Contact:
Max Smith
Non Profit News
(212)558-5371
msmith@nul.org

STATEMENT BY HUGH B. PRICE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE IN RESPONSE TO FINDINGS OF THE NEW BUILDING BLOCKS FOR YOUTH STUDY, "OFF BALANCE: RACE AND CRIME IN THE NEWS"

New York, NY, April 10, 2001–Hugh B. Price, president of the National Urban League, an organization dedicated in part to ensuring civil rights by eradicating all barriers to equal participation in the economic and social mainstream of America, today released the following statement regarding the findings of the report Off Balance: Youth, Race and Crime in the News, which demonstrate that the media unfairly depicts the proportion of crimes committed by people of color and by youth:

"The National Urban League is deeply disturbed by revelations of the recent Building Blocks for Youth report, Off Balance: Youth, Race and Crime in the News, particularly the finding that ‘…people of color, especially African Americans, are disproportionately portrayed as perpetrators of crime, and underrepresented as victims.’

The League believes that these negative depictions of youth in general, and minority youth specifically, feed the public fear of youth, influence the corresponding call for more punitive sentencing of juveniles and contribute to the frequent misperception of minority youth as criminals.

These dangerous misrepresentations have led to fewer second chances for youth, more frequent transfers to the adult justice system, and the growing draconian sentencing of youth around the nation, despite the reality that juvenile crime has declined over the last decade.

Perhaps most damaging of all is that many minority youths have come to internalize these negative public images, which has a domino effect of impeding their ability to achieve socially, academically and, as adults, economically.

We urge the media to undertake a comprehensive review of its reporting mechanisms and to immediately move to eradicate bias in its coverage of minorities and youth."

Hugh B. Price is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League. He was appointed on July 1, 1994.

The Urban League is the nation’s oldest and largest community-based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream.

The National Urban League, headquartered in New York City, spearheads the nonprofit, nonpartisan movement, while Urban League affiliates operate in more than 100 cities in 34 states and the District of Columbia. For more information, visit the League’s Web site at www.nul.org.