Media Coverage of Crime and Criminal Justice critically examines the media to identify how crime and criminal justice are addressed and covered in the news, entertainment, and infotainment media. The book brings attention to important realities of crime and criminal justice and also corrects major misconceptions of crime and criminal justice created by the media. While there are other texts on the market focused on the impact of mass media on criminal justice, this text is the only one that starts with the issue of corporate ownership of the mass media as a problem for gaining an accurate understanding of the realities of crime and criminal justice.

The fourth edition updates the third with the latest studies focusing on media coverage of crime, police, courts, and corrections. Unique among media books, the author presents basic information about the media in the introductory chapters and then applies this information to specific issues of crime and criminal justice in the rest of the book. By focusing on the same issues and themes throughout, learning of key concepts is furthered as they are applied to actual studies of real-world media.