Must the show go on? The (in)ability of counterevidence to change attitudes toward crime control theater policies.

Abstract

Objectives: Crime control theater refers to intuitively appealing laws that appear to address crime while lacking any evidence that they actually do so (e.g., sex offender registration and residence restriction laws, which do not reduce recidivism). Despite their ineffectiveness, public support for such laws tends to be high. Hypotheses: We predicted that making people aware of these laws' failure to reduce crime would lower support for them. Method: Participants (recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk; Study 1: N ϭ 298, mean age ϭ 35.60, 47.7% self-identified as women and 75.8% as White; Study 2: N ϭ 147, mean age ϭ 35.03, 40.1% self-identified as women and 85.0% as White; Study 3: N ϭ 552, mean age ϭ 35.86, 42.9% self-identified as women and 76.4% as White) read about sex offender registration and residence restriction policies and rated their support for these laws, confidence in their opinions about them, and perceptions of their efficacy before and after reading counterevidence highlighting these laws' failure to reduce sex crimes. Results: Although exposure to counterevidence somewhat lowered support (average within-subjects d ϭ Ϫ0.69), general attitudes remained positive even at the postcounterevidence phase (average d ϭ 0.46 against the scale midpoint). This pattern held when manipulating the criminal population being targeted (sex offenders vs. white-collar offenders; Study 1), when tailoring counterevidence to people's self-stated justifications for supporting these laws (Studies 2-3), and despite favorable ratings of the counterevidence's strength and credibility. Conclusion: Support for crime control theater policies persists despite explicit knowledge that they do not reduce crime, highlighting the need for alternative methods of dissuading people from their support for these ineffective laws. Public Significance StatementDespite their popularity, sex offender registration and residence restriction laws have failed to reduce crime and carry a number of negative consequences for offenders and the general public. We found that, even directly after learning about these facts, people continued to hold positive attitudes toward sex offender laws. Thus, people's support for some laws relies on factors beyond whether these laws actually achieve their intended crime control goals.

Female Youth Convicted of Sex Offenses: Public Opinion on Public Notification

“…Participants were recruited using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online labor market and participant recruitment tool. MTurk has been successfully used in social science research and public opinion studies on crime and crime policy (D. S. Campbell & Newheiser, 2019;Chan & Holosko, 2015;Mason & Suri, 2012). For this study, the researchers limited the survey to participants who were current registered MTurk workers, at least 18 years of age, current residents of the United States, spoke fluent English (the survey was only offered in English), and had a U.S. IP address.…”

Changing the public’s crime control theater attitudes.

“…This unflagging backing for CCT laws is problematic for several reasons, including but not limited to the facts that these laws (a) suggest that steps are being taken to confront important criminal justice issues when current policy is not successful, (b) waste resources that could be used to reform these ineffective laws or to develop and promote more appropriate alternative solutions, and (c) create unintended consequences that may further exacerbate the problems these laws were intended to solve (DeVault et al, 2016; Griffin & Miller, 2008). Unfortunately, limited, extant research has found that CCT laws are relatively impervious to attempts to change the public’s view toward them, leading to little pressure and impetus for legislators to amend, reform, or discontinue these laws (e.g., Campbell & Newheiser, 2019; Griffin & Miller, 2008).…”

“…Sex offender registration and notification (SORN) and sex offender housing restriction laws also represent examples of CCT policies (Campbell & Newheiser, 2019; Krauss et al, 2021; Socia & Harris, 2016). SORN laws are now mandated by federal law and have been established in some form in all 50 states.…”

“…Her parents and the local populace were extremely distraught that a repeat sex offender resided down the street from her house, and that they had no awareness of his presence in their community. “Megan’s” law, which was a registry law promoted by Kanka’s parents, further spurred the adoption of SORN laws across the United States (Campbell & Newheiser, 2019; Socia & Harris, 2016; Zgoba & Mitchell, 2021). The subsequent federal Adam Walsh Child Protection Act (2006) attempted to standardize SORN laws across jurisdictions, and also attempted to create a national searchable database of sex offenders (Zgoba & Mitchell, 2021).…”

“…This outcome is consistent with considerable literature findings that women favor laws targeted at sexual offenders (e.g., Krauss & Scurich, 2014; see Schutte & Hosch, 1997 for a meta-analysis). The rationale for this difference is likely a combination of greater sexual victimization among women, self-identified women's emotional reaction to sexual offenders, their greater caretaking responsibilities for children, and their desire to punish perpetrators of sexual crimes (Campbell & Newheiser, 2019;Krauss et al, 2021;Yelderman et al, 2018). contemplated.…”