opportunity to work across the political spectrum to get criminal justice reform done. States are rethinking “zero tolerance” school discipline policies, which often are responsible for racially discriminatory suspensions and “the school to prison pipeline.” Municipalities are adopting “ban the box” policies to remove barriers to the hiring and licensing of people with criminal records. States are adopting “Justice Reinvestment” strategies to reduce corrections costs and reinvest the savings in programs that improve public safety, such as education, public health and job training. At the federal level, the Justice Department has launched its “Smart on Crime” review to bring more fairness to the federal criminal justice system. And the trend towards treating drug use as a public health, rather than a criminal matter is accelerating throughout the country. Whether based on fiscal concerns about the vast public resources devoted to arresting, prosecuting, and locking up so many people or on concerns about fairness and racial equity, more and more members of the public and their political representatives are questioning whether the harsh penalties adopted at both the state and federal levels over the past 40 years are accomplishing what they were intended to accomplish: protecting the public. A growing number of Americans is realizing that the vast majority of people in prison will be released back into the community with few, if any, opportunities to change their lives for the better and that this does not bode well for the nation as a whole. In spite of these advances, however, the United States has a long way to go before its criminal justice system lives up to constitutional and human rights norms, and creating the political will to bring about real reform is a heavy lift. Elected leaders still fear being labeled “soft on crime,” and the organized opposition, led by district attorney associations and the private corrections industry, is working hard 1 An Overview of Public Opinion and The Opportunity Agenda Discourse on Criminal Justice Issues to block sentencing and other reforms, arguing that public safety is at risk. Most Americans hear about crime through their local television stations, where “if it bleeds, it leads” is still the rule. Increased fear of crime can derail any progress made by the criminal justice reform movement unless the public is “inoculated” with a deeper understanding of the causes of and solutions to crime. In our conversations with criminal justice reform leaders, we found that while there is widespread agreement that this is a moment of opportunity, there is also concern that the reform movement is not yet in the position to seize it. As one advocate explained: I would say there is a good news and a bad news story. The good news is that after decades of really facing a relentless onslaught of overly punitive policies there’s a moment and things are shifting…The less good news, or maybe even bad news story, is that I don’t know if we are using that momentum to our greatest advantage, meaning we’re seeing a lot of states engaged in some constructive conversation around alternatives, but they’re not taking it to the level that they would need to take it to undo the problems of the last several decades. While the incremental reforms we are seeing across the country are important and good, the researchers, advocates, and philanthropists we have consulted believe that more transformative changes will be required to create a 21st century criminal justice system that is fair, equitable, and humane—an evidence- based system that emphasizes prevention and rehabilitation and uses incarceration only as a last resort. Understanding today’s public discourse—how Americans think, feel, and communicate about crime and criminal justice—is a predicate for bringing about this paradigm shift going forward. This report is the culmination of a year of research into the communications and legislative landscape in which criminal justice reform advocates are operating. Based on the research, we make a series of recommendations for improving both the reach and the substance of a new narrative framework for communicating about criminal justice. The report is divided into four sections: u A meta-analysis of existing public opinion research u An analysis of how criminal justice reform issues are being covered in the mainstream media u An analysis of how racial profiling is begin covered in the mainstream media u An analysis of how criminal justice reform is being discussed and debated in social media Public Opinion Research We reviewed more than 30 studies conducted between 2001 and 2013 on topics related to criminal justice. The studies measured Americans’ attitudes toward the incidence of crime in their own communities and the nation as a whole, the causes of crime, the purpose of the criminal justice system and of prisons, their openness to alternatives to incarceration, their support for reentry programs and re-enfranchisement for formerly incarcerated people, and a range of other criminal justice issues. We looked at variations in opinions held by different demographic groups and identified persuadable audiences. Media Analyses We conducted two media analyses, one on how criminal justice reform was being covered and one on how racial profiling was being covered in the mainstream media. Using