Crit Crim (2012) 20:395–407

DOI 10.1007/s10612-012-9156-1

‘‘Society Must be Protected from the Child’’:

The Construction of US Juvenile Detention
as Necessary and Normal

R. Ross Myers

Published online: 10 June 2012

 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract Scholarship on televised representations of juvenile punishment is missing

from the literature. By way of an ethnographic content analysis of forty US representations,
the current work fills this void. Through three related themes, I argue that these repre-
sentations paint the US system, one unmatched in either size or punitiveness, as a nec-
essary and normal social institution. First, coverage depicts detained youth as worthy of
incarceration through a focus on their supposed violent nature and rationality. Second, it
normalizes the practice of juvenile incarceration by tacitly accepting harsh custodial tac-
tics. Finally, by using detention centers as backdrops for comedy and drama, representa-
tions relegate juvenile justice to a position outside the political arena. This work serves as a
reminder that in the age of mass incarceration, it is not only media moments that incite fear
or spur panic that are of importance: those that normalize the peculiar policies of the
United States may be just as consequential.

Introduction

The roughly 2.3 million persons incarcerated in US prisons and jails reside in the world’s
largest system of confinement (Pew Charitable Trusts 2008). Less cited is the fact that, as
of 2006, the US held an estimated 105,635 juveniles in penal custody (Muncie 2008). This
means that the US youth detention rate is more than five times that of England and Wales,
thirty-five times that of France, and over one-hundred-fifty times that of Norway (Muncie
2008). Beyond unusually high rates of juvenile confinement, the US juvenile justice system
includes practices sworn off by other nations and condemned by human rights organiza-
tions. As of 2005, an estimated 2,225 individuals in the USA were serving life sentences

An earlier version of this paper won second place in the 2008 American Society of Criminology Graduate
Student Paper Competition sponsored by the Division on Critical Criminology.

R. R. Myers (&)
Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

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for a crime committed as a minor; in the rest of the world, the total was seven (Human
Rights Watch 2005). And while imprisoning youth in adult facilities violates international
human rights standards, this practice continues as normal, sometimes celebrated correc-
tional policy in the US (Human Rights Watch 2005). In numerous ways, when it comes to
juvenile justice, the United States is without peers.
Through an ethnographic content analysis of forty televised juvenile justice news
representations spanning from 1998 to 2008, this article argues that these televised
depictions help to normalize the anomalous US system through three related themes.
First, representations of juvenile justice construct delinquent youth as worthy of incar-
ceration by minimizing the role of social factors and, in contrast, emphasizing violence
and rationality on the part of accused and detained youth. Second, representations nor-
malize some of the most troubling practices in juvenile detention through an uncritical
assessment of tough custodial tactics. And, finally, reports that use juvenile detention as
a backdrop for humor and dramatization place the world’s largest system of juvenile
detention outside of political reality by mining its daily workings for melodramatic
moments.
Reports like those examined below serve as many citizens’ principal exposure to the
justice system (Cheliotis 2010); that is, though its content might be of questionable quality,
the mass media provides the main crime discourse for many citizens.
[I]n the area of crime, large masses of the population do not have competing
information. They are in much the same position as those who had to take for granted
the Ptolemaic understanding of the world, with Earth and not the Sun as the centre, as
promulgated by the Catholic Church before Galileo. (Mathiesen 2001: 38)
While much of the scholarship on juvenile crime in the media cites the fear and panic-
inducing qualities of such representations, the current work serves as a reminder that many
media portrayals implore viewers to do nothing at all. That is, media moments can have not
only an incendiary quality to them, but a normalizing one as well. And in the age of mass
incarceration, where support for the world’s largest confinement system goes largely
unquestioned, even for its youngest and most marginalized citizens, media catalysts of
political inaction might be every bit as important as those that bring about concentrated
bouts of fear and panic.

