Popular Crime

by Bill James

  As adults, we direct the attention of our children and of our students toward issues of significance. But in my view, to try to tell other adults what is or is not a “serious” issue is to step into the role of a “super-adult”—an adult who, by virtue of superior intelligence or greater seriousness, is entitled to sort the interests of others into serious and non-serious pursuits. It’s arrogant.

  Not everything that is arrogant is untrue. Those who try to tell the rest of us what we should be interested in are always arrogant, but they are not always wrong. Probably they are often right.

  But I question whether they are reliably right, and in particular whether they are right in regard to Popular Crime. Let us suppose, for example, that the Super-Adult is very interested in Saving the Rain Forest, and the Super-Adult’s younger brother is just a big dumb sports fan. The Super-Adult regards this as an unworthy use of time.

  Well, yes, but people have a legitimate need to enjoy their lives. To pursue the things that make life enjoyable is not un-serious. Suppose that the Super-Adult makes himself miserable and annoys others by worrying at length about the degradation of the Rain Forest—which he is totally unable to prevent. No good whatsoever comes from his concern. Who, then, is the serious man—the younger brother, who enjoys his life, or the Super-Adult older brother, who makes himself miserable worrying about something that he can’t do anything about?

  It’s a debatable point.

  It is not clear to me that anyone can say what is or is not a serious subject, and it is my view that the things that people happen to be interested in are as reliable a touchstone as any other to what they should be interested in.

  Look, I’m like anybody else; I get frustrated with the quality of news. I have several “news” channels on my TV, and I often find myself flipping among them, trying to find the actual news buried behind the clutter. Crime stories, repeated on a thirty-minute loop with lengthy interpretation but no new developments, are among the chief irritants. But when these TV people aren’t doing stupid crime stories, what are they doing? Dying movie stars, financial analysts hyping their services with a self-serving interpretation of what’s happening on Wall Street, manufactured scandals about sports stars and college basketball coaches, and happy talk by on-air personalities who are fortunate that I lack the capacity to fling them instantly into outer space. Even the “political” news is dominated by distractions that just amount to people screaming at one another about lapses of good manners. One desperately wants to see Walter Cronkite, just giving you the news.

  Yes, crime stories are a major irritant when you are trying to find actual news; I can sign on to that. But there’s a general problem of the news media prostituting itself in the search for ratings, and losing focus on what people need to know or even want to know. I don’t think we can really say that Popular Crime stories are responsible for that. Let us deal systematically with the other nine issues:

  1) Crime stories breed cynicism, by engendering in many people a distorted view of the world in which crime is more common than it really is.

  Yes, I think that’s true, sometimes. I don’t think that this is generally true, that people are driven toward cynicism by an exaggerated sense of our society’s risks, but it is true of some people.

  In my view, this comes under the heading of the natural limitations of the human mind. Information about politics often leads to emotional extremism, promoting paranoia and damaging the body politic. Some environmentalists promote paranoia about the environment. Some animal-rights activists are crazy people who get mad at the President for swatting a fly.

  It is common, in our society, to exaggerate risks in an effort to prod us toward action. Environmentalists, of course, are the best at it; they have successfully created widespread paranoia about risks that are, in reality, impossibly remote. Top-level environmentalists know perfectly well that they are exaggerating the risks, while rank-and-file activists don’t have a clue. What do you want to do; wait until the ozone is gone, and then try to fix it?

  Violent crimes are life-altering experiences. An exaggerated fear of crime is not a bad thing, if it merely leads us to redundant security measures. Yes, some people are nutty on the subject, but then, some people are nutty on any and every subject.

  2) Crime stories encourage the intervention of the press in the operation of the system of justice.

  In my view, the intervention of the press in the operation of the system of justice does a thousand times more good than harm. The news media focuses attention on misconduct by police officers, which the command structure would virtually always prefer to cover up. The news media calls attention to crimes that are difficult to solve, and crimes on which no progress is being made. The news media brings to light cases in which innocent people are convicted of crimes. The news media makes the public aware of crimes, and thus of dangers. The news media gives the public the opportunity to come forward with information about crimes that they might otherwise not realize that they have. Yes, the intervention of the press in the operation of the system of justice does do harm, but it does much, much more good than harm.

  3) Popular Crime stories coarsen our culture by making entertainment out of the pain and suffering of others.

  Well, yes, that’s true. But … you know, there are many flaws in our popular culture. Homeless people badgering us for money on the city streets coarsen the culture. Drugs have coarsened our culture, and prostitution, and ubiquitous advertisements screaming for our attention from every corner, and easy access to pornography. We have a pretty coarse culture. I’m not really sure how much responsibility for that is borne by Popular Crime stories or how much better off we would be in this regard without them, but I will agree that Popular Crime stories do make entertainment out of the pain and suffering of others, and that this does contribute to a coarsening of the culture.

