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The New True Crime: How the Rise of Serialized Storytelling Is Transforming Innocence
How serialized crime shows became an American obsession
TV shows and podcasts like Making a Murderer , Serial , and Atlanta Monster have taken the cultural zeitgeist by storm, and contributed to the release of wrongly imprisoned people―such as Adnan Syed. The popularity of these long-form true crime docuseries has sparked greater attention to issues of inequality, power, social class, and structural racism. More and more, the American public is asking, Who is and is not deserving of punishment, and who is and is not protected by the law? In The New True Crime , Diana Rickard argues that these new true crime series deserve our attention for what they reveal about our societal understanding of crime and punishment, and for the new light they shine on the inequalities of the criminal justice system. Questioning the finality of verdicts, framing facts as in the eye of the beholder―these new series unmoor our faith in what is knowable, even as, Rickard critically notes, they often blur the lines between “fact” and “fiction.”
With a focus on some of the most popular true crime podcasts and streaming series of the last decade, Rickard provides an in-depth analysis of the ways in which this new media―which allows for binge-listening or watching―makes crime into a public spectacle and conveys ideological messages about punishment to its audience. Entertainment values have always been entwined with crime news reporting. Newsworthy stories, Rickard reminds us, need to involve sex, violence, or a famous person, and contain events that can be framed in terms of individualism and conservative ideologies about crime. Even as these old tropes of innocent victims and deviant bad guys still dominate these docuseries, Rickard also unpacks how the new true crime has been influenced by the innocence movement, a diverse group of organizers and activists, be they journalists, lawyers, formerly incarcerated people, or family members, who now have a place in mainstream consciousness as DNA evidence exonerates the wrongly convicted.
The New True Crime questions the knowability of truth and probes our anxieties about the “real” nature of true crime media. For fans of true crime shows and anyone concerned about justice in America, this book will prove to be essential reading.
TV shows and podcasts like Making a Murderer , Serial , and Atlanta Monster have taken the cultural zeitgeist by storm, and contributed to the release of wrongly imprisoned people―such as Adnan Syed. The popularity of these long-form true crime docuseries has sparked greater attention to issues of inequality, power, social class, and structural racism. More and more, the American public is asking, Who is and is not deserving of punishment, and who is and is not protected by the law? In The New True Crime , Diana Rickard argues that these new true crime series deserve our attention for what they reveal about our societal understanding of crime and punishment, and for the new light they shine on the inequalities of the criminal justice system. Questioning the finality of verdicts, framing facts as in the eye of the beholder―these new series unmoor our faith in what is knowable, even as, Rickard critically notes, they often blur the lines between “fact” and “fiction.”
With a focus on some of the most popular true crime podcasts and streaming series of the last decade, Rickard provides an in-depth analysis of the ways in which this new media―which allows for binge-listening or watching―makes crime into a public spectacle and conveys ideological messages about punishment to its audience. Entertainment values have always been entwined with crime news reporting. Newsworthy stories, Rickard reminds us, need to involve sex, violence, or a famous person, and contain events that can be framed in terms of individualism and conservative ideologies about crime. Even as these old tropes of innocent victims and deviant bad guys still dominate these docuseries, Rickard also unpacks how the new true crime has been influenced by the innocence movement, a diverse group of organizers and activists, be they journalists, lawyers, formerly incarcerated people, or family members, who now have a place in mainstream consciousness as DNA evidence exonerates the wrongly convicted.
The New True Crime questions the knowability of truth and probes our anxieties about the “real” nature of true crime media. For fans of true crime shows and anyone concerned about justice in America, this book will prove to be essential reading.
- GenresNonfiction
304 pages, Hardcover
Published September 5, 2023
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September 22, 2023
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.
I would normally return a book rather than leave a one-star review. Due to the important issues raised, and the fact that it falls directly into my personal wheelhouse, I feel that I must fill in some of the blanks that this author has left in the text. I was trafficked by a babysitter in 1972. My friend Wendy Huggy was kidnapped in 1982 at 16. Her case is still open.
Let me be clear: I don’t want anyone falsely imprisoned for any reason. I’m not a fan of the state as a bad actor or the prison-industrial complex. I’m against the death penalty.
I believe book reviews exist to let readers know whether a book is for them. And I aim to do that. I kept asking myself, who is this book for?
I believe this book is for (white) people (men) who enjoy true crime, and have never personally experienced either violent crime or the criminal “justice” system. Unfortunately Professor Rickard left out some vitally important points. I must rebut/fill in the gaps.
TL/DR: I write “true crime for survivors.” My goal is overall harm reduction for all communities. While Professor Rickard does address some of the racial injustice of wrongful convictions and police/prosecutorial misconduct against African-Americans in particular, even that issue is only partially addressed. The way these mechanisms simultaneously abuse victims, and the true crime genre pits those two communities against each other as if justice were mutually exclusive, is not discussed anywhere. The phrase “mass incarceration” doesn’t occur until the midpoint, and I thought it might not appear at all. She does eventually discuss the prison-industrial complex. I’m glad if the genre is humanizing defendants. But there is zero/negative empathy for rape victims in this book. It is absolutely not recommended for survivors of sexual assault. Sexual violence is treated as an abstract concept herein. The male gaze is never alluded to, much less the violent male gaze – the reason for this entire genre’s existence IMO. Victims are dumped on and violence against women is discussed in callous – not necessarily clinical, but aloof – ways throughout. This book argues that true crime is progressive despite the obvious ethical flaws in the form (the details of your rape/murder are public domain) because theoretically it's addressing the flawed system, albeit one case at a time, for-profit, and in an amateur way, with no thought to collateral damage, victim impact, or ancillary toxic narratives. DIY infotainment has evolved to enlighten the bourgeoisie to the systemic injustices that sometimes affect one of their own, in a way that constantly retraumatizes survivors via trial by Reddit. This book argues that it’s a good thing. I don’t believe anyone has justice until everyone does. I felt simultaneously invisible, exploited, and scapegoated while reading this.
***
Professor Rickard notes in passing that the true crime genre – melodramatizing and semi-fictionalizing white sexual violence – was invented to distract from lynching (and she doesn’t mention it, but also the pogroms against Native America). The truth was much more pernicious and divisive than simply that. White rape was often the pretense for lynching.
African-America was truly terrorized with false narratives about white rape for many years. These were frequently put forward by Confederate women who had not been raped themselves, like the first woman senator who called for 1,000 lynchings a week to prevent rape (of white women). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca... In reality most sexual violence is committed within the same race.
14-year-old Junius Stinney was like a human sacrifice to the state, being gruesomely executed for the murder of a white toddler that was almost certainly committed by an adult white man, at any rate not by him.
