The public’s perception of crime control theater laws: It’s complicated.

Krauss, Daniel A.; Cook, Gabriel I.; Song, Eunice; Umanath, Sharda

doi:10.1037/law0000302

Cited by 5 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…It further explained that politicians do not want to be viewed as "soft on crime" and desire to be reelected. As a result, politicians support the harsh laws (Krauss et al, 2021).…”

Section: Procedures and Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Crime control theater (CCT) refers to a category of laws and/or legal policies that are intuitively appealing as solutions to important criminal justice goals but are actually well-documented empirical failures. Despite their lack of success, these policies continue to receive exceptional public and legislative support (e.g., Krauss et al, 2021). 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).…”

Section: Cct Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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.…”

Section: Cct Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unfortunately, in a nationally representative participant sample, recent research highlighted that these two sex offender CCT policies evidenced extremely high public support ratings, and a substantial difference between the public’s ratings of support compared with their effectiveness than even other CCT policies (Krauss et al, 2021). In particular, the public’s outsized support was striking, whereby approximately 60% of the sample offered the highest rating of support , a “10” on a 0–10 sliding scale.…”

Section: Cct Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Changing the public’s crime control theater attitudes.

Krauss¹,

Cook²,

Umanath³

et al. 2022

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

Self Cite

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Crime control theater (CCT) are criminal justice policies and laws that are widely favored by the public but are demonstrated empirical failures. Across two experiments, this research examines video interventions designed to change the public's views toward two sexual offender CCT laws-sex offender housing restrictions and sex offender registry laws. In Experiment 1 (N = 217), both factual and narrativebased interventions were successful in lowering participants' ratings of support but not effectiveness for these policies. However, whereas participants viewed the narrative-based videos as more engaging, coherent, and emotional, these differences did not translate into more significant attitude transformations or learning of the unintended consequences of these policies. In Experiment 2 (N = 133), these findings were largely replicated, and, importantly, the decrease in participants' support for these policies after the intervention was maintained a week later, with smaller decreases in participants' ratings of effectiveness evident. Yet, the exact mechanism of these attitudinal changes remains unclear but appears unrelated to their memory for or engagement with the interventions. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.

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“…It further explained that politicians do not want to be viewed as "soft on crime" and desire to be reelected. As a result, politicians support the harsh laws (Krauss et al, 2021).…”

Section: Procedures and Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cct Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cct Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cct Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Changing the public’s crime control theater attitudes.

Krauss¹,

Cook²,

Umanath³

et al. 2022

Psychology, Public Policy, and Law

Self Cite

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The Communication of Risk to Legal Decision-Makers

Krauss,

Ellsworth

2024

The Cambridge Handbook of Psychology and Legal Decision-Making

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Legitimacy-Based Policing and the Promotion of Community Vitality

Tyler

Nobo²

2022

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This Element presents the history, research, and future potential for an alternative and effective model of policing called 'legitimacy-based policing'. This model is driven by social psychology theory and informed by research findings showing that legitimacy of the police shapes public acceptance of police decisions, willingness to cooperate with the police, and citizen engagement in communities. Police legitimacy is found to be strongly tied to the level of fairness exercised by police authority, i.e. to procedural justice. Taken together these two ideas create an alternative framework for policing that relies upon the policed community's willing acceptance of and cooperation with the law. Studies show that this framework is as effective in lowering crime as the traditional carceral paradigm, an approach that relies on the threat or use of force to motivate compliance. It is also more effective in motivating willing cooperation and in encouraging people to engage in their communities in ways that promote social, economic and political development. We demonstrate that adopting this model benefits police departments and police officers as well as promoting community vitality.

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The public’s perception of crime control theater laws: It’s complicated.

Cited by 5 publications

References 32 publications

Changing the public’s crime control theater attitudes.

Changing the public’s crime control theater attitudes.

The Communication of Risk to Legal Decision-Makers

Legitimacy-Based Policing and the Promotion of Community Vitality

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