Citation

Finn RH, Fontaine PA. Crim. Justice Behav. 1985; 12(3): 353-365.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1985, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0093854885012003005

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Employment applications were prepared for 20 fictitious job applicants, and were then rank ordered by 225 undergraduate students enrolled in personnel management classes based on perceived suitability for employment in an entry-level job. Job applicants differed from each other on three treatments: type of crime allegedly committed, judicial outcome, and sex. Employability scores were derived for each applicant by converting the rank orders to a normal distribution with a given mean and standard deviation. Analysis of the data revealed a clear bias against all applicants who had allegedly committed a crime. The magnitude of the bias was related to the type of crime allegedly committed, and to the judicial outcome. Bias was not related to sex of the applicant.

Language: en