Juvenile Crime in the Media: Fear, Panic and Beyond

The sensational quality of much juvenile crime coverage is well documented. And like the
great majority of scholarship on crime in the media in general, scholars often argue that
media representations of juvenile crime contribute to heightened levels of societal fear and
panic. Media coverage of school shootings (Kupchik and Bracy 2009; Muschert 2007),
juvenile homicides (Boulahanis and Heltsley 2004; Pizarro et al. 2007) and juvenile crime
coverage generally (Dorfman et al. 1997; Sprott 1996) has been critiqued for its dissim-
ilarity to other records of reality (i.e. official measures of crime) and for its heavy focus on
violence; such representations, scholars suggest, might very well help construct a socio-
cultural backdrop conducive to the enactment of get-tough juvenile punishment agendas
(Estrada 2001; Hogeveen 2005).
While not discounting their fear-inducing qualities, others suggest that some media
representations allow consumers to escape reality, as demonizing portrayals of criminals
and other social deviants stand in the place of social explanations (Greer and Jewkes 2005).

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Such caricatures range from society’s most reviled—child killers and pedophiles—to the
socially and economically excluded—welfare ‘cheats’ and single mothers. Moreover,
through inference, many media portrayals link the heinous actions of absolute others (e.g.
terrorists, pedophiles) to those of stigmatized others (e.g. immigrants, welfare cheats). This
wide range of others forms a ‘‘spectrum of deviance’’ in which both the truly evil and truly
powerless are paraded for viewers in morally and psychologically satisfying ways (Greer
and Jewkes 2005; see also Katz 1987). This concept of an overlapping spectrum of
deviance is helpful when considering more closely past work on representations of deviant
and criminal young people.
Murderous children—a group whose acts receive much media coverage—stand on one
end of the spectrum. Young murderers are a mainstay of juvenile crime news stories. For
instance, Yanich’s (2005) content analysis of local US television revealed that while 28 %
of adult crime reports focused on murder, 52 % of juvenile crime reports did so. Beyond a
disproportionate focus on violence, the media amplifies deviance by using attention-
grabbing labels to describe perpetrators. For instance, from the late ‘80s to mid ‘90s
mainstream New York newspapers used the term ‘‘wilding’’ to describe instances of sexual
violence perpetrated by young men of color who allegedly roamed the streets in ‘‘packs’’
searching for victims (Welch et al. 2002). In the US, the ‘‘super-predator’’ phenomenon is
perhaps the most infamous example of this sort of othering. Super-predators, a term coined
by conservative commentators, were framed as an incorrigible group whose depraved
actions were rooted in moral bankruptcy and a lack of social control (Pizarro et al. 2007).
The media took up the term and brought it to the American public as a sort of explanation
for urban violence (Muschert 2007; Rapping 2003).
On the opposite end of the spectrum stand youth whose ‘‘otherness’’ is due to their
failure to comply with societal norms (Greer and Jewkes 2005). The news media’s por-
trayal of young troublemakers sparked the founding texts on crime in the media (e.g.
Cohen 1972; Young 1971), and it remains a popular topic today. Modern examples include
the ‘‘chav’’ phenomenon in the UK (see Hayward and Yar 2006; Johnson 2008) and the
‘‘mean girls’’ phenomenon in the US (see Chesney-Lind and Eliason 2006; Chesney-Lind
and Irwin 2008). For these modern youthful others, deviance is rooted in classist and
gendered notions. Media representations, moreover, often twist these non-criminal cate-
gories together with criminal conduct and societal decline, thereby blurring distinctions
between the dangerous and the socially excluded (Greer and Jewkes 2005). In this way,
media-constructed categories serve as scapegoats for social problems whose roots plunge
deeper than the actions of a few youth.
Not all media representations frame youthful others as sign of a disintegrating social
fabric. In fact, even youth accused of heinous acts are likely to escape demonization in
certain nation’s media arenas. When Green (2008) juxtaposed the newspaper coverage of a
child-on-child killing in England to a comparable case in Norway, for instance, stark
differences appeared (see also Jewkes 2004). Whereas the English press was quick to point
to the killing as a sign of societal decline in need of swift ‘‘remoralizing’’ actions, the
Norwegian press framed their domestic case as an isolated incident best addressed through
expert intervention and societal reintegration for the accused young man. The sources used
in these stories also varied by country as well. The English press prominently featured the
sentiment of the lay public while expert opinion waned, especially in the tabloid press. In
contrast, Norwegian coverage relied heavily on dispassionate analysis from experts and
featured not a single member of the lay public.

