Assessing Public Perceptions of Prison Officer Use of Force: An Experimental Vignette Study

• In Event: Fear of Crime, Punitiveness, and Punishment

Abstract

For years, incidents of police using force have been at the center of national discourse. By contrast, due to the hidden nature of prisons, use of force by correctional officers in prisons is relatively less known to Americans. Using national level survey data (N = 1,000), the study uses an experimental vignette design to explore how the public reacts to and appraises use-of-force scenarios in a prison context. Specifically, the vignettes randomized whether the incarcerated person was affiliated with a gang, the reason they are incarcerated, the nature of the interaction between the officer and the incarcerated person, the action taken by the incarcerated person, and finally, the type of force used by the officer. The results indicate that the public generally is accepting of a correctional officer using force when the incarcerated person is gang affiliated or exhibits aggressive behavior toward the officer. Moreover, respondents were less accepting and, in fact, wished to punish the officer when the incarcerated person was treated in a dehumanizing way, such as the officer speaking in a vulgar way toward them. Regression modelling is used to explore the sources of these attitudes. The implications of these findings will be discussed.

Authors

• Alexander Burton, University of Texas at Dallas

• Justin Pickett, University at Albany, SUNY

• Cheryl Lero Jonson, Xavier University

• Francis Cullen, University of Cincinnati

• Velmer Burton, University of Cincinnati