NCJ Number
97060
Journal
Prison Journal Volume: 64 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall-Winter 1984) Pages: 31-46
Date Published
1984
Length
16 pages
Annotation
A brief review of recent public opinion surveys -- from 1967 to 1982 -- on issues relating to prison policy suggests a few tenuous conclusions and implications.
Abstract
First, many gaps exist in our knowledge of public opinion in regard to prison policy. The available data are episodic, highly topical, and uneven in quality and breadth. Moreover, the surveys tend to focus on relatively broad concepts rather than on assessments of specific policies. Second, even the limited data examined here show that the mood of the public in regard to correctional reform is diverse, multidimensional, and complex. To state that the public has become more punitive in recent years and to use this conclusion as the basis for developing correctional strategy is to oversimplify a complex set of attitudes. These data, when considered with other findings on public attitudes toward sentencing policy, suggest a public mood that focuses in a sophisticated way on a goal of social defense rather than punitiveness toward criminal offenders. A call for further research on public opinion and prison policy ought to come from enlightened correctional policymakers. These officials would be well served by a better understanding of the nature of public opinion on these issues. Tables, footnotes, and a list of 18 references are provided.