Redemption at a Correctional Turning Point: Public Support for Rehabilitation Ceremonies

The authors studied the extent to which the American public would support the implementation of rehabilitation ceremonies, including certificates. Using a national-level survey they commissioned YouGov to undertake, the authors examined public views about the redeemability of offenders--whether they believe that those convicted of felonies are intractably criminal or have the potential to change for the better. Results of the survey indicate substantial belief in offender redeemability and support for rehabilitation ceremonies and certificates

Who Wears the MAGA Hat? Racial Beliefs and Faith in Trump

On the basis of a 2019 YouGov survey of white respondents (n = 734), the impact of racial beliefs on support for Donald Trump was explored. The analysis revealed that in addition to racial resentment, white nationalism—a desire to keep the United States white demographically and culturally—was strongly related to faith in Trump. Analyses based on a 2019 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey yielded similar results and also showed that white nationalism increased willingness to wear a MAGA hat. Future research on the political consequences of racial beliefs should focus on what whites think not only of blacks but also of themselves

Beyond the New Jim Crow: Public Support for Removing and Regulating Collateral Consequences

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander drew national attention to the extensive imposition of collateral consequences on those convicted of a crime and to their racially disparate effects. Based on a 2017 national-level YouGov survey, supplemented by a second 2019 YouGov survey, the current study finds that the public is split on allowing ex-offenders to sit on juries, but supportive of removing barriers to voting and employment. The respondents also favored providing defendants with a list of restrictions linked to conviction as well as having lawmakers review and eliminate collateral consequences found to have no purpose and to not reduce crime

Group and solo robberies: Do accomplices shape criminal form?

Robbery is frequently committed in groups, yet previous literature gives only passing attention to the role of co-offending. The effects of co-offenders on criminal decisions and the form crime takes when committed by groups are largely unknown. Drawing on individual interviews with convicted robbers, offenders who committed their crime alone are compared with those who co-offended. The study considered whether the presence of accomplices significantly affected perceptions of planning, control, victim selection, and victim cooperation. Findings revealed that group interaction shapes the decision to commit crime. Co-offending increased planning and the sense of control that offenders experienced during the robbery. No evidence was found to indicate that crime with co-offenders changed the way robbery victims were selected.

Confronting the Collateral Consequences of a Criminal Conviction: A Special Challenge for Social Work with Offenders

Millions of former offenders—often members of racial/ethnic minority or other disenfranchised groups—experience restrictions on their legal and civil rights as the collateral consequences of their criminal conviction. It is critical for the social workers and other human service professionals who frequently interface with this population to understand these collateral consequences to effectively serve their clients with criminal convictions. This exploratory study examined the impact these collateral consequences may have on social work practice with offenders. We assessed practitioners\u27 awareness, knowledge, and experiences with the collateral consequences of clients\u27 criminal convictions and practitioner efforts as “agents of restoration” to pursue statutorily available court-ordered expungements of their clients\u27 criminal conviction records. Findings revealed that practitioners lacked awareness of collateral consequences, their application, and expungement. Recommendations to enhance social work practitioners\u27 ability to address and reduce the far-reaching collateral consequences of incurring a criminal conviction are discusse

Belief in Redeemability and Punitive Public Opinion: “Once a Criminal, Always a Criminal” Revisited

In 2009, Maruna and King presented results from a British survey showing that the public’s belief in the redeemability of people who committed offenses curbed their level of punitiveness. Based on a 2017 national survey in the United States (n = 1,000), the current study confirms that redeemability is negatively related to punitive attitudes. In addition, the analyses reveal that this belief predicts support for rehabilitation and specific inclusionary policies (i.e., ban-the-box in employment, expungement of criminal records, and voting rights for people with a felony conviction). Findings regarding measures for punishment and rehabilitation were confirmed by a 2019 Mechanical Turk (MTurk) survey. These results suggest that beliefs about capacity for change among people who committed offenses are key to understanding crime-control public policy

Catholics and Capital Punishment: Do Pope Francis’s Teachings Matter in Policy Preferences

In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about one in five Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics’ views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pope Francis announced in 2018—as official Catholic Church teaching—that the death penalty is “inadmissible” under all circumstances. Based on two national surveys, the current project explores Catholics’ support for state executions before (2017) and after (2019) the Pope’s momentous change in the church’s Catechism. At present, little evidence exists that Pope Francis’s doctrinal reform has impacted Catholics, a majority of whom—like Americans generally—continue to favor the death penalty for murderers. Data from our additional 2020 MTurk survey show that only 17.0% of Catholic respondents could correctly identify the Church’s position on capital punishment. Despite these results, Pope Francis’s teachings provide Catholic leaders and activists with a compelling rationale for opposing the death penalty and holding Catholic public officials accountable for espousing offenders’ execution. Further, for the next generation of Catholics, instruction in the inadmissibility of capital punishment, as part of the Church’s consistent ethic of life, will be integral to their religious training

Racial Sympathy and Support for Capital Punishment: A Case Study in Concept Transfer

Beliefs about race, especially racial resentment, are key predictors of public support for capital punishment and punitiveness generally. Drawing on a conceptual innovation by political scientist Jennifer Chudy, we explore the utility of transferring into criminology her construct of racial sympathy – or Whites’ concern about Blacks’ suffering. First, across three data sets, we replicate Chudy’s finding that racial sympathy and resentment are empirically distinct constructs. Second, based on a national-level 2019 YouGov survey (n = 760 White respondents) and consistent with Chudy’s thesis, racial sympathy is then shown to be significantly related to the race-specific view that capital punishment is discriminatory but not support for the death penalty or harsher courts. Racial sympathy also is positively associated with advocacy of rehabilitation as the main goal of prison. Notably, in all models, racial resentment has robust effects, increasing punitive sentiments. Taken together, the results suggest that racial sympathy is a concept that can enrich criminologists’ study of how racial beliefs shape crime policy preferences in the United States and beyond, especially those with disparate effects on Blacks

Videos Don’t Lie: African Americans’ Support for Body-Worn Cameras

In light of growing concern regarding the policing of inner-city communities—including questionable incidents of use of force—equipping officers with body-worn cameras (BWCs) has emerged as a salient proposal for reform. Based on a national-level survey of African Americans (n = 1,000), this project shows that wide consensus exists among Black citizens in favor of BWCs. Since ostensibly “videos don’t lie,” implementing camera technology thus may be a means to increase police legitimacy. Importantly, the analysis also reveals that African Americans support a broad range of reforms to improve inner-city policing, of which BWCs are only one. Finally, the survey included a subset of 45 Black police officers. These officers also supported BWCs and most other proposed reforms but at a level that was lower and less intense than African American members of the public