2026 March New York Virtual Event

Please join the New York State Co-Chairs, Vince Chang and Adrienne Koch, for a virtual presentation by Laura Beth Nielsen, ABF Research Professor and Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition Chair and Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University.

“Representations of Vengeance, Justice, Expertise, and Emotion in True Crime Podcasts”

True crime podcasts rank among the most-consumed digital media, with millions of weekly downloads. More than entertainment, they function as vernacular trials that invite audiences to deliberate on crime, culpability, and punishment. Analyzing 30 episodes (~36 hours) from five top podcasts in 2022 (Crime Junkie, Morbid, Dateline, Small Town Murder, Sword & Scale), Professor Nielsen identifies three patterns. First, persona-driven storytelling shifts attention from “whodunit” to what kind of person could do this. Second, hosts place perpetrators on a moral spectrum progressing from weird to creepy to evil to monster. The spectrum naturalizes dehumanization. Third, gestures toward mitigation (psychosis, intellectual disability, trauma, youth) typically collapse into demands for harsh punishment. This presentation will document the punitive turn within sympathetic narration and argue that these podcasts both reflect and produce legal consciousness: they teach listeners how to evaluate culpability, weigh mitigation, and imagine justice.