What’s in a Name? Evaluating the Effects of the “Sex Offender” Label on Public Opinions and Beliefs

Abstract

Particularly over the past two decades, the terms sex offender and juvenile sex offender (JSO) have attained increasingly common usage in media and public policy discourse. Although often applied as factual descriptors, the labels may evoke strong subconscious associations with a population commonly presumed to be compulsive, at high risk of re-offense, and resistant to rehabilitation. Such associations, in turn, may exert considerable impact on expressions of support for certain policies as well as public beliefs and opinions about adults and youth who have perpetrated sexual offenses. The current study systematically evaluated the impact of the "sex offender" and "JSO" labels through series of items administered to a nationally stratified and matched sample from across the United States. The study employed an experimental design, in which one group of participants (n = 498) ranked their levels of agreement with a series of statements utilizing these labels, and a control group (n = 502) responded to a matched set of statements substituting the labels with more neutral descriptive language. Findings support the hypothesis that use of the "sex offender" label strengthens public support for policies directed at those who have perpetrated sexual crimes, including public Internet disclosure, residency restrictions, and social networking bans. The "JSO" label is demonstrated to produce particularly robust effects, enhancing support for policies that subject youth to public Internet notification and affecting beliefs about youths' propensity to re-offend as adults. Implications for public policy, media communication, and research are explored and discussed.

Applying moral foundations theory to understanding public views of sexual offending

“…As suggested earlier, Harris and Socia (2014) found that survey respondents asked about their support for community notification, residence restrictions, and social network bans for "sex offenders" demonstrated significantly higher levels of support for these policies than a matched group that was given a similar series of prompts using the more sanitized "people who have committed sexual offenses". They also found higher levels of support for requiring "juvenile sex offenders" to register with police, compared to "minor youth who have committed sexual offenses".…”

“…Harris and Socia (2014) suggested that this assumed homogeneity of the sex offender population has also permeated much public opinion survey research, noting that:…”

Press coverage as a heuristic guide for social decision-making about sexual offenders

“…In Study 2, we examined differences in attitudes and responses to sexual offenders within the context of newspaper readership. That is, we investigated further the tentative conclusions outlined earlier by both Harris and Socia (2014) and King and Roberts (2015), by looking at the potential role of emotional newspaper reporting styles in moderating responses to the 'sexual offender' label. Thus, Study 2 examined the role of the affect heuristic in guiding attitudes and perceptions about sexual offenders.…”

“…For example, Harris and Socia (2014) found that people make more punitive judgements about a case when the perpetrators are described as 'sex offenders' than 'people who have committed a crime of a sexual nature'. Imhoff (2015) found a similar trend in his data when he compared judgements about 'paedophiles' and 'people with a sexual interest in prepubescent children'.…”

Changing Course: From a Victim/Offender Duality to a Public Health Perspective

“…Someone who commits a child sexual offense can be a pedophilic or a hebophilic but does not have to be and a pedophile does have to commit a contact offence to be labelled as such. The confusion surrounding definitions of sexual violence in society may distort the issue for the general population and make it difficult to respond to as well as prevent (McCartan et al, 2015;Harris & Socia, 2015), with the label of being a sex offender having a negative impact on all offenders, especially adolescents and children (Pittman, 2013).…”