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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Current institution
Publications
Publications (459)
Objectives
Existing applications of the group position thesis emphasize interracial differences in policing attitudes. However, this theoretical approach struggles to account for attitudinal differences among White Americans and the increasing role of partisanship in structuring public opinion on policing. We propose a theoretical revision, framed-...
Generally, Americans support the right to bear arms. However, a less studied inquiry is whether the public believes citizens should be allowed to take up arms secretly. We assess if Americans support a public gun registry so that they can know who around them (i.e., in their own neighborhood) owns firearms. To do so, we embedded a split-ballot expe...
Objectives
This study examines the extent to which “mass incarceration” has support among the American public as the lynchpin of correctional policy.
Methods
Three information experiments embedded in a 2023 nationwide YouGov survey of 1000 Americans tested whether providing facts about the extent and nature of incarceration impacts public opinion....
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...
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...
Devastating incidents in which children have accessed their parents’ unsecured guns and used them to kill themselves or others have occurred with alarming frequency across the United States. Although strong evidence exists that safe-storage laws decrease firearm-related child deaths and suicides, the United States does not regulate gun storage at t...
Research Summary
The U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade has profound implications for the 58,000 incarcerated women who are pregnant. Especially in states that now ban abortion, women in prisons and jails who prefer to terminate their pregnancy will be denied that choice by the government and will be forced to give birth. B...
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...
Misconduct committed against incarcerated people is severe and dehumanizing. As the media has begun to shine light on correctional officer misconduct, corrections departments have started implementing policies to curb misbehavior, such as equipping officers with body-worn cameras. Using data from a survey experiment fielded with a national sample (...
On December 19, 2022, the United States House Select Committee referred former president Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. Subsequently, Mr. Trump was indicted four times and charged with 91 felonies. Nevertheless, some Americans have remained steadfast in supporting him. Observers theorize that indifference to Mr....
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...
Studies conducted over the past three decades have consistently reported an association between mental illness and violence. We propose a sociologically inspired explanation for this association by referring to the Thomas Theorem—if situations are defined as real, they are real in their consequences. We identify a small subset of psychotic symptoms...
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...
Research Summary
Originated nearly two decades ago in Hawaii by Judge Steven Alm, a community supervision‐court model known as “Project HOPE” proposed to reduce probation failure by responding to violations with immediate but short jail terms. Despite negative evidence from Lattimore and colleagues’ 2016 Demonstration Field Experiment (DFE) across...
Objectives. In the context of the Select Committee’s investigation of Trump’s role in the January 6th attack, we test the persistence of politically motivated reasoning and white nationalist attitudes in support for Trump despite evidence of his criminal wrongdoing. We argue that white nationalism leads Americans to associate with the political rig...
Public belief in redeemability reduces punitiveness and increases support for policy measures such as rehabilitation, expungement, and housing and employment opportunities. Although racial attitudes are known to influence a wide range of criminal justice policy opinions, their effects on beliefs about redeemability and condemnation have not been fu...
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...
Far-right domestic terrorism is a major threat to US national security. Despite this reality, conservative policymakers have downplayed the threat of right-wing violence while arguing that far-left violence (from groups like Antifa) is a more pressing concern. Drawing on attribution theory and research on politically motivated reasoning, we suggest...
The United States is at a turning point in the history of corrections. Suddenly and surprisingly, the era of mass incarceration ended around 2010. Since that time, prison populations, public punitiveness, and get‐tough rhetoric have declined. A challenging question remains, however: Now what? Doing more of the same is foolish but likely. Prison ref...
Far-right domestic terrorism is a major threat to U.S. national security. Despite this reality, conservative policymakers have downplayed the threat of right-wing violence while arguing that far-left violence (from groups like Antifa) is a more pressing concern. Drawing on attribution theory and research on politically motivated reasoning, we sugge...
