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Journal of Offender Rehabilitation
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjor20
Incremental beliefs and public attitudes toward
restorative justice: the cases of sexual, violent and
property offenses
Dana Weimann-Saks, Inbal Peleg-Koriat & Eran Halperin
To cite this article: Dana Weimann-Saks, Inbal Peleg-Koriat & Eran Halperin (2022) Incremental
beliefs and public attitudes toward restorative justice: the cases of sexual, violent and property
offenses, Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 61:4, 169-187, DOI: 10.1080/10509674.2022.2062518
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10509674.2022.2062518
Published online: 22 Apr 2022.
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Incremental beliefs and public attitudes toward
restorative justice: the cases of sexual, violent and
property offenses
Dana Weimann-Saks
a
, Inbal Peleg-Koriat
b
, and Eran Halperin
c
a
Division of Communication, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Emek Yezreel, Israel;
b
Division
of Criminology, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, Emek Yezreel, Israel;
c
Division of
Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
ABSTRACT
Restorative justice (RJ) is oriented to respond to crime in ways
that would repair individual, relational, and social harm. This
study examined the relationship between type of offense and
public attitudes toward RJ, in addition to the psychological
mechanisms undergirding this relationship. We examined a
model of three offense types (sexual, violent, and property)
and their differential effect on support for RJ. Moreover, we
examined whether this relationship was mediated by incre-
mental beliefs, i.e., that human character is malleable. We also
explored two control variables previously found predictive of
attitudes toward punishment: perceived seriousness of the
offense and fear of crime. Participants (N¼608) read a defin-
ition of one offense and completed a survey regarding incre-
mental beliefs, fear of crime, perceived seriousness of the
offense, and support for RJ. The findings indicated main
effects of offense type on attitudes toward RJ. Additionally,
differences between offense types were found in incremental
beliefs and attitudes toward RJ, such that for both variables,
sexual offenses were rated the lowest followed by violent and
property offenses. An indirect effect of offense type on atti-
tudes toward RJ through incremental beliefs was also found,
but not through fear of crime or perceived seriousness.
KEYWORDS
restorative justice;
incremental beliefs; offense
types; rehabilitation
Introduction
In recent years, international crime rates have been relatively stable or
declining (United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal
Justice, 2015). However, this trend has not reduced prison populations
(Gazal-Ayal & Roberts, 2019). Additionally, numerous studies illustrate that
in some cases policies that encourage incarceration do not adequately
address the needs of offenders, victims, and their communities, failing to
provide significant deterrence or rehabilitation (Gromet & Darley, 2009).
CONTACT Inbal Peleg-Koriat inbalp@yvc.ac.il Division of Criminology, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley
College, Emek Yezreel 1930600, Israel.
ß2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
JOURNAL OF OFFENDER REHABILITATION
2022, VOL. 61, NO. 4, 169–187
https://doi.org/10.1080/10509674.2022.2062518
Consequently, law enforcement and social supervision systems in various
countries have begun applying alternative or complementary methods for
doing justice following an offense, many of which are informed by restora-
tive justice (RJ). RJ places the emphasis on repairing harm to individuals,
relations, and society through impartial guided dialogue between the perpe-
trators, the direct victims and all others harmed by the offense (Zehr,
2002). In evaluation studies, both victims and perpetrators have been more
satisfied with RJ than with conventional criminal processes (Poulson, 2003;
Sherman & Strang, 2007). Evidence on the effectiveness of RJ procedures
in reducing recidivism is mixed and not available on any sizable scale
(Sherman et al., 2015; Wilson et al., 2018). In some studies, perpetrators
participating in RJ processes tended to present lower recidivism rates than
perpetrators participating in conventional criminal processes (Bazemore &
Elis, 2007; Sherman & Strang, 2007). Strang et al.’s(2013) meta-analysis
revealed that RJ was more effective for adults than for youngsters in reduc-
ing post-intervention offending. On the other hand, Wilson (2018) found
that RJ was more effective for juveniles. Still other studies found either a
slight reduction in recidivism or none at all (Piggott & Wood, 2019; Strang
et al., 2013; Wilson et al., 2018).
