Proposition 83, Framing and Public Attitudes toward Sex Offenders: An Application of Heuristic Models of Social Judgment

Abstract

This ongoing study seeks to accomplish two objectives: 1) evaluate framing of thematic representations in newspaper articles about sex offenders, sex offense cases, and sex offender policy; and 2) measure the role of media exemplars and heuristics on individuals’ attitudes and social judgment. In 2006, California voters passed a sweeping measure known as Proposition 83, or “Jessica’s Law,” which increased dramatically the state’s punitive response to persons convicted of sex crimes and registered as sex offenders. In a preliminary content analysis of a representative sample of articles from the Sacramento Bee during the 2006 election year, articles tended to portray sex offenders as predatory and non-human, focusing primarily on the most extreme cases and prolific offenders, without regard for the vast heterogeneity of individuals and offenses subsumed by the term “sex offender.” This manner of newspaper framing also over-emphasized child molestation in comparison to rape and other categories of sex offenses. Moreover, even where newspaper articles sought to convince readers to vote against the measure using centrally persuasive techniques, sensational language and non-representative exemplars were highly correlated with arguments that Proposition 83 would not achieve greater public safety. The implications of these preliminary findings offer an opportunity to experimentally test the role of the availability and representativeness heuristics on social judgment for persons exposed to sensational and unrepresentative media framing. The relationship between these phenomena and concerns for social justice according to feminist critical theory are also discussed.