Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T01:39:50.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

HOW RACIAL ATTITUDES AND IDEOLOGY AFFECT POLITICAL RIGHTS FOR FELONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2015

David C. Wilson ,
Michael Leo Owens  and
Darren W. Davis
David C. Wilson*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware
Michael Leo Owens
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Emory University
Darren W. Davis
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame
*
*Corresponding author: David C. Wilson, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware, 347 Smith Hall, Newark, Delaware 19716. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This research examines the extent to which negative attitudes toward African Americans influence public reactions to restoring political rights to felons. We argue that race-neutral policies, such as felon disenfranchisement laws, are non-separable from racial considerations, as images of criminals and felons are typically associated with Blacks. Such attitudes produce collateral consequences for felons, hampering the restoration of their full political rights and, ultimately, their citizenship. Predispositions, such as racial attitudes and political ideology, provide both racial and nonracial justifications for supporting these laws, yet, there are no empirical accounts of their relational effects on opinion toward felons’ rights. Using nationally representative survey data, we find that racialized resentment and ideology exert the most influence on the reactions to policies seeking political rights for felons as well as beliefs about the value of doing so. Consistent with much of the literature on attitudes toward ameliorative racial policies, higher levels of racial resentment strongly predict lower support for felons’ political rights among both conservatives and liberals, yet, racial resentment is most influential among liberals. Conservatives exhibit the highest levels of racial resentment, but its impact is depressed more by agreement on both racial attitudes and opposition to political rights of felons.