International use of RJ remains modest (Butler & Maruna, 2016;
Weimann-Saks et al., 2019). Several institutional and social barriers prevent
large-scale utilization of RJ (Avieli et al., 2021; Laxminarayan & Wolthuis,
2015). One major albeit understudied type of barrier is psychological (such
as emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and personality traits), potentially affecting
public support for RJ. The aim of the present study is to examine the rela-
tionship between type of offense and public attitudes toward RJ and their
underlying psychological mechanisms. Specifically, we depart from previous
literature by suggesting that certain offense types produce different public
perceptions and beliefs regarding the offender’s rehabilitative potential,
independently of their perceived seriousness and the public fear they
arouse, resulting in differential attitudes toward RJ.
Restorative justice
There is no consensual definition of RJ (Sharpe, 2004), generally speaking,
the RJ approach views a criminal offense not only as deviating from the
standard norms of criminal law, but also in creating a conflict between the
offender and victim, and harm for the victim, the community, and even to
the offender (Zehr, 2002). RJ aims to redress the harm caused by the
offense by identifying the parties’needs through guided dialogue that facili-
tates consensual resolution and enables the parties to embark on a path of
170 D. WEIMANN-SAKS ET AL.
reconciliation, victim healing, and perpetrator rehabilitation and reintegra-
tion (Johnstone, 2011).
A recurring question is whether it is appropriate to promote RJ processes
for all offense types, as some argue that certain offenses are unsuitable for
RJ even as a complementary process, and that retributive punishment is
the only solution for them. For example, there is a legitimate and under-
standable concern with using RJ instead of incarceration for serious
offenses (Weimann-Saks et al., 2019). With regard to sexual offenses,
McGlynn et al. (2012) argued that diverting cases from the court system
might serve to diminish the apparent seriousness of the crime.
Furthermore, some researchers raised concerns that such an informal pro-
cess might revictimize the victims (J€
ulich & Buttle, 2010).
At present, in many countries such as Israel, RJ processes are primarily
carried out when the offenders are minors or in cases of less serious
offenses (Larsson, 2014). However, it has been claimed that limiting the use
of RJ to youth offenders or offenses for which incarceration is unlikely
defeats the purpose since, in most cases, conventional retributive justice
remains the default choice (Butler & Maruna, 2016). It is therefore highly
important to understand catalysts and barriers that affect the implementa-
tion of RJ processes for various offenses.
Public attitudes to restorative justice on different offenses
In recent decades, public attitudes have become an important area of crim-
inological research (Chen & Einat, 2015; Kutateladze & Crossman, 2009).
While RJ appears to be a promising alternative to retributive approaches as
a form of punishment (Daly, 2017), many policymakers are reluctant to
endorse it due to fear of alienating constituents by appearing to be “soft”
on crime (Ahlin et al., 2017; Roberts & Stalans, 2004). Moreover, scholars
are already expressing concern that unless the public, victims, and
offenders support RJ, its implementation might decline (Moss et al., 2019),
or remain limited to minor offenses (Hoyle & Rosenblatt, 2016). For
example, if victims and offenders do not adopt favorable attitudes toward
RJ, they might be unwilling to meet (Weimann-Saks et al., 2019; Zebel
et al., 2017). Similarly, negative attitudes of community members might
preclude community participation (Hoyle & Rosenblatt, 2016).
Studies indicate a variety of factors affecting attitudes toward RJ (e.g.,
Ahlin et al., 2017;Zebeletal.,2017). For example, Huang et al. (2012)found
that people with higher social capital generally endorsed RJ, whereas people
with more traditional and socially conservative ideologies and values tended
to support punitive justice, with its emphasis on individual culpability and
punishing everyone found guilty (Harriman, 2018; Huang et al, 2012).
JOURNAL OF OFFENDER REHABILITATION 171
Ahlin et al. (2017) found that American students were more likely than were
their Japanese and Australian counterparts to support RJ. However, an inter-
esting yet understudied question is what would explain the degree of support
for RJ as affected by different types of offenses.
