A recent study has revealed that gang-related research has become one of the most popular topics in criminal justice disciplines (Pyrooz & Mitchell, 2015). However, fruitful information from academic studies is not fully utilized by either official institutions or the mass media. Previous studies have concluded that newspaper reports contribute to the creation of myths about gangs (Howell, 2007; Esbensen & Tusinski, 2007). The current study reexamines this conclusion by systematically analyzing 180 newspaper reports drawn from LexisNexis, focusing on gang-related crime and interventions. The findings show that newspaper reports do create “myths” about gangs, but not in the same manner that researchers once believed. We also find that researchers may benefit from newspaper reports because they often rapidly capture social phenomena and can provide information on topics for future academic research. © 2016, National Gang Crime Research Center. All rights reserved.
Language: en
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