  4) Crime stories enflame the public’s emotions about irrelevant and trivial issues.

  Nothing is more dangerous than to have the public’s emotions enflamed about serious issues. When you have the public’s emotions enflamed about a serious issue having direct bearing on their lives, you have a war, and very large numbers of people get killed. When you have the public’s emotions enflamed about a trivial issue or an issue that is symbolically important, you get barroom arguments.

  5) Crime stories feed misinformation to the public about police operations and the criminal justice system.

  Yes, but much more real and valid information than misinformation. The human mind has very wrinkled patterns. We very often misunderstand what we are told, and misinterpret it when we try to repeat it. This has nothing to do with the phenomenon of Popular Crime.

  6) Crime stories violate principles of fair play by leading to the public conviction of people who have not been put on trial.

  This does happen, and at times with tragic consequences. In some advanced countries, one is not allowed to publish the names of persons accused of a crime until they have a fair trial. This is intended to protect the trial, and this raises two questions:

  1) Whether it is effective in protecting the rights of the accused, and

  2) Whether it is worth the cost to a free press to suppress information.

  It seems to me a reasonable practice, but I don’t know enough about it to argue it one way or the other. In America we place a very high value on an unregulated press. Crime stories are one of many things that sometimes cause us to wonder about the wisdom of that.

  7) Crime stories are a sort of “near pornography” which excite base emotions by enabling those who take an excessive interest in crimes to wallow in the salacious details of events that are outside the experiences of normal and decent people.

  There are people who take an unhealthy interest in lurid events; that’s a fact.

  It is, in my opinion, unfair and inaccurate to characterize the Popular Crime audience by those people. Most of us who read crime books, I would argue, do so out of a desire to better understand the
fraying edges of society. That is not unhealthy, and we are not titillated by these events.

  8) Publicity about crimes encourages criminals and creates copycat crimes.

  Sure, but you have to trade that off against the value of crime stories in making people aware of real dangers in their world. Crime stories remind people to lock their doors, to stay out of dark parking lots at night and to think twice about inviting crazy people into their homes. Crime stories about ATM robberies led banks to surround ATMs with lights and cameras. Publicity about the Tylenol poisonings in 1982 led to tamper-proof packaging of non-prescription drugs. On balance, I have no doubt that the prophylactic value of alerting the public to dangers far outweighs the cost in terms of educating criminals.

  9) An undue focus on horrific events interferes with the development of a sense of inhabiting a secure society.

  One of our chief assignments, as parents, is to create a safe environment for our children. One of the prime responsibilities of a school or a college is to provide a safe environment for education. One of the basic responsibilities of an employer is to create a safe environment for the workers.

  Crime stories certainly interfere with the development of a safe environment, but is it the “story” part that we should blame for that, or the “crime” part? The key there is the word “undue.” What is an “undue” focus on a murder?

  It is my view that huge Popular Crime cases are “symbolic issues” that society uses to try to think through issues of crime and justice. In the O. J. Simpson case, we were, as a society, trying to confront a series of issues:

  How does one deal with a celebrity who is accused of murder?

  How do we deal with it when a person who is charming, affable, well-liked and widely admired is accused of a vicious crime?

  Is the racism of a police officer relevant to the issue of whether an investigation was properly conducted?

  Can a man who is rich and famous still be considered a victim of racism?

  Is it proper to sequester jurors for a long period of time, or must we find some alternative to that?

  When should society get involved in a domestic-violence situation? Is it sufficient to react to 911 calls about an ex-husband/stalker, or should more be done about that?

  We were also educating ourselves about DNA and crime-scene management. At the start of the O. J. Simpson saga most people knew little or nothing about DNA, and I would bet that most people had no idea that there was such a thing as a “crime-scene technologist.” Those are meaningful gains for society, but those issues are trivial compared to others. We are thinking about ourselves, about our nature. Am I capable of a crime like that, under the right circumstances? Is my wife capable of a crime like that, or my husband, or my brother, or my neighbor? How do I know? What can I believe? Would I drive the white SUV for a friend in a situation like this, like A. C. Cowlings did? If O.J. is a bad person, why does he have such wonderful friends? Where does O.J.’s rage come from? Does his anger result from his childhood, from growing up in a racist society, or does it result from the dynamics of his relationship with Nicole? Is this hatred or soured love? Or is hatred merely love gone sour? Or did his actions result from arrogance, from having had too many privileges for too long?

  We were, in our involvement in the O. J. Simpson case, asking ourselves very, very serious questions—much more serious than the questions that are involved in an election, more serious than the questions so hysterically thrust upon us by environmentalists and obesity researchers who are certain we are all going to die next week because we’re overweight and running out of oxygen.