Over many years, a big media spectacle was made of punishing Black men for rape/murders that were either committed by white men (Junius Stinney) or didn’t happen at all (the pre-emptive lynchings of Rebecca Felton or the murder of Emmett Till). This also allowed actual white rapists to go largely unexamined by the media/unpunished by the law, along with lynching, the Trail of Tears, and all of the other bad things they did.
When Marjorie Taylor Greene (a Confederate, not a rape survivor) says that Fani Willis should focus on prosecuting “rapists” instead of Donald Trump, she’s dog-whistling “Black men” to her constituents. And she underscores my point by referencing the p-grabber.
Professor Rickard mentions, in passing, that because true crime focuses on crimes against (white) women, it gives the false impression that women are more often victims of violence than men.
It also gives the false impression that white women are grossly overserved at the trough of justice here in the incarceration nation. White rape victims become the locus of the public’s anger about the injustices toward African-America, because of the above-mentioned history, combined with the media’s obsessive focus on one or two cases to the exclusion of all others and our prison-industrial complex. It’s infuriating for people to be ignored and targeted simultaneously. Prison is the new slavery.
The professor doubles down on this pitting of white rape survivors against African-Americans throughout this book, as though justice is an either-or proposition for those communities. That, for me, is the worst and most harmful lie of the genre. I believe nobody has justice until everybody does. White women don’t get help or justice either, as I will demonstrate below. White men giveth and white men taketh away. They own both the prison-industrial complex and the media. https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevint... And they do most of the raping of white women. Convenient.
In “true crime” the media created a simulacrum of a conversation about the sexual violence that was also going on in-house, in which none of the above could ever be properly addressed, for the benefit and amusement of the people perpetrating and unaffected by it all – the target audience of this book. True crime is America’s psychosocial Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
All of that is described in this book as necessary for the storytelling, as if telling stories that dehumanizing way was necessary at all. Why isn’t sexual violence reported like all other crime? Why is it “true crime” and not “crime reporting”?
Professor Rickard refers to “crime porn” on one occasion. But to my eyes the whole genre is usually low-key rape and murder porn. That’s very obvious to me. This whole genre caters to the violent (white) male gaze and always has. That concept is never remotely approached. It’s about the male gaze. The violent male gaze. Mystery solved.
I’d like to thank Kathryn Schulz for asking readers to consider “what it means when a private investigative project – bound by no rules of procedure, answerable to nothing but ratings, shaped only by the ethics and aptitude of its makers – comes to serve as our court of last resort.”
Professor Rickard mentioned 48 Hours as an exploitative show. While it is – the whole genre is, including this book – one of the detectives working on Wendy’s kidnapping used that show to try (unsuccessfully) to move her case forward. Wendy had so little social support that the only people they could find at the time were advocates of her abusive mother, who repeated her dishonest, self-exculpating narratives. The Playboy bunny coworker they interviewed had never met Wendy.
So as I see it the door swings both ways. As painful as that episode was for me, I appreciate that the detective took a shot on Wendy’s behalf. The sad reality is that without any media attention we often get no help at all. Wendy’s Scooby gang message board is pure agita for me.
So I understand the anger and frustration that people of color feel about this, how dreadful it is to never see their cases featured. FYI the detectives don’t always answer my calls or emails. There’s one cold-case detective working on every missing person in Pasco County since the beginning of time. We need the media. And they’re vampires.
Not only did the media choose not to report on lynchings, decriminalize them by apathy, but they assisted in weaponizing sexual violence and demonizing African-Americans with their own cohort’s (WASP men) misconduct in many different ways that this book doesn’t allude to. It was much more insidious and divisive than one would suspect from The New True.
The Daniel Holtzclaw prosecution felt like, for me, an unimaginably great victory for my cohort. https://youtu.be/vF-AfFqrIcI However the women from OKC Artists for Justice define it specifically as racial/police violence against Black people. I’ve heard them (and others) say explicitly that police rape can’t and doesn’t happen to white women.
See the many Holtzclaws of Louisville and their white survivors. One of them was on the Breonna Taylor raid. None of them got punished anywhere near as harshly as Holtzclaw. They all got wrist massages, and their survivors got treated like suspects. Holtzclaw got 450 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HERSh...
The OKCAfJ ladies also said that if Holtzclaw’s victims were white the bond would’ve been much higher because of how much more society values white women. They don’t cite a source for that. Even a high-quality news outlet like Democracy Now! dabbles in those pervasive myths, which I will fact-check below.
Professor Rickard cites the state as a bad actor in 77% of wrongful convictions. She explains how plea bargaining is often used to coerce people of few resources into going to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. This is the most-obvious case against it especially with respect to African-America and the prison-industrial complex. The professor explores that well in the book.
However plea bargaining also lets people whom the state favors off the hook for rapes they absolutely did commit. One obvious example of that would be Jeffrey Epstein’s extreme sweetheart deal with Alex Acosta. But plea bargaining is also how an on-duty cop can repeatedly rape a white teenage fast-food employee, get probation-only, and it’s disappeared by the local media.
The local media completely whitewashed Officer Timothy Barber’s sex crimes. He plea bargained (pled down) and got probation-only for an ongoing coercive sexual relationship with a 16-year-old (almost certainly white) fast-food worker. He was on camera CK’ing her at the drive-through in his patrol vehicle, hence the public nudity. See how the media made her public property via plea bargaining – it’s “an inappropriate relationship”:
https://www.abc57.com/news/timothy-ba...
“ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. – Timothy Barber, the South Bend Police officer accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old, has entered a plea agreement.
Barber pleaded guilty to child seduction and official misconduct.…
In October 2021, Barber was charged with two counts of child seduction, one count of public indecency, two counts of official misconduct, and one count of public nudity.”
versus what’s in the probable cause affidavit here: https://www.wndu.com/2021/10/19/south...
“VICTIM 1 stated that she did not know what to do. VICTIM 1 disclosed that she felt like BARBER was obsessed with her by constantly coming into her workplace to see her while he was in full police uniform. VICTIM 1 disclosed that she felt like she had to have sexual intercourse with BARBER and felt intimidated by BARBER because he was a “cop.””
And see that he got probation-only here: https://www.southbendtribune.com/stor...
This woman felt like she had no choice but accept her attacker’s sweet plea deal. He was allowed to quit. The headline is her settlement, which was her only recourse. They talk a lot about the money.
https://www.wdrb.com/in-depth/city-of...
Gas-station workers get rocked.
https://katv.com/news/local/victim-of...
Check out serial rapist Officer Pablo Cano’s sweet plea bargain. https://www.wkms.org/criminal-justice... Note that post-conviction the women are still described as “accusers.” Cano joked about being a sex offender in staff meetings. After pleading down he didn’t have to serve the full sentence.