Type of offense and public attitudes to restorative justice
The few studies examining public support for RJ have used type of offense
as a proxy for severity of offense (Gromet & Darley, 2006; Taylor et al.,
2012). Studies on the impact of offense severity have found, for example,
that people demand more severe penalties for perpetrators of serious crimes
such as severe sex and violent crimes . Although, there is no consensus on
the meaning of serious crimes, seriousness judgments could reflect factual
judgments about their harmfulness to victims or perceived wrongfulness of
the criminal act (Warr, 1989). People want the severity of the punishment
to match the severity of the crime, a concept known as “just deserts”or
proportional retribution (Carlsmith et al., 2002). Accordingly, in a study on
perceptions of RJ among college students, it was found that the more ser-
ious the offense, support for RJ decreased in favor of proportional retribu-
tion (Gromet & Darley, 2006). Similarly, Roberts and Stalans (2004) found
that support for alternatives to punitive sentencing dropped as offense
severity increased. Note however that support for RJ is not necessarily
equivalent to opposition to any form of punishment.
Another hypothesis examined in previous studies is that fear of crime
significantly affects attitudes toward and alternative types of punishment.
In some countries, individuals with higher fear of crime hold attitudes that
are more punitive. Costelloe et al. (2009) illustrated that fear of crime was
a consistent predictor of support for various punitive policies. Langworthy
and Whitehead’s(1986) crime-fearing participants thought that the primary
purpose of prison was punishment rather than rehabilitation. However,
others studies only uncovered a limited relationship between fear and sup-
port for punitive policies (McCorkle, 1993); in some cases, the relationship
depended on the conceptualization and operationalization of fear of crime
(Rader, 2017).
Nonetheless, as mentioned above, studies in the field of RJ have not yet
examined whether there are certain types of offenses that, beyond their per-
ceived seriousness and beyond the degree to which the public fears them,
produce different public perceptions and beliefs, resulting in varying posi-
tions toward RJ. The main innovation in this study lies in its assumption
that a key variable in differentiating offense types in terms of their amen-
ability to RJ is incremental beliefs, or the fundamental tendency to believe
172 D. WEIMANN-SAKS ET AL.
that people who perpetrate certain types of offenses are able or unable
to change.
For example, violent crimes elicit a powerful response. Greater stigma is
attached to violent compared to nonviolent convictions: the public
perceives “violent offenders”to be the most likely to recidivate (Denver
et al., 2017). Consequently, the stigma associated with a violent criminal
increases support for social exclusion. Note, however, that statistical evi-
dence demonstrated that precisely those individuals whose most recent
crime was violent were less likely to recidivate, compared to drug or prop-
erty convictions (Bales & Mears, 2008; Chiricos et al., 2007), attesting to a
potential gap between the perceived seriousness of the offense and the
offender’s rehabilitative potential. In other words, people convicted of
certain offenses trigger certain emotional responses and punitive attitudes
that are not necessarily related to their rehabilitative potential.
Additionally, sex offenders encounter a more severe public response than
do others. Society views even “nonviolent”sex offenders as posing “a far
more immediate menace than the mugger, robber, murderer, confidence
trickster, or corporate polluter”(Jenkins, 1998, p. 200). Indeed, sex
offenders are a group for whom “the vehemence of the hatred …is
unmatched by attitudes to any other offenders”(Sampson, 1994, 124). Sex
offenders, therefore, experience intense public condemnation and stigma-
tization, such that the public supports denying their civil liberties more
than it does for any other type of offender, including armed robbers and
murders (Lancaster, 2011; Pickett et al., 2013). One of the major psycho-
logical mechanisms behind these attitudes is the stereotyping of sex
offenders as incorrigible individuals (Pickett et al., 2013). This psychological
mechanism has not yet been examined in the context of public attitudes
toward RJ as they relate to different types of offenses. In the current study,
we examine the assumption that the stereotype of a certain category of
offender as unmalleable may play the most prominent role in shaping atti-
tudes toward RJ, beyond fear of crime and the seriousness of a
given offense.
Incremental beliefs and public attitudes to restorative justice
Dweck et al. (1995) suggested that people made two assumptions about the
malleability of personal character traits, believing that personal character
traits are either nonmalleable (entity theory), or malleable (incremental the-
ory). Studies in various disciplines have found incremental beliefs to be
associated with lower likelihood of stereotypical judgments (Rydell et al.,
2007); reduced negative reactions to social adversity (Yeager et al., 2014);
and lower likelihood of recommending punishment and retaliation for
JOURNAL OF OFFENDER REHABILITATION 173
others’wrongdoing (Chiu et al., 1997). Those with incremental beliefs are
expected to see negative behaviors as a challenge, offering constructive
solutions to alter negative motivations or situations. Conversely, people
who believe wrongdoings emanate from fixed traits favor punishment and
retaliation (Dweck et al., 1995; Halperin et al., 2011).
