Amanda Graham

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Verified

Amanda verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Texas State University

Based on a 2023 national YouGov survey (N = 800), we explored public support for universal second look sentencing—the view that all incarcerated individuals, not just those who committed their crimes before they were age 25, should be eligible to have lengthy sentences revisited by judges after serving 15 to 20 years in prison. A majority of Americ...

The field of criminology is limited by a 'hidden' measurement crisis. It is hidden because scholars either are not aware of the shortcomings of their measures or have implicitly agreed that scales with certain properties merit publication. It is a crisis because the approaches used to construct measures do not employ modern systematic psychometric...

As with their human counterparts, police K-9s face dangers, including death, while in service. However, police K-9 research is significantly lacking, limiting possible preventive interventions. As such, we use data collected by the Officer Down Memorial Page from 2000–2023 on K-9 deaths (N = 407) to understand trends and correlates of these line-of...

While police reform efforts have pushed for the adoption of a guardian mindset over that of a warrior, the public’s perception of these orientations is also relevant. As such, this study sought to use two experimental vignettes (N = 1,143) to understand the conditions that led officers to be viewed as guardians or warriors. Officers in both vignett...

Self-control, perceived procedural justice, and moral foundations are prominent theoretical constructs in the criminological literature. However, existing measures of each are long. Long scales crowd questionnaires, increase cognitive burden, and lengthen completion times. Using a set of heuristic guidelines for scale construction , we develop shor...

Why have public reactions to police misconduct been so polarized, and why have opposing social movements emerged in response? This study explores attributions of police misconduct, using a myriad of possible attributions and a population-matched national sample ( N = 700), to extend our understanding of the perceived causes of police misconduct and...

Recent polls reveal a complex picture of policing attitudes in Black America. Although most Black Americans are afraid of the police, most also prefer to maintain (or increase) local police presence and spending. Are these paradoxical policy preferences artifacts of the questions used in Gallup and Pew polls—questions that fail to disentangle assum...

Aim: Law enforcement officers are tasked with responding to various types of calls for service in the community, including individuals in crisis. Thus, the current study examines public perceptions regarding crisis related behaviors and preferred police responses. Methods: The current study used experimentally designed case vignettes from an online...

Objective This study sought to understand how the public perceived new offenses in a time of public health crisis—social distancing deviance in the COVID-19 pandemic—and what factors influenced their perceptions. We also explored whether the correlates of crisis-related punitiveness changed over time, as the pandemic became more politicized. Data...

Would police racial and gender diversification reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police? The theory of representative bureaucracy indicates that it might. We tested the effects of officer diversity in two experiments embedded in a national survey that oversampled Black Americans, producing several findings. First, in early 2022, nearly 2 years af...

In the era of increasing support for rehabilitation, an often-overlooked question is how the public recognizes when someone is rehabilitated. The current study uses experimentally designed case files (n = 2,178) in an online opt-in survey to tap into which types of justice-involved individuals are more likely to be considered as being rehabilitated...

To examine if police expressions of solidary with protesters improve public opinion toward the police, we embedded a picture- and information-based experiment in a YouGov survey ( N = 1,150), wherein respondents were randomly exposed to police expressions of solidarity with protesters. We also randomized whether the pictured officers were wearing r...

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented number of people purchasing firearms/ammunition. However, this was not the only way Americans responded to the pandemic: large swaths of the public also stayed at home and stockpiled goods. Twelve months later, as the pandemic raged, these coping mechanisms were still present as Amer...

Research Summary Washington, DC has implemented second look sentencing. After serving a minimum of 15 years in prison, those convicted of a serious offense committed while under the age of 25 years can petition a judge to take a “second look” and potentially release them from incarceration. To examine both global and specific support for second loo...

Responding to high rates of interpersonal victimization and perpetration among adolescents, schools have implemented bystander intervention (BI) training to educate students to intervene to prevent or stop violence. These trainings function much like an application of scripts for guardianship in action. The current study builds on the overlapping a...

The process-based model of policing or procedural justice theory promises a host of positive outcomes as a result of law enforcement officers using procedural justice in their encounters with community members – that is, treating community members with dignity and respect, being viewed as neutral and trustworthy, and providing community members a v...

Would police racial and gender diversification reduce Black Americans’ fear of the police? The theory of representative bureaucracy indicates that it might. We tested the effects of officer diversity in two experiments embedded in a national survey that oversampled Black Americans, producing several findings. First, in early 2022, nearly two years...

