Copaganda How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News
ByAlec Karakatsanis
Discussion Guide
From a prizewinning civil rights lawyer comes a powerful warning about how the media manipulates public perception, fueling fear and inequality, while distracting us from what truly matters
For readers of Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, Copaganda documents how modern news coverage fuels insecurity against these groups and shifts our focus away from the policies that would help us improve people’s lives—things like affordable housing, adequate healthcare, early childhood education, and climate-friendly city planning.
These false narratives in turn fuel surveillance, punishment, inequality, injustice, and mass incarceration. Recognized by Teen Vogue as “one of the most prominent voices” on the criminal legal system, Karakatsanis brings his sharp legal expertise, trenchant political analysis, and humorous storytelling to drastically alter the way we consume information, while offering a hopeful path forward. One towards a healed humanity—and media system—with a vested interest in public safety and equality.
INTRODUCTION
What is Copaganda? COPAGANDA
The introduction lays the foundation for the book by defining “copaganda” as the deliberate manipulation of crime news by police and media to serve the interests of the punishment bureaucracy, which is the author’s preferred term for the criminal justice system. Copaganda is a system of government and media propaganda that promotes mass incarceration, justifies its associated profits, and distorts public understanding of crime and safety.
Karakatsanis highlights how news outlets selectively report on crime, often amplifying minor street crimes while ignoring more damaging corporate or governmental misconduct. He argues that this selective reporting creates a distorted public perception of crime, fostering fear and justifying mass incarceration. The introduction also discusses the role of media in shaping political discourse and public policy, reinforcing systemic inequalities in policing and punishment. By examining the disconnect between reality and media narratives, the author sets the stage for a critical exploration of crime reporting throughout the book.
The chapter establishes the book’s central argument: that the punishment bureaucracy—encompassing police, prosecutors, and prisons—uses propaganda to maintain its power and justify systemic inequalities.
Karakatsanis begins with a personal anecdote outside the Genesee County Jail in Flint, Michigan, where inmates were deprived of in-person visits due to a profit-driven telecommunications contract. This policy exemplifies how financial incentives shape the criminal justice system.
The author critiques the way police manipulate public perception, particularly in response to the 2020 protests following George Floyd’s murder. While law enforcement figures performed public displays of solidarity, mainstream news outlets ignored the reality of systemic abuses and financial incentives behind policing.
The author focuses his critique on liberal media, news media that ostensibly supports progressive ideas, and shows how often reporting subtly does just the opposite. He focuses on the news between 2020 and 2024.
Copaganda has three main functions:
1. Narrowing the public’s understanding of threat: Crime coverage disproportionately focuses on offenses committed by the poor rather than larger sytemic
COPAGANDA
What is Copaganda?
harms, such as corporate fraud, wage theft, and environmental damage.
2. Manufacturing fear: The media exaggerates crime waves, stoking public fear even when crime rates are historically low.
3. Promoting the punishment bureaucracy as the solution: Crime is framed in ways that suggest more policing and incarceration are necessary, diverting attention from structural solutions like education, housing, and healthcare. Omissions—what we don’t see and hear—can be the most powerful messaging of all.
The introduction introduces the concepts of how the media shapes perceptions, and the commercialization of the punishment bureaucracy: corporations profit from policing, incarceration, and surveillance, creating financial incentives to maintain high incarceration rates.
The introduction concludes by emphasizing the importance of critically examining media narratives and resisting misleading portrayals of crime and justice.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• Why do you think the author targeted liberal more than right-wing media?
• What are some examples of how crime is selectively reported in the news?
• How does crime reporting shape public fear and influence policy decisions? Can you find an example of a recent incident and its repercussions?
• How do police and media promote mass incarceration?
• How is “punishment bureaucracy” different from “criminal justice system”?
NOTABLE QUOTES
What kind of person is created by consuming today’s news about crime and punishment? …a core myth persists that the punishment bureaucracy is primarily concerned with, and effective at producing, public safety.
Copaganda links safety to things the punishment bureaucracy does, while downplaying the connection between safety and the material, structural conditions of people’s lives. In an unequal society where a few have more money and power than the many, the punishment bureaucracy is a tool for preserving inequalities.
CHAPTER 1
What Is Crime News?
SUMMARY
In this chapter, Karakatsanis investigates the mechanisms that determine what gets classified as “crime news.” He highlights how media outlets prioritize coverage of certain crimes over others, often focusing on petty crimes while neglecting white-collar and corporate crimes that cause greater societal harm. Why is the theft of a Rolex in Beverly Hills more newsworthy than daily flouting of environmental laws, for instance?
By drawing attention to the discrepancies in media coverage, he argues that crime news is not an objective reflection of public safety but rather a curated selection designed to support existing power structures. He includes examples such as the extensive media coverage of shoplifting versus the relative neglect of wage theft, despite the latter amounting to billions of dollars in stolen earnings from workers. Karakatsanis critiques the reliance on police and prosecutor press releases, which frame crime narratives in ways that benefit law enforcement while sidelining stories about systemic issues like environmental crimes.
He poses the question: Why is crime framed as an individual failing rather than a societal one?
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• What factors influence which crimes receive media attention?
• How do racial and economic biases affect crime reporting?
• Why do news outlets prioritize police press releases over independent investigations?
• What kind of news do readers really want?