This affluenza bro raped four different white teenagers on four separate occasions and got probation only. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/ny...
Maybe judges should earn less, so that we could appoint more of them to the bench and try more cases. Because if they’re so clogged and overburdened that they must rely on plea bargaining to everyone’s detriment but the elites, then we apparently need more judges.
The media and plea bargaining work together to whitewash rape in much the same way they did lynching and the pogroms against Native America, simultaneously. America has always had rape culture and nothing in this book challenges it.
Domestic violence is also much higher than average in police households. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/...
Despite how it sounds on your favorite podcast, the criminal “justice” system ignores us even in cases of serial attackers. America has for decades had a “rape kit backlog” of hundreds of thousands of rapes that were reported and not investigated. The #1 reason for the backlog is victim-blaming by the police – the magic eraser of police work. It’s estimated that up to 63% of sexual assaults aren’t reported for this reason.
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/u...
The press is still complicit and a constant bad actor against rape survivors. A great example of that, and demonstration of white America's deep rape culture and constant readiness to blame victims, was the Steubenville High School case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steuben... After the white CNN anchors lamented two of the boys being punished, the town was angry at the teenage survivor – who never had any intention of prosecuting – for ruining their football team.
So despite how it certainly does appear on Dr. Phil, America does not have our backs. The police DGAF when women get raped, even if they’re white. Unless there’s somebody they want to railroad, they often don’t even have a protocol for following up on it. Your rape kit goes in the circular file.
Professor Rickard states in passing that men experience more violence than women. That is true in most, not all, years.
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publicati...
Statistically men also commit about 80 percent of reported violence. Much of the violence men experience is attributable to opt-in lifestyles like gang membership. She left that statistic about “men experiencing more violence than women” without any further qualification or discussion.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6536184/ge...
That portion of the book where she goes on and on about how unfair trials are in terms of demonizing and marginalizing defendants leaves me cold as a survivor. I’ve spent my whole life having to hide, and being punished for, the crimes committed against me.
And welcome to America. Trials have always been a big wanky melodrama in service of a punishment fetish. Remember Salem? Anglo-Saxon Protestants love to “hang ‘em high.”
Going to trial is a dehumanizing and traumatic morality play, where BOTH SIDES are subjected to a blitz of ad hominem attacks and the petty personal biases of twelve random Americans. Ask yourself whether Officer Andrew Mitchell was twice acquitted of killing Donna Castleberry because America loves lethal force, rape culture, or both. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/c...
The victim gets demonized in court, too, after being assaulted. Don’t get me started. Then you or your family may have to live through trial by Reddit forever, if some podcaster with no qualifications whatsoever decides to monetize the violence against you. Because end-stage capitalism eats that mess up, as the professor finally acknowledges 85% into the book.
Then this professor will have the audacity to judge your grief process, expecting everyone to have the zero boundaries of Katie Kitchens or be tsk-tsked as a racist goon. That was truly the most-offensive part of this book, where the Scooby gang gets to sit munching popcorn, armchair-quarterbacking those of us who have been rendered public property on how we’re handling being trampled.
False reporters are rare, and not all of those even get prosecuted. As Professor Rickard notes, a whopping 77% of the time the state is a villain. The rest of that can be attributed to the fact that it’s all a big goofy battle of the experts where they’re emotionally yanking people around as well-described in the book, and the truth is in the eye of the beholder – which isn’t fair to anyone. But the public largely blames false (all) reporters for wrongful convictions.
“Research shows that rates of false reporting are frequently inflated, in part because of inconsistent definitions and protocols, or a weak understanding of sexual assault. Misconceptions about false reporting rates have direct, negative consequences and can contribute to why many victims don’t report sexual assaults (Lisak et al., 2010).” https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/f...
As Professor Rickard notes, there is now a strong connotation between advocating for especially white rape survivors, and conservative, racist policies in America. Unfortunately she also participated in demonizing us as right-wing thugs in large ways and small throughout this book.
The entirely of my review can be found here https://www.netgalley.com/book/291816...
I would normally return a book rather than leave a one-star review. Due to the important issues raised, and the fact that it falls directly into my personal wheelhouse, I feel that I must fill in some of the blanks that this author has left in the text. I was trafficked by a babysitter in 1972. My friend Wendy Huggy was kidnapped in 1982 at 16. Her case is still open.
Let me be clear: I don’t want anyone falsely imprisoned for any reason. I’m not a fan of the state as a bad actor or the prison-industrial complex. I’m against the death penalty.
I believe book reviews exist to let readers know whether a book is for them. And I aim to do that. I kept asking myself, who is this book for?
I believe this book is for (white) people (men) who enjoy true crime, and have never personally experienced either violent crime or the criminal “justice” system. Unfortunately Professor Rickard left out some vitally important points. I must rebut/fill in the gaps.
TL/DR: I write “true crime for survivors.” My goal is overall harm reduction for all communities. While Professor Rickard does address some of the racial injustice of wrongful convictions and police/prosecutorial misconduct against African-Americans in particular, even that issue is only partially addressed. The way these mechanisms simultaneously abuse victims, and the true crime genre pits those two communities against each other as if justice were mutually exclusive, is not discussed anywhere. The phrase “mass incarceration” doesn’t occur until the midpoint, and I thought it might not appear at all. She does eventually discuss the prison-industrial complex. I’m glad if the genre is humanizing defendants. But there is zero/negative empathy for rape victims in this book. It is absolutely not recommended for survivors of sexual assault. Sexual violence is treated as an abstract concept herein. The male gaze is never alluded to, much less the violent male gaze – the reason for this entire genre’s existence IMO. Victims are dumped on and violence against women is discussed in callous – not necessarily clinical, but aloof – ways throughout. This book argues that true crime is progressive despite the obvious ethical flaws in the form (the details of your rape/murder are public domain) because theoretically it's addressing the flawed system, albeit one case at a time, for-profit, and in an amateur way, with no thought to collateral damage, victim impact, or ancillary toxic narratives. DIY infotainment has evolved to enlighten the bourgeoisie to the systemic injustices that sometimes affect one of their own, in a way that constantly retraumatizes survivors via trial by Reddit. This book argues that it’s a good thing. I don’t believe anyone has justice until everyone does. I felt simultaneously invisible, exploited, and scapegoated while reading this.
***
Professor Rickard notes in passing that the true crime genre – melodramatizing and semi-fictionalizing white sexual violence – was invented to distract from lynching (and she doesn’t mention it, but also the pogroms against Native America). The truth was much more pernicious and divisive than simply that. White rape was often the pretense for lynching.
African-America was truly terrorized with false narratives about white rape for many years. These were frequently put forward by Confederate women who had not been raped themselves, like the first woman senator who called for 1,000 lynchings a week to prevent rape (of white women). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca... In reality most sexual violence is committed within the same race.