Public and political discourse has routinely suggested that immigration is linked to higher community levels of violence and drug problems. In contrast to these claims, research has consistently shown that immigration is not associated with greater violence at the macro level. However, few studies have examined the links between immigration flows a...
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...
Objectives
The first goal of the study was to investigate the willingness of former President Trump’s supporters to punish a particular form of white-collar crime (i.e., bank fraud). The second objective was to test whether the race of the person who committed the bank fraud influenced Trump supporters’ willingness to punish.
Methods
This study us...
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). Drawing...
This study examines deviant identity in relation to youth offending by combining items tapping both self-appraisal and reflected appraisal. In particular, using survey data from 3,446 Korean youth across five waves of the Korea Youth Panel Survey (KYPS), findings from group-based trajectory modeling (GBTM) present four distinct offending groups—a h...
A growing body of research has begun to identify the social and ecological predictors of community overdose rates. However, questions remain about these relationships, and it is unclear whether the predictors of community overdose concentrations mirror those of other fatal social problems, such as homicide and suicide. Drawing on three leading ecol...
School violence is a significant social concern. To better understand its sources, a comprehensive meta-analysis of the school violence and victimization literature was undertaken. Across 761 studies, the relative effects of 30 different individual, school, and community level correlates were assessed (8,790 effect size estimates). Violence and vic...
The gun ownership literature is vast, with dozens of studies seeking to explain who owns guns and why. We build on this literature in two key ways. First, we introduce a new variable into the fold: sensitivity to harm. We theorize that this concern actively inhibits gun ownership. Second, we direct theoretical and empirical attention to a predictor...
In any given year, more than 600,000 inmates are released from prisons into communities across the United States. Former prisoners face countless economic, social, and psychological obstacles that make reentry difficult and increase the risk of reoffending. These issues have become increasingly salient to scholars and policy makers over the past tw...
In order for probation and parole authorities to reduce recidivism among their supervisees, they must target the known causes of crime: opportunity and propensity. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of community supervision agencies fail to reduce offenders' inclinations to commit crime, and even more so, ignore the role of the offender's' en...
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...
Two principal movers of American politics appear increasingly to be connected: racism and guns. The racial content underlying gun rights rhetoric, however, is rarely made explicit during political campaigns. As such, it is possible that espousing pro‐gun messages may be an effective way to surreptitiously court prejudiced voters without transgressi...
Edward J. Latessa has had a multifaceted influence on the field of criminal justice over a remarkable career that has spanned more than four decades. He has been instrumental in building the School of Criminal Justice and a nationally recognized doctoral program at the University of Cincinnati, has contributed defining scholarly research, and has d...
Beginning in the 1970s, the United States began an experiment in mass imprisonment. Supporters argued that harsh punishments such as imprisonment reduce crime by deterring inmates from reoffending. Skeptics argued that imprisonment may have a criminogenic effect. The skeptics were right. Previous narrative reviews and meta-analyses concluded that t...
The gun ownership literature is vast, with dozens of studies seeking to explain who owns guns and why. We build on this literature in two key ways. First, we introduce a new variable into the fold: moral concern about harming others. We theorize that this concern actively inhibits gun ownership. Second, we direct theoretical and empirical attention...
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...
This study presents a comprehensive assessment of what Millennials think about U.S. correctional policy. Using a 2017 national-level sample (N = 1,000), Millennials’ correctional policy opinions across 13 outcomes are assessed and compared to the views of other generations. The main findings are twofold. First, Millennials are only modestly punitiv...
Public reporting programs such as the “See Something, Say Something” campaign are important counterterrorism measures. Yet public knowledge about terrorism is low, and Americans tend to associate terrorist activity with Muslims and Middle Easterners rather than with Whites. The consequence may be biases in public reporting that lead to discriminato...
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...
After each mass public shooting, an inevitable debate surrounding the tools used to carry out the attack ensues. This debate is marked by two sides: those who endorse controlling access to firearms and those who oppose restrictions to the Second Amendment. Implicit in this dialogue is the assumption that gun owners are a homogenous group who stand...
