Abstract
Punishment (PUN) and rehabilitation (REH) attitudes toward sex offenders/offenses (SO) and nonsexual offenders/offenses (NSO) were compared in a sample of 355 undergraduates, in response to brief vignettes depicting a sexual and nonsexual offense, conceptually matched for seriousness and severity. Participants assigned higher PUN scores to individuals who committed sexual offenses, whether the offenders were children, adolescents, or adults. REH attitudes showed the reverse pattern—sexual offenders were assigned lower REH scores than nonsexual offenders—with the exception of child offenders, for whom REH attitudes did not differ between sexual and nonsexual offenses. PUN attitudes increased monotonically with offender age, regardless of offender type. Offender age had the opposite effect on participants' REH attitudes for nonsexual offenders, and there was no effect of offender age on REH ratings for sex offenders. Results are discussed in the context of sexual abuse as a potential “moral panic” and recent populist trends in punitiveness toward criminals.
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