• How can journalists challenge dominant narratives in crime news? Can you find a story that follows the dominant narrative and discuss how it could be more balanced?
NOTABLE QUOTES
…what news treats as urgent affects what we think is urgent.
Daily news stories focus on the kinds of legal violations publicized by police and prosecutor press releases, usually involving poor people. The news about public safety is a social and political creation that contains judgment calls at every turn, one that creates winners and losers and that could look different if we wanted it to.
The Volume of Crime News
SUMMARY
This chapter delves into the sheer volume of crime news and how it distorts public understanding of crime rates and trends. Karakatsanis presents data showing that while crime rates have generally declined over the past several decades, media coverage of crime has increased, creating a false perception that crime is worsening. He explores how the frequency and intensity of crime coverage are often tied to political agendas, particularly around election cycles, where crime is used as a wedge issue to justify increased policing and tougher laws. For example, Fox News ramped up its crime coverage before the 2022 midterm elections, only to dramatically decrease it once the elections were over.
The chapter also examines how media narratives shift based on law enforcement interests, such as the portrayal of police as underfunded and overwhelmed despite significant budget increases. Saturating news media with alarmist stories helps create moral panics, which aren’t necessarily based on reality. By analyzing these patterns, Karakatsanis reveals how the media manufactures fear and supports the expansion of the punishment bureaucracy. In the age of social media and short attention spans, editors might focus more on the lure of push notifications than on context and relevance.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does the volume of crime news impact public fear and policy decisions?
• Who decides what is newsworthy and why?
• What does the author’s analysis of reporters’ sources reveal, and what could be different?
• How does media framing affect funding and support for law enforcement agencies?
• What strategies can be employed to counteract the media’s focus on crime sensationalism?
NOTABLE QUOTES
The volume, timing, frequency, and delivery method of news stories shape how we think about safety and crime.
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 2
The Volume of Crime
NOTABLE QUOTES
What does it mean to have “already covered” a social problem that continues happening unabated to new people each day?
Public safety “news” surges when someone wants police-reported crime to be news.
Such a barrage of reporting affects which harmful things we feel emotionally terrified of and which harmful things we rarely think about.
The volume of public safety news is not driven by transparent, accountable, objective principles.
Moral Panics and the Selective Curation of Anecdote
SUMMARY
Karakatsanis explains how moral panics are created through curated anecdotal reporting, in which isolated incidents of crime are amplified to justify broader crackdowns on marginalized communities.
He examines historical examples of media-driven crime panics, such as the “superpredator” myth of the 1990s and the recent hysteria over retail theft. These moral panics often lead to reactionary policies that expand police power while failing to address the root causes of crime. He cites the overblown media frenzy surrounding Walgreens shoplifting cases and how investigative journalism later revealed that the company had exaggerated its claims about retail theft to justify store closures and increased security budgets.
The chapter also highlights how news outlets collaborate with police to frame certain crimes as existential threats while ignoring or downplaying the systemic issues that contribute to crime in the first place. By understanding the mechanisms behind moral panics, readers can develop a more critical perspective on crime and crime reporting.
For instance: police are better funded than ever, with more powers than ever, after the Black Lives Matter protests, despite the reality that more firepower has no effect on crime.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• What is a moral panic, and how is it manufactured through media narratives?
• How do anecdotes shape public perception of crime trends?
• How do law enforcement agencies and politicians benefit from moral panics?
• What historical examples of media-driven crime panics have influenced policy?
• How can the public resist media-fueled crime hysteria?
3
CHAPTER 3
Moral Panics and the Selective Curation of Anecdote
NOTABLE QUOTES
When a moral panic is created, it almost always leads to the expansion of government repression.
It would be like making Michael Jordan appear to be a bad basketball player by compiling a highlight reel that consists entirely of every missed shot in his career.
Finding the aberrational individual who may truthfully support the oppression to which the rest of their marginalized group is subjected is a staple of news reporting during moral panics.
…the biased dissemination of real facts is the essence of the best propaganda.
Professional-class news consumers regularly accuse any skeptic of the moral panic du jour of being an “elitist” who is “out of touch” with the most marginalized communities.
Policing Public Relations
SUMMARY
This chapter explores police departments’ extensive public relations efforts to shape news coverage. Karakatsanis details how law enforcement agencies carefully manage their public image through press conferences, social media campaigns, and direct collaboration with journalists. He reveals how police departments curate narratives that portray officers as heroes while downplaying or concealing misconduct.
The chapter also discusses how “humanizing” police stories—such as officers rescuing animals or performing good deeds—serve to distract from systemic issues like police brutality and corruption. One example is Sheriff Chris Swanson in Flint, Michigan, who gained national attention for walking with racial justice protesters in 2020 while simultaneously profiting from denying jail inmates family visits and collecting revenue from exploitative prison phone contracts.
Karakatsanis critiques the lack of journalistic scrutiny in crime reporting, emphasizing the need for more independent investigations into police practices. He analyzes the web of relationships between police forces and reporters, and how police PR machines produce easily digestible news that reduce journalists’ workloads and supply them with usable content. This helps validate the police and their actions in the public’s eyes.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How do police departments influence media coverage of crime?
• What role do press conferences and social media play in police public relations?
• Why are stories of police misconduct often downplayed or ignored in mainstream media?
• What are some examples in contemporary culture of the “hero cop” narrative?
