The racial foundations of whites' support for child saving.
Scholars emphasize that attitudes toward rehabilitation and views about punitive polices are distinct phenomena with seemingly unique etiologies. However, few existing studies examine the sources of public views about juvenile rehabilitation, or "child saving," and none engage a measure of racial attitudes. At the same time, recent theoretical work implicates racial concerns as a central foundation of public opinion about youth justice. This paper thus provides the first assessment of whether whites' perceptions of the racial makeup of delinquents and animosities toward blacks are associated with their views about juvenile rehabilitation. Findings show that whites who more strongly associate delinquency with blacks and those who are racially resentful both tend to be less supportive-in absolute and relative terms-of rehabilitation. The results also suggest that contextual threat moderates the effect of racial typification of delinquency, but not that of racial resentment, on whites' views about rehabilitation.
School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, SUNY, 135 Western Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, United States. Electronic address: Jpickett@albany.edu.
Justin T
JT
Pickett
College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University, United States.
Ted
T
Chiricos
College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University, United States.
Marc
M
Gertz
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D001290:Attitude; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D003416:Criminal Law / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000208:ethnology*; D008913:Minority Groups; D011330:Prisons; D011639:Public Opinion; D011640:Public Policy; D044469:Racial Groups; D063505:Racism; D012935:Social Justice; D013240:Stereotyping; D044465:White People
Juvenile justice; Minority group threat; Public opinion; Racial typification; Rehabilitation