14-year-old Junius Stinney was like a human sacrifice to the state, being gruesomely executed for the murder of a white toddler that was almost certainly committed by an adult white man, at any rate not by him.
Over many years, a big media spectacle was made of punishing Black men for rape/murders that were either committed by white men (Junius Stinney) or didn’t happen at all (the pre-emptive lynchings of Rebecca Felton or the murder of Emmett Till). This also allowed actual white rapists to go largely unexamined by the media/unpunished by the law, along with lynching, the Trail of Tears, and all of the other bad things they did.
When Marjorie Taylor Greene (a Confederate, not a rape survivor) says that Fani Willis should focus on prosecuting “rapists” instead of Donald Trump, she’s dog-whistling “Black men” to her constituents. And she underscores my point by referencing the p-grabber.
Professor Rickard mentions, in passing, that because true crime focuses on crimes against (white) women, it gives the false impression that women are more often victims of violence than men.
It also gives the false impression that white women are grossly overserved at the trough of justice here in the incarceration nation. White rape victims become the locus of the public’s anger about the injustices toward African-America, because of the above-mentioned history, combined with the media’s obsessive focus on one or two cases to the exclusion of all others and our prison-industrial complex. It’s infuriating for people to be ignored and targeted simultaneously. Prison is the new slavery.
The professor doubles down on this pitting of white rape survivors against African-Americans throughout this book, as though justice is an either-or proposition for those communities. That, for me, is the worst and most harmful lie of the genre. I believe nobody has justice until everybody does. White women don’t get help or justice either, as I will demonstrate below. White men giveth and white men taketh away. They own both the prison-industrial complex and the media. https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevint... And they do most of the raping of white women. Convenient.
In “true crime” the media created a simulacrum of a conversation about the sexual violence that was also going on in-house, in which none of the above could ever be properly addressed, for the benefit and amusement of the people perpetrating and unaffected by it all – the target audience of this book. True crime is America’s psychosocial Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
All of that is described in this book as necessary for the storytelling, as if telling stories that dehumanizing way was necessary at all. Why isn’t sexual violence reported like all other crime? Why is it “true crime” and not “crime reporting”?
Professor Rickard refers to “crime porn” on one occasion. But to my eyes the whole genre is usually low-key rape and murder porn. That’s very obvious to me. This whole genre caters to the violent (white) male gaze and always has. That concept is never remotely approached. It’s about the male gaze. The violent male gaze. Mystery solved.
I’d like to thank Kathryn Schulz for asking readers to consider “what it means when a private investigative project – bound by no rules of procedure, answerable to nothing but ratings, shaped only by the ethics and aptitude of its makers – comes to serve as our court of last resort.”
Professor Rickard mentioned 48 Hours as an exploitative show. While it is – the whole genre is, including this book – one of the detectives working on Wendy’s kidnapping used that show to try (unsuccessfully) to move her case forward. Wendy had so little social support that the only people they could find at the time were advocates of her abusive mother, who repeated her dishonest, self-exculpating narratives. The Playboy bunny coworker they interviewed had never met Wendy.
So as I see it the door swings both ways. As painful as that episode was for me, I appreciate that the detective took a shot on Wendy’s behalf. The sad reality is that without any media attention we often get no help at all. Wendy’s Scooby gang message board is pure agita for me.
So I understand the anger and frustration that people of color feel about this, how dreadful it is to never see their cases featured. FYI the detectives don’t always answer my calls or emails. There’s one cold-case detective working on every missing person in Pasco County since the beginning of time. We need the media. And they’re vampires.
Not only did the media choose not to report on lynchings, decriminalize them by apathy, but they assisted in weaponizing sexual violence and demonizing African-Americans with their own cohort’s (WASP men) misconduct in many different ways that this book doesn’t allude to. It was much more insidious and divisive than one would suspect from The New True.
The Daniel Holtzclaw prosecution felt like, for me, an unimaginably great victory for my cohort. https://youtu.be/vF-AfFqrIcI However the women from OKC Artists for Justice define it specifically as racial/police violence against Black people. I’ve heard them (and others) say explicitly that police rape can’t and doesn’t happen to white women.
See the many Holtzclaws of Louisville and their white survivors. One of them was on the Breonna Taylor raid. None of them got punished anywhere near as harshly as Holtzclaw. They all got wrist massages, and their survivors got treated like suspects. Holtzclaw got 450 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HERSh...
The OKCAfJ ladies also said that if Holtzclaw’s victims were white the bond would’ve been much higher because of how much more society values white women. They don’t cite a source for that. Even a high-quality news outlet like Democracy Now! dabbles in those pervasive myths, which I will fact-check below.
Professor Rickard cites the state as a bad actor in 77% of wrongful convictions. She explains how plea bargaining is often used to coerce people of few resources into going to prison for crimes they didn’t commit. This is the most-obvious case against it especially with respect to African-America and the prison-industrial complex. The professor explores that well in the book.
However plea bargaining also lets people whom the state favors off the hook for rapes they absolutely did commit. One obvious example of that would be Jeffrey Epstein’s extreme sweetheart deal with Alex Acosta. But plea bargaining is also how an on-duty cop can repeatedly rape a white teenage fast-food employee, get probation-only, and it’s disappeared by the local media.
The local media completely whitewashed Officer Timothy Barber’s sex crimes. He plea bargained (pled down) and got probation-only for an ongoing coercive sexual relationship with a 16-year-old (almost certainly white) fast-food worker. He was on camera CK’ing her at the drive-through in his patrol vehicle, hence the public nudity. See how the media made her public property via plea bargaining – it’s “an inappropriate relationship”:
https://www.abc57.com/news/timothy-ba...
“ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. – Timothy Barber, the South Bend Police officer accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old, has entered a plea agreement.
Barber pleaded guilty to child seduction and official misconduct.…
In October 2021, Barber was charged with two counts of child seduction, one count of public indecency, two counts of official misconduct, and one count of public nudity.”
versus what’s in the probable cause affidavit here: https://www.wndu.com/2021/10/19/south...
“VICTIM 1 stated that she did not know what to do. VICTIM 1 disclosed that she felt like BARBER was obsessed with her by constantly coming into her workplace to see her while he was in full police uniform. VICTIM 1 disclosed that she felt like she had to have sexual intercourse with BARBER and felt intimidated by BARBER because he was a “cop.””
And see that he got probation-only here: https://www.southbendtribune.com/stor...
This woman felt like she had no choice but accept her attacker’s sweet plea deal. He was allowed to quit. The headline is her settlement, which was her only recourse. They talk a lot about the money.
https://www.wdrb.com/in-depth/city-of...
