In connection with the empirical article, “Assessing Punitiveness Among College Students” and other empirical articles shown in lectures, findings show that there is a negative correlation with students’ punitive attitudes as they progress to higher grade levels (freshman-senior). Past studies suggest that education can have an effect on attitudes towards punishment, which is expected. Other findings show that students who are not criminal justice majors have more punitive attitudes than criminal justice majors. There are multiple factors to this, as the college experience has influence in changing students’ views, as stated in the article. Attitudinal change along with the maturation process can influence students once the individual has accumulated personal and work experience.

With this in mind we must keep in consideration that the socialization process plays a role.  Criminal justice students may pay more attention to punishment related issues that are presented in the media. Students may be more knowledgeable about the ineffectiveness of rehabilitation programs at some institutions, or that they believe that some offenders are treated more leniently than others. As a result of this, criminal justice students may believe that prisons need to be more punitive. Since this is a factor that needs to be put into consideration, more research is needed to be conducted to come to a valid conclusion.

Inside Out Prison Exchange Program: https://www.insideoutcenter.org/videos-inside-out.html

It is believed that the best way to teach students about prison/jail conditions is by having them “behind the walls” of an actual jail or prison. Their program also allows for students to empathize with incarcerated individuals and learn with them as equals.

When it comes to the luxuries within the facilities (e.g. weightlifting, conjugal, smoking, television) participants from the studies held more negative views of the luxuries in the facilities than issues more closely related to more functional privileges. This is an interesting finding, as it correlates with the findings of students having more punitive attitudes towards punishments and prison life. The results of this study indicate that criminal justice majors begin their academic careers with more salient attitudes of punitiveness than do other majors.

Future research should try to investigate further how prison employees’ attitudes influence the effectiveness of the various rehabilitation programs offered in our prisons and to what extent such attitudes may be influenced by educational programs and the dispersion of factual information.

Critical Thinking Questions/Exercise

1. Why do you think grade level is different with their opinions of incarceration?
2. Do you think there are any other factors that contribute to the findings on how college students think of incarceration?

References

Hensley, C., Miller, A., Tewksbury, R., Koscheski, M. (2003). Student Attitudes Toward Inmate Privileges. American  Journal of Criminal Justice. Vol. 27 No. 2, 2003. Student Attitudes toward Inmate Privileges.

Kjelsberg, E., Skoglund, T.H. & Rustad, AB. (2007). Attitudes towards prisoners, as reported by prison inmates, prison employees and college students. BMC Public Health 7, 71. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-7-71

Mackey, C. (2000). Assessing punitiveness among college students: A comparison of criminal justice majors with other majors , The Justice Professional: A Critical Journal of Crime, Law and Society. 12:4, 423-441, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1478601X.2000.9959561