Keywords

Felon RightsRacial ResentmentCollateral ConsequencesFelon DisenfranchisementCrimePunishmentPublic Opinion
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 73 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Behrens, Angela, Uggen, Christopher, and Manza, Jeff (2003). Ballot Manipulation and the ‘Menace of Negro Domination’: Racial Threat and Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 1850–2002. American Journal of Sociology, 109: 559–605.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence and Johnson, Devon (2004). A Taste for Punishment: Black and White Americans’ Views on the Death Penalty and the War on Drugs. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 1: 151–180.Google Scholar
Bowers, Melanie and Preuhs, Robert (2009). Collateral Consequences of a Collateral Penalty: The Negative Effect of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws on the Political Participation of Non-Felons. Social Science Quarterly, 90: 722–743.Google Scholar
Darley, John M. and Pittman, Thane S. (2003). The Psychology of Compensatory and Retributive Justice. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7: 324–336.Google Scholar
Dawson-Edwards, C. (2008). Enfranchising Convicted Felons: Current Research on Opinions Towards Felon Voting Rights. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 46(3–4): 13–30.Google Scholar
Dawson-Edwards, Cherie and Higgins, George E. (2013). Knowledge and Attitudes towards Felon-Voting Rights: An Examination of the Untapped Perspectives of HBCU College Students. Criminal Justice Studies, 26: 393–407.Google Scholar
Dhami, Mandeep K. and Cruise, Paula A. (2013). Prisoner Disenfranchisement: Prisoner and Public Views of an Invisible Punishment. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 13: 211–227.Google Scholar
Dinan, John (2007). The Adoption of Criminal Disenfranchisement Provisions in the United States: Lessons from the State Constitutional Convention Debates. Journal of Policy History, 19: 282–312.Google Scholar
Eberhardt, Jennifer L., Atiba Goff, Phillip, Purdie, Valerie J., and Davies, Paul G. (2004). Seeing Black: Race, Crime, and Visual Processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87: 876–893.Google Scholar
Entman, Robert M. and Rojecki, Andrew (2001). The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Feather, Norman T. (2006). Deservingness and Emotions: Applying the Structural Model of Deservingness to the Analysis of Affective Reactions to Outcomes. European Review of Social Psychology, 17: 38–70.Google Scholar
Feather, Norman T. (2008). Perceived Legitimacy of a Promotion Decision in Relation to Deservingness, Entitlement, and Resentment in the Context of Affirmative Action and Performance. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38: 1230–1254.Google Scholar
Feather, Norman T. and Sherman, Rebecca (2002). Envy, Resentment, Schadenfreude, and Sympathy: Reactions to Deserved and Undeserved Achievement and Subsequent Failure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28: 953–961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Stanley and Huddy, Leonie (2005). Racial Resentment and White Opposition to Race-Conscious Programs: Principles or Prejudice? American Journal of Political Science, 49(1): 168–183.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin (1996). “Race Coding” and White Opposition to Welfare. American Political Science Review, 90: 593–604.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin (1999). Why Americans Hate Welfare Policy: Race, Media, and the Politics of Anti-Poverty Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gilens, Martin, Sniderman, Paul M., and Kuklinski, James K. (1998). Affirmative Action and the Politics of Realignment. British Journal of Political Science, 28: 159–183.Google Scholar
Gilliam, Frank D. and Iyengar, Shanto (2000). Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public. American Journal of Political Science, 44: 560–573.Google Scholar
Heumann, Milton, Pinaire, Brian K., and Clark, Thomas (2005). Beyond the Sentence: Public Perceptions of Collateral Consequences for Felony Offenders. Criminal Law Bulletin, 41: 24–46.Google Scholar
Holloway, Pippa (2014). Living in Infamy: Felon Disenfranchisement and the History of American Citizenship. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hurwitz, Jon and Peffley, Mark A. (1997). Public Perceptions of Race and Crime: The Role of Racial Stereotypes. American Journal of Political Science, 41: 375–401.Google Scholar
Hurwitz, Jon and Peffley, Mark A. (2005). Explaining the Great Racial Divide: Perceptions of Fairness in the U.S. Criminal Justice System. Journal of Politics, 67: 762–783.Google Scholar
Immerwahr, John and Johnson, Jean (2002). The Revolving Door: Exploring Public Attitudes toward Prisoner Reentry. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.Google Scholar
Johnson, Devon (2008). Racial Prejudice, Perceived Injustice, and the Black-White Gap in Punitive Attitudes. Journal of Criminal Justice, 36: 198–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Devon (2009). Anger about Crime and Support for Punitive Criminal Justice Policies. Punishment & Society, 11: 51–66.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod, Mohsen Ibrahim, Leila, and Rubin, Katherine D. (2010). The Dark Side of American Liberalism and Felony Disenfranchisement. Perspectives on Politics, 8: 1035–1054.Google Scholar
Keyssar, Alexander (2009). The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in America. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R. and Sanders, Lynn M. (1996). Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
King, Ryan D. and Mauer, Marc (2004). The Vanishing Black Electorate: Felony Disenfranchisement in Atlanta, Georgia. Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project.Google Scholar
King, Ryan and Wheelock, Darren (2007). Group Threat and Social Control: Race, Perceptions of Minorities and the Desire to Punish. Social Forces, 85: 1255–1280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krysan, Maria (1998). Privacy and the Expression of White Racial Attitudes: A Comparison Across Three Contexts. Public Opinion Quarterly, 62: 506–544.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George (2002). Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Manville, Michael (2012). People, Race and Place: American Support for Person- and Place-based Urban Policy, 1973–2008. Urban Studies, 49: 3101–3119.Google Scholar
Manza, Jeff, Brooks, Clem, and Uggen, Christopher (2004). Public Attitudes Towards Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States. Public Opinion Quarterly, 68: 275–286.Google Scholar
Manza, Jeff and Uggen, Christopher (2006). Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, Thomas H. (1950). Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mauer, Marc and Chesney-Lind, Meda (2002). Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Mele, Christopher and Miller, Teresa A. (Eds.) (2005). Civil Penalties, Social Consequences. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Owens, Michael Leo and Smith, Adrienne R. (2012). “Deviants” and Democracy: Punitive Policy Designs and the Social Rights of Felons. American Politics Research, 40: 531–567.Google Scholar
Pager, Devah (2007). Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Peffley, Mark A., and Hurwitz, Jon (2002). The Racial Components of ‘Race-Neutral’ Crime Policy Attitudes. Political Psychology, 23: 59–75.Google Scholar
Peffley, Mark A. and Hurwitz, Jon (2010). Justice in America: The Separate Realities of Blacks and Whites. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peffley, Mark A., Hurwitz, Jon, and Sniderman, Paul M. (1997). Racial Stereotypes and Whites’ Political Views of Blacks in the Context of Welfare and Crime. American Journal of Political Science, 41: 30–60.Google Scholar
Pinaire, Brian, Heumann, Milton, and Bilotta, Laura (2003). Barred from the Vote: Public Attitudes Toward the Disenfranchisement of Felons. Fordham Urban Law Review, 30: 1519–1550.Google Scholar
Rose, Dina R. and Clear, Todd R. (2004). Who Doesn’t Know Someone in Jail? The Impact of Exposure to Prison on Attitudes Toward Formal and Informal Controls. The Prison Journal, 84: 228–247.Google Scholar
Schuman, Howard and Presser, Stanley (1981). Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M. and Carmines, Edward G. (1997). Reaching Beyond Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M. and Piazza, Thomas (1993). The Scar of Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tabachnick, Barbara G. and Fidell, Linda S. (2006). Using Multivariate Statistics. Boston, MA: Pearson.Google Scholar
Tessler, Michael A. and Sears, David O. (2010). Obama’s Race: The 2008 Election and the Dream of a Post-Racial America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Travis, Jeremy (2002). “Invisible Punishment”: An Instrument of Social Exclusion. In Mauer, Marc and Chesny-Lind, Meda (Eds.), Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment, pp. 15–36. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Uggen, Christopher and Manza, Jeff (2002). Democratic Contraction? The Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States. American Sociological Review, 67: 777–803.Google Scholar
The Pew Charitable Trusts (2010). Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility. Washington, DC: The Pew Charitable Trusts.Google Scholar
Welch, Kelly (2007). Black Criminal Stereotypes and Racial Profiling. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 23: 276–288.Google Scholar
Wilson, David C. and Davis, Darren W. (2011). Reexamining Racial Resentment: Conceptualization and Content. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 634: 117–133.Google Scholar
Wilson, David C., Moore, David W., McKay, Patrick F., and Avery, Derek R. (2008). Affirmative Action Programs for Women and Minorities: Support Affected by Question Order. Public Opinion Quarterly, 73: 514–522.Google Scholar