Recently, researchers have begun examining the role of incremental
beliefs in the criminological context. For example, Tam et al. (2013) found
that beliefs about the immutability of moral character were associated with
public attitudes toward punishment and rehabilitation: people with entity
beliefs made more internal attributions of criminal behavior, resulting in
stronger punitive tendencies. Rade et al. (2018) found that growth mindsets
(incremental beliefs) predicted positive attitudes toward ex-offenders, which
in turn predicted greater public support for reentry to society. More specif-
ically, in the context of RJ, Bol
ıvar (2013) found that the perception of the
offender as not being dangerous per se could contribute to their desire to
participate in an RJ process. Finally, Moss et al. (2019) found that partici-
pants who believed offenders could fundamentally change were more likely
to support RJ and rehabilitation over punishment.
Although these findings provide preliminary evidence for the association
between incremental beliefs and attitudes toward punishment and its alter-
natives, we have yet to locate a quantitative study that has examined the
impact of such beliefs on attitudes toward RJ, taking various types of
offenses into account. As indicated above, certain types of offenses have
been found related to (non-)malleability beliefs (Pickett et al., 2013).
Specifically, sex offenders (convicted of offenses of various degrees of sever-
ity) and even violent offenders are generally perceived as nonmalleable.
As suggested, even compared to other serious offenders, sex offenders
are commonly seen as the least malleable. This is suggested, among other
things, by the imposition of social controls such as mandatory registration
and community supervision on these offenders (Hanson et al., 2014). Next
after sex offenders, violent offenders are also seen by the public as unmalle-
able and at higher risk of recidivism compared to property or drug
offenders (Denver et al., 2017). Note that this flies in the face of empirical
(e.g. Bales & Mears, 2008; Chiricos et al., 2007) and government
(e.g. Durose et al., 2014) findings that violent offenders are in fact less
likely to recidivate compared to the property or drug offenders.
The present study
The main aim of the current study is to examine, for the first time,
whether there is a difference in public attitudes toward RJ across different
types of offenses, and to explore the psychological mechanisms that explain
174 D. WEIMANN-SAKS ET AL.
this difference. We test a model of three offense types: sexual, violent, and
property offenses, and their differential effects on such attitudes, including
whether this relationship is mediated by incremental beliefs. In addition, in
order to fine-tune our insights regarding the mediating role of incremental
beliefs in the relationship between offense type and support for RJ, the pre-
sent model includes two additional control variables previously found sig-
nificant in predicting attitudes toward punishment: perceived serious of the
offense (e.g. Gromet & Darley, 2006; Roberts & Stalans, 2004), and fear of
crime (e.g. Windzio et al. 2007; Wu et al., 2011). We believe that under-
standing the complex effects of these mediating variables is important for
understanding the psychological process underlying attitudes toward RJ.
Accordingly, our hypotheses are as follows. First, difference will be found
in public attitudes toward RJ across offense types. Thus, participants will
report more positive attitudes toward RJ in the context of property offenses
than in that of sexual or violent offenses (H
1
). Second, difference will be
found in incremental beliefs between types of offenses. Thus, participants
would report lower levels of incremental beliefs in sexual or violent
offenses compared to property offenses (H
2
). Third, incremental beliefs
would serve as mediators in the correlation between type of offense and
attitude toward RJ (H
3
).
Method
Participants
The study was conducted in Israel, on a sample of 608 participants (311
women). Their ages ranged from 19 to 74 years (M¼43.38, SD ¼15.46).
All were Jewish, mostly non-religious, (73.5%) and married (60.2%). About
one-sixth (16%) of the participants defined themselves as victims of crime
and 38% of them turned to legal channels following said crime (this vari-
able was controlled in the current study and was not found to be signifi-
cant for the results). The sample was obtained from an online panel that
was representative of the distribution of the Jewish-Israeli population
according to the Central Bureau of Statistics. The maximum standard error
was 4.5%. Sample size was estimated using GPower (Faul et al., 2009),
based on medium-sized effect size in order to obtain a 90% power to detect
significant differences.
