Empathy among college students and criminal justice majors: Identifying predispositional traits and the role of education

Abstract

This paper examines empathy among a purposive sample (N = 633) of college and university students in the northeastern United States. Mehrabian's Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES) was used to measure empathy levels among criminal justice (CJ) and other majors. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to compare scale and item means across gender, school size and type, grade level, age, and other variables. The authors also examine the relationship in the sample between empathy and attitudes toward punitiveness. Results indicate that male CJ majors possess the lowest levels of empathy, followed by males of other majors, female CJ majors and females majoring in other disciplines. Gender, major, and grade/class level were found to be important in predicting or influencing empathy. Possible explanations for these differences in empathy are offered and the pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.The purpose of this exploratory study is to assess the extent of differences, if any, between criminal justice (CJ) majors and other college majors in empathy levels. The study reflects the authors' shared concern about an issue confronting both CJ pedagogy and the administration of justice in the future. From the authors' experiences of teaching a variety of courses at different institutions to various majors, our observations led us to believe that CJ majors are more punitive in their attitudes and less empathic toward offenders than are students in other (i.e., non-CJ) majors, and that the former also *An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, November 1999, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 126COURTRIGHT, MACKEY, AND PACKARD differ in their beliefs regarding what constitutes fair and equitable punishment for criminal offenders.Our mutual observations regarding a tendency toward punitiveness and reduced empathy among CJ majors became apparent during a discussion of student reactions to an assignment common to the first and second authors' courses. John Irwin's (1985) The Jail was used in both courses to illustrate the view that criminal justice interventions may not always provide a better solution for the individual offender and may also lead to the continuation and escalation of criminality by further isolating the offender from society, weakening his or her bonds to family, friends, and work. Students in these courses were sometimes not only unreceptive to the ideas put forth by Irwin, but some of them displayed open hostility to his ideas. These student reactions were often similar when discussions centered on other disadvantaged populations (e.g., indigent persons, AIDS victims, victims in general, etc.). In short, we came to believe that a substantial number of our students lacked the ability to empathize with offenders and other disadvantaged populations. Negative comments were not confined solely to the work of Irwin but we...

Drinking and drug use by college students: Comparing criminal justice majors and non-majors

“…Lambert and Clarke (2004) found differences between majors in knowledge about crime and capital punishment. Likewise, Courtright, Mackey, and Packard (2005) found differences between both majors and gender in levels of empathy exhibited; male CJ majors exhibited the least empathy and female CJ students exhibited less empathy than females from other majors. Proctor (2006) found academic performance differences between CJ and other students in statistical knowledge-with CJ students performing more poorly.…”

Examining Punitiveness: Assessing Views Toward the Punishment of Offenders Among Criminology and Non-Criminology Students

“…A large proportion of the research comparing theses two groups has found significant differences in attitudes and opinions between criminology and noncriminology majors (Cannon, 2005;Courtright & Mackey, 2004;Courtright, Mackey, & Packard, 2005;Farnworth et al, 1998;Hensley et al, 2003;Mackey & Courtright, 2000;McCarthy & McCarthy, 1981;Olivero & Murataya, 2001;Selke, 1980;Tsoudis, 2000;Ventura et al, 2004). Many of the studies, however, suffer from a number of methodological limitations.…”

Curriculum Implications of Anti-Gay Attitudes Among Undergraduate Criminal Justice Majors

“…Approximately 63% of the respondents were white, 20.1% were African-American, 13.8% were Hispanic, 0.8% was Asian, and 2.5% were mixed race. Owing to the relatively large number of white students in the sample (n = 222), the variable measuring race was recorded as a dichotomous variable: white and non-white (Courtright, Mackey, & Packard, 2005). As seen in Table 1, the majority of the males in the sample were white (n = 120) and only 48 males were non-white, while the females were fairly similar in terms of race (non-white female n = 84 and white female n = 102).…”