Public Opinion about Punishment and Corrections

Abstract

ABSTRACT"Get tough" control policies in the United States are often portrayed as the reflection of the public's will: Americans are punitive and want offenders locked up. Research from the past decade both reinforces and challenges this assessment. The public clearly accepts, if not prefers, a range of punitive policies (e.g., capital punishment, three-strikes-andyou're-out laws, imprisonment). But support for get-tough policies is "mushy." Thus citizens may be willing to substitute a sentence of life imprisonment without parole for the death penalty. Especially when nonviolent offenders are involved, there is substantial support for intermediate sanctions and for restorative justice. Despite three decades of criticism, rehabilitation-particularly for the young-remains an integral part of Americans' correctional philosophy. There is also widespread support for early intervention programs. In the end, the public shows a tendency to be punitive and progressive, wishing the correctional system to achieve the diverse missions of doing justice, protecting public safety, and reforming the wayward.In the not-too-distant past, rates of imprisonment were stable and showed no hint of escalating (Blumstein and Cohen Today, however, much has changed-so much so that the policy and ideological landscape of that previous era is unrecognizable. "Get tough" thinking and policies have replaced calls for more humanistic correctional practices, and their dominance appears unassailable. Virtually all contemporary commentaries on correctional policy begin, almost ritualistically, by chronicling-and most often decrying-the seemingly endless roster of policies designed in recent years to inflict increasing amounts of pain on offenders (Clear 1994): prison populations rising sixfold in a quarter century from 200,000 to over 1.2 million; the spread of mandatory prison sentences; the implementation of draconian drug laws that snare big and little "fishes" alike; the passage of three-strikes-and-you're-out statutes; the renewed use of the death penalty; attempts to reduce inmates' amenities, from weight lifting and television to support for college education; the return of chain gangs; and the invention of "scared straight" programs and boot camps.We have moved, in short, from a time in which punishment and prison were unfashionable to a time in which punishment dominates policy discussions and the prison is embraced as the linchpin of the nation's response to crime. But why has this striking shift occurred? The sources of this transformation in thinking and policy are complex (Beckett 1997), but a commonsense, parsimonious explanation for harsher penalties is frequently offered: punitive policies simply reflect what the public wants. Fed up with intractable crime rates-fed up with coddled offenders victimizing them, people they know, and people they hear about-citizens collectively have made the rational assessment that more offenders should be locked up for longer periods (cf. Beckett 1997; Dilulio 1997). In this scenario, then, the mov...

Factores explicativos de las actitudes hacia el castigo juvenil. Evidencias de un diseño factorial

“…Inicialmente, los primeros trabajos utilizaron cuestionarios muy rudimentarios que no permitían captar adecuadamente la complejidad de las actitudes (Cullen et al, 2000). Los mismos empleaban preguntas abstractas cuyas respuestas tendían a ser muy punitivas.…”

“…Sus resultados cuestionaron los hallazgos previos que sustentaron el populismo punitivo, al presentar una opinión pública en ocasiones más benevolente que el propio sistema penal (Cullen et al, 2000;Hough y Roberts, 2004;Roberts, 2004). La evidencia acumulada puso de manifiesto que el público no posee unas actitudes uniformes hacia el castigo, sino que éstas son flexibles y ambivalentes (Hutton, 2005).…”

“…La evidencia acumulada puso de manifiesto que el público no posee unas actitudes uniformes hacia el castigo, sino que éstas son flexibles y ambivalentes (Hutton, 2005). Por lo tanto, considerar como se ha hecho en el debate político, que la sociedad reclama únicamente medidas ejemplares implica subestimar la complejidad de la opinión ciudadana (Becket y Sasson, 2004;Cullen et al, 2000).…”

“…La investigación científica ha evidenciado que los ciudadanos tienen una visión magnificada de la delincuencia. Tienden a pensar que ésta es cuantitativa y cualitativamente más grave de lo que en realidad es y consideran que el sistema de justicia es ineficaz y excesivamente indulgente con el infractor (Cullen et al, 2000;Gelb, 2006;Hough y Roberts, 2004;Roberts, 2004;Varona, 2008). La explicación que ofrecen Hough y Roberts (2004) a esta distorsión es que, independientemente de que las tasas delictivas aumenten, disminuyan o permanezcan estables, la opinión pública tiende a atribuirles una dimensión mayor.…”

“…Esta cualidad explica que ante delitos de menor gravedad, el público muestre un pronunciado apoyo hacia las medidas alternativas al internamiento (Beckett y Sasson, 2004;Cullen et al, 2000;Mayhew y Van Kesteren, 2002), especialmente cuando la condena incorpora algún tipo de compensación a las víctimas (Cullen et al, 2000;Roberts y Stalans, 2004), mientras que este enfoque pro-rehabilitador se desdibuja en los supuestos más graves, cuya naturaleza es violenta (Cullen et al, 2000;Fernández y Tarancón, 2010;Roberts, 2004). En tales casos el apoyo a la punición es ostensible, sin que pueda hablarse de un artificio metodológico.…”