Procedure
The current study used an experimental, between-subjects design.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions depending
on the type of offense they were asked to refer to (sexual, violent, or
JOURNAL OF OFFENDER REHABILITATION 175
property offense). To make sure that all participants, within each condition,
referred to the same type of offense, we introduced the official definition of
The World Health Organization (WHO, 2021) for defining violent and sex-
ual offenses and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ, 2021) to define prop-
erty offenses. We specifically employed these definitions in this study since
we sought a broad and general definition that has been used in previous
studies (Ee, 2017; Krug et al., 2002).
After reading the definition of the offense, participants answered 22
questions regarding incremental beliefs, fear of crime, and the perceived
offense seriousness (the latter two, with reference to the specific offense
type presented). After these three scales, participants read a short descrip-
tion of the RJ procedure (for the 100-word Hebrew description, see
Appendix A, adapted from Peleg-Koriat & Klar-Chalamish, 2020) and
answered two reading comprehension questions. Finally, they were asked to
complete a questionnaire that examined their attitudes toward RJ proce-
dures (response time ¼10 minutes). The final sample included only ques-
tionnaires that were completed correctly after verifying completion time
(we did not include questionnaires that were completed in less than five or
more than thirty minutes). Seventeen participants were removed. Approval
for the present study was granted by the institutional ethics committee
(YVC 2021-89 YVC EMEK).
Materials
After reading the definition of the offense, participants completed a short
anonymous questionnaire that measured the following variables.
Independent variable: type of offense
We created three versions (conditions) of the questionnaire that included
three different offense types: sexual, violent, and property offenses.
Mediator: incremental beliefs
Incremental beliefs were assessed using a 5-item scale (a¼.85), rated from
1(“strongly disagree”), to 6 (“strongly agree”). The scale was based on
Weimann-Saks et al.’(2019) questionnaire (e.g., “I believe that a person
who has committed such an offense has a chance to return to a normative
life”;“I think a person who commits such an offense can change”).
Control variables
Fear of crime. There is no standard measure for fear of crime. Researchers
have struggled how best to conceptualize and define fear of crime, debating
176 D. WEIMANN-SAKS ET AL.
whether it should be categorized as an emotion or as a perceived risk
(Rader, 2017). Through the years, scholars (e.g., Farrall et al., 1997; Gabriel
& Greve, 2003) have suggested several guidelines for measuring fear of
crime: explicating crime types before posing a question; referring to emo-
tional states of fear; and avoiding the use of hypothetical scenarios while
presenting realistic scenarios. We used a 3-item scale (a¼.69), rated from
1-9 (each question had a different response scale), based on Xiong et al.’s
(2017) questionnaire with some adjustments (i.e., "I am afraid of such a
crime" (from “highly agree”to “totally disagree”); “How afraid are you of
becoming a victim of the described crime?”(from “completely unafraid”to
“highly afraid”); “In your everyday life, what is the likelihood that you
would be victimized by the offense described?”(from “highly very low”to
“very high”)).
Perceived seriousness
Perceived Seriousness was assessed using a 7-item scale (a¼.91), from 1
(“strongly disagree”), to 9 (“strongly agree”), based on Warr’s(1989) and
Alter et al.’s(2007) questionnaires with minor adjustments. The questions
identified the wrongfulness of criminal acts in terms of the two dimensions
of perceived seriousness (e.g., “The behavior described deviates from
accepted norms”;“The behavior described may cause serious injury”).
Dependent variable: attitudes toward RJ
To assess attitudes toward RJ, we used a 5-item scale (a¼.85), from 1
(“strongly disagree”), to 6 (“strongly agree”), based on Peleg-Koriat and
Klar-Chalamish’s(2020) questionnaire, with slight alterations (e.g., “I think
it is right that the victim will meet the person who harmed him as part of
an RJ process”;“I welcome the opportunity given to the victim and
offender to choose whether they are interested in an RJ process”).
Results
The three experimental groups—sexual, violent, and property offense—were
compared using a one-way ANOVA. No significant differences were found
in the sociodemographic variables of age, F(5,602) ¼0.91, p>.05; educa-
tion years, F(5,602) ¼0.60, p>.05; religiosity, x215
ðÞ
¼24:51, p>:05;
family status, x215
ðÞ
¼23:27, p>:05;gender, x25
ðÞ
¼2:29, p>:05;and
income (relative to the national average), x215
ðÞ
¼20:02, p>:05:These
results indicated that the random assignment to experimental conditions
was successful in terms of socio demographic factors.