NOTABLE QUOTES
As of early 2023, Chicago cops had forty-eight full-time positions devoted to manipulating public information. The 2024 budget funded fifty-five.
You’ll find a wide range of rainbow-painted cop cars in city after city.
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 4
Policing Public Relations
NOTABLE QUOTES
As of early 2023, Chicago cops had forty-eight full-time positions devoted to manipulating public information. The 2024 budget funded fifty-five.
You’ll find a wide range of rainbow-painted cop cars in city after city.
Photos of reporters smiling with police is one of my favorite sub-genres of copaganda.
There is a complex, and often hidden, web of relationships—funded by public money—that manufactures and places police propaganda in the news.
Whose Perspective? How Sources Shape the News
SUMMARY
This chapter examines how the selection of sources in news reporting influences public perception of crime and safety. Mainstream crime coverage overwhelmingly relies on law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and government representatives, rarely including perspectives from those directly harmed by policing, incarceration, or systemic inequality. The author critiques the media’s reliance on official police narratives, which are often treated as objective truth despite clear biases.
Karakatsanis provides examples of how newspapers and television reports frequently feature police union representatives or district attorneys as primary sources while excluding public defenders, civil rights attorneys, or community organizers who might challenge dominant narratives. He points out how this imbalance leads to reporting that legitimizes punitive approaches to crime rather than questioning their effectiveness. A striking example is how police press releases are often republished nearly verbatim in local news outlets without independent verification.
The chapter also explores the role of so-called “crime experts,” many of whom have backgrounds in law enforcement and therefore reinforce punitive solutions rather than preventive or restorative justice alternatives. Karakatsanis challenges readers to consider whose voices are missing from the conversation.
Readers should always notice and question the sources of any media content, and the chapter includes a list of important things to consider when thinking about any article, and about how and why it is told.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does the choice of sources in crime reporting shape public perception of crime and justice?
• Why are law enforcement officials given more credibility in news stories than community activists or public defenders?
• What are the consequences of excluding the voices of those harmed by policing and incarceration from crime reporting?
• How do media outlets uncritically adopt law enforcement narratives without independent verification? Are the standards different for other stories? Can you compare coverage of other topics, such as science or politics?
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 5
NOTABLE QUOTES Whose Perspective? How Sources Shape the News
Whose voices are included in the news to explain things to us and whose voices are ignored?
There’s a bustling world underneath the stories that we see.
The ultimate effect is to persuade news consumers—not just rationally, but emotionally—that systems of social control need more power and resources or else we will never feel safe.
But when an assertion is made without a hint that it could be contested, it becomes passively absorbed as conventional wisdom.
So, on the one side are “experts” who are dispassionate, learned, scholarly, realistic, and unanimous. On the other side, readers are presented with silly “advocates” who are portrayed as believing that the world will all be peaches and cream if only we could legalize drugs.
Academic Copaganda
SUMMARY
This chapter delves into how academia contributes to copaganda by producing research that reinforces law enforcement narratives. Academic institutions, often influenced by funding from police departments and government agencies, generate studies that justify expanded policing, harsher sentencing, and increased incarceration rates.
The author uses a 2022 study by two Harvard professors to illustrate his main point. The professors call for more armed police. The chapter details their arguments, the flaws and the author’s responses and communications with them.
Certain criminological studies, rather than challenging the fundamental assumptions of the criminal legal system, instead work to legitimize it. For example, studies that link crime rates to the number of police officers on the street often fail to account for broader social determinants of crime, such as economic inequality, education access, and healthcare availability. Karakatsanis highlights how these studies are then used by media and policymakers to push for more law enforcement funding rather than investment in social programs. A destructive cycle continues unchecked.
The chapter also examines how academic “crime experts”—often former law enforcement officials—are treated as neutral analysts despite clear biases. He points to the lack of critical perspectives in mainstream academic discussions, noting how research that challenges the necessity of policing is often sidelined. Even more insidious, different viewpoints are often treated as fringe or aberrant.
Karakatsanis challenges readers to question how research is produced, who funds it, and why certain findings are amplified while others are ignored. He urges scholars to push for more research that centers the voices of impacted communities and challenges the status quo.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does academic research contribute to the legitimization of the punishment bureaucracy?
• Why are former law enforcement officials often treated as neutral experts in crime studies?
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 6
Academic Copaganda
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does the exclusion of community perspectives affect research on crime and policing? Can you find substantial coverage of community activism in the news you consume?
• How can scholars challenge pro-police bias in academic research?
NOTABLE QUOTES
The academic industry is complicit in laundering pro-police ideology as objective analysis.
For decades, studies have found that families of police officers experience domestic violence at astronomical rates: between 24 and 40 percent of all families with a police officer report criminal domestic violence.
A primary function of police for 150 years has been to surveil, infiltrate, and crush progressive social movements seeking to reduce inequality.
… the police are and have always been central to protecting private concentrations of wealth…
The rise of the policing-industrial complex in the U.S. has been a key driver of global authoritarianism…
How Bad Academic Research Becomes News
SUMMARY
Karakatsanis continues his critique of academia, focusing on how flawed research makes its way into mainstream media and influences public policy. He explains how media outlets often report on studies uncritically, presenting them as objective truth without examining their methodology, funding sources, or biases. This process helps law enforcement justify increased funding and harsher punitive measures under the guise of “evidence-based policy.”
