Ii Fellow Traveller Versus Moral Stranger
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ii Fellow Traveller versus Moral Stranger: How overall views of offenders impact on punishment and rehabilitation decisions by Stephanie Louise Fisher A thesis submitted to Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology Victoria University of Wellington 2013 ii Abstract Theoretical discussions have proposed that opinions relating to offenders can be viewed along a continuum, with the moral stranger at one end and the fellow traveller at the other (Connolly & Ward, 2008). At the very basic level the moral stranger is the offender who is a bad person, while the fellow traveller is the offender who has done a bad thing. It is proposed that where an individual’s view of offenders sits on the continuum will help determine punishment and rehabilitation decisions that they make about offenders. It is further proposed that these views are influenced by outside factors such as the way that the media portrays offenders. The media is an important source of information on crime and offenders (Gilliam & Iyengar, 2000; Klite, Bardwell, & Salzman, 1997), and so the way that the media write about offenders can influence the public’s opinions about offenders. The moral stranger and the fellow traveller are theoretical concepts at present, so the aim of the current research was to investigate these concepts in an empirical context. Firstly, Studies 1 and 2 presented crime vignettes written from either the moral stranger perspective or the fellow traveller perspective and then investigated what punishment and rehabilitation differences there were. Study 3 then developed a measure to evaluate individuals’ opinions about offenders, to create an empirical basis for the existing theory. The Opinions about Criminal Offenders (OCO) Scale was developed in Study 3. Study 4 then tested the psychometric properties of this Scale, and through further factor analysis the scale was pared down to 12- items made up of four subscales. Study 5 then brought together the empirical work from Studies 1 and 2 and the developed measure from Studies 3 and 4. Participants were presented with two vignettes, one written from a subjective view and the other from an objective view. They were also given the 12-item OCO Scale. Structural Equation Modelling was then used to extend the work of Studies 1 and 2, and to further develop the decision making process individuals go through. Results indicated that each subscale of the OCO predicted different judgements made about the offender, in terms of his characteristics and likelihood of reoffending, and that these judgements then predicted different judgements about the outcome of the offence, including punishment motive. These studies, together, show that the moral stranger and fellow traveller concepts do exist, as a continuum, and the development of the OCO Scale showed that there is utility in the scale in terms of the type of judgements made about an offender and an offence. The current study was conducted with a sex offence in the vignettes and so further research needs to extend this by using different offence types and different offender characteristics, to investigate how generalisable these findings are. iii Acknowledgements Firstly I would like to thank my primary supervisor, Dr Matt Crawford, for all the encouragement, support and movie recommendations over the last 3 and half years. I know that it was a bureaucratic decision that resulted in you becoming my supervisor and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that decision at first but I think that it was the best thing that could have happened for me and my research. I honestly don’t think I would have been able to complete this research without your knowledge and guidance, so I am immensely grateful to the Committee, or whoever it was, that made the executive decision that you would be my primary supervisor. Thank you for everything, and also a big thank you to your wife, Carmen, for the data entry work that she did for me. It was much appreciated! To my secondary supervisor, Prof. Tony Ward: you inspire me and I am so thankful that I was able to take some of your theoretical work and turn it into an empirical body of research. I hope that you can be proud of what I have done with your ideas, and I appreciate all of the input, advice and encouragement you have given me over the years. I would also like to thank Dr Paul Jose for his excellent Structural Equation Modelling lecture and the extra help that he gave me when trying to learn how to do this work myself. My parents, my rock; thank you so much for everything you have ever done for me. You have both been a constant support to me, and have always appreciated my ‘stress’ baking – perhaps now that the thesis is complete there might be less stress and therefore less baking? Mum and Dad, I feel so lucky to have you both in my life and you really are two of my best friends, as well as being my parents. And Henry, I know you don’t really know what I have been doing at uni all these years but you have always been there to chat to or hang out with, and I think that we are both very lucky that we have such a good relationship...I don’t think all siblings get on quite as well as we do! My Clin Kids – both past and present classmates, thank you all for being so awesome. It’s a tough road completing the clinical program and a thesis and I thank you all for the support you have given me and I wish you all the best with your own academic achievements. To my amazing friends, thank you all for being there for me and supporting me over the years. I know that it hasn’t always been easy and there have been many times when I’ve been stressed or too busy to really be much fun but I appreciate that you have all stuck with me and given me the support and encouragement that I needed, whether from close or afar. I especially want to thank my Darshi, Brylee, Geraldine, Cecilia, Katie, and Jason – you all iv mean so much to me and I feel very privileged to have you as my closest friends. My U.S.A. crew: I know that we don’t see each other very often, and I wish that I could change that, but I still love you all and appreciate that no matter how much time we have spent apart we can just pick up right where we left off. My gym crew, especially our great trainer, Dan: I think all the Overloading over the last year plus has really helped me stay sane while trying to finish this thing! Thanks guys! Finally, to my Cougar! You are the most amazing cat (you play fetch!!) and I love you so much. Thank you for being so darn gorgeous and always knowing when I need an extra cuddle or two. v Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. iii Preface..................................................................................................................................... xiv Chapter 1 .................................................................................................................................. 1 Crime and the Media .............................................................................................................. 1 Newsworthiness and the Media ............................................................................................. 2 Crime Representation in the Media ....................................................................................... 5 Violent Crime..................................................................................................................... 6 Stereotypes of Offenders and Victims ............................................................................... 8 Effects on the Viewing Public ............................................................................................. 10 Fear of Crime ................................................................................................................... 10 Opinions and Punishment Decisions ............................................................................... 14 Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................................ 22 Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................................ 23 Human Rights in Corrections............................................................................................... 23 The Dangerous Offender...................................................................................................... 25 Belief Systems ..................................................................................................................... 27 Moral Stranger versus Fellow Traveller .......................................................................... 28 The Current Research .......................................................................................................... 37 Studies One and Two ....................................................................................................... 38 Studies Three and Four .................................................................................................... 39 Study Five ........................................................................................................................ 39 Counterfactual Generation ..............................................................................................