JOURNAL OF OFFENDER REHABILITATION 177
Examination of hypotheses
As hypothesized (H
1
), group differences were found in attitudes toward RJ,
F(2,605) ¼24.06, p<.001, gp
2
¼.07. Post-hoc analysis revealed that par-
ticipants were most negative toward RJ in the sexual offense (M¼3.35,
SD ¼1.10), more than in the violent offense condition (M¼3.91,
SD ¼1.10), with the least negative attitudes in the property offense condi-
tion (M¼4.18, SD ¼1.00). Also as hypothesized (H
2
), differences were
found between groups’incremental beliefs, F(2,605) ¼15.32, p<.001, gp
2
¼.06. Post-hoc analysis revealed lower levels of incremental beliefs in the
sexual offense (M¼3.84, SD ¼1.04), than in the violent offense condition
(M¼4.20, SD ¼1.05), with the highest levels in the property offense condi-
tion (M¼4.48, SD ¼1.03). To conclude, differences between offense types
were found in attitudes toward RJ and incremental beliefs so that for both,
the sex offense type was the lowest, followed by the violent and property
types (Figure 1 and Table 1).
Examination of control variables
Group differences were found in perceived seriousness, F(2,605) ¼31.65, p
<.001, gp
2
¼.05. Post-hoc analysis did not reveal differences in the sexual
(M¼8.17, SD ¼1.34) and violent offense condition (M¼7.89, SD ¼1.31).
However, participants in the sexual (M¼8.17, SD ¼1.34) and violent
offense (M¼7.89, SD ¼1.31) conditions reported more perceived serious-
ness than in the property offense condition (M¼7.37, SD ¼1.41). No
group differences were found in fear of crime, F(2,605) ¼2.14, p>.05. To
conclude, perceived seriousness was similar in sexual and violent offenses
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
FearSeriousnessMalleability
beliefs
RJ
Sex
Violence
Property
Offense
type
Figure 1. Differences in research variables across offense types.
178 D. WEIMANN-SAKS ET AL.
but lower in property offenses, with fear of crime being similar across
offense types (Figure 1 and Table 1).
As shown in Table 2, the only variable found correlated with attitudes
toward RJ was incremental beliefs: the more people believed an offender could
change (higher incremental beliefs) the more positive their attitudes were
toward RJ (rp ¼.42, p<.001). No other correlations with the dependent vari-
able were significant. This trend was found in all types of offenses except for a
significant negative correlation between incremental beliefs and perceived ser-
iousness in violent offenses (rp ¼.14, p<.05). Consequently, only in violent
offenses, whose perceived seriousness was higher, the belief that the defendant
could change was lower. Accordingly, for all offense types, the more people
tended to believe the offender could change, the less they were afraid of the
offense and the more positive their attitudes toward RJ. Interestingly, for all
types of offenses no correlation was found between fear of crime, perceived ser-
iousness, and attitudes toward RJ. Lastly, in sexual and property offenses, no
correlation was found between fear of crime and perceived seriousness.
To examine the mediating role of incremental beliefs in the association
between offense type and attitudes toward RJ (H
3
) we used Hayes’(2018)
PROCESS bootstrapping command with 5,000 iterations (Model 4), with a
multicategorical independent variable. Offense type was the predictor vari-
able, incremental beliefs were the mediator, and attitudes toward RJ were
the dependent variable. The 95% confidence interval for the direct effect of
offense type on attitudes did not include 0 (95% CI_X1 [.192, .662], CI_X2
[.372, .829] with 5,000 resamples, F(2,602) ¼13.31, p<.001). The indirect
effects of offense type on attitudes through incremental beliefs did not
Table 1. Descriptive statistics (N¼608).