Gas-station workers get rocked.
https://katv.com/news/local/victim-of...
Check out serial rapist Officer Pablo Cano’s sweet plea bargain. https://www.wkms.org/criminal-justice... Note that post-conviction the women are still described as “accusers.” Cano joked about being a sex offender in staff meetings. After pleading down he didn’t have to serve the full sentence.
This affluenza bro raped four different white teenagers on four separate occasions and got probation only. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/ny...
Maybe judges should earn less, so that we could appoint more of them to the bench and try more cases. Because if they’re so clogged and overburdened that they must rely on plea bargaining to everyone’s detriment but the elites, then we apparently need more judges.
The media and plea bargaining work together to whitewash rape in much the same way they did lynching and the pogroms against Native America, simultaneously. America has always had rape culture and nothing in this book challenges it.
Domestic violence is also much higher than average in police households. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/...
Despite how it sounds on your favorite podcast, the criminal “justice” system ignores us even in cases of serial attackers. America has for decades had a “rape kit backlog” of hundreds of thousands of rapes that were reported and not investigated. The #1 reason for the backlog is victim-blaming by the police – the magic eraser of police work. It’s estimated that up to 63% of sexual assaults aren’t reported for this reason.
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/u...
The press is still complicit and a constant bad actor against rape survivors. A great example of that, and demonstration of white America's deep rape culture and constant readiness to blame victims, was the Steubenville High School case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steuben... After the white CNN anchors lamented two of the boys being punished, the town was angry at the teenage survivor – who never had any intention of prosecuting – for ruining their football team.
So despite how it certainly does appear on Dr. Phil, America does not have our backs. The police DGAF when women get raped, even if they’re white. Unless there’s somebody they want to railroad, they often don’t even have a protocol for following up on it. Your rape kit goes in the circular file.
Professor Rickard states in passing that men experience more violence than women. That is true in most, not all, years.
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publicati...
Statistically men also commit about 80 percent of reported violence. Much of the violence men experience is attributable to opt-in lifestyles like gang membership. She left that statistic about “men experiencing more violence than women” without any further qualification or discussion.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6536184/ge...
That portion of the book where she goes on and on about how unfair trials are in terms of demonizing and marginalizing defendants leaves me cold as a survivor. I’ve spent my whole life having to hide, and being punished for, the crimes committed against me.
And welcome to America. Trials have always been a big wanky melodrama in service of a punishment fetish. Remember Salem? Anglo-Saxon Protestants love to “hang ‘em high.”
Going to trial is a dehumanizing and traumatic morality play, where BOTH SIDES are subjected to a blitz of ad hominem attacks and the petty personal biases of twelve random Americans. Ask yourself whether Officer Andrew Mitchell was twice acquitted of killing Donna Castleberry because America loves lethal force, rape culture, or both. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/c...
The victim gets demonized in court, too, after being assaulted. Don’t get me started. Then you or your family may have to live through trial by Reddit forever, if some podcaster with no qualifications whatsoever decides to monetize the violence against you. Because end-stage capitalism eats that mess up, as the professor finally acknowledges 85% into the book.
Then this professor will have the audacity to judge your grief process, expecting everyone to have the zero boundaries of Katie Kitchens or be tsk-tsked as a racist goon. That was truly the most-offensive part of this book, where the Scooby gang gets to sit munching popcorn, armchair-quarterbacking those of us who have been rendered public property on how we’re handling being trampled.
False reporters are rare, and not all of those even get prosecuted. As Professor Rickard notes, a whopping 77% of the time the state is a villain. The rest of that can be attributed to the fact that it’s all a big goofy battle of the experts where they’re emotionally yanking people around as well-described in the book, and the truth is in the eye of the beholder – which isn’t fair to anyone. But the public largely blames false (all) reporters for wrongful convictions.
“Research shows that rates of false reporting are frequently inflated, in part because of inconsistent definitions and protocols, or a weak understanding of sexual assault. Misconceptions about false reporting rates have direct, negative consequences and can contribute to why many victims don’t report sexual assaults (Lisak et al., 2010).” https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/f...
As Professor Rickard notes, there is now a strong connotation between advocating for especially white rape survivors, and conservative, racist policies in America. Unfortunately she also participated in demonizing us as right-wing thugs in large ways and small throughout this book.
The entirely of my review can be found here https://www.netgalley.com/book/291816...
March 13, 2024
The Publisher Says: How serialized crime shows became an American obsession
TV shows and podcasts like Making a Murderer, Serial, and Atlanta Monster have taken the cultural zeitgeist by storm, and contributed to the release of wrongly imprisoned people―such as Adnan Syed. The popularity of these long-form true crime docuseries has sparked greater attention to issues of inequality, power, social class, and structural racism. More and more, the American public is asking, Who is and is not deserving of punishment, and who is and is not protected by the law? In The New True Crime, Diana Rickard argues that these new true crime series deserve our attention for what they reveal about our societal understanding of crime and punishment, and for the new light they shine on the inequalities of the criminal justice system. Questioning the finality of verdicts, framing facts as in the eye of the beholder―these new series unmoor our faith in what is knowable, even as, Rickard critically notes, they often blur the lines between “fact” and “fiction.”
With a focus on some of the most popular true crime podcasts and streaming series of the last decade, Rickard provides an in-depth analysis of the ways in which this new media―which allows for binge-listening or watching―makes crime into a public spectacle and conveys ideological messages about punishment to its audience. Entertainment values have always been entwined with crime news reporting. Newsworthy stories, Rickard reminds us, need to involve sex, violence, or a famous person, and contain events that can be framed in terms of individualism and conservative ideologies about crime. Even as these old tropes of innocent victims and deviant bad guys still dominate these docuseries, Rickard also unpacks how the new true crime has been influenced by the innocence movement, a diverse group of organizers and activists, be they journalists, lawyers, formerly incarcerated people, or family members, who now have a place in mainstream consciousness as DNA evidence exonerates the wrongly convicted.
The New True Crime questions the knowability of truth and probes our anxieties about the “real” nature of true crime media. For fans of true crime shows and anyone concerned about justice in America, this book will prove to be essential reading.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I chose to read this in spite of my serious problems with making victimhood the center of yet another cultural conversation. The howls of outrage when another Black man is convicted, on the flimsiest of evidence, of raping a white woman, center her whiteness and the racism of the laughingly labeled criminal-justice system.
Many parts of the conversations we should be having are entirely missing, eg, Black women raped by white men get no podcasts, murders of Black men and male adolescents get fewer than the statistically appropriate number of hours devoted to them, and let us not even bring up trans folk and/or sex workers of any skin color or gender...why go on, it is all part of the entertainment industry and its long, deep relationship with Othering.
