Citation

DeLuca JS, Vaccaro J, Rudnik A, Graham N, Giannicchi A, Yanos PT. Int. J. Offender Ther. Comp. Criminol. 2018; 62(10): 2879-2896.

Affiliation

1 John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0306624X17723639

PMID

28793838

Abstract

Stigma toward general criminal offenders has been found to be particularly salient among community members who identify as politically conservative; however, less is known about how political identification relates to stigma toward sex offenders. This is a particularly important area of inquiry, given that criminal jurisprudence and politics legitimatize stigmatizing labels attributed to sex offenders through laws and policies that apply specifically to this group. A nonrandom sample ( N = 518) of participants living in the United States was recruited for this survey study.

FINDINGS indicated that a specific aspect of conservative political ideology-right-wing authoritarianism (RWA)-significantly predicts negative attitudes and intended social distancing behavior toward sex offenders, even when controlling for other important predictors, such as education and prior contact. RWA was found to be the strongest predictor of negative attitudes and estimations of sex offender recidivism, and also significantly predicted intended social distancing behavior. Implications for addressing stigma toward sex offenders are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

negative stereotypes; political attitudes; politics; right-wing authoritarianism; sex offenders; stigma