Offense nMSDMin Max F(2,605)
Attitudes toward RJ
Sex 202 3.35 1.10 1 6 24.06
Violence 200 3.91 1.10 1 6
Property 206 4.18 1.00 1.6 6
Total 608 3.96 1.10 1 6
Incremental beliefs
Sex 202 3.84 1.04 1 6 15.32
Violence 200 4.20 1.05 1 6
Property 206 4.48 1.03 1 6
Total 608 4.28 1.06 1 6
Fear of crime
Sex 202 5.51 1.94 1 9 2.14
Violence 200 5.47 1.70 1.33 9
Property 206 5.19 1.67 1 9
Total 608 5.34 1.73 1 9
Perceived seriousness
Sex 202 8.17 1.34 1 9 17.01
Violence 200 7.89 1.31 3.86 9
Property 206 7.37 1.41 2.14 9
Total 608 7.67 1.40 1 9
Note. p<.001.
JOURNAL OF OFFENDER REHABILITATION 179
include 0 (95% CI_X1 [.045, .262), CI_x2 [.154, .378). Regarding control
variables, fear of crime included 0 (95% CI_X1 [.027, .022], CI_X2 [.045,
.262), as did perceived seriousness (95% CI_X1 [.026, .013), CI_X2
[.060, .269) with 5,000 resamples. Thus, the model indicated only an
indirect effect of offense type on attitudes to RJ through incremental
beliefs, but not through fear or perceived seriousness (Figure 2).
Discussion
The main aim of this study was to examine whether type of offense played
an important role in shaping attitudes toward restorative justice (RJ) and
whether incremental beliefs explained differences in public attitudes toward
RJ across offense types. Previous studies on public support for RJ mostly
differentiated between offenses according to perceived seriousness (e.g.,
Gromet & Darley, 2006; Roberts & Stalans, 2004), or investigated individual
attitudes toward a specific category such as sexual offenses (e.g., Peleg-
Koriat & Klar-Chalamish, 2020). Hitherto, no research examined psycho-
logical mechanisms that could explain public support for RJ as varying
across offense types.
The results support the hypothesis that incremental beliefs play a key
role in attitudes toward RJ in all types of offenses. Yet, perceived serious-
ness and fear of crime do not play an important psychological role in shap-
ing these attitudes. Despite differences found across offense types in
perceived seriousness and incremental beliefs, only incremental beliefs sig-
nificantly mediated the relationship between type of offense and attitudes
toward RJ.
This exploratory study has several theoretical and practical implications.
It expands the limited empirical knowledge on psychological mechanisms
shaping attitudes toward RJ. We believe that incremental beliefs, which
have not yet been fully conceptualized and researched in the current con-
text—provide a new glimpse into the psychological dynamics of developing
Table 2. Correlations between research variables across all offense types (N¼608).
Crime Fear of crime Perceived seriousness Attitudes toward RJ
Sex
Incremental beliefs –.39 0.51 .29
Fear of crime .25 –.35
Perceived seriousness –.05
Incremental beliefs –.19 14.33
Violence
Fear of crime .37 .24
Perceived seriousness .09
Incremental beliefs –.28 –.07 .45
Property
Fear of crime .39 –.01
Perceived seriousness .06
Note. p<.05, p<.01, p<.001.
180 D. WEIMANN-SAKS ET AL.
attitudes toward RJ. In prior research, it has been claimed that people tend
to be less in favor of RJ following severe offenses. Roberts and Stalans
(2004, pp. 322–323) offered the following explanation: “As crimes become
more violent and serious, people will attribute the crime to internal causes
[…]. Therefore, offenders who commit serious crimes are seen as belong-
ing to the criminal subculture and not to law-abiding society.”
The present findings offer a more nuanced view, suggesting that per-
ceived seriousness is not directly related to the belief that the offender can
change. Consequently, it appears that there are offenses in which the
offenders are perceived as nonmalleable, their severity notwithstanding. It
is therefore impossible to infer from the perceived severity of the offense
that the offender has the potential to change. Rather, the type of offense
committed is a more suitable mechanism for explaining public malleabil-
ity beliefs.
From a practical standpoint, decades ago, Lewin (1947) proposed that
every process of societal change had to begin with a cognitive change of
“unfreezing.”On the individual psychological level, unfreezing typically
begins with the emergence of a new idea (or ideas) inconsistent with held
beliefs and attitudes, resulting in psychological tension or dilemmas that
trigger intrapersonal conflict. This, in turn, may stimulate people to seek
alternatives to their basic position (e.g., Bartunek, 1993). Based on this line
of thought, recent research on conflicts between groups and individuals has
highlighted interventions that can induce an incremental mindset (Halperin
et al., 2011). These studies have also shown that beliefs regarding the malle-
ability of specific individuals and groups can be indirectly transformed by
believing that people or groups, in general, can change (incremental mind-
set). Therefore, altering beliefs about people’s malleability may be of crucial
Figure 2. The mediating role of incremental beliefs, perceived seriousness, and fear of crime in
the correlation between offense type and attitudes toward RJ.