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Punishment in the Media: Distortions and Silencing as Structured Outcomes

Similar to representations of crime, scholars find media depictions of prison life to be

distorted caricatures when compared to other records of reality (e.g. Cecil 2007; Cecil and
Leitner 2009; Mason 2000, 2006, 2007). For instance, in a discourse analysis of UK prison
coverage, Mason (2006) outlines a conversation which portrays the prison as a place
devoid of real pain infliction, and which also downplays a prisoner’s right to safety (see
also Mason 2007). Such distortions distract media consumers from engaging with the real-
life prison problems—unending expansion, imprisonment of children, prisoners’ rights—
plaguing the UK system (Mason 2006). Similarly, in an ethnographic content analysis of
ten visual media depictions of female US prisons, Cecil (2007) found an abundance of
sensational, gendered misrepresentations of incarcerated women. In addition to dispro-
portionate focus on violence, the analysis revealed a preoccupation with incarcerated
women’s sexuality, a focus similar in nature to the ‘‘caged heat’’ depictions of Hollywood.
Like Mason (2006), she suggests that such sensational coverage diverts public attention
away from serious issues facing incarcerated women in the US.
As these studies imply, what does not get talked about in representations of punishment
is important. Similar to critical scholarship on the news media generally (see Herman and
Chomsky 1988), Mathiesen (2001, 2004) outlines the structural aspects that shape
reporting on punishment, tracing how market forces influence broadcast content, and also
how the same structures eliminate other views from consideration altogether. Mathiesen
(2001) argues that distorted media presentations of prisons, particularly the instances of
‘‘infotainment’’ prevalent in television news, facilitate mass incarceration and hinder
attempts at decarceration.
These distortions, he argues, come about through three overlapping processes: commodi-
tization, legitimation, and the elimination of communicative rationality (Mathiesen 2001).
First, through television, issues of punishment become more susceptible to market pressures as
newsworthiness is more closely tied with the profitability of a story. Second, policymakers seek
legitimacy through television, and they are increasingly concerned with how proposed policies
affect their image rather than the extent to which such policies adhere to principles. While
concern about image has always been a part of the modern politics of crime and punishment,
the rise of television exacerbates it. Finally, related to the first two processes, televised dis-
courses on punishment fuel mass incarceration by shifting the style of argumentation so that
such conversations rest on political calculations and market principles. In this way, market
pressures bring sensational views to the fore and silence more measured discourse.
Though the current work looks at a new subject—televised news on juvenile punish-
ment—what we find is in many ways more of the same: a focus on violence, demonizing
explanations, uncritical looks at incarceration, and media moments that use juvenile
detention as a backdrop for ‘‘infotainment.’’ None of this is surprising in and of itself. What
is perhaps surprising is the taken-for-granted utility of incarceration for young, sometimes
very young, US citizens. In other words, what is remarkable in these moments is the degree
to which youth punishment is seen as unremarkable. Moreover, even though the current
findings echo those of past works, their societal impact can be re-imagined by placing them
in the context of an already built system of juvenile punishment. That is to say, although
the media moments examined below might be brushed aside as too eclectic and diffuse to
be of much consequence, their importance might be best thought of as sustainers of an
already built system of social exclusion and pain infliction. With mass incarceration firmly
in place, catalysts for passivity might be just as consequential as those that spark more
tangible societal reactions.

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Data and Methods

A Lexis-Nexis database search was used to find transcripts of televised representations of