The chapter includes examples of studies that claim more policing leads to lower crime rates, despite conflicting evidence from social science research showing that investments in education, housing, and healthcare are more effective at reducing crime. He illustrates how the media amplifies these studies while ignoring others that question the fundamental premise of policing as the answer to crime.
He discusses “broken windows policing,” a theory that argues cracking down on minor offenses prevents more serious crimes. Despite a wealth of research debunking this theory, it has persisted in media narratives because of repeated citation by law enforcement-friendly researchers and journalists who fail to challenge its assumptions.
The author questions why US authorities are resistant to alternative ways of increasing safety. He mentions a success story in Colombia where corrupt traffic police were replaced with mimes who mocked or applauded motorists, and hugely reduced traffic-related deaths.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does flawed academic research become accepted as fact in mainstream media?
• What are some of the hidden social costs of policing?
• How do funding sources influence the conclusions of crime-related research?
• Why do some theories, like “broken windows policing,” persist despite being debunked?
• What makes research “credible” in the eyes of the media, and who benefits from these credibility standards?
CHAPTER 7
How Bad Academic Research Becomes News
NOTABLE QUOTES
Put simply, there is no “consensus” that doing more of what U.S. police do reduces even the narrow range of crimes police focus on.
Police do not record their own assaults or illegal stops and searches as crimes, even though counting these would add thousands of violent assaults in every major U.S. city each year.
On top of sprawling politicized intelligence divisions, surveillance, and protest control, the vast bulk of what police do is arrest marginalized people for low-level offenses such as driving with a suspended license…
Instead of flooding neighborhoods with expensive armed police earning overtime cash, for example, what would happen if the neighborhood were flooded with members of the community paid living wages and trained to help each other and to de-escalate conflict? Or with well-paid poets, priests, and painters?
Why has such profound intellectual sloppiness been acceptable in the field of criminology?
Keywords of Copaganda: Smuggling Ideology into the News
SUMMARY
This chapter examines how specific language choices in crime reporting subtly reinforce police and prosecutorial narratives while appearing neutral. Karakatsanis dissects the terminology commonly used in media coverage— such as “officer-involved shooting,” “violent offender,” and “crime surge”—and explains how these terms smuggle ideological assumptions into news reports. He argues that these phrases often obscure the role of systemic forces in shaping crime and punishment. They also help justify the massive police and prison bureaucracy, weaponry and reach in the United States.
Some words effectively mislead the public. “Major reforms” is a catchall phrase that often describes incremental changes that are neither major nor reforms. A Queens District Attorney’s history of making changes is an example of this type of gaslighting in the media. “Sweeping” and “overhaul” play similar roles.
For example, the phrase “officer-involved shooting” passively describes incidents where police shoot civilians, often avoiding the more direct language of “police shot and killed.” This linguistic framing reduces police accountability and makes state violence appear less intentional. Similarly, terms like “repeat offender” and “career criminal” strip away context about economic and social conditions that contribute to crime, instead individualizing responsibility and justifying harsh sentencing policies.
Karakatsanis also critiques how the media frequently refers to police statements as “official reports,” while defense attorneys or activists providing counterpoints are often labeled with dismissive terms like “claims” or “allegations.”
This creates a power imbalance in reporting, where police perspectives are treated as neutral facts while those challenging them are treated with skepticism.
Underlying all this is the reality that police unions are openly aligned with far-right movements, but committed to pretending otherwise. As a corollary to this, the public is constantly bombarded with messages associating repressive structures with safety.
CHAPTER 8
Keywords of Copaganda: Smuggling Ideology into the News
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How do common media phrases like “officer-involved shooting” shape public perception of police violence?
• Why is police language often framed as objective or neutral in the news, while counter-narratives are labeled as “claims” or “allegations”?
• What are some alternative ways journalists could describe crime and law enforcement actions more accurately?
• How does the use of terms like “violent offender” or “career criminal” affect public attitudes toward incarceration and sentencing policies?
• Can you identify other examples of biased language in crime reporting from recent news articles?
NOTABLE QUOTES
Language is never neutral. The words we choose to describe crime, punishment, and law enforcement shape public perception in ways that uphold the punishment bureaucracy.
There is not political support in either party to significantly change U.S. policing, hold police accountable, or reduce their power.
By presenting the policing of poverty or mental illness as improving “quality of life,” the news puts a benevolent veneer on some of the most ruthless and empirically discredited policies of modern government.
In general, we are far more likely to be harmed by wealthy people, the institutions that serve them, and people we know.
Instead of reckoning with the role mass incarceration plays in our society, almost the entire body of news coverage about the scandalous state of prisons and jails focuses on getting them more money.
Copaganda Against Change
SUMMARY
In this chapter, Karakatsanis explores how media and law enforcement use copaganda to resist and discredit criminal justice reform efforts. Whenever policies threaten to reduce the power or funding of law enforcement agencies, a coordinated media campaign emerges to stir public fear and skepticism about reform. This fear-based messaging ensures that the punishment bureaucracy remains intact and well-funded.
