Punitive Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders: Do Moral Panics Cause Community Members to Be More Punitive?

Researchers interested in registered sex offenders (RSOs) and sex offender registration and community notification laws (SORN) legislation have noted that there is a perpetual moral panic associated with the topic. Community members frequently call for increased crime control policies to monitor RSO...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Klein, Jennifer L. (Author)
Contributors: Cooper, Danielle Tolson
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: [2019]
In: Criminal justice policy review
Year: 2019, Volume: 30, Issue: 6, Pages: 948-968
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Keywords:
Moral panics
Sex offender
Punitive attitudes
Community members
Sex offender notification
Description
Summary:Researchers interested in registered sex offenders (RSOs) and sex offender registration and community notification laws (SORN) legislation have noted that there is a perpetual moral panic associated with the topic. Community members frequently call for increased crime control policies to monitor RSOs, despite the research suggesting these laws do not effectively reduce recidivism levels for this offender group. The current study seeks to predict participant support for punitive change to the registry and SORN legislation, based on the idea that a perpetual moral panic continuously exists concerning RSOs. Using a stepwise ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analytical approach, the findings suggest that the theoretical elements of a moral panic are strongly predictive of punitive support and mediate other predictor variables normally associated with punitive attitudes toward sex offenders and the sex offender registry.
ISSN:1552-3586
DOI:10.1177/0887403418767251