Justin T. Pickett

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University at Albany, State University of New York

This article reviews evidence for the effects of public opinion on court decision-making, capital punishment policy and use, correctional expenditures, and incarceration rates. It also assesses evidence about the factors explaining changes over time in public support for punitive crime policies. Most of this evidence originates from outside of our...

The public salience of crime has wide-ranging political and social implications; it influences public trust in the government and citizens’ everyday routines and interactions, and may affect policy responsiveness to punitive attitudes. Identifying the sources of crime salience is thus important. Two competing theoretical models exist: the objectivi...

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...

As protests erupted across the United States in recent years over politically polarized issues (e.g., Black Lives Matter, COVID-19 restrictions), so too did questions about when and how police should respond. The context of these protests and how police reacted to them varied substantially, with limited understanding of relevant public attitudes. P...

Since Hobbes (1957 [1651] and Beccaria (1963 [1764]), scholars have theorized that the emotion of fear is critical for deterrence. Nevertheless, contemporary deterrence re- searchers have mostly overlooked the distinction between perceived sanction risk and fear of apprehension. Whereas perceived risk is a cognitive judgment, fear involves visceral...

In recent years, concerns have grown about escalating political violence directed against government officials, particularly fueled by white nationalism. The current study examines how white nationalism is associated with support for violent citizen responses to three different types of government actions—those that are non-partisan versus those th...

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....

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...

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 United States imposes a wide range of "collateral consequence" restrictions on people with criminal records. We test whether American public support for collateral consequences is driven more by deterrence and just deserts or an expressive desire to sanction unworthy people. We employed a vignette survey experiment that manipulated whether a de...

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...

Discrimination based on gender identity is unjust and wreaks havoc on individuals’ lives. Nonbinary Americans report experiencing extensive and daily experiences with discriminatory events. Yet experimental evidence on how employers and members of the public evaluate and react to individuals (e.g., job applicants, social acquaintances) with differe...

Research summary Although society benefits when people with criminal records are employed, employers are reluctant to hire them. Can we diminish this reluctance with direct incentives that reduce the cost of employing record‐holders or that compensate for the associated risk? If so, will the beneficial effects of incentives emerge under traditional...

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...

Objectives In a period of mass protest, police use of force against protesters regularly makes headlines across the country. Our study contributes to the literature on public opinion about protest policing by examining support for punishing officers who use force against peaceful protesters. Methods We used a factorial survey experiment administer...

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...

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...

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...

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 opinion is doubly important for reintegration, as it shapes both the policy and the stigma environments that people with criminal records must face. Nowhere are the policy and stigma environments bleaker than for record holders convicted of sex crimes. Drawing on the theory of compassion collapse (or psychic numbing) and using experimental d...

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...

This study explores whether Americans’ punitiveness and perceptions of redeemability are shaped more by the type of crime committed or by judgements about an offender’s moral character. Guided by theories of neoliberalism, we focus on laziness as an indicator of flawed character that is independent of criminality. A sentencing vignette experiment a...

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...

Objectives. After years of decreasing public punitiveness and declining crime rates, politicians are seeking evidence-based crime policies to reduce mass incarceration without increasing crime. One such policy that has been implemented in several U.S. cities is the Operation Peacemaker Fellowship (OPF), which incentivizes conformity and program par...

Do people think about offending risk in verbal or numerical terms? Does the elicitation method affect reported subjective probabilities? Rational choice models require potential outcomes (e.g., benefits/costs) to be weighted by their probability of occurrence. Indeed, the subjective likelihood of being apprehended is the central construct in crimin...

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...

Regardless of why it happens, racial discrimination is damaging and unacceptable. Efforts to reduce discrimination, however, are most successful when we understand the mechanisms that give rise to it. Building on the observation that employers are members of the public, we examine two attitudinal mechanisms that may foster discriminatory employment...

As protests erupted across the United States in recent years over racialized issues (e.g., Black Lives Matter and Confederate monuments), so too did questions about when and how police should respond. Understanding public attitudes toward protest policing is important for police legitimacy and policy. One theory is that citizens are willing to trad...

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...

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...

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...

The asymmetry hypothesis predicts that negative police encounters matter more than positive ones for legitimacy, suggesting that officers may get little credit for using procedural justice. We tested the asymmetry hypothesis and extended it to other process‐based model relationships by estimating asymmetric fixed effects models with longitudinal da...

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...

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...

This study explores the moralization of purity and perceptions of harm as constraints on sex buying among men. Purchasing sex has long been considered an offense against public morality. While personal morality provides a powerful constraint on offending, and people may vary in the extent to which they experience moral intuitions about bodily and s...

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...

Research Summary We administered a survey experiment to a national sample of 1068 U.S. adults in April 2020 to determine the factors that shape support for various policing tactics in the midst of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Respondents were sharply divided in their views about pandemic policing tactics and were least supportive of policies that might l...

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...

Objectives Similar to researchers in other disciplines, criminologists increasingly are using online crowdsourcing and opt-in panels for sampling, because of their low cost and convenience. However, online non-probability samples’ “fitness for use” will depend on the inference type and outcome variables of interest. Many studies use these samples t...

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...

Rational choice theory in criminology is based on a model of decision-making, expected utility theory (EUT), that research in psychology and economics has shown to be descriptively inaccurate for many types of human decisions. Because of its ability to account for intuitive reasoning and anomalies in crime decisions, prospect theory (PT) may be a v...

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...

Body-worn cameras (BWC) have diffused rapidly throughout policing as a means of promoting transparency and accountability. Yet, whether to release BWC footage to the public remains largely up to the discretion of police executives, and we know little about how they interpret and respond to BWC footage – particularly footage involving critical incid...

