The Ken Burns documentary, The Central Park Five, follows the case of five African-American and Hispanic youths who were falsely imprisoned for a rape and an assault they did not commit. The documentary provides four implications as to how and why this injustice occurred: 1) racial and socioeconomic biases against the defendants; 2) public demand that the perpetrators of the horrific crime be brought to justice; 3) media influence in reporting the case; and 4) the confessions made by the youths, although these confessions were coerced by investigators.

The first cause was the result of cultural biases that suggested ethnic minorities, particularly those that were socioeconomically oppressed, were more likely to be violent. The boys matched the stereotypes of the perpetrators and were assumed to be guilty. New York in 1989, as evidenced in the film, was diverse but it had relatively segregated communities. Mostly white and wealthy residents lived on one side of Central Park, while the other side borders Harlem, where many African-Americans reside. Thus, the park itself acts as a sort of in-between place. The crime involved a white female victim during an evening when many gang members from Harlem were in Central Park to cause trouble. The boys who were eventually arrested were among them. When they were implicated, there was a presumption among law enforcement that because the boys looked like gang members and were known to be in the park when the crime occurred, that they must have been responsible.

The second cause is that there was strong public demand for the perpetrators to be brought to justice, and that this demand caused the justice system to be more concerned with resolving the case quickly rather than serving justice ethically and thoroughly. The crime was shocking, because the victim was entirely innocent and had been jogging in the park when the attack occurred. She was also randomly targeted, which made the attack appear more sinister. The public therefore demanded that the criminals be found and brought to justice, which would have pressured investigators to quickly identify the criminals and try to resolve the case. This public pressure may have been what induced the investigators to extract false confessions from the boys once they had been arrested. Rather than conduct a more thorough investigation, the investigators had found five suspects that plausibly would be considered guilty under public opinion, and simply went forward with prosecuting the case in order to satisfy public demand for a quick investigation.

A third cause is the sensationalization of the case in media portrayals, with headlines condemning both the crime and the suspects. The media at the time seized on the case as showing how New York was inhabited by violent gangs. These headlines included descriptions such as comparing the accused to a pack of wolves associated with violent gangs. The violent and shocking nature of the crime, along with the media’s sensationalization of the case, was an embarrassment for the city and would have placed pressure on the legal system to quickly resolve the case. Thus, once the boys had been accused, the legal system was motivated to quickly corroborate the investigator’s theory that the boys must have been responsible. Biases in media portrayal might also have swayed the eventual jury, which was composed of whites, African-Americans and Hispanics. For whites, the media bias against the defendants may have influenced a guilty verdict, while minorities on the jury may have been motivated to quickly distance themselves from the defendants and condemn their actions by also supporting a guilty verdict.

The fourth cause is because the boys were coerced by investigators to falsely implicate themselves, as investigators used unethical tactics intended to intimidate the youths. This is perhaps the most significant, at least in regard to the court proceedings and eventual verdict: the boys themselves had given investigators confessions after being questioned. However, when the confessions are examined in a more thorough light, as presented in the documentary, the confessions can be seen to have been coerced by detectives after arresting the boys. According to the defendants, tactics used by investigators included lying to the suspects, such as saying fingerprints had been found on the victim when they had not, and misinforming them of their rights. The questioning essentially amounted to intense psychological pressure, which induced the confessions. This shows how the city felt pressure to produce culprits that would satisfy public demand, rather than do truly investigative work and try to resolve the case in a thorough and ethical manner. The reason the boys were plausible suspects were because of racist views that they had simply been up to no good, and this explanation was good enough for a jury to recommend a guilty verdict.

The significance of the case is that it shows how racial and socioeconomic biases essentially created a verdict in public and media opinion of guilty, before the boys could even be tried. They were associated with gangs and were out in Central Park when the crime occurred, and that was good enough for most to believe they must have been responsible. The brutal nature of the attack influenced public demand for justice, which pressured the legal system to solve the crime as quickly as possible. The media’s portrayal of the case, focusing on grisly details and dehumanizing the suspects, only intensified the city’s motivation to send the accused to jail. When the boys were found to have confessed, even though these confessions were made by youths who were simply frightened and trying to please the investigators, the evidence was considered sufficient for a guilty verdict. The documentary therefore shows how systemic racism in both the justice system and amongst the American public encouraged a verdict that should never have occurred.