The backlash against bail reform is a good example. In cities like New York and San Francisco, where people tried to reduce pretrial incarceration, media outlets disproportionately covered cases where individuals released without bail later committed crimes. These cherry-picked stories created the perception that bail reform was directly responsible for increased crime, despite data showing that such cases were extremely rare. Karakatsanis critiques the media’s failure to report the broader context: that most individuals released under bail reform policies do not re-offend and that pretrial detention disproportionately harms low-income people.
Another significant theme is how police unions and political leaders actively push narratives that equate reform with lawlessness. After the George Floyd protests of 2020, calls to “defund the police” were widely misrepresented in the media. Rather than explaining the policy goal of reallocating funds to social services, many news outlets portrayed the movement as reckless and irresponsible. Spurious “independent panels” helped give this interpretation a veneer of objectivity. Karakatsanis explains how this misrepresentation fueled political backlash, leading to increased police budgets instead of meaningful reforms. In fact, it led to increased training of police personnel to make them even more violent and vindictive.
This resistance to reform is evident in historical examples such as the pushback against sentencing reform in the 1990s and the demonization of progressive district attorneys in recent years.
The chapter describes how consumers of media can be easily misled. For example, body cameras were presented as leading to greater accountability when in reality, police organizations had been pushing for them to help in prosecutions. Karakatsanis also highlights how crime “surges” are often falsely attributed to reforms. He cites examples where crime rates fluctuated due to factors like economic downturns, the COVID-19 pandemic, and broader social issues,
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9
Copaganda Against Change
SUMMARY
yet law enforcement officials and media figures selectively blamed these changes on recent criminal justice policies. By doing so, they manufacture public opposition to progressive reforms and reinforce the idea that only more policing and incarceration can ensure safety. This cuts away at the foundation of democracy and democratic change.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does the media contribute to public resistance against criminal justice reforms?
• What role do police unions play in shaping narratives around reform efforts?
• Why do high-profile crimes receive outsized media attention when they can be used to undermine reform efforts?
• How do political leaders leverage crime fears to justify maintaining or increasing police budgets?Can you identify other examples of biased language in crime reporting from recent news articles?
• Why do you think the media is so pro-police?
NOTABLE QUOTES
Every time reform threatens to shrink the punishment bureaucracy, a familiar cycle emerges: crime panic, media amplification, political backlash, and ultimately, the preservation of the status quo.
Many people don’t know that the police training industry is one of the most corrupt, violent, and authoritarian corners of our society.
Think for a moment about what it would look like if the news adopted a historically accurate framing of police violence rather than dismissing it as accidental or incidental.
This coverage of police violence would be like telling the story of the Trojan Horse but leaving out the part where hidden soldiers appear and conquer the unsuspecting recipients of the gift.
All of this is part of a pattern of the news describing as “accidents” things that are predictable, preventable, and the result of intentional decisions by powerful institutions.
Progressives Want a Pro-Crime Hellscape
SUMMARY
Karakatsanis critiques how media and political figures frame progressive criminal justice reforms as reckless, dangerous, and contributing to crime waves. He argues that fear-based narratives dominate discussions of reform, often fueled by misleading crime statistics, cherry-picked examples, and high-profile incidents that distort public perception.
One major fearmongering strategy is the selective reporting of crimes linked to reforms. For example, when cities like San Francisco and Philadelphia elected progressive district attorneys Chesa Boudin and Larry Krasner, media coverage focused heavily on individual cases where people who were released pretrial committed crimes. Despite data showing that such cases were rare and that overall crime trends were not significantly different from cities with traditional prosecutors, these narratives created a perception that progressive policies were fueling chaos.
Another key tactic is the portrayal of progressive reforms as “soft on crime” while ignoring the failures of traditional punitive policies. Media coverage rarely scrutinizes the long-term inefficacy of harsh sentencing laws, mass incarceration, and aggressive policing. Instead, any deviation from these approaches is framed as radical and dangerous.
Karakatsanis also critiques how politicians use these narratives for political gain, capitalizing on public fear to justify rollbacks of reforms and increased police funding. He notes that whenever crime rates fluctuate—regardless of the broader context—law enforcement officials and politicians seize the moment to blame progressive policies and demand tougher laws, even when the evidence contradicts their claims.
The chapter uses specific examples of election campaigns as well as news articles and op-eds in liberal publications that rely on convenient “strategists” to look at the sloppy journalism and reliance on emotions rather than data tend to drive the conversation on public safety. This feeds into maintaining the status quo and preventing substantive social change.
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 10
Progressives Want a Pro-Crime Hellscape
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does the media contribute to public resistance against criminal justice reforms?
• Why do progressive district attorneys face more intense media scrutiny than traditional prosecutors?
• How do selective crime stories reinforce the idea that reforms lead to chaos, even when data suggests otherwise?
• What rhetorical strategies are used to make progressive policies seem “procrime”?
• Why is it important to pay attention to sources?
NOTABLE QUOTES
The goal of copaganda is not just to maintain the punishment bureaucracy—it is to make any alternative to it seem so terrifying that the public cannot imagine safety without it.
Most news stories targeting progressive policies critical of the punishment bureaucracy never tell readers either the specifics of the policy being criticized or the empirical evidence on safety.
Does anyone seriously believe that the tens of millions of poor people, Black people, young people, immigrants, teachers, nurses, public health experts, faith leaders, crime survivors, public interest lawyers, scholars, and so on who have been fighting against systemic injustices and inequality don’t care about “safety in their homes and neighborhoods?
