Prime Time Prisons on U.S. TV: Representation of Incarceration. Bill Yousman. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2009. 200 pp.
In the last two decades of the twentieth century, the number of incarcerated Americans quadrupled, resulting in two million-plus citizens in prisons and jails. Bill Yousman, former managing director of the progressive nonprofit Media Education Foundation and now a lecturer in communications at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, takes the mass media to task over the invisibility of this vast population of prisoners. He situates the gap in the larger context of a critical social problem—the incarceration of millions nationwide—and the distortions that are rife in media representations of multiple aspects of crime in general. Analyzing both nonfiction (news) and fictional (drama) representations, he finds little to commend.
The prison population growth does not necessarily indicate a concurrent increase in crime. In fact, Yousman cites data indicating the opposite, and therein lies the problem. The media present numerous misleading images so that the public, most of whom have no source of information on crime and prisons other than their televisions, believe they know the real story—when they are actually privy only to mediated images that can lead to distorted perceptions. The prevalence and popularity of TV crime shows and an overrepresentation of violent crime in particular on the news and in dramas—a constructed “pseudo-environment”—lead many viewers to believe that there is more violent crime than ever before. The effect is increased public anxiety and the potential, ultimately, of misinformed public policy. Yousman provides a full picture of the economics and philosophy at work in commercial television, so that the distortions and limitations make sense, albeit at best disappointing and at worst detrimental to social progress.
Yousman spends the first third of his book on background and context, presenting plentiful statistics and theory regarding the U.S. penal system and those areas of media representation that have been studied. He briefly addresses images of prisons in magazines and films. Relying on cultural analysis, criticism, and semiotic and narrative theory he invokes integral scholars and theorists ranging from Walter Lippmann to Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault. Yousman’s language is sometimes dissertation-steeped, but he is successful in clearly making the point that hegemonic culture/devices create mass perception and moral panics, an argument that is central to his thesis.
He first tackles local and national news of prisons, observing that both lean heavily toward coverage of atypical events such as riots, escapes, and unusual rehabilitation programs, rather than on basic issues such as inmate health care, juvenile justice, and prisoner rights. Conceding that the difficulty in gaining access to prisons is part of the problem in balanced and accurate reporting, he observes that, nevertheless, the economic bottom-line drives the true dynamic: sensational content draws audiences, which pleases local affiliates, networks, and, ultimately, advertisers.
Yousman identifies contradictory, inaccurate, or exaggerated themes prevalent in network news, including: that prisoners are dangerous; that society needs prisons to keep citizens safe; that prisoners deserve the punishment they receive; that they drain society’s resources; that prisons take good care of prisoners; and that criticisms of prisons exist but are limited and marginalized. Each theme, he contends, capitalizes on the emotions they arouse in viewers, but fails to deliver substantial, accurate, factual information. Based on interviews with inmates, Yousman provides a list of fifteen points that could be covered on TV news for which he found no evidence in his analyses, beginning with the disproportionate incarceration of people of color and ending with the extent and causes of inmate suicidal behavior. As he bitingly summarizes, “2 Million Americans Imprisoned, Television News Looks the Other Way, No Details at Eleven.”
U.S. TV news pays little attention to the fact that we have become an “incarceration nation.” Fictional representations, however, step into the void. Yousman analyzed three prime-time television crime shows—NYPD Blue, Law & Order, and The Practice—that “regularly feature images of prisons and prisoners in their ongoing dramatic narratives about the battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil.” With glimpses of prison cells here and there, TV drama takes viewers a tad closer to prison life, but Yousman concludes that they are not much better than TV news at accurate depictions. He observes a lack of scenes of daily prison life where inmates interact with one another or guards; flat characters used as plot devices; moralizing about guilt and innocence; justification for the brutality of prison life; and defense of the criminal justice system. Throughout the book, he references representations of race (as well as class, gender, and sexuality where relevant), and notes a marked difference in the treatment of whites, blacks, and Latinos. For example, Latino and white prisoners are often depicted as “misguided,” while blacks tend to be portrayed as purely innocent or purely evil. Law enforcement agents like police and attorneys tend to be the more fully developed human characters, often heroes, in contrast to the shallowly constructed inmate “evildoers.”
Yousman devotes a full chapter to the critically acclaimed HBO drama Oz, which presents an unforgiving look at the guts of a maximum-security prison. Though prisoners are finally the “subjects rather than the objects of the discourse,” alas, they prove to be, he says, yet another example of distortion. Using detailed scene descriptions, content analysis, and dialogue excerpts, he focuses on the extreme violence that he concludes is exaggerated and even celebrated. Oz inmates are shown as sadistic, remorseless, and monstrous. And despite the show’s self-promotion as “groundbreaking,” there is little evidence of progress, for instance, in moving away from the centuries-old stereotype of black males as “violent savages.” This is particularly problematic, Yousman points out, because of the dearth of images of black men on television in general. Et tu, Oz? A program that could have offered a trend reversal is still guilty of a primary interest in attracting viewers via “misery and chaos and terror.”
Yousman is not the first to raise these issues. Other media critics and criminologists have addressed the skewed or nonexistent images of prisons, and Prime Time Prisons covers ground previously trod by David Wilson and Sean O’Sullivan’s Images of Incarceration: Representations of Prison in Film and Television Drama. The 2004 work takes a broader view, looking at dramatic films in addition to television, and provides a slightly more upbeat perspective in its acknowledgement of the potential for penal reform arising out of the mediated images discussed. (Yousman regards television as a conservative force, not one instrumental in social change.)
With its sound methodology and focus on U.S. small screens, however, Yousman’s work is an essential contribution to media studies and criminology. He concludes with an emphasis on the power of stories—both fiction and nonfiction—and refers to his text as a “case study in the construction of a hegemonic moment.” His point, well made despite some telltale academic repetition, is that media images tell stories and have a direct and potent effect on public perceptions and, ultimately, on criminal justice policy.
KATHLEEN COLLINS
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The City University of New York