Abstract:
In the past decade, negative police-citizen encounters have received a great amount of attention
in both research and in the media. Although prior studies have examined the characteristics
associated with negative police-citizen relationships, less is known how police-citizen encounters
are portrayed in the media. Using a content analysis of stories published on police-citizen
encounters in the New York Times during the past 15 years, this study explores the characteristics
(both officer and offender) and outcomes (e.g., arrest, use of force) associated with such stories.
In addition, the data collected from the content analysis will be compared to relevant statistics in
the real world to determine whether the information reported on police-citizen encounters departs
from official statistics.