juvenile justice. Keywords such as juvenile justice, juvenile hall, juvenile detention center,
youth incarceration, youth punishment, kids behind bars and numerous other variants were
plugged into a search spanning January, 1998 through December, 2008. A purposive
sampling scheme allowed identification of the most pertinent reports for analysis. First,
representations featuring the voices of incarcerated youth were collected. Past research
suggests that news reports from inside juvenile detention centers are quite rare; therefore,
the vast majority of transcripts including the voices of detained youth were included for
analysis. In addition to the twenty reports which included the voice of an incarcerated
youth, twenty more reports on juvenile punishment were also selected. The selection
process for these additional twenty reports was informed by my initial analysis of reports in
which detained youth spoke. In general, these additional reports included lengthy dis-
cussions of the nature of juvenile justice.
An ethnographic content analysis was employed to identify and make sense of the
content and style of presentation. Ethnographic content analysis differs from a traditional
content analysis (Altheide 1987; Ferrell et al. 2008). While traditional quantitative content
analyses often aim to prove media bias or ignorance, they often miss the symbolic nature of
crime and punishment. In contrast, ethnographic content analysis discerns meaning from
the text itself, embracing representations in all their complexity (Ferrell et al. 2008).
Keeping with this goal, rather than being an inventory of representations’ deficiencies, this
work aims to understand the meanings embedded within televised representations of the
US juvenile system. Consistent with the tenets of ethnographic content analysis, the coding
of themes was a reflexive and iterative process (Altheide 1987) and data were grouped into
emergent thematic categories during repeated readings. As analysis continued, themes
were merged, abolished, or re-conceptualized. Past research and theory remained at the
forefront throughout the entire process, informing the creation and morphing of themes as
well as the ultimate argument (Ferrell et al. 2008).

Findings: The Construction of Juvenile Detention as Necessary and Normal

The analysis revealed three main themes. First, by focusing disproportionately on youth
accused of violent acts and tying violence to rational decision making processes, the media
moments examined here painted juvenile detainees as worthy prisoners. Second, while
coverage was intolerant of outright abuse by staff, it excused a good deal of harshness, thus
normalizing some of the more punitive policies of US juvenile justice. Third, many
moments treated youth punishment as a backdrop for entertainment—a tendency which
effectively removed juvenile justice from the political landscape. Through these three
related themes, representations helped to construct US juvenile detention as a necessary
and normal social institution.

Theme One: Detainees as Deserving

Reports focused disproportionately on violent youth. Of the fifty-three detained youth who
spoke, the controlling offense could be determined for thirty-three (62 %) of them. Of
these, seventeen (52 %) were awaiting trial for either a violent offense or serving time for a
violent conviction. Twenty-seven percent of youth (n = 9) had a controlling offense of

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murder or attempted murder; a national survey of public US juvenile institutions reveals

just 1 % of youth are detained for homicide (Sickmund et al. 2009).
While the general focus on violent youth is noteworthy, there were also more subtle
patterns in the coverage which implicitly made the case for youth detention. For instance,
representations often suggested that detained youth were ‘‘average’’ kids who made bad
choices or were caught-up with the wrong crowd. In reference to a wholesome character
from a popular 1960s US sitcom, a reporter described one detained boy as looking like
‘‘Opie from Mayberry’’ (ABC Primetime Live 2006). Another reporter described one youth
as once being ‘‘A happy-go-lucky, normal little girl’’ (48 Hours 1998). Through these
characterizations, representations framed criminal involvement as a sudden turn for the
worse. As one report on a detention facility stated, ‘‘These kids start out like any other
child—bright, loving, wanting to please. But somewhere along the line, something goes
wrong’’ (ABC Primetime Live 2006). For many youth, nothing in their lives ‘‘hinted at the
storm that was coming’’ (60 Minutes II 2000), and swept away ‘‘the good natured kid’’
(48 Hours 1998) families remembered. This labeling of kids as ‘‘normal’’ or ‘‘average’’
sometimes occurred in the face of overwhelming evidence that their backgrounds were
anything but. For instance, one 14-year-old boy accused of killing his entire family was
described as ‘‘quiet, always respectful’’ and from an ‘‘all-American ranch family’’ (On the
Record 2004), yet alongside these normalizing labels was a detailed account of the boy’s
alleged triple killing of his own family, and news that the father of this young man beat him
regularly.
While the notion that accused and detained youth were simply ‘‘just like other kids’’
elides social factors, this labeling, at least at first, may seem like an attempt to humanize
youth. Perhaps it functioned as an antidote to a ‘‘super-predator’’ label. A closer look,
however, reveals that the labeling of youth as ‘‘average’’ or ‘‘normal’’ kids was not nec-
essarily an effort at humanization. Instead, youth labeled as normal had this normalcy used
against them, as it was evidence of their culpability rather than a nod to some non-deviant
essence. The fact that youth were ‘‘normal’’ made their actions that much more repre-
hensible, unforgiveable, and worthy of punishment. It followed that youth who made such
choices deserved severe punishment. Youth who spoke knew this truism as well:
Reporter: There are a lot of people who think, as young as you are, you definitely should
not be tried as an adult. What do you say?
Youth: I–I would give an honest opinion that if a person any age could commit that kind
of a crime, then I–I’m almost positive I think they should be tried as an adult. But since-
I–I know I didn’t, so I shouldn’t.
Reporter: So you’re saying that whoever it was that killed Craig should be tried as an
adult, found guilty, and spend a long time in prison?
Youth: As long as possible, yes. Because someone–anyone to be able to commit murder
has to be kind of a little odd in the head, and I guess you could say like Bundy … if
anyone can do it once, they can get their—they could do it again. And I think that they
should be locked up as long as they could. (60 Minutes II 2004)
In this way, signs of rationality and normalcy were grounds for harsh punishment rather
than a sign of reparability. While many accounts acknowledged the age of such actors, this
was not often enough to silence calls for retribution, as evidence of supposed choice won
out. As Bill O’Reilly plainly put it during a discussion on whether to try a 13-year-old as an
adult for murder:

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He’s a child, but he knew that he took a person’s life. I mean, he’s a child, but he’s
responsible for a death. He’s got to pay a price, and society must be protected.
Society must be protected from the child. (The O’Reilly Factor 2000)
Through these patterns, representations constructed youth detainees as deserving of their
fates, thus framing detention as righteous and necessary.

Theme Two: Harsh Tactics as Standard Procedure

Several representations were investigative reports into outright abuse in juvenile facilities. In
the lengthiest critique of outright abuse, the 9 May 2000 episode of 60 Minutes II recounted
staff abuse in a privately run juvenile detention center. The episode featured interviews with
two former youth detainees who reported sexual abuse and drug selling by guards at for-profit
juvenile detention centers run by the Wackenhut Corporation. The reporter, Scott Pelley,
called on the Wackenhut CEO, George Zolley, to answer for these accusations:
Pelley: Does the name Sara Lowe mean anything to you?
Zoley: It’s a female inmate in the state of Texas…
Pelley: Your company not long ago settled a suit involving allegations that she was
repeatedly raped in your facility in Texas. Before she killed herself, she told her sister
that she just wished that Mr. Wackenhut could spend one night in one of his facilities
and apologize to her for what happened to her.
Zoley: That’s hard to believe, Scott. You know, that’s your statement, and that—that’s a
sad story regarding Sara Lowe. But, you know, we have signed a confidentiality agr—
agreement regarding that lawsuit, and I—I’m really not allowed to speak to it any
further. (60 Minutes II 2000)
But while some reports made clear the prohibition on overt abuse, others did not dismiss
the use of tough custodial practices. In fact, some suggested harsh tactics were integral to
changing a youth. As a psychologist at one Texas juvenile facility put it, ‘‘Most of these
kids coming into the system aren’t going to change unless you make them change, unless
there’s like that clinch, you know, the hammer that can come down’’ (World News Tonight
1999). In another report, the notion that boot-camps could ‘‘straighten kids out’’ was
introduced by asking a youth whether the camp ‘‘worked’’: ‘‘Sir, yes sir!’ says the young
man,’’ ‘‘I would probably have been in jail by now, sir’’ (CNN Live Today 2001).
In another report, protecting certain juvenile detainees from abuse was framed as
special, undeserved treatment. This report, a 2008 episode of Fox News Channel’s The
O’Reilly Factor, included debate on whether transgender youth in New York’s juvenile
system should be allowed to go by a name of their choosing and reside in separate housing.
The show’s invited guest, a defense attorney by the name of Randy Zelin, argues that such
changes are necessary due to the vulnerable nature of this population. Zelin points out that
by not protecting transgender juveniles you are ‘‘putting them in a situation where you are
almost assuring that they could be raped, assaulted, humiliated; they are coming out worse
than when they went in’’ (The O’Reilly Factor 2008). To this point, the show’s guest host,
Laura Ingranham, replied:
This is juvenile lockup. We have to remind our viewers. It’s supposed to actually not
be a comfortable environment. It’s supposed to teach a lesson. The lesson I’m getting
from all of this is if you are in lockup, if you are in juvenile detention, then you’re
probably better off saying that you would like transgender treatment because then
you do get special accommodations. (The O’Reilly Factor 2008)

