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Crime

• November 8 -- Criminal Negligence of Cause and Effect
Crime reporter Fox Butterfield files "Despite Drop In Crime, An Increase In Inmates," yet another Butterfield story that fails to grasp that putting criminals in prison can actually lead to a drop in crime.

• May 13 -- Prisons Fill, Crime Falls, Times Reporter Frets
Crime reporter Fox Butterfield Wednesday picks up a study from an unlabeled liberal group, the Sentencing Project, and frets over the increasing length of prison sentences.

• May 11 -- Times Relays Half-Cocked Anti-Gun Stats
Glen Justice reviews a Mother's Day gun-control rally in D.C, the start of a campaign to lobby for renewal of a ban on assault weapons.

• May 10 -- Abuse in U.S. Prisons "Similar" to Abu Ghraib
Crime reporter Fox Butterfield provides a factually thin stew of liberal anti-prison anecdotes: "Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates."

• March 26 -- Giving the Losers the First Word
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act passed by a wide margin, but Carl Hulse's piece lets the liberal minority have the first word: "Opponents denounced the bill, adopted on a vote of 61 to 38, as an effort to undermine the constitutional right to abortion by recognizing the fetus as a person."

• September 23 -- “Exoneration” Sweeping the Nation?
Pam Belluck claims: “As more than 100 people sentenced to death have been exonerated across the nation, other states have abridged or considered abridging the use of the death penalty.” Belluck makes it sound like a movement sweeping the nation, but the truth is less dramatic: Those 100-plus people span a period of 30 years.

• August 12 -- The Times Stands for “Common Decency” (Part II)
For the Times, that means being anti-death penalty. A headline reads: “Executions versus society’s standards of decency.”

• August 4 -- Not Ready for Prime Time On Crime
A Times editorial defends D.C.’s useless gun ban: “Erroneously proclaiming Washington the murder capital of the nation, [Sen.] Hatch, the Utah Republican, would make it easier for residents to brandish handguns at home and in the workplace.” But Hatch is right: the FBI reports D.C. was the nation’s murder capital last year.

• July 28 -- “Crime Falling, Yet Prisons Still Filling,” Part XIX
Ever since 1997, when the Times ran the headline, “Crime Rates are Falling, but Prisons Keep on Filling,” the paper hasn’t grasped the connection between more criminals being in prison and a drop in the crime rate. Monday’s front page offered yet another naïve take on the subject.

• July 21 -- Anti-Israel Terrorism Would Have Been OK?
James Bennet writes on rising crime in Palestinian towns: “They were not masked men battling for the Palestinian national cause, just three thugs trying to kidnap a man off the street, apparently for ransom.” Would Bennet have thought better of the men if they’d been terrorists?

• July 8 -- “Crime Falling, Yet Prisons Still Filling,” Part XVIII
An editorial by Adam Cohen repeats a cherished bit of Times crime naivete: “After a three-decade surge, which has continued even as crime rates have dropped…”

• May 8 -- The End of the Blair Affair
The saga of plagiarizing Times reporter Jayson Blair. 

• April 9 -- “Crime Falling, Yet Prisons Still Filling,” Part XVII
Ah, tradition: Washington has its cherry blossoms; the Times has its annual naïve crime story. “[The] soaring incarceration rate is not tied to the violent crime rate, which is lower than it was in 1974.” The Times overlooks the bleeding obvious—violent crime is going down because more violent criminals are in jail.

• January 22 -- NYT Befuddled
A contradiction to the New York Times: "Since the early 1970's, the number of state prisoners has increased 500 percent, growing each year in the 1990's even as crime fell."

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org