…the articulation of progressive sentiment while proposing regressive policy is one of the main features of copaganda in the contemporary era.
The fancy think piece, then, is perhaps more like fentanyl than catnip. It’s like pumping a drug into the veins of liberals to give them the momentary bliss of thinking that we don’t need structural changes to make our society more equal.
What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us
SUMMARY
Much of what the public believes about crime, policing, and safety is shaped not only by what is reported in the media but also by what is left out. Lack of information, investigative reporting, and broader systemic analysis combined with blatant misinformation all help distort laypeople’s understanding of crime and justice.
Alternative safety models get very little attention in the mainstream media. While police departments receive extensive coverage for their role in maintaining order, non-policing solutions such as mental health crisis responders, community-based violence prevention programs, and restorative justice initiatives are rarely covered in mainstream news. This creates a perception that police are the only available tool for addressing crime when, in reality, many effective alternatives exist but remain underfunded and underreported. The growth of discredited, for-profit programs such as privatized probation goes unchecked.
Karakatsanis also critiques how the media downplays corporate and governmental crimes while sensationalizing street crime. He provides data showing that wage theft, environmental pollution, and financial fraud cause significantly more harm than the types of crime most frequently covered in news cycles. Yet, these white-collar crimes receive little scrutiny compared to petty theft, shoplifting, or drug-related offenses. This imbalance distorts public perception of who the real “criminals” are and reinforces policies that disproportionately punish marginalized communities give corporations and wealthy individuals impunity.
The media also fails to investigate police budgets and misconduct. While “crime waves” receive extensive coverage, there is little journalistic scrutiny of how much funding police departments receive, whether that funding is effective in reducing crime, how that funding increases harm, and how often the same police officers who benefit from the funding engage in misconduct. The vast majority of local news outlets simply report police press releases without questioning their claims, leading to a one-sided portrayal of crime and justice. This also holds true when reporting on police accountability. The author shows that there is not a single accountability measure that has led to decreased police violence in the U.S.
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 11
What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• What types of crime are underreported in mainstream media, and why?
• How does the absence of information about non-policing solutions to crime shape public attitudes?
• Why do corporate crimes receive less attention than street crimes?
• What impact does a lack of investigative journalism into police budgets and practices have on public perception?
• How can people seek out better sources of information about crime and public safety? Can you identify sources other than print and broadcast news?
NOTABLE QUOTES
A well-informed public would ask different questions about crime: Who benefits from current policies? What alternatives have been ignored? Why do we know so little about the most harmful crimes?
Progressives have a lot of proposals for improving safety, and those ideas are detailed and well supported, but the relentless refrain in the news is that progressives don’t care about the issue and have therefore not developed specific policy proposals that would make people safer.
After vague calls for “accountability” in 2020, police killed more people in 2021 than in 2020. Then police killed even more people than that in 2022. And even more people than that in 2023, and even more in 2024.
By ignoring substance, defenders of the punishment bureaucracy suppress discussion about what it does with its money and time.
Polls and Making Cops Look Good
SUMMARY
In this chapter, Karakatsanis critiques how public opinion polls are manipulated to reinforce pro-police narratives. He argues that polling firms and media outlets often frame questions in ways that guide respondents toward desired conclusions, creating the illusion of widespread public support for punitive policies. These misleading polls are then used to justify increased policing, harsher sentencing, and resistance to criminal justice reform. They are used to help obfuscate the real meaning of “defund the police.”
For instance, polls about crime often ask respondents whether they feel crime is increasing. These fear-based questions rely on perception rather than reality, reinforcing the belief that crime is out of control even when statistics show otherwise. The media frequently reports on these perception-based polls without questioning their validity, contributing to unnecessary public fear.
Polling questions about policing are designed to limit respondents’ choices. Surveys may ask whether people support more funding for police but fail to include options for reallocating those funds to mental health services, housing, or education. This forces respondents into a false binary: support policing or accept crime. Karakatsanis argues that this is a deliberate tactic to reinforce the belief that policing is the only solution to crime.
Police unions and political groups commission biased polls to create self-serving narratives. After major protests against police violence, law enforcement agencies frequently cite polls suggesting that public support for police is at an all-time high. However, these polls are often funded by organizations that benefit from expanded policing, and their methodologies are rarely scrutinized by the media.
These polling tactics create a self-reinforcing cycle: the media reports on fear-based poll results, which then shape public opinion, leading to even more polling that reflects the fear generated by previous misleading coverage. This cycle helps sustain the punishment bureaucracy and stifle conversations about alternative approaches to public safety.
CHAPTER 12
Polls and Making Cops Look Good
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How can the wording of poll questions influence public perception of crime and policing?
• Why do media outlets rarely scrutinize the methodology behind crime and policing polls?
• How do law enforcement agencies use polling data to justify increased budgets and harsher policies?
• What are the consequences of relying on perception-based crime polls rather than actual crime data?
• How does social media compare with traditional media in terms of responding to polls?
NOTABLE QUOTES
Polls do not reflect public opinion as much as they manufacture it, shaping the conversation around crime and policing rather than neutrally measuring it.
Copaganda uses “public opinion” to manufacture “public opinion.”
Support for reallocating the police budget to social services is actually higher among people who live with a police officer than people who don’t.
Most people don’t read polls, only news reports or headlines about polls.