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Coverage of custodial practices in juvenile facilities oscillated between condemnations

of abusive environments and acceptance of harsh tactics. Overt abuse was condemned—
there was no tolerance for rapes and beatings. Harsh treatment escapes outright dismissal,
however, and representations framed the utility of tough custodial practices as an unan-
swered question: maybe a boot camp with screaming instructors could ‘‘straighten’’ a youth
out (CNN Live Today 2001); maybe confining an emotionally or mentally unstable child to
solitary confinement was a reasonable response to a suicidal youth (ABC Primetime Live
2006); perhaps shielding vulnerable youth from assault qualifies as special treatment (The
O’Reilly Factor 2008). These borderline tactics may vary in degree from the rapes and
beatings that draw condemnation, but the punitive ethos behind them is not all that dif-
ferent. The road from screaming boot camp instructor to overt abuser is a short one, with
tolerance of the former allowing for the existence of the latter. So, while the most overt
instances of abuse drew criticism, instances of harsh day-to-day custodial practices often
went without remark and were sometimes celebrated.

Theme Three: Juvenile Detention as a Backdrop for Melodrama

The focus in televised news stories of juvenile justice was not solely on murderous youth
or abusive guards. Many representations crafted dramatic and comedic stories from the
daily workings of detention centers. Some appeared aimed at laughs, some tears, while
others seemed crafted to elicit collective gasps. It is in these instances that the blending of
entertainment and news is most apparent, as detained youth played roles in a wide range of
melodrama.
Several representations showcased off-beat juvenile programs. Theses included a mock-
stock trading class (World News Now 2000), a poetry class (CNN Morning News 1998),
and a female etiquette class (CBS Evening News 2006). Similarly, the 16 June 2000
edition of ABC’s 20/20 showcased a dog training program in a California juvenile hall.
This volunteer-run program allows detained youth to train guide dogs for adoption by
physically disabled persons.
Now the kind of story we love to tell you about because your whole family can enjoy
it together. It’s about a brilliantly conceived program for troubled teenagers built
around the special bond between man and his best friend. You don’t have to love
animals to be moved and uplifted…all you need is heart.
Barbara Walters (20/20 2000)
The training program is not what is problematic; rather, it is the enthusiasm with which the
report touts it as a solution. The notion that such correctional programs are a panacea carries
with it a simple, satisfying message. Such stories bring to mind the words of Jock Young:
The sound-bite, the fleeting picture that tells it all, combined with an underlying message
which winds up the public: ‘‘The solution is simple, why don’t they try it out here?’’ is a
formula for one-dimensional simplicity and the quick fix. (Young 1999: 129)
Moreover, the sentimentality of the report obscured the plain fact that this instance of
compassion, no matter how genuine, was delivered to children deprived of their freedom.
By focusing on an instance of caring, while leaving the rest of the detention experience
hidden, human interest stories sidestepped the pains of imprisonment and the ethical issues
inherent in juvenile detention.