This is not, however, the story...or even more than a glancing part of the story...that Author Rickard tells in this book. It was not intended to be, so this is not a failing of execution but of design.
There is no point yelling at someone for not doing what *you* want done.
The book, as written, makes a strong case for the net positives of a field of entertainment that focuses cultural attention on the failings of a system designed to operate out of the majority’s sight. The techniques of the entertainment industry...heightened language, elisions of tediously bulky chains of evidence into more narrative-friendly sound bites...mirror the long-standing prosecutorial tricks of evidentiary manipulation that these podcasts and shows highlight, only from the other side.
Since the system we have is an adversarial one, with rules that...while on the surface even-handed...frequently get bent or ignored when convenient for those representing institutional authority, we will always need independent actors with the access and the desire to turn over the rocks plopped on top of the holes in evidence in service of the narrative needed to get a conviction. Everyone is guilty if the right/wrong storyteller gets hold of the narrative. (Side note: NEVER TALK TO COPS WITHOUT A LAWYER. NO ONE IS INNOCENT IF THEY SAY YOU ARE NOT.)
So this new use of the entertainment media does indeed do Society a solid service by shining harsh and unflattering light on the actors for the State. It highlights the miscarriages of fairness and honest dealing that are so very common in US society. These are net positives for all concerned. Right?
Crimes have victims or they are not crimes. Victims, living or dead, have no say in who, or how, or why, their trauma is presented, whether during or after the crime, its investigation, or its rehashing. Very few people are Alice Sebold or E. Jean Carroll, those eloquent enough, well-favored enough, or just willing enough to see processes like those needed to re-investigate their horrific personal and, all too often, intimate violations bandied about in public again and again. I dont know if you are aware of this,but there are truly shitty people out there on the internet who absolutely **love** making their ugliest opinons public. These already-traumatized people are all too often targeted by those rotten-souled jerks.
This book is not intended to solve these issues. That it does not is not a reason not to read it. This new use of entertainment to correct flawed narratives instead of spread copaganda is, in my own view, a net positive for society. It comes with problems and abuse vectors that are, sadly, not new. The possibility is that the new true crime could shine a bright enough light on those cyberissues that they will get onto the radar of the ones who can solve them, too.
Ain’t holdin’ my breath, mind you, but the possibility exists, and that is a good thing. Author Rickard makes the outlines of the emerging true-crime media landscape clear and comprehensible to non-expert readers. Her prose is up to the reportorial task at hand; her eye for the narrative strand is at the least as good as the podcasters and showrunners she reports on.
A read I recommend to any media junkies, all leftists, and the passively consuming podaholics who might read this review.
TV shows and podcasts like Making a Murderer, Serial, and Atlanta Monster have taken the cultural zeitgeist by storm, and contributed to the release of wrongly imprisoned people―such as Adnan Syed. The popularity of these long-form true crime docuseries has sparked greater attention to issues of inequality, power, social class, and structural racism. More and more, the American public is asking, Who is and is not deserving of punishment, and who is and is not protected by the law? In The New True Crime, Diana Rickard argues that these new true crime series deserve our attention for what they reveal about our societal understanding of crime and punishment, and for the new light they shine on the inequalities of the criminal justice system. Questioning the finality of verdicts, framing facts as in the eye of the beholder―these new series unmoor our faith in what is knowable, even as, Rickard critically notes, they often blur the lines between “fact” and “fiction.”
With a focus on some of the most popular true crime podcasts and streaming series of the last decade, Rickard provides an in-depth analysis of the ways in which this new media―which allows for binge-listening or watching―makes crime into a public spectacle and conveys ideological messages about punishment to its audience. Entertainment values have always been entwined with crime news reporting. Newsworthy stories, Rickard reminds us, need to involve sex, violence, or a famous person, and contain events that can be framed in terms of individualism and conservative ideologies about crime. Even as these old tropes of innocent victims and deviant bad guys still dominate these docuseries, Rickard also unpacks how the new true crime has been influenced by the innocence movement, a diverse group of organizers and activists, be they journalists, lawyers, formerly incarcerated people, or family members, who now have a place in mainstream consciousness as DNA evidence exonerates the wrongly convicted.
The New True Crime questions the knowability of truth and probes our anxieties about the “real” nature of true crime media. For fans of true crime shows and anyone concerned about justice in America, this book will prove to be essential reading.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I chose to read this in spite of my serious problems with making victimhood the center of yet another cultural conversation. The howls of outrage when another Black man is convicted, on the flimsiest of evidence, of raping a white woman, center her whiteness and the racism of the laughingly labeled criminal-justice system.
Many parts of the conversations we should be having are entirely missing, eg, Black women raped by white men get no podcasts, murders of Black men and male adolescents get fewer than the statistically appropriate number of hours devoted to them, and let us not even bring up trans folk and/or sex workers of any skin color or gender...why go on, it is all part of the entertainment industry and its long, deep relationship with Othering.
This is not, however, the story...or even more than a glancing part of the story...that Author Rickard tells in this book. It was not intended to be, so this is not a failing of execution but of design.
There is no point yelling at someone for not doing what *you* want done.
The book, as written, makes a strong case for the net positives of a field of entertainment that focuses cultural attention on the failings of a system designed to operate out of the majority’s sight. The techniques of the entertainment industry...heightened language, elisions of tediously bulky chains of evidence into more narrative-friendly sound bites...mirror the long-standing prosecutorial tricks of evidentiary manipulation that these podcasts and shows highlight, only from the other side.
Since the system we have is an adversarial one, with rules that...while on the surface even-handed...frequently get bent or ignored when convenient for those representing institutional authority, we will always need independent actors with the access and the desire to turn over the rocks plopped on top of the holes in evidence in service of the narrative needed to get a conviction. Everyone is guilty if the right/wrong storyteller gets hold of the narrative. (Side note: NEVER TALK TO COPS WITHOUT A LAWYER. NO ONE IS INNOCENT IF THEY SAY YOU ARE NOT.)
So this new use of the entertainment media does indeed do Society a solid service by shining harsh and unflattering light on the actors for the State. It highlights the miscarriages of fairness and honest dealing that are so very common in US society. These are net positives for all concerned. Right?
Crimes have victims or they are not crimes. Victims, living or dead, have no say in who, or how, or why, their trauma is presented, whether during or after the crime, its investigation, or its rehashing. Very few people are Alice Sebold or E. Jean Carroll, those eloquent enough, well-favored enough, or just willing enough to see processes like those needed to re-investigate their horrific personal and, all too often, intimate violations bandied about in public again and again. I dont know if you are aware of this,but there are truly shitty people out there on the internet who absolutely **love** making their ugliest opinons public. These already-traumatized people are all too often targeted by those rotten-souled jerks.
