RT Article
T1 What’s with the attitude?: changing attitudes about criminal justice Iisues
JF Criminal justice and behavior
VO 40
IS 1
SP 95
OP 113
A1 Mandracchia, Jon T.
A2 Shaw, Lucas B.
A2 Morgan, Robert D.
LA English
YR 2013
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1885932871
AB Public policies related to the criminal justice system in the United States ultimately reflect the attitudes of its citizens. It is surprising, therefore, how few studies have investigated influences on attitudes about criminal justice issues and how narrow the scope of such investigations has been. In this study, we examined the effects of education on attitudes toward several criminal justice issues in college students enrolled in a senior-level forensic psychology course compared to a nonpsycholegal psychology course. Results indicated that education about public policy issues influenced students' attitudes toward the death penalty, prison reform, and the insanity defense. In addition, we examined preexisting differences in these attitudes based on demographic and other status variables (i.e., race, gender, academic class standing) and found that these variables were associated with differences in attitudes about criminal justice issues in a much more complex way than previously considered in the extant literature.
K1 Attitudes
K1 Criminal Justice
K1 Education
K1 prison reform
K1 Public Policy
DO 10.1177/0093854812459474