The Sentencing Project’s new media guide can help media outlets develop coverage that will better inform the public and policymakers on how to pursue the most effective and humane public safety policies.
The Sentencing Project is a research and advocacy organization that promotes effective and humane responses to crime that minimize imprisonment and criminalization by promoting racial/ethnic, economic, and gender justice. News coverage of crime and criminal justice policies has played an integral role in the buildup of mass incarceration and its racial disparities. Many newsrooms are now striving to more accurately and critically cover these issues.
Click to here for our guidance to newsrooms and journalists on how to cover crime and criminal justice in ways that would better inform the public and policymakers on how to pursue the most effective and humane public safety policies.
In 2019, over half of the people in U.S. prisons – amounting to more than 770,000 people – were serving sentences of 10 years or longer – a huge jump from 2000.
