Attitudes towards prisoners, as reported by prison inmates, prison employees and college students

Kjelsberg, Ellen; Skoglund, Tom Hilding; Rustad, Aase-Bente

doi:10.1186/1471-2458-7-71

Cited by 64 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The existing research on attitudes toward prisoners has focused mainly on gender and on differences in attitudes between professions, in particular rehabilitation teams, law enforcement officers, correction officers, and the public (Horn and Hollin 1997;Kjelsberg et al 2007;Melvin et al 1985;Murphy and Brown 2000;Na and Lofius 1998;Ortet-Fabregat et al 1993). Research has shown that police officers (Horn and Hollin 1997) and correction officers (Kjelsberg et al 2007;Ortet-Fabregat et al 1993) have the least favorable attitudes toward prisoners, whereas, as would be expected, those whose work relates to rehabilitation exhibit the most positive attitudes toward prisoners (Melvin et al 1985;Ortet-Fabregat et al 1993). Given the substantial role of prison volunteers within correctional institutions, it is somewhat surprising that their attitudes toward prisoners have never been measured.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Volunteering Experiences and Motivations on Attitudes Toward Prisoners: Evidence from Hong Kong

Chui

Cheng

2012

Asian Criminology

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Volunteers are playing an increasingly bigger role in correctional institutions both in Western settings and in the Hong Kong Chinese context, and yet previous studies have focused only on descriptive accounts of their motivation and satisfaction. Utilizing three samples in Hong Kong, namely prison volunteers (N054), non-prison volunteers (N0146), and non-volunteers (N077), the present study compares these groups' attitudes toward prisoners. Moreover, this study examines the correlations between volunteer satisfaction and volunteer motivation and attitudes toward prisoners. The results indicate that, compared to the non-volunteer group, both the volunteer groups exhibited more positive attitudes toward prisoners. For the prison volunteers, motivation to express important values and to help others correlated with the attitude that prisoners can change positively. The implications of the study are discussed.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Volunteering Experiences and Motivations on Attitudes Toward Prisoners: Evidence from Hong Kong

Chui

Cheng

2012

Asian Criminology

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“…Although this is a new construct, previous research on public attitudes regarding prisoners and ex-prisoners (Demski and McGlynn 1999;Helfgott 1997;Homant and Kennedy 1982;Hurwitz and Peffley 1997;Kjelsberg et al 2007;Steffensmeier and Kramer 1980) and on support for rehabilitation (Applegate et al 1997(Applegate et al , 2000Cullen et al 1983Cullen et al , 1990McCorkle 1993) suggests that members of the public likely have very divergent views on this key dimension. The relationship between belief in redeemability and punitiveness, controlling for internality/externality of attributions, is explored in our analysis below.…”

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confidence: 91%

Once a Criminal, Always a Criminal?: ‘Redeemability’ and the Psychology of Punitive Public Attitudes

Maruna

King

2009

Eur J Crim Policy Res

184

171

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Several studies have sought to link punitive public attitudes to attribution style and/or lay theories of crime. This research finds that those who believe criminal acts are the result of freely chosen and willful behavior are more likely to be punitive than those who feel crime is the result of external circumstances and constraints. These analyses focus on only one dimension of attributions: locus of control (internal/external). In this analysis, we include a second dimension, thought to be a better predictor of attitudes in social psychological research: stability/instability. In addition to measuring lay theories of crime causation, we also test for "belief in redeemability" (or beliefs about the ability of deviants to change their ways). Our hypothesis is that this other dimension of personal attributions (stability/instability) may be as critical in explaining support for highly punitive criminal justice policies as beliefs about criminal responsibility. We find evidence supportive of this model in an analysis of data from postal survey of residents of six areas in England.

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“…Plotted for each video separately (Figure 3b), no systematic effects of advance information on eye movements is found. Moreover, a mixed effects analysis (with random Kjelsberg et al, 2007).…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study of attitudes often relies on questionnaires (e.g., the attitudes towards prisoners scale, Kjelsberg, Skoglund, & Rustad, 2007;Melvin, Gramling, & Gardner, 1985), which can suffer from a social desirability bias (Hebert, Clemow, Pbert, Ockene, & Ockene, 1995;Mortel et al, 2008;Nederhof, 1985). Alternatively, reaction time measures are used, such as in the implicit association test (IAT, Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), but these have been criticized for measuring associations rather than attitudes (Fiedler, Messner, & Bluemke, 2006;De Houwer, 2002), and often depend on the ability to read words quickly.…”

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confidence: 99%

The influence of social stigmas on observers' eye movements

Hermens¹

2017

Preprint

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Some social stigmas (facial scars, tattoos) have clear visual cues and eye tracking has shown that such social stigmas influence the eye movements of other people. Other social stigmas (e.g., a mental illness or a criminal record) often lack clear visible cues. The present study investigates whether providing information about such stigmas draws eye movements of observers to the people involved. Participants were presented with video clips and advance information about one of the actors that was either stigmatizing (related to mental health or a criminal past) or non-stigmatizing. The results show that eye movements towards the target actor were not systematically affected by stigmatizing advance information and were not associated with explicit attitudes from questionnaires. Results therefore suggest that stigmas without clear visual cues do not draw attention to or away from the person involved.

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Attitudes towards prisoners, as reported by prison inmates, prison employees and college students

Cited by 64 publications

References 18 publications

Effects of Volunteering Experiences and Motivations on Attitudes Toward Prisoners: Evidence from Hong Kong

Effects of Volunteering Experiences and Motivations on Attitudes Toward Prisoners: Evidence from Hong Kong

Once a Criminal, Always a Criminal?: ‘Redeemability’ and the Psychology of Punitive Public Attitudes

The influence of social stigmas on observers' eye movements

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