Central Park Five Case

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Jack Calderwood 3/4/24 In their reporting of the Central Park Five case, the news media employed inflammatory and dehumanizing language and engaged in fearmongering. In addition to referring to the boys as “sociopaths” and “teenage mutants,” the news media used words that characterized the boys as animalistic, even referring to the victim as “prey” (Burns, 2013). Researchers performed an examination of 406 news items published between April 20 to May 4 and originating from New York City’s four daily newspapers, evening newscasts by New York City’s six television stations, and the weekly Amsterdam News (Lichter et al., 1989). Their analysis unveiled 390 descriptions of the suspects that used emotional negative language. Amongst these descriptions were 185 …show more content…
They concocted a story in which there is a sixth perpetrator who mysteriously is not mentioned in any of the confessions. Even if such a story were true, the absence of a sixth perpetrator from the confessions makes the confessions factually incorrect. So, why did the prosecution move forward with this scenario? It would be reasonable to conclude that pressure brought on by the media and the public, outrage and fear it caused, led to the prosecution moving forward with this strategy. The prosecution possessed self-interest, and given the public’s reaction to the case, they likely concluded it would go against their self-interest to be seen as the party responsible for allowing the boys to get away with beating and raping the jogger. Moreover, they also probably concluded that the successful prosecution of the boys would result in the public viewing them as heroes, which could very well aid their careers. As such, they disregarded their ethics, which dictated their discretionary decision-making. This is not to imply there were no other ethical lapses in judgement by criminal justice