Should All Violent Offenders Be Treated Equally? Perceptions of Punishment and Rehabilitation for Violent Offenders with Varying Attributes

ABSTRACT

Research finds that, while people are pragmatic in response to crime control, individuals are more punitive toward violent than nonviolent offenders. This endeavor examines individuals’ simultaneous support for punishment and rehabilitation – balanced justice – for violent offenders with varying attributes. Using a convenience sample of 575 criminology and criminal justice students, this study examines if treatment beliefs and respondent demographic characteristics relate to sanctioning preferences. Findings indicate a balanced justice sanctioning preference for violent drug offenders, those with mental health issues, and veterans, while individuals support punishment-oriented sanctions for domestic violence offenders. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Balanced justice
• violent offenders
• punishment
• rehabilitation
• public opinion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The graduate research assistants (GRAs) who administered the survey were only GRAs. They were not teaching assistants as well. Thus, there was minimal power differential between those administering the survey and the survey participants.

2. In academic year 2014–2015, 48% of students enrolled at the university were White, 23% were Hispanic, and 29% were Black or other races. Additionally, 58% of the total university enrollment were female.

3. Since the purpose of this study was to examine sanctioning preferences for violent offenders with varying attributes, and not violent offenses, the author did not operationalize what constituted a “violent” offense for participants.

4. These categories are mutually exclusive.

5. As can be seen from the question wording, some questions were reverse coded during the analysis.

6. For multinomial logistic regression models, SPSS utilizes listwise deletion of cases with missing values.

7. The output of multinomial logistic regression models produce relative risk ratios, as opposed to odds ratios. While an odds ratio is the ratio of two odds, a relative risk ratio is a ratio of two probabilities (Menard, 2010).

8. It must be noted that McCorkle (1993) did not ask about views toward domestic violence offenders.