…few people remember that Martin Luther King Jr. was “unpopular” during his lifetime.
The Bad Apple
SUMMARY
This chapter critiques the widely used “bad apple” narrative, which suggests that police misconduct is the result of a few rogue officers rather than a systemic issue. Karakatsanis argues that this framing is one of the most effective forms of copaganda because it allows law enforcement agencies to avoid structural changes while giving the illusion of accountability.
Police departments and political leaders use the “bad apple” excuse whenever an officer is caught engaging in egregious misconduct. After George Floyd’s murder, law enforcement agencies distanced themselves from Derek Chauvin, portraying him as an anomaly rather than a symptom of a larger problem. In fact, Chauvin had multiple prior complaints of excessive force, none of which resulted in significant discipline. This is a familiar pattern: officers with repeated misconduct complaints remain on the force.
Media narratives contribute to this framing. News coverage often focuses on whether an officer will be held accountable in specific cases rather than questioning the broader policies that allow such misconduct to continue. This shifts the conversation away from systemic reform and makes each case seem like an isolated incident rather than part of a structural problem.
The chapter also explores how police unions and internal review boards protect officers accused of misconduct. Karakatsanis provides examples of how even officers who are fired for serious infractions are often rehired or allowed to resign quietly, only to be rehired by another department. This revolving door of problematic officers demonstrates how systemic the issue is, contradicting the idea that police departments are actively weeding out “bad apples.”
He further discusses how political leaders use the “bad apple” excuse to avoid pushing for meaningful reforms. Instead of reducing police budgets, increasing civilian oversight, or investing in alternative public safety models, politicians often respond to police scandals by calling for more training or minor policy tweaks—measures that historically have failed to reduce misconduct.
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 13
The Bad Apple
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does the “bad apple” narrative help shield law enforcement agencies from systemic accountability?
• Why do media outlets and politicians focus on individual cases of police misconduct rather than broader institutional issues?
• What historical examples show that police corruption and violence are systemic rather than isolated?
• How does the predictable media cycle of outrage and scapegoating reinforce the status quo?
• What structural changes would be necessary to move beyond the “bad apple” framing and address systemic policing issues?
NOTABLE QUOTES
Very few laypeople know what “community policing” means, let alone its history. In short, it’s a form of counterinsurgency derived from colonial military strategies used to “pacify” native populations, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
It is not “bad apple” officers who criminalize people in poverty for not having places to live or treatment for an addiction.
What might it suggest that for the past 125 years, every generation in the U.S. has had a similar conversation in newspaper editorial pages about police corruption, violence against marginalized people, and spying on progressive social movements?
The Big Deception
SUMMARY
In this chapter, Karakatsanis exposes how crime data is manipulated to create the illusion of rising crime rates, even when long-term trends show otherwise. He critiques how law enforcement and media push misleading statistics to justify increased policing, tougher sentencing laws, and resistance to genuine criminal justice reform. The Big Deception involves distracting the public from structural problems and true motivations.
Using selective timeframes is one of the most effective ways to distort crime statistics. A report may claim that homicides in a city have increased by 10% in the last year, but if the previous year had record-low crime rates, this increase is misleading. Instead of providing historical context, media and law enforcement emphasize short-term fluctuations to manufacture a sense of crisis. This pattern is frequently used before elections to justify tough-on-crime rhetoric and increased police funding. Flooding the New York City subway system with police officers is a topical illustration of choosing optics to intimidate and impress.
While violent crime often dominates headlines, crimes committed by police officers, corporate crime, and wage theft—offenses that cause widespread harm— are rarely publicized with the same urgency. The author cites studies showing that wage theft far exceeds shoplifting in financial impact, yet media coverage disproportionately focuses on street crime.
Karakatsanis also critiques the use of perception-based polling, where respondents are asked whether they feel crime is increasing, regardless of actual data. Fear-based media coverage shapes these perceptions, creating a feedback loop in which people believe crime is rising even when it is not. This, in turn, allows politicians and police officials to argue for more punitive policies, more money, more weapons, and more repression. The author discusses both bail and body cameras to illustrate his point. It helps us to focus on less significant issues while distracting us from bedrock ones such as material inequality.
The author posits that those with power work to make sure their interests are served no matter who holds office.
The “War on Drugs” illustrates how the public is deceived into thinking they are signing onto a public health issue and not a means of control. This chapter makes a case for deeper, more inclusive societal analysis of the causes of crime and injustice.
CHAPTER 14
The Big Deception
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• Do law enforcement and media use selective crime statistics to create misleading narratives? Can you find local examples to prove or disprove this?
• Why do corporate crimes receive far less media coverage than street crimes?
• How does the use of perception-based crime polling shape public attitudes toward policing and punishment?
• What are some examples of crime statistics being used to justify tough-oncrime policies?
• How could the media use statistics with more integrity?
NOTABLE QUOTES
The most effective lies in crime reporting are not the ones that are obviously false, but the ones that feel true because they are built on carefully curated halftruths.
The level at which the news discusses the reasons that powerful people pursue public safety policies is superficial, simplistic, and silly.
The Big Deception mystifies why consequential things happen in our society, specifically about how politics and power work.
The war on drugs was a solution in search of a problem.
Understanding why institutions act the way they do matters for how we try to change them.