As technology advances, new opportunities for partners to gain power and control in their romantic relationships are readily available. New cyber-based behaviors have slowly garnered scholarly attention, but measurement-related issues have not. We take the logical next steps to (1) develop and validate a comprehensive measure of intimate partner cy...

The opioid crisis has claimed more than a half-million deaths over the past two decades and is one of the leading causes of injury deaths in the United States. The current study examines: 1) public opinion on the severity of the opioid crisis in terms of lives lost compared to other fatal social events, 2) opinions on who has been most affected by...

Objectives: Ransomware attacks have become a critical security threat worldwide. However, existing research on ransomware has largely ignored public opinion. This initial study identifies patterns in the American public’s support for the use of ransomware, specifically when it is framed to provide benefits to others (i.e., in-group members). Drawin...

Following a school shooting, the public and media search to understand what factors led to such tragedy. Faced with grief, fear, and confusion, people often seek to make sense of traumatic events. As such, this study uses a 2020 Amazon Mechanical Turk survey ( N = 739) to examine the impact of generational cohort on the blameworthiness of various p...

Failure to take responsibility for intervening has been identified as a primary barrier to bystander intervention. Building on these findings, we examine how perceptions of responsibility affect responses to witnessing victimization in the online realm—a topic that has received limited attention. Using a maximum-likelihood selection model, we analy...

The mission of policing is "to protect and serve," but recent events suggest that many Americans, and especially Black Americans, do not feel protected from the police. Understanding police-related fear is important because it may impact civilians' health, daily lives, and policy attitudes. To examine the prevalence, sources, and consequences of bo...

Current reform efforts have called for police to engage in the use of procedural justice to build trust between the police and community. However, research in this area has employed highly heterogeneous measures of procedural justice, a practice potentially inhibiting the systematic accumulation of knowledge. To address this issue, this study devel...

Researchers conducting public opinion surveys using traditional methods are confronting challenges in their effort to secure high-quality data. In contrast to traditional survey methods, online access to participants has become easier due to the increase in homes with broadband internet, smartphones with internet access, and users with access to th...

Based on a March 28–29, 2020 MTurk survey (N = 1,000), the current study examined how faith in President Donald Trump’s statements downplaying the risks and his responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic affected endorsement of social distancing techniques of neutralization. Controlling for a host of variables, the analysis revealed that faith in Tru...

COVID-19 has had unprecedented effects on populations around the world. Given the political context of the pandemic and the nation's response to it, this study sought to assess the extent of Americans' personal fear about the virus as well as their fear for others (altruistic fear), identify potential predictors of these fears, and examine the ment...

Beliefs about race, especially racial resentment, are key predictors of public support for capital punishment and punitiveness generally. Drawing on a conceptual innovation by political scientist Jennifer Chudy, we explore the utility of transferring into criminology her construct of racial sympathy – or Whites’ concern about Blacks’ suffering. Fir...

The mission of American policing is “to protect and serve,” but recent events suggest that many Americans, and especially Black Americans, do not feel protected from the police. Understanding policing-related emotions is vital not only because they are at the heart of the United States’ police legitimacy crisis, but also because they may have far-r...

In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about one in five Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics’ views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pop...

On the basis of a 2019 YouGov survey of white respondents ( n = 734), the impact of racial beliefs on support for Donald Trump was explored. The analysis revealed that in addition to racial resentment, white nationalism—a desire to keep the United States white demographically and culturally—was strongly related to faith in Trump. Analyses based on...

Is there a “crime gene”? This question has been answered by the scientific community, and the response is a definitive “no.” Yet, it is unclear whether this information has been communicated to the general public. Furthermore, it is unclear whether people’s views about the genetics of crime influence their perceptions of the way offenders should be...

Despite the growing popularity of online opt-in samples in criminology, recent work shows that resultant findings often do not generalize. Not all opt-in samples are alike, however, and matching may improve data quality. Replicating and extending prior work, we compare the generalizability of relational inferences from unmatched and matched opt-in...

As a candidate and as president, Donald Trump heightened the salience of immigration, portraying those crossing the nation’s Southern border as “bad hombres” and advocating building a wall blocking their access to the United States from Mexico. Based on a 2019 MTurk study of 465 White adults, the current study found that a clear majority of respond...

Purpose: Over the past several months, the coronavirus has infected nearly 2 million Americans and killed more than 100,000. Governors have issued stay-at-home orders, and prosecutors have filed criminal charges against individuals for defying those orders. And yet, many Americans have still refused to keep their distance from their fellow citizens...