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...
In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander drew national attention to the extensive imposition of collateral consequences on those convicted of a crime and to their racially disparate effects. These so-called invisible punishments are intended to restrict offender participation in civil, economic, and social institutions. At issue, however, is how the...
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...
Research summary
In the wake of repeated school shootings, today's youth have acquired the label of the “mass shooting generation.” Another fitting label would be the “armed school generation.” Most states now permit school security officers to carry firearms, and at least 466 school districts in 19 states allow teachers or staff members to be arme...
Research Summary:
In The Eternal Criminal Record, James Jacobs detailed how it has become increasingly difficult for ex-offenders to escape the mark of their criminal record. One way to “wipe the slate clean” is through the official expungement of criminal records. We assess public views toward this policy using a national sample of American adults...
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...
Objectives. The recurring mass murder of students in schools has sparked an intense debate about how best to increase school safety. Because public opinion weighs heavily in this debate, we examine public views on how best to prevent school shootings. We theorize that three moral-altruistic factors are likely to be broadly relevant to public opinio...
An updated version of this manuscript has been published as "Custodial Sanctions and Reoffending: A Meta-Analytic Review" in Crime and Justice. See corresponding page on RG (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354814899_Custodial_Sanctions_and_Reoffending_A_Meta-Analytic_Review) and https://doi.org/10.1086/715100.
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...
The authors studied the extent to which the American public would support the implementation of rehabilitation ceremonies, including certificates. Using a national-level survey they commissioned YouGov to undertake, the authors examined public views about the redeemability of offenders--whether they believe that those convicted of felonies are intr...
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....
While the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected the lives of people around the world, select populations (e.g., elderly, immune-compromised, and incarcerated individuals) are among the most likely to contract the virus and among the least likely to overcome the illness and regain full health. This paper focuses on the incarcerated individuals...
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...
PurposeFollowing Cullen’s spirit when setting forth his version of social support theory, this article shows the value of social support as an organizing concept for life-course theory. Specifically, this article describes four different pathways through which social support matters for desistance. First, social support is a constitutive part of ad...
People overestimate the risk of some events, such as terrorist attacks and immigrant crimes, but not of others. Stereotype amplification theory indicates that politicized, out-group stereotypes may be to blame. We examine Americans’ perceptions of the risk that different forms of violence—out-group, in-group, and non-racialized—will occur in their...
In light of the continuing mass shootings in America involving high casualties, we present national-level survey data (n = 1,100) examining the American public’s support for regulating the lethality of firearms. Our data allow us to examine how the American public views regulating the lethality of firearms in America, and also how the Second amendm...
Based on a 2017 national survey of 1,000 Black Americans, perceptions regarding the implications of Donald Trump’s election as President on race relations, police-minority relations, and police treatment of Black citizens in the United States were examined. Findings suggest the existence of a “Trump Effect.” With minor variation across demographic...
From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the American public has repeatedly witnessed the carnage and tragic consequences of mass school shootings. Using a national survey of American adults (N = 1,100) conducted between May 30 and June 6, 2018 in the aftermath of the Parkland tragedy, this project explores public opinion on why th...
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...
Prior studies of staff-inmate interactions suggest that they are primarily adversarial in nature. However, less is known about the key factors that influence inmate-staff relationships. Using a sample of formerly incarcerated males in the state of Ohio, the impact of various demographic and institutional characteristics on positive and negative per...
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 recent years, India has been marked by highly publicized cases of rape that have led to public outcry and demands for rape-law reform and the protection of women. In this context, the purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which rape myths persist in Indian society and to examine the sources of those beliefs. Based on a survey of 55 it...
School shootings are one of the most salient social problems in America. Most prior research in this area has focused on identifying their causes and evaluating preventive school safety measures. An overlooked issue involves what to do with individuals who plan, attempt, or commit school shootings. Using data from an experiment embedded in a nation...