  In the case of JonBenet—and in the case of Caylee Anthony, and Jessica Lunsford—we were thinking through issues of crime and punishment, and at the same time very basic issues related to the safety of our children. How did the criminal justice system set loose an unprincipled, dangerous man like the one who killed Jessica? How does that happen? What should be done with such people? How do we protect our children from such creatures? Is Aruba a safe place to vacation?

  It was easy to believe that John Couey was guilty of murder because he looked like he was auditioning for a part in a zombie movie, but Casey Anthony looks like a goddess, and John Ramsey looks like a pastor. How do we deal with that?

  A parent refuses medical treatment for a child for religious reasons, and the child dies. How do we deal with that? Is that murder? A woman encourages her boyfriend to punch an ex-boyfriend’s lights out, but the ex-boyfriend dies. Is that murder? Should it be murder? How should it be punished?

  A person suspected of murder vanishes into the night, and, because there is insufficient evidence to prosecute, the police make little effort to trace him. Is that right or wrong? At what point does a person forfeit the right to drop out of one life and begin a new one?

  How do we protect ourselves, and how do we decide what punishment is appropriate? Do we trust our judges? Do we trust our prosecutors? Do we trust our police? If not, how do we fix that?

  How do we decide when a missing person may be presumed dead? What may a defense attorney legitimately do, in the defense of a guilty client? Are we doing enough to protect the rights of the accused, or are we doing too much? Are we doing the right things, or the wrong things?

  These issues have a clear and present relationship to our real lives. If you take away Popular Crime stories, what involvement does the public have in these discussions? How do we educate the public about these issues, and how do we think through them? Where do we debate them, and, of more relevance, when?

  After the Lindbergh case the American media—ashamed of itself for its over-the-top coverage of the crime—made a de facto arrangement not to wallow in crime stories. Good enough—but did you ever think that maybe that contributed to the explosion of crime that began about 1963?

  Well, it did. It did, in this way. It is one thing to say that no person should be murdered by the state. I am opposed to the death penalty; many of you are opposed to the death penalty.

  It is one thing to say that when you are not exposed to pictures of murdered children and stories about convicts who get out of prison and immediately rape and murder a co-ed. It is a very different thing to say that when you are. It is one thing to say that everybody is entitled to a second chance. It is a different thing to say that when you know what the costs are of being too free with second chances. It is one thing to argue for rehabilitation and re-integration of criminals into society, when you are shielded from the costs of their crimes.

  The gentleman’s agreement not to “exploit” crime stories led gradually to a society that felt more safe than it really was. We fell into sloppy attitudes about criminals, attitudes that emphasized the rights of criminals over the protection of society. This led gradually to a criminal justice system that didn’t take serious crime seriously enough, and this contributed to an explosion in the crime rate.

  We all know that serious crimes result from behaviors that are not criminal. In the same way that a mixture of flour, eggs, sugar, baking powder and a hot oven will result in a cake, a mixture of guns, drugs, prostitution, jealousy and a bad debt will result in a murder. Do you regulate guns to prevent that mix from forming, or drugs, or prostitution, or loan sharking? Or all of them? How do you regulate them?

  We don’t need to think less about these issues, as a society; we need to think more about them. I acknowledge that there are problems with Popular Crime stories, that there is ugliness to them, that there are victims of the process, that there are distortions of resources that result from them and there are problems in the judicial system that result from the popularization of criminal events.

  But we have two choices: we can abandon the criminal justice system to the lawyers—which will result in a justice system that works well for lawyers—or we can involve the public. If we want the public involved, it is Popular Crime stories that are the pathway to their involvement.

  Photographs

  Elizabeth Canning, whose testimony again
st an old gypsy woman divided 18th century England into Canningites and Egyptians.

  A fanciful, if stunning, depiction (1850) of Mary Rogers, who was murdered by persons unknown on July 25, 1841.

  (Photo © Mary Evans Picture Library/The Image Works.)

  Clarence Darrow during the Scopes Monkey Trial.

  (Photo © Hulton Archive/Getty Images.)

  The house/hotel—the so-called Murder Castle—constructed by H. H. Holmes of Chicago. Holmes was executed in 1896. This photo was taken in 1937.

  (Photo © Topham/The Image Works.)

  Harry K. Thaw of Pittsburgh. Does this man look like a murderer to you?

  (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.)

  Inside the United States Capitol building, 1915. The bomb was left by Erich Muenter, also known as Frank Holt, Thomas P. Lester, R. Pearce, and numerous other names.

  (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.)

  Robert Stroud—the Birdman of Alcatraz—who was never allowed to keep birds at Alcatraz, but never mind.

  (Photo © Archive Photos/Getty Images.)

  The site of the Hall-Mills murders. Within days, the crab apple tree under which the bodies were found was stripped of its bark and chipped down to slivers for souvenirs.

  (Photo courtesy of the Franklin Township Public Library Historical Collections.)

  Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. would now be 79 years old (2011), were he still alive.