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Other representations used detention centers as backdrops for comedy or drama. Many
of these instances involved incarcerated girls. Past research notes the particularly harsh
treatment of criminally involved women by the media, especially for those who do not
conform to patriarchal notions of gender roles or sexuality (see Chesney-Lind and Eliason
2006; Jewkes 2004: 107–38; Linnemann 2010). As its lengthy title suggests, the CBS
Evening News (2006) segment, ‘‘Charm School gives troubled girls hope: detention center
for juvenile delinquents teaches table manners,’’ exemplified this gendered coverage. A
discussion between reporter Steve Hartman and a detained girl named Denise opened the
‘‘Charm School’’ report. ‘‘What would she do with a potato she was told to bake, for
example?’’ asks the reporter rhetorically via voiceover (CBS Evening News 2006).
Denise’s lack of culinary knowledge, or interest in giving a straight answer, showed in her
response: ‘‘Probably put water on it, right, ‘til it boils? I don’t know.’’ Although Denise
delivers the answer through a laugh, the reporter takes her words at face value, concluding
that Denise is ‘‘Street-smart, but not very Martha Stewart-savvy.’’ The life skills program,
explained the report, aimed to address girls’ domestic deficiencies; or as host Katie Couric
put it, the life skills program attempts to ‘‘turn some pretty tough girls into my fair ladies’’
(CBS Evening News 2006).
While the intimate details of boys’ lives went unexplored, several representations
focused on detained girls’ sexuality. For instance, one reporter explained how:
Juvenile corrections isn’t just about controlling violence, it’s also about controlling
emotions. A third of the kids here suffer from mental or emotional problems.
Sometimes they can be treated with medicine, sometimes therapy. And for the girls
who are victims of abuse, sometimes they find ways to help each other. In the girls’
facility, there are 80 teens locked together without any boys. It’s a combustible
mixture fraught with peril and sometimes passion. (ABC Primetime Live 2006)
Preoccupation with girls’ sexuality continued with the 12 July 2002 edition of 48 Hours
(2002). The report opened with the questioning of a detained 14-year-old prostitute named
Susan. When the male reporter asked Susan whether she was wearing provocative clothes
in order to entice customers into sexual services, she answered in the affirmative. He then
asked the girl for a description of the acts she performed in exchange for money, to which
she responded: ‘‘have sex with them, strip for ‘em, give ‘em a (censor) job, massage em’,
stuff like that.’’ Had the reporter explored the girl’s past a bit, this interrogation would
probably look like another instance of trauma at the hands of an adult male. While an
uncritical look at questionable detention tactics normalized harsh custodial treatment, it is
through melodramatic moments—be they uplifting or degrading—that the notion of
juvenile incarceration as a normal social institution hardens.

Conclusion and Discussion: Representations as Catalysts for Political Inaction

The stories examined here remind us that media representations are not always made of the
stuff that sparks panics or fearful societal reactions; rather, they often seem made of
moments that require us to do nothing at all. In the context of an already built system of
mass juvenile punishment, these representations reinforce the notion that this entrenched
system is a reasonable and just one. In the current work, this occurred through three related
themes: representations painted detainees as deserving of their fate by highlighting vio-
lence and rationality, while leaving social context aside; they rationalized and excused
harsh treatment of young citizens by uncritically looking at tough custodial practices and,

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at times, championing such measures; and, they relegated reports on the world’s largest
juvenile justice system to the same league as sitcoms and soap operas by turning pun-
ishment into a backdrop for entertainment. In the end, they portrayed an exceptional
system as both necessary and normal, likely compelling viewers to do nothing to change it.
Even if such media moments were to have no appreciable effect on levels of punish-
ment, they still have great consequence; namely, they help maintain this system by nor-
malizing and excusing it. With mass incarceration already in place, there is no need for
media representations to cause a spike in punishment to have a hand in pain infliction.
The limits of argumentation throughout the representations are instructive. Even in
serious pieces—stories that did not just use juvenile punishment as a backdrop for
entertainment—concern rarely went beyond the actions of rogue guards, an individualized
problem that precludes systemic analysis (Mathiesen 2004). Moreover, stories bound
criticism in such a way that the basic assumptions on which mass juvenile detention rest
went unchallenged. Often, criticism simply reinforced the notion that exclusionary pun-
ishments for juveniles are necessary and normal. Perhaps the most serious question asked
throughout the coverage was whether young people, sometimes very young people, should
be tried as adults. In answering this question, opposing sides battled it out, but only within
tight limits: one side argued for juvenile detention, while the other made the case for
incarceration in an adult facility. This bounded argument brings to mind Noam Chomsky’s
examination of media coverage during the Vietnam War. Rather than demand citizens
mimic governmental ideology, the media encourages dissent and argumentation within
carefully prescribed limits:
What this system attempts to do is to fix the limits of possible thought; supporters of
official doctrine at one end, and the critics—vigorous, courageous, and much
admired for their independent judgment—at the other. The hawks and the doves. But
we discover that all share certain tacit assumptions, and that it is these assumptions
that are really crucial… The more vigorous the debate, the more effectively the basic
doctrines of the propaganda system, tacitly assumed on all sides, are instilled.
(Chomsky 2006: 111–112)
In the case of Vietnam coverage and commentary, the hawks and doves both assumed
that the USA was fighting for the independence of South Vietnam—an easily disproved
notion according to Chomsky. In the case of juvenile crime and punishment, the hawks
argued for prison while the doves pushed for juvenile detention. Both ‘‘extremes’’ took as a
given that depriving youth of their freedom was the correct course; both ignored non-
carceral alternatives. Each argued vehemently that a loss of freedom should take place in
one type of facility rather than the other. Such a decision, to be sure, has real consequence
for the youth in question. The point remains, though, that both sides of the argument rest on
an important assumption: exclusionary punishments are a legitimate way to deal with
juveniles, even very young ones, found responsible for serious crimes. To go beyond the
dovish argument, to suggest that the youth be dealt with through therapy and reintegra-
tion—a standard argument in other countries (see Green 2008)—borders on unspeakable in
the US context. The notion of a non-carceral alternative is rarely considered, leaving the
question of consequence for the youth as one of degree rather than kind.
There is another story to tell about juvenile justice in the US. This one might include a
close and sober look at life inside juvenile institutions or a discussion of progressive
alternatives to exclusionary punishments for young people (see Goddard and Myers 2011).
It might point out the expensive nature of juvenile detention, or look at how other countries
handle troubled or delinquent youth and juxtapose this to the US system. In addition,