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...

Objectives: Growing evidence indicates that criminologists should incorporate emotional states, such as fear, into standard deterrence frameworks. Within the fear of crime literature, there is empirical support for the “sensitivity to risk” model, which posits perceived victimization control and severity drive certainty perceptions, and these cogni...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Much prior research has examined the sources of individuals’ attitudes toward the application of punishment via the justice system. Some findings from this literature suggest that punitive attitudes are expressive, retributive, and closely connected to racial resentment. Other research, however, emphasizes that these sentiments are instrumental, ut...

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...

The arguments for criminalizing prostitution surround public concerns—moral order, public health, and safety. For this reason, an understanding of attitudes about the nature and consequences of the practice, particularly among American males, the presumed consumers of sex-related exchanges, is needed. Specifically, how do contextual beliefs about t...

Prior research suggests that exposure to adverse news stories involving the police negatively impacts consumers’ attitudes toward these actors. Yet, most investigations have neglected to examine contemporary media diets, such as online consumption and engagement, and attitudes toward the police. Using a sample of mostly young adults, the current st...

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...

Objectives Police legitimacy can hinge on what happens in police–civilian encounters, yet much remains unknown about the socio-psychological processes involved in these bilateral interactions, especially those affecting officers. We integrate insights from policing research with theories and findings from scholarship on moral psychology, interperso...

Scholars have long argued that behaviors and objects associated with criminally stereotyped minority groups can themselves become stereotyped and criminalized, leading to increased punitiveness. Yet, this extended criminalization hypothesis requires theoretical development and direct empirical investigation. To address this issue, we seek to test t...

Objectives Democratic policing involves an ongoing dialogue between officers and citizens about what it means to wield legitimate authority. Most of the criminological literature on police legitimacy has focused on citizens’ perceptions of this dialogue—that is, audience legitimacy. Consequently, we know little about how officers perceive their leg...

A substantial body of research indicates that television news consumption is associated with criminal stereotyping. However, less is known about how online media, such as Internet news and social media news consumption, is associated with such attitudes. Using a multisite sample of mostly young adults, the current study examines the relationships b...

My coauthors and I were informed about data irregularities in Johnson, Stewart, Pickett, and Gertz (2011), and in my coauthors’ other articles. Subsequently, I examined my limited files and found evidence that we: 1) included hundreds of duplicates, 2) underreported the number of counties, and 3) somehow added another 316 respondents right before p...

In light of the expansion of punitive “get tough” policies for juvenile offenders, some researchers have uncovered evidence that juveniles who are waived to the adult court receive more severe sanctions than retained juveniles. Theoretically, the transfer status of delinquents may serve as a cognitive heuristic in criminal justice system (CJS) acto...

Purpose: Estimating the size of the sex buyer market in the United States has been stymied by methodological and sampling challenges. Given known methodological issues in self-reporting and the sensitive nature of purchasing sex, current research faces challenges in providing estimates of demand for purchasing sex. This study used a unique approach...

In recent years, policing scholars have increasingly used survey methods to gain insight into officers’ attitudes and behaviors. Yet, surprisingly, methodological research analyzing surveys of police officers is rare. We analyzed the extent and correlates of response rates in police surveys, providing insights about the survey design features and s...

Objectives: Police legitimacy can hinge on what happens in police-civilian encounters, yet much remains unknown about the socio-psychological processes involved in these bilateral interactions, especially those affecting officers. We integrate insights from policing research with theories and findings from scholarship on moral psychology, interpers...

Purpose: This study revisits classic theoretical arguments regarding the broad effects of civilian demeanor on policing and extends associated findings. Design/methodology/approach: Our theoretical framework draws on insights from the literatures on police culture, the group engagement model and fairness heuristic theory. We argue that demeanor is...

Recent experiments show that offender decision-making is characterized by the use of cognitive heuristics. Questions remain about what this means for deterrence research and policy. I argue that the primary task is to identify ways to leverage decision-making biases to reduce crime. I outline three avenues for future research on deterrence, and dis...

Ban-the-Box (BTB) legislation, which bans employers from asking about criminal history records on the initial job application, is arguably the most prominent policy arising from the prisoner reentry movement. BTB policies assume: 1) most employers ask about criminal records, and 2) inquiries occur at the application stage. However, we lack reliable...

Procedural justice theory increasingly guides policing reforms in the U.S. and abroad. Yet, the primary sources of perceived police procedural justice are still unclear. Building on social schema research, we posit civilians’ perceptions of police procedural justice only partly reflect their personal and vicarious experiences with officers. We theo...

As one approach to prison downsizing and criminal justice reform, scholars recommend altering the nature of policing by reallocating resources toward policing and increasing sentinel patrols and hot spots interventions. Public attitudes toward these reforms are unknown. In the current police crisis, shifting policies in ways disfavored by the publi...

Current U.S. policy allows private companies to publish arrest records prior to conviction in print and online sources, yet little is known regarding the extent to which people actively search for criminal records or whether the public supports these policies. Utilizing two large public opinion surveys (N = 1,008 and N = 1,601), we find that approx...

As one approach to prison downsizing and criminal justice reform, scholars recommend altering the nature of policing by reallocating resources toward policing and increasing sentinel patrols and hot spots interventions. Public attitudes toward these reforms are unknown. In the current police crisis, shifting policies in ways disfavored by the publi...

Data fraud and selective reporting both present serious threats to the credibility of science. However, there remains considerable disagreement among scientists about how best to sanction data fraud, and about the ethicality of selective reporting. The public is arguably the largest stakeholder in the reproducibility of science; research is primari...