Note. p<.001
JOURNAL OF OFFENDER REHABILITATION 181
importance in an effort to build support for RJ: changing participants’
incremental mindset would indirectly increase support for RJ.
The findings suggest that the biggest challenge in altering public attitudes
will be with regard to sexual offenders, followed by violent offenders, as the
public perception of these offenders is that they cannot change. Yet, it has
been illustrated in studies examining intractable conflicts such as the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Goldenberg et al., 2018), that even after years of
strife and harm, people’s fundamental beliefs about the ability of the other
group to change can be altered, resulting in more positive attitudes toward
the conflict and its possible resolution (Halperin et al., 2011). We therefore
conclude that the same can be applied to the criminal context through vari-
ous psychoeducational tools, such as exposure to the stories of sex
offenders who have changed and by disseminating studies of successful RJ
processes in cases of sexual assault (Klar-Chalamish & Peleg-Koriat, 2021).
Moreover, this study uniquely contributes to the ongoing attempt to
learn more about the specific psychological processes affecting public atti-
tudes, and their influence on punitive policies. Significant penal reform,
argues Gottschalk (2015), can only take place if we try to reintegrate not
just people convicted of “non, non, non’s”—nonserious, nonsexual, and
nonviolent crimes. Insights into psychological research can help legal and
criminological scholars better calibrate penal policies to human realities,
and foster a desired set of beliefs (Peleg-Koriat & Klar-Chalamish, 2020).
Belief in a person’s ability to change might dramatically shape the public’s
point of view when forming attitudes toward the desired policy for dealing
with crime.
Limitations and future directions
The first limitation of this study is that its variables were examined using
self-report questionnaires. This method may suffer from problems related
to self-report questionnaires and will lead to possible disparities between
the participants’statements about their emotional or behavioral tendencies
and their actual emotional and behavioral reactions (Holland et al., 2002).
Additionally, the participants’demographic characteristics and cultural con-
text should be addressed. The study was conducted in Israel—a unique and
diverse sociocultural context—and caution should be exercised in arriving
at generalizations based on our findings as the study was conducted in one
county. Nevertheless, Israel’s Jewish majority is generally considered
Western, with cultural patterns resembling other industrialized countries
(Kulik et al., 2016). Furthermore, researchers in other countries have repli-
cated the results of studies conducted in Israel (e.g., Mikulincer
et al., 2005).
182 D. WEIMANN-SAKS ET AL.
A final limitation is the fact that we chose to divide the offenses into
three categories even though, in practice, the range of offenses is much
wider. The reason for this division lies in that this is an initial study and
we did not want to make the respondents think about a specific case, but
rather examine general attitudes. In future studies it is recommended to
address more specific offenses related to the three general categories.
We hope the present study will lead to further studies that will identify
and examine psychological variables affecting attitudes toward RJ, in
addition to the important variable identified in this study—incremental
beliefs—and further expound this mechanism with reference to more
specific offenses.
Funding
The research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation [grant No 558/21].
ORCID
Dana Weimann-Saks http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1125-4500
Inbal Peleg-Koriat http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3583-1544
Eran Halperin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3379-2935
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Appendix A. Description of restorative justice
Restorative justice is an approach from the field of criminal law that focuses on the needs
of perpetrators and victims rather than the need to punish the offender to the letter of the
law. The main goal of the restorative justice procedure is to reconcile the parties and
redress the harm. This goal is achieved through a guided and fair dialogue between the
parties affected by the act, which is similar to the mediation process with one crucial differ-
ence: the parties are not equal as their identities as perpetrator and victim are clear. The
healing of the vulnerability is made possible when the offender recognizes the act and the
harm as well as the victim’s consequent needs, accepts responsibility and acts to meet those
needs (for example: by providing financial compensation, apology, and community service).
The process takes place only with the consent of the parties involved and can either com-
plement or replace the legal process.
JOURNAL OF OFFENDER REHABILITATION 187
