Public Support for Rehabilitation in Ohio, 1996

The main focus of this research was on identifying the
 conditions under which public support for rehabilitation varies. A
 single, multivariate analysis method was used so that the influence of
 each respondent, criminal, crime, and treatment characterististic
 could be determined within the context of all other factors. The
 research also explored differences between global and specific
 attitudes toward rehabilitation. Data for this study were collected
 through a mail survey of 1,000 Ohio residents (Part 1). The initial
 mailing was sent to all 1,000 members of the sample on May 28,
 1996. Several followups were conducted, and data collection efforts
 ended on August 26, 1996. Questionnaire items elicited demographic,
 experiential, and attitudinal information from each respondent. To
 assess the potential influence of offender, offense, and treatment
 characteristics on the respondent's support for rehabilitation,
 several variables were combined to create a factorial vignette. This
 method allowed the independent effects of each factor on support for
 rehabilitation to be determined. The respondents were asked to express
 their agreement or disagreement with five statements following the
 vignette: (1) general support for rehabilitation, (2) effectiveness of
 intervention, (3) basing release decisions on progress in
 rehabilitation programs, (4) individualizing sentences to fit
 treatment needs, and (5) expanding treatment opportunities for
 offenders. Types of offenses included in the vignettes were robbery,
 burglary, aggravated assault, larceny, motor vehicle theft, fraud,
 drug sales, and drug use. These offenses were selected since they are
 well-known to the public, offenders are arrested for these offenses
 fairly frequently, and the offenses are potentially punishable by a
 sentence of either prison or probation. Several attributes within the
 particular offenses in the vignettes were designed to assess the
 influence of different levels of harm, either financial or
 physical. Offender characteristics and offense selection for use in
 the vignettes were weighted by their frequency of arrests as reported
 in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's 1995 Uniform Crime Report
 data. A rating of the seriousness of each offense was assigned using a
 separate survey of 118 undergraduate university students (Part 2), and
 the resulting seriousness score was used in the analysis of the
 vignettes. Additional items on the mail survey instrument assessed the
 respondent's global and specific attitudes toward
 treatment. Independent variables from the mail survey include the
 respondent's age, education, income category, sex, race, political
 party, rating of political conservativism, personal contact with
 offenders, religious identity salience, religiosity, attitudes toward
 biblical literalness and religious forgiveness, fear of crime, and
 victimization. Variables from the vignettes examined whether support
 for rehabilitation was influenced by offender age, race, sex, type of
 offense committed, employment status, substance use, prior record,
 sentence, and treatment program. Global support for rehabilitation was
 measured by responses to two questions: what the respondent thought
 the main emphasis in most prisons was (to punish, to rehabilitate, to
 protect society), and what the main emphasis should be. Items assessed
 variations in the respondent's attitudes toward rehabilitation by
 offender's age, sex, and prior record, location of treatment, and the
 type of treatment provided. Variables from the crime seriousness
 survey recorded the respondent's rating of various crime events,
 including assault and robbery (with or without a weapon, with varying
 degrees of injury, or no injury to the victim), burglary, larceny, and
 auto theft (with varying values of the property stolen), drug dealing,
drug use, and writing bad checks.

Tags: attitudes, intervention, offenders, offenses, population-characteristics, postrelease-programs, public-interest, public-opinion, rehabilitation, rehabilitation-programs, treatment-programs
Organization: Department of Justice