Distracting from Material Conditions
SUMMARY
Media narratives about crime divert attention away from the material conditions that contribute to it, such as poverty, lack of housing, underfunded schools, and inadequate healthcare. By focusing on sensationalized stories of individual crimes, the media reinforces punitive responses while ignoring the broader social and economic policies that could prevent crime in the first place. Copaganda creates a false dichotomy between idealism and safety. The author uses a long-form story in The Atlantic blaming court delays for crime to illustrate his point.
As an example, he discusses the framing of theft and property crime. News reports frequently depict crimes like shoplifting or burglary as moral failings of individuals rather than symptoms of systemic economic inequality. Karakatsanis points out that little attention is given to the fact that many of these crimes stem from desperation, particularly in cities with high levels of homelessness and unemployment. Meanwhile, corporate wage theft, which financially harms far more people, is rarely covered with the same intensity.
This chapter delves into the language of news, discussing how repressive policies are often presented as caring, by both the punishment bureaucracy and journalists who write about it. This goes along with finding individual marginalized people who say they support punitive policies.
Another major theme is how political leaders use crime narratives to justify punitive policies or minor tweaks to placate the public, instead of investing in social programs. Karakatsanis highlights how, when confronted with rising crime rates, politicians typically advocate for increased policing rather than addressing the root causes, such as lack of affordable housing or mental health services. He argues that this is by design, as maintaining a fear-based narrative about crime allows politicians to deflect from policy failures in education, healthcare, and economic opportunity. True public safety comes not from more policing and incarceration but from addressing the economic and social conditions that lead to crime in the first place.
CHAPTER 15
Distracting from Material Conditions
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• How does crime reporting distract from the material conditions that contribute to crime?
• Why do media narratives often focus on individual acts of crime rather than systemic causes?
• How do political leaders benefit from promoting punitive responses to crime rather than addressing root causes?
• What are some alternative approaches to public safety that focus on material conditions rather than punishment?
• How can journalists and media consumers push for a more systemic analysis of crime in reporting? Is this realistic, given the 24/7 news cycle?
NOTABLE QUOTES
When we talk about crime without talking about poverty, we are not having a conversation about safety—we are having a conversation about punishment. Copaganda distracts people from the material conditions of our society that both produce and ameliorate crime.
Growing homelessness is not an accident…
Resisting Copaganda
SUMMARY
In this final chapter, Karakatsanis outlines strategies for recognizing and resisting copaganda in everyday news consumption. He emphasizes the importance of media literacy and critical thinking, arguing that the first step toward resisting copaganda is understanding how it operates.
Paying attention to the sources of crime reporting is important. He encourages readers to ask: Who benefits from this narrative? Are the primary sources law enforcement officials? What perspectives are missing? He also stresses the importance of seeking out alternative news sources that prioritize investigative journalism and community voices over police press releases.
Karakatsanis advocates a shift in public discourse on crime and safety. He argues that instead of focusing on punishment, conversations should center on investments in social services that prevent crime in the first place. He highlights examples of community-led initiatives that have successfully reduced violence without relying on traditional law enforcement models.
Another key tactic in resisting copaganda is challenging the way crime is framed. Karakatsanis urges readers to recognize how language is used to shape narratives—such as the use of “officer-involved shooting” instead of “police shot and killed”—and to demand more accurate, critical reporting. He points to successful efforts by media watchdog groups and activists to hold journalists accountable for biased crime coverage.
Karakatsanis concludes with a call to action, emphasizing that resisting copaganda is not just about individual media consumption but about collective efforts to shift public policy and redefine safety beyond policing and punishment. He includes a list of questions to ask bureaucrats and politicians about their actions and motives, and challenge them on whom they investigate, their assumptions, accountability and money. He also includes a list of data-driven facts that journalists can include in crime stories, to help balance them. For individuals, he makes suggestions about consuming news in a more thoughtful manner.
He ends on a humanistic and hopeful note, stressing the importance of staying connected with others, appreciating art and culture and holding on to optimism.
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 16
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
• What are some key indicators that a crime news story may contain copaganda?
• How can readers critically assess media narratives about crime and policing?
• Does the author have reasonable expectations of the media?
• What are some examples of alternative public safety models that do not rely on policing?
• How can individuals and communities push back against fear-based crime reporting?
NOTABLE QUOTES
We are constantly bombarded with messages designed to make us fear each other. But real safety doesn’t come from fear—it comes from community, stability, and justice.
It takes considerable effort to get so many people thinking that two plus two make five.
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Suggested Books
Abdulali, Sohaila, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape, The New Press, 2018.
Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, The New Press, 2010.
Bates, Reginald Dwayne, Felon: Poems, W.W. Norton & Company, 2019.
Bazelon, Emily, Charged, Random House, 2019.
Desmond, Matthew, Poverty, By America, Penguin Random House, 2023.
Jamison, Leslie, The Empathy Exams, Graywolf Press, 2014.
Jewkes, Yvonne, Media and Crime, SAGE Publications, 2015.
Krasner, Larry, For the People – A Story of Justice and Power, Penguin Random House, 2022.
Locke, Attica, Bluebird, Bluebird, Mulholland Books, 2017.
Navalny, Alexei, Patriot: A Memoir, Knopf, 2024.
Osterweil, Vicky, In Defense of Looting – A Riotous History of Uncivil Action, Bold Type Books, 2020.