You’ve Got a Friend in Me: Willingness to Interact With Those That Are Justice-Involved

• In Event: Public Opinion of Justice-Involved People: Results from National Survey Experiments

Abstract

Using a New York sample, Blumstein and Nakamura (2009) assessed how long it would take for those with a criminal record, property or violent, to have the same statistical risk of reoffending as those without a criminal record. They found that it was 5 years for property offenses and 8 years for violent offenses. There is a dearth of research in public opinion that examines how likely people are to interact with those convicted of a crime after their release, especially if they are more willing as time passes. To assess Blumstein and Nakamura’s results with perceptions from the public, an experimental vignette design manipulating crime type and time since conviction was used. After controlling for several covariates, research will be presented to assess whether the public is more willing to interact, as measured across various dimensions of social distance, with property offenders after 5 years and violent offenders at 7 or 9 years, as the design does not have a specific 8-year mark. Overall, results suggest that time since the conviction is not a statistically significant predictor of social distance from those with a criminal record, regardless of the type of crime that was committed.

Author

• Laura Nolterieke, University of Cincinnati