Police beliefs about women who offend

Abstract

Objectives. This study looked at police and non‐police beliefs about offenders. It was hypothesized that police officers would have a more negative attitude than non‐police officers towards offenders, and that female offenders would be viewed in a more positive way than male offenders. Police officers were expected to perceive greater differences between male and female offenders than the public.Methods. An adapted version of Melvin, Gramling & Gardner's (1985) Attitude Towards Prisoners scale was used to measure attitudes towards male and female offenders. The sample consisted of 135 police officers and 201 non‐police officers.Results. Factor analysis of responses suggested three main factors: one concerning the ‘fundamental badness’ of offenders; one concerning the similarity of offenders and non‐offenders; and one concerning the extent to which offenders can be trusted. Analyses of variance indicated that police officers viewed offenders as less similar to non‐offenders, and less trustworthy, than the public did. Both police and non‐police respondents saw women offenders as less ‘fundamentally bad’ than male offenders, as more similar to non‐offenders, and as more trustworthy than male offenders. No significant interactions were found.Conclusions. Women offenders are believed to be significantly different from male offenders, but police and non‐police respondents' beliefs about male and female offenders do not differ significantly. Future research could usefully look at the relationship betweeen policewomen and female offenders, and a more qualitative approach would allow a more contextual analysis to be made of beliefs about women offenders.