Punitive Dissonance: How Social Proximity Shapes Punishment Preferences

• In Event: Poster Session II

Abstract

Objective. Although there is general support for more punitive approaches to crime, fewer people support harsh punitive tactics applied within their own lives or to those they know. We explore this seeming punitive dissonance: that people support punitive policies when imagining them being applied to an abstract other, while simultaneously supporting less punitive approaches within their own communities.

Data/Methods. Using a simple survey experiment, we asked respondents in June of 2020 their opinion on the proper punishment for hypothetical crimes committed by a teenager.

Results. Those respondents asked to imagine a teenager from a different city were significantly more likely to support trying the teenager as an adult and to support the teenager receiving prison time than those asked to imagine a teenager from their own neighborhood. This was true for drug, property, and violent crimes.

Conclusions/Implications. This provides evidence for the existence of a cognitive dissonance in which people’s judgements about proper punishments depend on who they imagine being punished, and that these judgements can be shaped by mere proximity. This has implications for understandings of popular punitiveness and suggests the prospects for criminal justice reform may depend in part on how people attempt to resolve this dissonance.

Authors

• Kevin Drakulich, Northeastern University

• Megan Denver, Northeastern University

• Happiness Daniel, Northeastern University