Description: The author of this article uses a sleight of hand, a narrative device that Margaret Price calls juxtaposition—”the placing of pieces of information side by side” such that the reader is induced “to draw on existing stereotypic knowledge to explain the behaviour and, in so doing, to confirm the relevance and adequacy of that knowledge.” In this case, the author is writing about people’s perceptions of crime in the city. Of course, only a small percentage of actual crime is caused by people experiencing mental illness, but the author takes up a substantial amount of space focusing on people experiencing mental illness, allowing readers’ stereotypes to make the false connection that treating mental illness will significantly reduce crime. The author, in a major self-reveal, also claims that “Preventive policing still works.”

Source: The New York Times