This book is not intended to solve these issues. That it does not is not a reason not to read it. This new use of entertainment to correct flawed narratives instead of spread copaganda is, in my own view, a net positive for society. It comes with problems and abuse vectors that are, sadly, not new. The possibility is that the new true crime could shine a bright enough light on those cyberissues that they will get onto the radar of the ones who can solve them, too.
Ain’t holdin’ my breath, mind you, but the possibility exists, and that is a good thing. Author Rickard makes the outlines of the emerging true-crime media landscape clear and comprehensible to non-expert readers. Her prose is up to the reportorial task at hand; her eye for the narrative strand is at the least as good as the podcasters and showrunners she reports on.
A read I recommend to any media junkies, all leftists, and the passively consuming podaholics who might read this review.
October 25, 2023
Diana Rickard's 'The New True Crime' is a timely exploration of the cultural phenomenon that has made serialized crime shows an American obsession. In an era when captivating narratives of real-life crimes have taken over our screens and airwaves, Rickard reveals the profound impact they've had on our understanding of crime, punishment, and the criminal justice system.
Serialized true crime shows have infiltrated the collective consciousness with unprecedented force. Hits like 'Making a Murderer,' 'Serial,' and 'Atlanta Monster' have mesmerized audiences and also played a pivotal role in exposing wrongful convictions, such as the case of Adnan Syed. This captivating type of long-form docuseries has contributed to greater scrutiny of societal issues, including inequality, power dynamics, social class, and structural racism. Rickard observes that these shows have ignited a broader discourse about who society deems deserving of punishment and who is protected by the law.
'The New True Crime' unveils a thought-provoking narrative that takes us through the labyrinth of the American criminal justice system. Rickard navigates the terrain of crime storytelling, questioning the once-unquestionable finality of verdicts and introducing a profound uncertainty about what is truly knowable in the realm of crime and punishment. A theme within the book is the blurring of lines between fact and fiction that these series often exhibit. They challenge our belief in the objective truth of a crime, raising essential questions about the malleability of justice and the subjectivity of perception.
Rickard's focus on some of the most prominent true crime podcasts and streaming series of the last decade provides a look at the way this new media has transformed crime into a public spectacle. She critically analyzes the impact of binge-listening or binge-watching these shows, emphasizing how they convey ideological messages about punishment to their audiences.
Throughout the book, Rickard investigates the historical entwinement of entertainment values with crime news reporting. She reminds us that newsworthy stories have traditionally been those involving sex, violence, famous individuals, and events that can be framed within the context of individualism and conservative ideologies about crime. While these long-standing images are still prevalent in contemporary docuseries, Rickard goes further by examining how the new true crime has been influenced by the innocence movement. This movement has brought a diverse range of activists and advocates -- journalists, lawyers, exonerees, and family members of the wrongfully convicted -- into mainstream consciousness as DNA evidence continues to exonerate those who were once unjustly incarcerated.
'The New True Crime' takes a bold step in questioning the very concept of truth and probing our anxieties about the authenticity of true crime media. It provides an in-depth examination of a genre that has permeated our culture and serves as a thought-provoking mirror to society's perception of justice and truth. Diana Rickard peels back the layers of a phenomenon that has left a distinguishable mark on our collective understanding of crime and punishment.
Thought-Provoking
Insightful analysis
Genre-Defying
Media and justice exploration
Eye-Opening
Societal commentary
In-Depth examination
Crime and punishment reflection
Investigative insight
Ideological exploration
Serialized true crime shows have infiltrated the collective consciousness with unprecedented force. Hits like 'Making a Murderer,' 'Serial,' and 'Atlanta Monster' have mesmerized audiences and also played a pivotal role in exposing wrongful convictions, such as the case of Adnan Syed. This captivating type of long-form docuseries has contributed to greater scrutiny of societal issues, including inequality, power dynamics, social class, and structural racism. Rickard observes that these shows have ignited a broader discourse about who society deems deserving of punishment and who is protected by the law.
'The New True Crime' unveils a thought-provoking narrative that takes us through the labyrinth of the American criminal justice system. Rickard navigates the terrain of crime storytelling, questioning the once-unquestionable finality of verdicts and introducing a profound uncertainty about what is truly knowable in the realm of crime and punishment. A theme within the book is the blurring of lines between fact and fiction that these series often exhibit. They challenge our belief in the objective truth of a crime, raising essential questions about the malleability of justice and the subjectivity of perception.
Rickard's focus on some of the most prominent true crime podcasts and streaming series of the last decade provides a look at the way this new media has transformed crime into a public spectacle. She critically analyzes the impact of binge-listening or binge-watching these shows, emphasizing how they convey ideological messages about punishment to their audiences.
Throughout the book, Rickard investigates the historical entwinement of entertainment values with crime news reporting. She reminds us that newsworthy stories have traditionally been those involving sex, violence, famous individuals, and events that can be framed within the context of individualism and conservative ideologies about crime. While these long-standing images are still prevalent in contemporary docuseries, Rickard goes further by examining how the new true crime has been influenced by the innocence movement. This movement has brought a diverse range of activists and advocates -- journalists, lawyers, exonerees, and family members of the wrongfully convicted -- into mainstream consciousness as DNA evidence continues to exonerate those who were once unjustly incarcerated.
'The New True Crime' takes a bold step in questioning the very concept of truth and probing our anxieties about the authenticity of true crime media. It provides an in-depth examination of a genre that has permeated our culture and serves as a thought-provoking mirror to society's perception of justice and truth. Diana Rickard peels back the layers of a phenomenon that has left a distinguishable mark on our collective understanding of crime and punishment.
Thought-Provoking
Insightful analysis
Genre-Defying
Media and justice exploration
Eye-Opening
Societal commentary
In-Depth examination
Crime and punishment reflection
Investigative insight
Ideological exploration
January 16, 2024
The New True Crime by Diana Rickard takes a scholarly yet accessible look at how what she terms the "new true crime" differs from more traditional forms, as well as what that might mean for the criminal "justice" system.
While specific cases are examined they are based on being in the podcasts/shows under examination rather than a deep dive into each case. So attention is given to the aspects that pertain to the general argument of the book. So don't expect a sensationalized retelling of what happened or long tangents on peripheral (to her argument) aspects of the each case. Part of the focus is on the way the wrongfully convicted have been given an avenue to being heard. That doesn't mean the victims of the crimes don't deserve justice, but that is an entirely different book, one that would highlight different aspects of these cases.
I would warn anyone thinking about reading this to read reviews from alleged victims who position themselves as gatekeepers with more than a few grains of salt. The genre is demonstrably targeted at, and overwhelming consumed by, females, not white males (both Pew Research and Podchaser studies show this, as compared to the ever vague and disingenuous "IMO"). Facts that have nothing to do with the point of the book are empty at best and just a feeble grab for attention more likely. Ignore them and pity them, they're looking for relevance and a few dollars.