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televised representations might allow youth to speak openly about their lives; hearing
about the often turbulent lives of young people might humanize them to viewers, and
perhaps temper punitive attitudes in a way similar to restorative justice conferences (Miers
2004).
A story about the unjust nature of much US juvenile justice—from the pervasive
inequality at the root of much serious youth violence, to the use of juvenile detention as a
stand-in for a functioning social service system—is, admittedly, a much more difficult one
to tell. While such a story might not be any less compelling than the representations
examined above, there are structural and cultural reasons for why it would be unlikely to
appear in US television news. It is a story that takes more time to craft and more airtime
and resources to present, and these factors go against the market forces that shape com-
mercial television (Mathiesen 2001). Such a story cuts into profitability by adding to
production costs and because it is unlikely to put viewers in the ‘‘buying mood’’ that
advertisers desire. It is also an account that counters an ideology, one reinforced by the
moments examined here, that youth crime stems from flawed, asocial individuals best
‘‘straightened out’’ through exclusionary punishments. Challenging such ideology requires
a sustained conversation that is increasingly difficult to come by in a corporate-run media
that expects guests to make their points without much in the way of evidence:
Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines that everybody else is saying, for
which you don’t need any proof… Or else you say something which in fact is true
and you will sound like it’s from Neptune. Concision requires that there be no
backing or evidence. The flood of unanimous doctrine ensures that it will sound as if
it’s off the wall. (Chomsky and Barsamian 2001: 50)
As progressive criminologists wrestle with the prospect of going public with their work
(Currie 2007)—perhaps in the hopes of pushing conversation on crime and punishment
past the tight bounds of the hawks and the doves—the constraints of corporate television
must be acknowledged. While criminology may have a sizable amount of accumulated
knowledge with which to inform conversations on crime and punishment, such information
is largely at odds with the public mind itself—a mind more accustomed to representations
like the ones examined above than anything academic criminology has to offer. Therefore,
criminologists will need to choose their public arenas carefully. At minimum, they will
need a place to make a sustained argument without being drowned-out by conventional
doctrine. This requirement puts into question commercial television as a suitable venue.
Tactics aside, the representations examined here make clear the acute need for a
counterweight to popular accounts of juvenile punishment. If one set out to construct
images that maintain mass juvenile incarceration, they might look something like the ones
examined here. While these representations might be too diffuse and diverse to further
bloat the US juvenile system overnight, they also leave mass juvenile detention intact by
presenting a broken system as being in no real need of fundamental reform. As scholarly
attention to representations of crime and punishment continues, it will be crucial to con-
tinue to think through not only instances that incite panic and stir up fear, but also those
that perpetuate political inaction in the face of of social injustice.

Acknowledgments I wish to thank Elliott Currie, Valerie Jenness, John Dombrink, Mary E. Myers, Lori
Sexton as well as the Social Justice Working Group at UC Irvine for commenting on earlier drafts of this
work. Thank you very much to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions as well.

123
406 R. R. Myers

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