How Do Offender Ideology and Offense Severity Impact Punitive Attitudes Toward Politically Motivated Offenders in the U.S.?

Abstract

How do punitive attitudes toward politically motivated offenders in the United States vary by the offender’s ideology? To address this, we conducted a survey experiment with U.S. adults (N = 1,100) in March 2023. Participants were randomly assigned to either the January 6th or Portland 2020 condition and indicated their punitive attitudes for three politically motivated offenses. Across ideologies, punitiveness toward politically motivated offenders increased with offense severity. Although some correlates of punitiveness toward typical offenders held for politically motivated offenders, most did not. Further, relationships varied as a function of offense type and offender ideology.