Who Doesn’t Know Someone in Jail? The Impact of Exposure to Prison on Attitudes Toward Formal and Informal Controls

Abstract

This paper examines how experience with the criminal justice system contextualizes the relationship between people's attitudes toward informal and formal social controls. In a survey of residents of Leon County, Florida, we asked respondents whether or not they knew someone who had been incarcerated. We also asked about their assessment of informal controls in their neighborhoods and about public control with questions about police, judges, and the criminal justice system as a whole. We find that knowing someone who has been incarcerated makes people with a low assessment of formal control also have a low opinion of informal control. Blacks are more likely than nonblacks to have a low opinion of informal social control only if they have not been exposed to incarceration. Knowing someone who has been incarcerated makes blacks and nonblacks just as likely to hold a negative assessment of informal social control.

Personal and Vicarious Experience with the Criminal Justice System as a Predictor of Punitive Sentencing Attitudes

“…The current findings contradict those of Rose and Clear (2004), however, who found that prior personal or vicarious experience had no significant impact on perceptions of the fairness of the criminal justice system (formal social controls). According to Rose and Clear (2004, p. 242), "negative views of formal social controls are thought to translate into a lesser willingness to comply with these controls…thereby increasing crime, disorder, and overall neighborhood dissatisfaction."…”

“…Few studies have focused on the impact of personal or vicarious experience with or exposure to the criminal justice system on sentencing attitudes. Two notable exceptions are Johnson (2009) and Rose and Clear (2004). Johnson (2009) examined the public's emotional reaction to crime and its impact on punitive attitudes, and found that vicarious incarceration (having a close friend or relative currently incarcerated) had a negative effect on punitive attitudes; specifically, individuals with an incarcerated friend/relative were significantly less punitive than individuals without an incarcerated friend/relative (see also Johnson, 2006).…”

“…Johnson (2009) examined the public's emotional reaction to crime and its impact on punitive attitudes, and found that vicarious incarceration (having a close friend or relative currently incarcerated) had a negative effect on punitive attitudes; specifically, individuals with an incarcerated friend/relative were significantly less punitive than individuals without an incarcerated friend/relative (see also Johnson, 2006). Rose and Clear (2004) examined the impact of personal or vicarious exposure to incarceration on attitudes toward formal controls (e.g., beliefs about police, judges, and fairness within the criminal justice system) and informal controls (e.g., assessment of neighborhood ability to discipline and control area children). Overall, results indicated that having been incarcerated or knowing someone who had been incarcerated had no direct impact on attitudes towards formal controls.…”

Coercive mobility and the impact of prison-cycling on communities

“…In some urban areas, as many as one in six black males aged 20-44 are incarcerated at any given time [30]. Spatial concentration of the experience of incarceration among the urban, young male population has led to a normalized conceptualization of the imprisonment experience as an accepted -indeed perhaps expected -and survivable life event among that population [31][32][33].…”

Diversity Research and Policy : A Multidisciplinary Exploration

“…Earnest efforts to reduce crime in high crime areas may actually increase social problems, crime included, through the overincarceration of its male population. The idea, put forth by Rose and Clear (2004), is based on the notion that the imprisonment, or removal, of a high percentage of adult males within a given area leads to greater social instability and alters the perception of imprisonment (e.g., it may become a badge of honour rather than a source of shame).…”