RT Article
T1 Public opinion about the shadow carceral state: A study of support for criminal justice fees
JF Punishment & society
VO 27
IS 4
SP 805
OP 825
A1 Wozniak, Kevin H.
A1 Pickett, Justin T.
A1 Brown, Elizabeth K.
A2 Pickett, Justin T.
A2 Brown, Elizabeth K.
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1936157985
AB Public opinion about legal financial obligations (LFOs) is under-researched, despite the fact that LFOs are one facet of the “shadow carceral state” that interacts with poverty and financial precarity to significantly constrain the lives of people with criminal records. Furthermore, attitudes toward poverty have also been largely overlooked as a potential predictor of punitive attitudes. To begin to fill these knowledge gaps, we analyze data from a national sample of the American population using both experimental and nonexperimental methods. We find that people's support for criminal justice fees, both in general and in the case of a hypothetical offender, is shaped not just by their broader attitudes toward punishment, but also—with notable consistency—by their perceptions of and attitudes toward people who experience poverty. We discuss the implications of these findings for both the sociology of punishment and sociolegal studies.
K1 Poverty
K1 Neoliberalism
K1 carceral state
K1 legal financial obligations
K1 criminal justice fees
K1 Public Opinion
DO 10.1177/14624745251336392