In the United States, Catholics make up more than 50 million members of the adult population, or about 1 in 5 Americans. It is unclear whether their religious affiliation shapes Catholics' views on public policy issues, ranging from the legality of abortion to criminal justice practices. Capital punishment is especially salient, given that Pope Fra...

PURPOSE: Despite the growing popularity of online opt-in samples in criminology, recent work shows that resultant findings often do not generalize. Not all opt-in samples are alike, however, and matching may improve data quality. Replicating and extending prior work, we compare the generalizability of relational inferences from unmatched and matche...

Although the risk of dying in a terrorist attack in the United States is almost non-existent, recent polls indicate that Americans rank terrorism as a top national concern, prioritizing it over other issues such as the economy, health care, and the environment. The current study examines how Americans are impacted by the threat of terrorism today....

Beliefs about race, especially racial resentment, are key predictors of public support for capital punishment and punitiveness generally. Drawing on a conceptual innovation by political scientist Jennifer Chudy, we explore the utility of transferring into criminology her construct of racial sympathy—or Whites’ concern about Blacks’ suffering. First...

Beliefs about race, especially racial resentment, are key predictors of public support for capital punishment and punitiveness generally. Drawing on a conceptual innovation by political scientist Jennifer Chudy, we explore the utility of transferring into criminology her construct of racial sympathy—or Whites’ concern about Blacks’ suffering. First...

Purpose: Over the past several months, the coronavirus has infected nearly 2 million Americans and killed more than 100,000. Governors have issued stay-at-home orders, and prosecutors have filed criminal charges against individuals for defying those orders. And yet, many Americans have still refused to keep their distance from their fellow citizens...

Given the historically contentious relationship—including most notably the use of excessive and lethal force—between the police and African Americans, the current project examines the extent to which Blacks in the United States fear police brutality. The study is based on a 2018 national-level survey (N = 1,000), and measures fear by how much respo...

COVID-19 has had unprecedented effects on populations around the world. Given the political and moral context of the pandemic and the nation’s response to it, this study sought to assess the extent of American’s personal fear about the virus as well as their fear for others (altruistic fear), identify potential predictors of these fears, and examin...

In 2009, Maruna and King presented results from a British survey showing that the public’s belief in the redeemability of people who committed offenses curbed their level of punitiveness. Based on a 2017 national survey in the United States (n = 1,000), the current study confirms that redeemability is negatively related to punitive attitudes. In ad...

A number of homeland security measures have been implemented or proposed since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. While public opinion polls suggest that some of these measures (e.g., universal security checks) have received widespread support, security policies advanced by President Donald Trump that target Muslims and other immigrant gr...

In an important article on the methodological issues surrounding measuring of police legitimacy, Jackson and Bradford (Asian Journal of Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-019-09289-w, 2019) adequately warn against the use of confirmatory factor analysis as an adjudication tool for differentiating the possible sources and constituent compon...

“America First,” as presented by President Trump, argues for an international strategy that persistently places America’s interests above those of anyone or anything else. Consequently, Trump has reshaped the international perceptions of the United States and has created more difficulties for the U.S. in coordinating of global leaders in resolving...

Purpose: This study sought to understand the reporting intentions of traditional and cybercrime victimization, and the role of procedural justice in explaining sources of variation. Design/Methodology/Approach: Using Amazon's MTurk program for opt-in surveys, 534 respondents across the United States considered ten victimization incidents and expres...

The use of recreational drones has only recently become a possibility for the general public. However, with the addition of this new technology comes the potential for misuse. Using a national sample (N = 535), this study explored the prevalence of victimization by recreational drones as well as beliefs and responses to deviant drones and their pil...

Given the complicated historical and contemporary relationship between law enforcement and African Americans, academic and popular commentary have focused intently on the existence of conflict between the police and the Black citizenry in the United States. The current project, however, seeks to broaden understanding in this area by exploring the e...

In light of growing concern regarding the policing of inner-city communities—including questionable incidents of use of force—equipping officers with body-worn cameras (BWCs) has emerged as a salient proposal for reform. Based on a national-level survey of African Americans (n = 1,000), this project shows that wide consensus exists among Black citi...

In response to the recent crisis in police-community relations, police researchers, practitioners, and policymakers have presented the procedural justice model of policing as the key to police reform. This chapter explores the generalizability of the procedural justice model of policing to police relations with Black communities. It begins with a d...

Citation analysis is a valuable method for tracking the growth and transmission of scientific knowledge. In criminology and criminal justice, such analyses tend to be focused on “classic” works or on highly-cited scholars over many years. As an alternative approach, we focus on work that has been cited rather quickly—what we term the “early onset”...