If you're curious about how we have gone, in just a few decades, from true crime being largely about how "criminals" were apprehended and prosecuted, often with little regard for truth or justice for anyone involved, to being more questioning of whether someone is actually guilty, this book will give you some answers and ideas to consider.
I found the possible ways in which this trend could, but not necessarily will, generate change in the system to be both interesting and open to a lot of doubt. There are a lot of "what ifs" involved and the wheels of injustice turn even slower than the perceived wheels of justice, so we may be a long way from seeing substantive change. But the prospect is exciting and worth pursuing.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
While specific cases are examined they are based on being in the podcasts/shows under examination rather than a deep dive into each case. So attention is given to the aspects that pertain to the general argument of the book. So don't expect a sensationalized retelling of what happened or long tangents on peripheral (to her argument) aspects of the each case. Part of the focus is on the way the wrongfully convicted have been given an avenue to being heard. That doesn't mean the victims of the crimes don't deserve justice, but that is an entirely different book, one that would highlight different aspects of these cases.
I would warn anyone thinking about reading this to read reviews from alleged victims who position themselves as gatekeepers with more than a few grains of salt. The genre is demonstrably targeted at, and overwhelming consumed by, females, not white males (both Pew Research and Podchaser studies show this, as compared to the ever vague and disingenuous "IMO"). Facts that have nothing to do with the point of the book are empty at best and just a feeble grab for attention more likely. Ignore them and pity them, they're looking for relevance and a few dollars.
If you're curious about how we have gone, in just a few decades, from true crime being largely about how "criminals" were apprehended and prosecuted, often with little regard for truth or justice for anyone involved, to being more questioning of whether someone is actually guilty, this book will give you some answers and ideas to consider.
I found the possible ways in which this trend could, but not necessarily will, generate change in the system to be both interesting and open to a lot of doubt. There are a lot of "what ifs" involved and the wheels of injustice turn even slower than the perceived wheels of justice, so we may be a long way from seeing substantive change. But the prospect is exciting and worth pursuing.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
July 14, 2023
So what is the difference between the old true crime and the New true crime. Old true crime was a repeat of what was in the media during the time of the crime, the trial, and the jury decision. There was little or no speculation as to why the crime happened and/or how the prosecution built their case.
But beginning with shows like "Americas Most Wanted", the media began to expand what they Insaid and did about criminal cases. They would talk about previous criminal activity, and especially about any of the evidence used in the trial that seemed wrong or forced and even the verbal evidence given. One of the main things they looked at was if a "confession" was just that. Had the accused been treated fairly under "Brady" and was the confession the words of the police or that of the accused.
In many cases where the accused was not aware of their rights, the never asked for a lawyer, and believed the police when they were told that this was the best deal they could expect if they confessed. When the accused had an appointed lawyer, the lawyer may have dozens of cases and if the confession seemed "real" the lawyer would push for a "plea bargain".
In the viewing of True Crimes, it might take a new investigation to ascertain as to whether the facts presented to the Jury was not altered or watered-down. There are now many "Innocence" Projects out there that look into a "whole" case and see if evidence was missed, hidden, changed or left off of what was given to the defense.
There are three cases presented that make up the body of the book, they present cases where there were mistakes made both intentionally and accidentally, and they do a good job of representing what is meant by the "New Truth"
But beginning with shows like "Americas Most Wanted", the media began to expand what they Insaid and did about criminal cases. They would talk about previous criminal activity, and especially about any of the evidence used in the trial that seemed wrong or forced and even the verbal evidence given. One of the main things they looked at was if a "confession" was just that. Had the accused been treated fairly under "Brady" and was the confession the words of the police or that of the accused.
In many cases where the accused was not aware of their rights, the never asked for a lawyer, and believed the police when they were told that this was the best deal they could expect if they confessed. When the accused had an appointed lawyer, the lawyer may have dozens of cases and if the confession seemed "real" the lawyer would push for a "plea bargain".
In the viewing of True Crimes, it might take a new investigation to ascertain as to whether the facts presented to the Jury was not altered or watered-down. There are now many "Innocence" Projects out there that look into a "whole" case and see if evidence was missed, hidden, changed or left off of what was given to the defense.
There are three cases presented that make up the body of the book, they present cases where there were mistakes made both intentionally and accidentally, and they do a good job of representing what is meant by the "New Truth"
September 26, 2023
This was a really informative look at the ways in which the true crime genre (film, docuseries, books and podcasts) has evolved. This was focused on the context of the American criminal justice system. While the genre started with the vilification of suspects of crime (particularly murder). The literature on wrongful convictions has spread into the mainstream. This has lead to the new true crime wave. The new true crime uses shows/ case studies like Serial and The Staircase, Making a Murderer etc to analyse whether those accused of murder are really guilty or whether they have been falsely convicted.
This book looks at police coercion, forced confessions, dodgy forensics and other reasons for wrongful convictions. It looks at punishment, true crime as entertainment, the legal system and many other aspects. The author also used a mixture of 5/6 most popular docuseries and podcasts around this topic to illustrate her points. This gave me a very deep analytical framework to consider and I found it very useful.
Many thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book looks at police coercion, forced confessions, dodgy forensics and other reasons for wrongful convictions. It looks at punishment, true crime as entertainment, the legal system and many other aspects. The author also used a mixture of 5/6 most popular docuseries and podcasts around this topic to illustrate her points. This gave me a very deep analytical framework to consider and I found it very useful.
Many thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 6, 2023
This was a really interesting book about the true crime genre and how its changed over time and may continue to change. This was easy to understand and an overall enjoyable and interesting read. I would recommend this to those who enjoy the true crime genre. Special Thank You to Diana Rickard, NYU Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy prior to publication in exchange for an honest review.
May 27, 2023
Interesting take on the current state of true crime in society and how it has evolved to where it is now and what they may mean about the genre as a whole. Really made me think about true crime as a whole and just why am I so interested in it.
August 11, 2023
Thank you NetGalley for the arc!
I consume so much true crime it was super interesting to see how what I consume is reflected in the true crime community 🕵🏻♀️ very fitting as I have read, listened to and watched each media in this book
I consume so much true crime it was super interesting to see how what I consume is reflected in the true crime community 🕵🏻♀️ very fitting as I have read, listened to and watched each media in this book
August 15, 2023
This wasn't my jam. Way too textbook-y for what I was expecting. Could be good reference material for someone doing research though. Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.
Want to read
July 5, 2024 I received an advanced digital copy of this book, courtesy of the author and publisher, via Netgalley, for review consideration.
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